Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is also what makes the world go around.

As we all grow up and get older there are things in life that you just start to learn about without really knowing where you got it from.  Take the drive and need to make and spend money for example.  Those of us who were not fortunate enough to be born into a family with money and wealth, spend most of our lives fighting to make as much money as we possibly can so we can go out and spend it on the things we love and long for.  Vacations, cars, boats, toys, houses, beach condo's, you name it!  The human existence is all rooted around money.  

Sadly enough, it takes money to do anything in our world today.  It used to be that we could really "live off the land" but there is so little today that makes that even possible.  So the question I find myself asking each day is "How can I make more money, and not have to spend EVERY waking moment WORKING to do it?"  Robbing a bank is out of the question.  First of all, it's not FREE money when you take it and don't earn it.  Second, robbing a bank is not only risky but incredibly stupid too.  Unless you have a death wish, it's just not smart.  So how does a legitimate person make REALLY good money and not have to work super hard to do it? 

Check this out!

 

Trust me when I say, nothing in life is going to take absolutely NO WORK, so if that is what you are trying, good luck!  Cause that's all you have, is a bunch of luck and nothing else.  If you really want to make a LOT of money working from your own home, on your own time, and literally FIRE YOUR BOSS, come and check this out!  You won't regret it! 

I know I sure didn't and neither has my husband and two kids who are living the benefits of my "hard work" everyday.  When life gave me an opportunity, I seized it.  Will you do the same?

Cupcake adventure was a success! Perfect frosting!

Ok, I know it took me a few days to give you all an update on the cupcake frosting but this weekend was my son's 5th birthday so I was a bit busy.  I'm not even going to go into the whole fiasco we had at our local roller skating rink.  Let me just say that they will not be getting my return business or recommendations EVER!  The manager made my son cry on his birthday. NOT COOL DUDE!  However, besides that, the weekend was awesome!  My baby boy is growing up and this momma is feeling it hard. 
Ok, back to the cupcakes.  So I had this brainstorm about using SUPER SOFT cream cheese instead of trying to blend it right out of the frige.  Many of you who are avid bakers are probably laughing at me right now but as a person who has never taken a baking class in my life, it never really occurred to me before that my problem had always been trying to mix HARD cream cheese and get it to be light and fluffy.  Silly me I guess.  So, I tried my idea of letting it completely soften at room temperature the whole morning while I got my son ready for his party.   When it was finally soft enough I whipped it in my mixer with 6 cups of powdered sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla extract for about 5 minutes.  Starting on the lowest speed and working up to the fastest.  I let it whip for 3 minutes on the top speed alone.  Talk about perfect.  Even with the 6 cups of sugar its not too sweet.  I think because it is powdered. 

Love Cupcakes, Hate Store-Bought Frostings! Do I smell an adventure???

So do any of you out there absolutely LOVE to bake and eat cakes and cupcakes but hate store bought frosting?  I for one not only hate the taste of it but the all around texture just isn't right to me either.  I grew up with my mother and grandmother absolutely spoiling me with AMAZING cooking and baking abilities which I didn't seem to inherit.  I can bake pretty much anything as long as I have a good recipe (or directions on a box) but I am not gifted with the ability to just throw stuff together and make it taste good.  As much as I try, it just doesn't happen.  However, like I said, I AM good at following a well written recipe.  

The hard part I have been having is that with all the recipes out there for frosting, they are either too sweet in the end, or they don't come out to the correct consistency that I need them to be for what I want.  I am looking for a really light, fluffy, not super sweet, creamy frosting that goes good on pretty much any kind of cake or cupcake.  After making a new batch of mini-cupcakes last night, I decided that this would be my newest adventure that I would share with you. 

I make a lot of mini-cupcakes these days because my kids absolutely love them, and believe me when I say, I have tried DOZENS of recipes for frosting.  From your basic butter-cream, to some even more elaborate ones that involved me cooking butter and milk on the stove and then adding plain white flour first before adding it to the rest of the sugar and whatnot.  And those are just the butter-cream recipe's I tried.  I am not even going to get into the issues I have with the regular "super fluffy cake frosting" they have online that I so sadly attempted to make.  It was the worst cake frosting I had ever tasted and that includes the NASTY store kinds.  It was so sweet it made my cheeks hurt.  My kids wouldn't even eat it, and that tells you something.  :-)  So last night, I made a new batch of mini's and as they were coming out of the oven, I was kicking myself because YET AGAIN I hadn't thought about what I was going to do for frosting.  I'll eat them without it.  I kinda prefer 'em that way sometimes to be honest, they are less messy, but I know my dear hubby and kids like them frosted and I was freaking out inside because I didn't want to RUIN another batch of perfectly good cupcakes because I made a horrible frosting that made them completely inedible. So instead of frosting them, I put them away and decided that I would tackle this dilemma when I had more time to actually think about it and go to the store for ingredients.  I hate just throwing stuff together that I have in my cupboards knowing good and well that I can't cook like that.  

