lavender sugar scrub

As I mentioned before, I'm throwing a bridal shower this weekend for my sister-in-law-to-be.  Being the DIY-er that I am, I just had to make homemade favors to send home with all of the guests!  It came to me as I was singing along to Carrie Underwood and exfoliating in the shower one day.... I would make homemade lavender sugar scrub and cutesy it up in little jars!  Ohhhh, I was so excited.  Here is what I came up with:

Lavender Sugar Scrub

1 cup white cane sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 drops lavender essential oil

1 Tbsp vitamin E oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix ingredients together in a bowl.  Pour into a glass container of your choice, decorate as desired.

I used 4 oz jam jars that I bought at a home/garden/farm supply store, but you can use any container you'd like!  I got about 3- 4oz. jars out of this recipe.

Happy DIY-ing! :)

what girl doesn't love jewelry?!

Whoa, it's been a crazy one in our household lately!  I feel like we've hardly had time to sit down in the last week or so.  It's kind of a nice change of pace though... come those dark, cold, boring January days in Finland while the hubby's at an away game, I'll be dreaming of these busy days with so much to do!

I'm pretty excited tonight because I just got home from a jewelry making class.  I started making jewelry a month or so ago after my 2nd miscarriage and surgery that followed.  I really needed/wanted a hobby that was all my own and thought that making a few fun pieces would be fun. 

So, I loaded up on supplies at Michael's and other craft/bead stores and began to wing it.  I've really impressed myself with how well I've done so far, and more importantly, I've been having fun doing it.  It's been very theraputic for me and has definitely taken my mind off of the events of recent months and given me back some of the drive and motivation that I lost during that time. 

Since I've enjoyed it so much, I decided to sign up and do a class or two at a local bead/jewelry store.  It was a Wire class, which is what I've really wanted to get better at.  She showed us lots of tips and tricks and we made a pair of earrings to take home: 

Not exactly the beads I would have picked out myself if I had the choice(especially since they're like different colors!) but I'm pretty proud of myself.  I've considered starting a little business out of it (with J being my investor, of course :) )  so we'll have to see what happens.  I even joked about renting a place at the Christmas Market in Helsinki this year... haha!  The 2nd part probably won't be happening.... but stay tuned, I may just have some nice jewelry pieces for sale soon! :)

Here are some of my first pieces:

I'm busy planning my sister-in-law-to-be's Bridal Shower for this weekend (along with a million other things goin on), but check back soon- I'll be writing a post about the shower favors that I made! (no, they're not jewelry :) )

stuffed chicken parm

Well, we're back home now and both exhausted.  It was a full week of shopping, seeing old friends, and working out (for J).  It was a lot of fun and great to get out of town for a while to spice things up a bit.  Maddie seemed to have fun at "Grandma and Grandpa's" (my in-laws) -- she's been sound asleep on the couch for most of the evening.  No matter how much fun we have away, it always feels so good to be home (I could do without all of the unpacking and laundry though!)

Tomorrow morning we'll be up bright and early again to run in the Race for the Cure like I talked about earlier.  Might be a bit of a rough one- I have only ran once this week while we were away (along with eating out several times and a few glasses of wine here and there....) and J is sore and tired from a hard week of workouts.  To help prepare us for our big day tomorrow, I made some stuffed chicken parm with spaghetti, green beans & red wine (no shame) for dinner tonight.  It was pretty delish so I thought I'd better share my recipe with you all:

Stuffed Chicken Parmesan

Ingredients:
Chicken Breasts
1/4 cup diced mozzarella & parmesan cheese (more or less, to your liking)
2 slices of bread, crumbed
1 tsp. oregano (more or less, to your liking)
1 tsp. parsley (more or less, to your liking)
a dash of salt & pepper
1 egg
small amount of flour

Wash and clean up chicken breasts, removing any excess fat.  Cut a pocket into the chicken breast from the top (like you're slicing it in half the long ways, but just cut a small opening with the pocket, don't go all the way through).  Stuff the pocket with cheese, filling to your liking.  Use a toothpick to hold the opening closed.

