Some Monday funnies

My favorite GIF of all time if this doesn't perfectly describe a cat's behavior I don't know what does





The best description of the differences between cats and dogs.



Story of my life



why was I not here for this?

Whitewashing Furniture

After repainting my beautiful wall shelves an accidental bright hot pink I was desperate to find a way to tone the color down. My good friend Sam sent me a link to whitewashing furniture and I fell in love with the idea. I was a little nervous to try it as I am usually not good at those kind of things, but surprisingly it is a lot easier than I thought.

All it takes is two parts of white paint and one part water. If it looks a little thick still you can add more water, we ended up having to do that.

After you've made the mixture simply paint it onto your furniture. Make sure you paint with the grain of the wood for the best result. On one website it mentioned waiting until it's almost dry and then wiping the extra off with a paper towel, but we did not need to do that.

The biggest problem I had with this procedure was getting the paint lines to look even and uniform. I think the issue was the shelves we were painting had a lot of nooks, edges, and bends; the pegs didn't help either. If you're painting a nightstand or dresser I assume this will be much easier.

Here is a picture of the before and after. The top shelf is clearly way too pink especially for a babies room whose main colors are sage green and light pink. The bottom shelf is after the whitewashing. I absolutely love how the pink still shows through the white.

A good thing to note is the paint dries super fast I mean it was completely dry in about 30 minutes.

I was a little nervous that you would be able to tell that my paint strokes were not even and uniform, but you can't at all when it's hanging up and I actually love the way it looks!

Chinese Dumplings

Homemade chinese dumplings have been a favorite food of mine since I was a little kid. In my opinion they are ten times better than restaurant dumplings, but Jack says that they are just completely different. If you have a spare 2-3 hours some evening I highly recommend giving these a try they are actually easier than one might think.

This recipe will make about 40 dumplings.

Ingredients

• 4 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 cups of boiling water
• 1lb of ground pork
• 1/4-1/2 head of cabbage
• 1 tbls of garlic
• 2 tbls soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tbls sesame oil
• half of a beaten egg
• dash of salt

To start you have to make the dough or to save time you can purchase wonton wrappers at the store. The only problem I have with the wonton wrappers is that they are a little thin so when you're pan frying the dumplings they sometimes break a part. To make the dough it is easiest to use a food processor, if you don't have one I highly recommend purchasing one as they are miracle workers in the kitchen. I actually requested a food processor before I requested a coffee machine, because they are that useful. I have a 7 cup cuisinart that goes for around $100.



If you do not have a food processor you can still make the dough it will probably just take more time.

Making the Dough

• First start a pot of boiling water.
•  Take 2 cups of flour, pour it into the food processor, and add just a dash of salt. Put the lid on and start to mix the flour while slowly adding in 3/4 cups of the boiling water.
•  You will soon notice the dough starting to form a ball when it does this let it spin around the machine 41 times. Yes this is a random number my mom made up, but it seems to work so we stick with it. *FUN FACT: this is actually one of the ways my mom taught me how to count as a kid*
• Check the dough and make sure that it is firm enough to roll into a ball. If it is too wet add some more flour and continue mixing. If it doesn't turn into a ball and spin around you can add cool water until it does.
• After you've mixed the dough, take it out, form it into a ball, place it on a floured surface, cover it with a towel, and let it set for 30 minutes. 
• Do this process twice so that you have two balls of dough. 
• While it's sitting you can make the filling!

Dumpling Filling: You are going to use the food processor again so make sure you clean it out. 

• Take about 1/4 of a head of cabbage wash it off and throw it into the food processor to shred it.
• After it's finely shredded add in the meat, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, and egg.
• Thoroughly mix all of the ingredients.

Preparing the dumplings: This part can be tedious, but is fun to do if you have a partner.

• For this you will need a spoon, a small dish of water, a rolling pin, and a cookie sheet.
• Take the ball of dough and cut it in half. Roll the half out and cut into it so that you have about ten medium sized squares.You will do this for both balls of dough.
• While one person is rolling the dough the other person can be the filler. In each square you take about a teaspoon or more of meat it depends on how big you made your squares and plop it in the center of the square. You are going to want to position the square so that it's like a diamond. With your finger wet the edges of half the piece of dough and fold it over so that it makes a small triangle. Press the edges down with your fingers to seal it closed.
• They should look like this when you are done.