Oddly enough, I had a brainstorm in my sleep last night that I am going to try when I get off work, which involves super soft Philly cream cheese, sifted confectioners sugar and a teaspoon of REAL Vanilla Extract.  I had this thought that even though I have tried good recipe's for cream cheese frosting I wasn't really following them to the best of my ability because I wasn't letting the cream cheese get soft enough before trying to whip it into frosting.  I'm hoping that my sudden light-bulb of and idea actually works and I get some super yummy cupcakes to post about tomorrow!  I'm off work now, so on to my cupcake frosting adventure!  Wish me luck!      

The adventure begins....

So as a person, I am trying something new.  I recently found out a few things about myself that made me really take a step back and rethink, who I am as a person.  As a child I wasn't what most would consider "popular."  Maybe it started after we moved to Oregon and I had a hard time adjusting but for whatever reason, I have always been a bit of a loner.  I was a gymnast from when I was 7 throughout most of my elementary and middle school years.  When I wasn't in the gym working out for 10 hours a day, or at school my parents said I often got lost in a place called "ShannieLand" where I would just space out and lose all sense of time and responsibility sometimes for hours at a time.  "ShannieLand" became my imaginary world that I could escape to whenever I wanted to just get away from what was happening.  It was sort of my coping mechanism I guess.  Growing up, I never understood why, but I never really had a lot of friends.  It always made me feel the need to "capture" the attention of others, because obviously they didn't like me for some reason or another.  I found myself constantly trying to be someone else, for fear that the reason why I had no friends was because they didn't like the me on the surface, so if I just changed who I was on the outside, then more people would like me.  If you have even an ounce of brains in your head, and haven't been living under a rock for the past 50 years, you know that I was seriously fooling myself by thinking that there was anything I could do as a child to change myself enough to make people like me.  Either they like you or they don't, it's as simple as that.  Trust me, it doesn't change when you grow up either.  You just realize one day that you are one of those people that doesn't have friends, ever, and you get over it. (Unless your stupid or naive because there's no sense in still worrying about it, nothing is going to change it.)  If you like who you are, it doesn't matter if you have friends or not.  Sure, friends are great, they make you feel better when you're having a bad day, and are there to help pick you back up, but you can get a dog to help you with that. (Or a cat if your into that kinda thing, I'm allergic)  Knowing AND liking who you are in this world is the key to happiness.  If you know who you are, and like everything about you, who cares if you have friends to tell you that you are happy?  Right?..........

 As I grew older, I realized through a lot of heartache and hurt, that even now, I don't really know who I am.  I still don't really have any true friends.  Instead of letting it push me to the point of making me crazy, and driving me to be someone I'm not anymore, I have accepted the fact that I am just not a "popular" person and I never will be.  I don't need to be a movie star or a rock star.  I would rather not have all the photographers chasing me around making my life a living hell because they want to catch me wearing my bathrobe.  No thanks  I have two wonderful kids who love me for who I am, and I am grateful for that. 

So one thing I have decided to do, instead of moping about the fact that I have no friends, I am going to start blogging on here everyday about my adventures in a little world I like to call "ShannieLand."  I have inspirations for how I come up with new yarn ideas all the time and never get a chance to blog about them, so this is going to be a new subject of mine.  I also haven't figured out to publish any of my own patterns online yet for my readers, but if I get enough hype about the inspirations I post, I might have a few that I can post on here as freebies until I figure out the whole Adobe PDF thing that is driving me crazy right now.  {I am not the best with technology.  Give me a ball of yarn and a crochet hook and I can make you anything, but give it a battery and I'm lost!  :-)}   

I'm also a Mom, as I said in the first paragraph, so I want a place to talk to you about the stuff I do with my family.  My kids are my future, and right now they are my only friends, so they make up 90% of everything I do.  Kiley is learning how to crochet different things, but right now she is really into making these "tube scarves" that we found.  She is extremely good at it, and with the "loom" that they have for beginners, it makes it fairly easy.  Starting off is always the hardest part, and as long as I'm here to help her, she's absolutely amazing.  I am so proud of her.  

Someday, when she grows up, I will have in her hope chest, the first scarf she made, along with the first hat, dishcloth and little guy blanket for her to show her daughter.  Who knows, maybe someday, she'll be teaching her little girl all the things I am teaching her today.  I really hope so.  That's why I take the time to teach her.  If I don't, who will?  Sure there are classes, but is it the same stitches that my grandma taught me?  Is it the same technique, taught with the same care and love that was taught to me?  Not if it's in some class you pay for.  Or even one you take online for free.  Nothing, and I mean NOTHING compares to the knowledge learned from generations of working a craft and then passing it down.  My Granny taught me that, and I hope to teach my baby girl that too.  That is why I love what I do so much.

So like I said as the title to this post, this is the beginning of my adventure.  I'm not sure where it's going to take me, but I am excited and anxious for what's to come.  ShannieLand is a mysterious and wonderful place.  I've lived here my whole life, and believe me.  It's as scary and dangerous, as it is miraculous and mesmerizing, so watch your step.   Like I said before, when I was a kid I used to get lost in here here for hours.......... let's just hope I can find my way back home.  I have dinner to make!