Easy Cheesy Macaroni Salad

I made a double batch of this yesterday to take to a church potluck.  I love how colorful it is -- a bright, cheerful dish, don't you think?  And it's very easy.  You can eat it cold or hot.

Easy Cheesy Macaroni Salad

Ingredients:


1 box macaroni & cheese
As much milk as the mac & cheese calls for
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup celery -- sliced thinly
1/2 red pepper -- finely chopped
2 hard-boiled eggs -- chopped
1/4 cup green onions -- sliced

Directions:


Prepare mac & cheese as directed, replacing butter with mayonnaise.  Stir in remaining ingredients and mix well.  Serve warm or cold.

That's it!  I used the green onions we've been regrowing, of course :-)

Hoedown!

Monday, we spent some quality time in our new garden.  First, the kids helped me break up clods of dirt and get everything ready for some planting.

They have enough shovels and rakes and implements of destruction for 4 or 5 kids, but hey.  This way they don't fight over trowels and scoops.

I got this hat at Colonial Williamsburg last summer specifically to be my gardening hat.  It's perfect!  Well, almost -- the inside gets caught in my hair a lot, so I'm thinking of sewing up just a band of fabric to go around the bottom of the crown to save my hair and act as a sweat band too.

All we got planted was a row of carrots, but it's a start.  We have lettuce and tomatoes started inside to transplant later.  We need to build our fence higher, though -- the way our neighbor tells it, we have mutant bunnies around here that can leap houses at a single bound...

Giving Away a Sunflower Baby Toy

Can you believe it's Tuesday already?  Yesterday, my hubby stayed home because he pulled a muscle in his neck and couldn't turn his head at all -- he held it cocked at an angle like a curious little puppy all day long, which was cute, but not at all safe for driving to work, hee.  So today now feels like Monday to me, as yesterday I had help around the house (sorta) and got to spend lots of time out in the garden (will try to blog about that later).

Apropos of it still feeling like Monday to me, here's a link to my friend Julie's Monday Meltdown Giveaway over on her blog.  This week, she's giving away something that looks very familiar... cuz it's from me!  We're offering a ready-made sunflower from my new pattern for either a sunflower or daisy that I recently added to my shop.

We're also offering the crochet pattern as a PDF file, so go follow this link for a chance to win!

No Pictures, Please!

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. – soulemama

(feel free to link to your own ‘this moment’ post in the comments below)

Spring in the Air!

Cherry tree?

Spring has arrived in our neck of the woods!  The tree out front is getting these lovely pink flowers -- I'm thinking it's some kind of cherry tree.  Since we've only lived here since August, I have no idea what's planted where, or what might burst into bloom next.  There are two Bradford pear trees in the back, that much I know, and those should bloom any day now.  We also have what appear to be a couple forsythia bushes back there.  There seem to be a few little perennials popping up along one side wall.  I need to figure out a way to mark where they are so I don't plant anything on top of them.

This year I'm not doing anything in the ground since I don't know what might be where, but I'm planning a small container garden for back by our deck.  And as you saw last Friday, we're preparing to plant a small garden too.

The kids and I picked a bunch of tiny wildflowers yesterday.  I suppose they're technically weeds, but they look sweet in my new little vase.

I bought this little gem from Etsy shop AranelDesigns:  The Ring and the Lion.  It's a shop full of Middle Earth- and Narnia-inspired pieces.  This vase says "For the love of things that grow" around the top, handlettered in Elvish.  It looks black here because it's reflecting my black counter top, but it's really a deep blue and brown.  I love it!

Darn Good Yarn

Speaking of yarn, here's another awesome place to buy some:  DarnGoodYarn.com.  All the yarn there is recycled, made from things like banana fibers, newspaper, and recycled sari silk.  They also sell patterns and ready-made items.  Look at these yarns:

Recycled Sari Silk Yarn

Banana Fiber Silk Yarn

Reclaimed Cotton Yarn

According to the Darn Good Yarn newsletter, they saved more than 6,000 pounds of waste from landfills in 2011 alone by recycling things into yarn  And right now they're giving away $75 of their yarn to one lucky person.  Might be you, might be me... let's find out!

Loophole Yarn from Six Skeins

I won a giveaway last week!  The Made With Love U.K. blog offered 100 grams of yarn from Etsy shop Loophole (aka SixSkeins), and I won!  I chose a skein of this hand-dyed sock yarn called Limelight, and it arrived in the mail yesterday!  Isn't it beautiful?

It's so fresh and zesty and spring-ful, isn't it?  In fact, this yarn has inspired a whole bunch of new ideas for crochet patterns that I can't wait to get started on.  Good thing I've just finished my current crocheting project and ready to start a new one!