Cooking the dumplings

• Cooking the dumplings is very easy. You'll need a large pot of boiling water and a large pan with frying oil set at medium high heat.
• Make sure that the water is boiling and continues to boil the entire time you're cooking. 
• Take about 4 to 5 dumplings depending how large your pots and pans are and place them in the boiling water. Let them cook for exactly 7 minutes.
• Take them out of the water and place them onto the frying pan until they are crisp and a light golden brown.
• Continue these steps until all your dumplings are cooked.

This may seem like a lot to do, but it's a lot easier than it seems and the end result is heavenly. It's definitely more tedious than it is difficult. These dumplings are my favorite food in the entire world right next to my mothers egg roll recipe which I still have yet to figure out. When I do you all will be the first to know how to make them.

Dipping sauce is obviously a great compliment to this meal. My personal favorite is vinegar and fire oil. Jack uses just plain soy sauce and my sister uses a mixture of half soy sauce and half hoisin sauce. A majority of the people I've introduced these to prefer the soy sauce and hoisin sauce so i would recommend that first. 

Try making them and let me know how they turn out I'd love to hear peoples opinions.

PS I've never made these for some one and had them NOT fall in love with them so I'd say they are definitely worth the time.

37 Weeks!

So today reaches a huge milestone in pregnancy I am officially 37 weeks, which means that if the baby is born any day after today she is considered full term. Unfortunately, since Saturday I have been in a lot of pain and went to the doctors yesterday. After hooking me up to the contraction monitor it turned out I was having small contractions, but not enough to say I'm in labor yet. My problem though was I have been having severe cramps that are pretty much continuous and keep me up at night. My doctor sent me to get an ultrasound just to make sure that everything was alright and everything was great baby is completely healthy!! However, little Mariah is already 7lbs and is very very low most likely why I have been experiencing the cramps.

Due to my pain I have been trying everything to try and induce labor naturally some of these things are actually quite hilarious. My favorite, and Jack's too is getting down on all fours and shaking my bum. I am not sure how this can put you into labor, but I read it online so I had to try it. I also read eating Chinese food can help so I have ordered Chinese food three times in the past two days. Balsamic Vinegar is also said to possibly put you into labor so last night I took two shots of it, this is something I do NOT recommend. I won't mention the other things just to keep my blog PG, but I'm pretty sure every mother knows. I have also tried the pressure points on the web between your thumb and pointer finger and on the inside of your calf. So far nothing has worked, obviously, since I'm typing this blog entry and not in labor. I really wanted to go into labor today, because I mean come on how cool would it be if she was born on 12/12/12. I sadly do not think this is going to happen.

I haven't had that many unusual cravings through out my pregnancy, but recently they have been a little crazy. Unfortunately, my biggest craving is for soda I don't know why, but I can not get enough of it. I try and stick to only one glass or two a day. My other craving is for crazy bread from Little Ceasars I have eaten it every day for the past week it's getting to be an issue.

So currently that is my exciting and slightly hilarious life for the time being. Let's just say I'm pretty desperate for Mariah to be here already!

3 more weeks!

I know I have not been posting nearly as much as I should, but these past few weeks have been more than rough. I have been having contractions every day morning and night that aren't regular but are very painful. My doctor has unfortunately been less than helpful and won't tell me what would be normal contractions and just says "Try not to think that the baby is coming any day, because that will just make these last four weeks that much harder" and I keep thinking "well I wouldn't, but you won't tell me what it's going to be like when the baby does come so every time I experience a contraction or painful cramp I think 'is the baby coming??'" I have been not encouraged to post because I feel like If I did it would be whole lot of complaining. SO instead of complaining I want to show you guys a hilarious video of my cat Leia when she was younger. I posted it on Facebook, but just in case you missed it here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0vCenImi5Q&feature=share

This video makes me laugh every single time she was so crazy as a kitten thankfully she has calmed down a lot since then, even though she is still a bit whacko. Hope this brings a little smile to your day!

30 more days!

It has been such a magical weekend. Jack and I woke up early yesterday and enjoyed a beautiful snowy drive through cape Elizabeth. We had breakfast at the good table and were seated right next to the window so we could enjoy the holiday decorations being lightly covered by the Falling snow. HART was having a kitten
event at pet quarters and we spent over an hour playing with all the little cuties in hopes to find a new friend for Boots. We got our Christmas tree and spent the rest of the evening decorating and wrapping presents. I can't even imagine a better way to spend December 1st and now that its December 2nd there are officially only 30 more days until my sweet baby girl is due!!