NaBloPoMo Day 15: new crafts

I missed a day! I even had something to post about yesterday besides food: embroidery. I’m not actually doing any embroidery but I’m thinking about it. Kristi gave me Embroidered Effects for my birthday and I brought it to school yesterday to help me teach the kids in the sewing class how to embroider. I am going to guess that if you look at my blog posts for the past several Novembers you will find me saying that watching the kids embroider really makes me want to. As I told them: you don’t need fancy stitches to make something nice with embroidery. I should pick a project from that book and actually make it. I usually can’t figure out exactly what I’d do with something embroidered and that stops me from making it. I had the Sublime Stitching Stitchable Stationary kit and embroidered that last year, which I really liked doing. I could do more of that too. Every year, though, I talk about it and then the only embroidery I end up doing is on felt holiday decorations.

The other craft I’ve been thinking about is paracord bracelets. I was looking at a book about them in the bead store last week and then found a tutorial on how to make them and an Etsy shop that sells the supplies. So now I have paracord and buckles and I guess I better figure out how they all go together. I was hoping to get my kids interested in working on them. I got some glow in the dark buckles but they have turned out to be enormous so I’m not sure they’ll work. I got a few smaller green ones too. If it happens, I will post pictures.

I can’t resist mentioning a few food things:

• I made a chicken in the slow cooker again. This time I put it in breast down and left it a bit shorter. It was so good and it was magically ready when we got home from getting the kids and going to the library. I may never roast a chicken in the oven again. (I’m lying, I miss the crispy skin.)
• I then started another batch of chicken broth because the last one all got eaten in just a few days. Matzo ball soup will do that.
• I made chocolate cupcakes for my son’s end of season soccer party tomorrow. I meant to make them cookies ‘n creme cupcakes but I forgot to add the cookies. I put them in the frosting instead and used TJ’s peppermint Joe Joes. This might be the best idea ever.

Okay, I’m done talking about food. For now.

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NaBloPoMo Day 11: games and chicken

I might be obsessed with the card game Innovation.

I played it last year with my friend Jen’s deck and immediately bought my own which I have played lots of times, mostly with my friend Jill. Jen brought over her Echoes of the Past expansion pack and got us hooked on that so now I own that one too. I played with Jill yesterday and then Cookie came over and played it again today. What I think I like about it most is that no matter how you play, with expansions or not, changing up the expansion cards from one game to the next or not, each game is different. There are a few cards that are obviously good but none of them guarantee that you will win the game. You really never know which card will be the best card that game.

The other thing that occupied me today was making a chicken in the slow cooker. I have never made a whole chicken in the slow cooker before so I gave this recipe a try. I missed the crispy skin of an oven roasted chicken but part of my goal was to make overnight slow cooker chicken broth and making the chicken in the slow cooker first meant that I could just pull the meat off and leave everything else in the slow cooker and start the broth immediately. I hope it’s tasty. Someone in my house is having stomach troubles and home made chicken broth cures all. I do have Jewish heritage after all. I might also throw some matzo balls in there. It couldn’t hurt.