Mix together bread crumbs, oregano, parsley, salt & pepper in a bowl.  Line 2 more bowls up next to it,  pouring the flour into one and beating the egg in the other.  Roll chicken breast in flour first, then egg, then bread crumb mixture.  Place breasts in baking dish and bake ~30 minutes at 375 degrees F (190 C). 

While chicken is cooking, prepare the spaghetti:

Ingredients:
1 can (10 oz.) of tomato soup
1 can (15 oz.) of tomato sauce
1 can (6 oz.) of tomato paste
oregano, to taste
parsley, to taste
garlic, to taste
salt & pepper, to taste
Whole Grain wheat spaghetti

In a sauce pan, mix together tomato soup, sauce & paste.  Simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally.  Add in oregano, parsley, garlic, salt & pepper as desired.  Continue to simmer until well mixed and the sauce begins to thicken a little.  While sauce is cooking, boil water and cook pasta noodles.

Top noodles and chicken with spaghetti sauce & grate parmesan cheese on top.  Enjoy!

*I use the same recipe without the chicken to make regular old spaghetti... but I usually add 1 pound of ground beef to make it a meat sauce.  Sometimes I swap out garlic salt for fresh garlic & salt and sometimes I don't add the parsley and oregano (depends how much flavor we're in the mood for)  It's simple but delicious, and definitely a dish we long for when we're in Finland and can't find the exact ingredients! :)

I promise to have more and exciting posts coming soon... but for now, this girl's gotta get some shut eye before the big morning tomorrow.  Good thing we've got some lovely new sheets & new comforter to sleep with, courtesy of tax-free shopping in Minnesota! :)

much needed getaway :)

Sorry in advance to all you lovely blog readers out there.  We're heading to Minnesota tomorrow for the rest of the week and I'm not sure if there will be much (if any) time to post anything new.  We've had several different vacation plans (Europe trip, Florida...) change in the past couple months with the pregnancy and then the loss, so I guess we're settling for good ol' Minnesota instead.  Time to get away for a bit, "relax", and see some old friends!  (I use the term relax very loosely, because the main purpose of our trip is so the hubs can work out with a teammate.  I wasn't kidding when I said the guy's gotta always be doing something productive!)  In honor of our trip, I thought I'd share this obnoxious lovely tourism commercial that plays about 5 times a day on our tv's here: 

Time to explore Minnesota and these 10,000 things they say they have to do.  Enjoy your short holiday week everyone, be back Friday!

picked this baby up....

.... for our Finnish home today.  We saw it on our way out of the store and couldn't resist!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to my fellow Americans!  Have a fun and safe weekend, and don't forget to remember and thank our fallen heros! ♥

two months from tomorrow

It's not even Memorial Day yet, and our summer is at the half way point.  In fact, Memorial Day itself marks the exact half-way point of our time back here in the States.  We got back on April 2nd, and head back July 28th.  Yup. July. 28th.  Two months from tomorrow.

I still don't understand why the hockey season (in Europe, at least) starts in August.  J's first team 'responsibility' is August 1st.  I don't know about you, but I want to be sitting by the pool in the 85+ degree weather of August.  Not hanging out in an ice arena.  I'm constantly wondering to myself, that if hockey is considered a winter sport, why does the season start in the hottest month of the year? 

I guess I shouldn't be complaining, because J's teammates back in Finland are required to work out and skate with the team even during the summer.  They get a couple weeks off after the season, then they're back at it until mid-June-ish, and get another small break between then and August 1st.  Some of the teams even make their North American/import players come back over for this period of time.  I can't imagine.  We get 3 (maybe 4, like this year) months to be home.... in our home country, speaking our native language, to see family and friends, to live with all of the rest of our possessions that we can't fit into a couple suitcases.  And most importantly, to just mentally un-wind from the season.

