what else I've been making lately

As many of you know, I enjoy cooking and especially enjoy baking.  I have always done most of our cooking from scratch and am doing more than ever now that I'm not working full time.  One thing that I'm also more conscientious about now is what I make for lunch at home.  During the school year, I packed healthy lunches and that's what I would eat.  Usually in summer, I'm a little more lax at home because I know that it's temporary.  Not anymore.  So I'm attempting to put the same effort into my lunches at home that I did into the ones I packed.  I know that sounds funny, but it's easy to wait until you're hungry and then grab something quickly at home. I'm trying to avoid that.

With that being said, here are just a few of the tasty things that I've made at home this summer.

My salads don't have names because I almost always use what I have at home.  This is more or less a Cobb salad.  It consists of lettuce, avocado, shredded Colby jack, tomato, ham, sliced chicken, and honey mustard dressing.

Remember the cream biscuit recipe that I posted a few weeks ago?  I've made it twice this summer.  Sometimes I get up when Jake does and make breakfast for him.  I also do bigger breakfasts on the weekends sometimes.  These are perfect for either.

Also, as promised here are my version of this layer bar recipe.  This is one of the first dessert recipes that I ever found and made on my own in college.  Again, I use a mix of semi-sweet chocolate and peanut butter chips and walnuts.  In general, Jake doesn't like any nuts in cookies ever, but he allows it in these.

With only two people, we often have leftovers.  One night this month I made pork chops to go with our leftover couscous and broccoli, served with raw orange pepper slices and red grapes.

book recommendation, other hobby, redone listings

I have another bead weaving book from the library that I've been reading this week: Seed Bead Fusion: 18 Projects to Stitch, Wire, & String by Rachel Nelson-Smith. There really are only 18 projects in this book, and the bead weaving projects are all based off of 2 basic designs. While it is not one of the more diverse beading books I've ever seen, it does have some of the best instructions. The book includes directions in writing, drawings, and photographs for EVERY project. I've never seen anything quite like it. The photographs are all excellent quality. The other unique strength of this book is that there are pictures for each finished project of exactly what is explained in the directions and nothing else. I don't know if anyone else gets frustrated by this sort of thing in most books, but I think that it can be annoying to read directions for a basic peyote cuff and not understand what to do because every picture uses a different sort of bead or has a much more complicated clasp. This book is not like that! It is also not for a beginner, but it allows someone with a little knowledge of basic bead weaving techniques to take on some more advanced projects because all of the directions and pictures are so good.

In other creative endeavors, I finally tracked down a free transcription for Golden by Fall Out Boy, which has been one of my favorite songs for over a year. No, I don't just keep Chopin books around for photographing jewelry, I really do play the piano. :P I haven't in a while, and it's been fun to work on a new piece again.

I finally edited and upload the pictures that I took of some of my older items last week. Take a look if you get a chance!

monochromatic retro charm fringed peyote cuff

double stranded raspberry right angle bracelet (2 versions currently available)

turquoise right angle bangle
double stranded blue and purple right angle bracelet