But, (as much as I want it to), that doesn't mean that J just gets to sit next to me by the pool with a drink in his hand the whole time.  In fact, I wish he'd take a little more time off.  But that's just not him.  I think he took maybe a week off (including travel days) after the season before he started working out again.  He's a guy that's gotta be doing something to get better all the time or it will eat away at him.  He has to get to the gym at exactly the same time every day.  His workout is all precisely timed, and he would never even dream of missing a set or skipping his bike ride for the day.  Several days, after he works out, he goes to the rink to shoot pucks around.  He drinks protein shakes like they're water.  I tease him a lot about being too stiff, but I do admire his dedication.  He's constantly wanting to improve himself, and really lives by that motto of 'every day you take off is a day your competion is using to get better than you' or however it goes.  It is his job, after all... and just like with any other job, if you don't work hard and perform well, you'll get fired.

At the same time, this is our 'vacation' time from his job.  During the season, you work weekends and nights, in addition to days.  Even when you're not at the rink, an event, or traveling, most of the time is spent according to the hockey schedule.  If J has a game the next day, we're not going to go walk and tour around the city that afternoon.  That concert you wanted to go to?  Forget it, it's a game night.  Oh, you wanted to go for a little weekend getaway to leave the stresses of a bad week behind?  Not a chance- there's 2 games to be played!

It is most definitely a lifestyle choice, and for every negative thing about it a positive comes with it.  Like this nice long summer vacay that we have.  It all balances out.  For all you hockey fans out there, I'm sure by the end of one season, the next season cannot come soon enough.  But not for me.  For me, it can wait just a little.  My brain needs a break from it all.  I've still got some rays to soak up and family to spend time with.  I can't begin to think about packing up our lives into a couple suitcases again and starting the trek across the Atlantic.  Not just yet.

giuliana & bill

Giuliana and Bill Rancic were on the tv show The Doctors today and I could not have been more excited.  They're one of my fav celeb couples, and could possibly be my new Nick & Jessica (they'll never be replaced, but it's about time I start moving on...). 

source

I really connected with Giuliana and Bill by fluke right after my first miscarriage in February.  Since I was pretty much bedridden (more by choice than anything) for like a week after the beginning, I had to find some new shows to watch.  I had seen Giuliana and Bill a couple times before, but didn't know a whole lot about them or their show.  She's a E! personality and he won The Apprentice.  But, as I began watching the show, I learned about their struggles with fertility and the heartache they were experiencing as a result.  Giuliana did finally get pregnant (thanks to IVF), only to suffer a miscarriage at 8 weeks. 

That was it.  We bonded immediately.  She was my new bff, even though she doesn't know it.  I felt so connected to them through our mutual heartache and grief, and as much as it breaks my heart to see someone else going through such an awful thing, I realized we were not alone.  It doesn't matter who you are, how much money you have, what you do for a job... you are still at the mercy of God's will.

As I laid in bed watching their heartwrenching story play out through the episodes, I was grieving with them.  Since I had never been through a loss like that before, I had no idea how to act or what to expect.  I barely even knew about miscarriage or how common it is.  Giuliana and Bill opened my eyes and helped me regain a positive attitude.  If they weren't giving up after trying for so long, neither was I.

I praise Giuliana and Bill for being so open about their fertility issues and pregnancy loss.  They are trying very hard to get rid of the negative stigma that surronds the topics of infertility and miscarriage and helping people realize that they don't have to suffer in silence.  That they are not alone.  This was exactly their message on The Doctors today, and I commend them for using their 'fame' as a means to communicate these issues. 

If you haven't seen Giuliana and Bill's show or read their book I Do, Now What?  I highly recommend them. The book is great for any newly married couple (or any married couple for that matter!) and has tons of great advice.  I'm about 3/4 of the way through it, and even the hubs has read a few chapters (though he won't admit to it I'm sure).  They're an adoreable couple and I just can't get enough of them!