Crocheting!

Hey y’all!

I apologize for being absent these past few weeks. School just picked up all of sudden and before I knew it I was swamped with work! So today I thought I would post something related to a hobby of mine that I love dearly. If you couldn’t guess from the title, it’s crocheting. A crocheted afghan (blanket) to be more specific.

When I was in high school one of my engineering teachers loved crocheting as much as me, and as a graduation gift, she gave me a book of different crochet squares that you assemble to make an afghan. I held off making it until just before I left for college in August and I finished it early this morning! Eight months in the making, and I am very happy with the outcome! Take a look,

Each square is a different stitch, 63 blocks in total

On the edge of the blanket I used a scallop edging,

For those of you who find this interesting, the book that my teacher gave me was, 63 Easy to Crochet Pattern Stitches Combine to Make an Heirloom Afghan by Darla Sims.

I love the book! Very easy to follow and if you are just starting out crocheting I highly recommend it, you start from the basics and work your way up to the more difficult stitches.

For me I use crocheting to relax and decompress from school and life in general. To me things that are semi-repetitive and very structured are relaxing to do because they are mindless. I recommend giving it a try if you’ve never done it before, even if you don’t think you’ll get anything out of it, it’s worth a shot for everyone.

 

Hope you all had a great Friday!

 

~Molly

 

 

Quote of the Day! 2/15/16

Morning Everyone!

I hope everyone is having a great Monday so far! I found this little picture today as I was walking to chemistry in the rain and thought you all would enjoy it. Since I wasn’t feeling very wise today, here’s what I have for y’all!

Short and Sweet, just the way it should be some mornings.

 

Hope y’all have a great Monday!

 

~Molly

Quote of the Day! 2/14/16

Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone!

I don’t know about you all but February 14th is kind of a strange day for me. I’m the kind of person that believes if you really love or care about someone you should show them throughout the year and not just on one particular day. Therefore, today’s quote deals with none other than the category of love. It’s just something that I found interesting when I was scrolling around Pinterest today.

Something I think some of us forget sometimes…

I feel like this is something a mom would tell her son or daughter when they are having a tough time in a relationship. I hope that it’s something we will all remember on this day of love!

 

 

~Molly

 

Quote of the Day! 2/12/16

Hey y’all!

It’s Friday!!!!!!! Hallelujah it’s here! The weekend is here! I say that because I have only one class today at 10am and then I’m done for the day! Unfortunately after that I have to clean our dorm room because it hasn’t been done since the Super Bowl on Sunday, but hey it will no longer be gross so that’s good! For today I found a quote that I absolutely love. I know y’all have heard the saying YOLO at some point in the past two years. A saying popular among people my age, yet a saying that I never really understood, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I found this quote…

We don’t just live once…

 

And after reading this, it made me realize that I shouldn’t be waiting for something big to happen in my life. I shouldn’t be waiting for that one specific moment to live. I should be going out and enjoying every moment in life no matter how hard, fun, sad, happy, irritating, or otherwise it is. Therefore, the wisdom I try to impart on all of you today, I hope that you go and live this Friday like it’s your last…

 

 

~Molly

Quote of the Day! 2/11/16

Happy Thursday Everyone!

We have almost made it to the end of the week!! Hooray! So today I thought I would post a quote that was more funny and silly than serious, but this quote does provide some merit…

It’s Refillable!

I about fell out of my chair when I read this because it’s not wrong. I know it’s good to assume that we don’t have as much time on this earth as we think we do, but I don’t think this quote is wrong. When we have our bad days or our good days aren’t we just metaphorically emptying and refilling the glass that represents our life? If I’m getting to deep then I hope I at least made you smile.  🙂

 

Have an imaginative Thursday!

 

~Molly

 

 

Quote of the Day! 2/10/16

Hey Y’all!

Hope everyone has had a great start to their Wednesday! I personally have two tests this evening and fear that I will spend the vast majority of my day freaking out about them. Or at least that’s what I thought until I read this quote,

On a day like today, yes I need to do this…

I thought the article that this picture came in was interesting as well. The way in which she looks at the topic of fear I find interesting. Today is a day I am definitely going to try to look at my challenges and believe that I have done enough to overcome them. Have the mentality “sink or swim, but I know I’m going to swim” kind of attitude today. And I hope you all have the same to overcome whatever challenges you may have today!

 

 

~Molly

 

Quote of the Day! 2/9/16

Hey Y’all!

Happy Tuesday! Since I am a creative person at heart, I decided to give you all a quote today that may inspire you to look at the challenges you face today with a creative twist!

 

Keyword “Creative Effort”

Sometimes when faced with a challenge we only see a few of the obvious ways to take it on. But sometimes when you look a little deeper you can find a solution that may be more efficient, solves the problem better, or is more enjoyable to complete than any of the other solutions. Today I challenge all of you to look at a problem you face and think about a more creative way to solve it, whether it be how to combat the grocery store or how to give a presentation in a meeting, look at life differently for one second and see what comes to you!

 

Happy Tuesday!

~Molly

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote of the Day! 2/8/16

Hey Everyone!
Happy Monday!!! I know that everyone’s favorite day is probably Friday, but today is Monday so lets smile and get our week going with this quote of the day!

~~Katharine Hepburn~~

 

So for today I have chosen this quote by Katharine Hepburn because I feel like it is a good quote to start a Monday off with. We all have had those Mondays that we wish didn’t exist and for some that may be because of those around us. Katharine implies in this quote that you can’t please everyone and she is 100% correct. We will never be able to please everyone all at once, it will just never happen and that is no way to spend a Monday. So for today, take a lesson from Katharine and make this Monday a great one!

 

~Molly

Quote of the Day! 2/7/16

Hey Y’all!

I thought I would start a new series of posts today with the hopes that the quotes I will post will help start your day off right and inspire you to be happy! I know that I have some tough days, weeks…..months, but my family, friends, and Pinterest (specifically the quotes and food sections) help me get through it. So now I am here for you all with my first post in the series Quote of the Day!

Life is tough indeed!

 

I chose this quote because I know there are people out there who are going to have a tough week next week. Believe me when I say I’m in the same boat with you. Out of the 6 classes I am taking this semester, 5 of them are having tests next week all within 3 days. It’s going to just be oh so much fun! But I know I will being trying to embrace what this quote says and have faith that everything is going to be okay because in the end Whomever said this is absolutely correct.

There have been times in my own life when I have just had to take this card and have faith that everything was going to be okay. Mostly this happens for me when finals week rolls around and I don’t have enough time to do all of the studying I would like to do. I usually do as much as humanly possible and then for the rest, I put the faith in myself that I know what I’m doing and that I will be okay.

So for today I hope that no matter what challenge y’all face that you will remember to have faith that everything will end up being okay. You might be surprised what will happen when you don’t sweat the small stuff.

 

 

~Molly

 

 

Flourless Pancakes!

Hey Y’all!

Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday! Last week when I decided to give up bread for a week, I really got a craving for pancakes! After some time searching Pinterest I came to the conclusion that the only way I was going to get pancakes without any flour at all was to use bananas and eggs. Now I’m not a huge cooking-with-bananas type person. I don’t like banana bread, banana nut muffins, and sometimes I don’t like banana pudding (If its made correctly its great, but that’s besides the point). I was scared to use my scarce food resources here at school if I wasn’t 100% sure that I was going to like what I made. But the craving got the better of me and so I decided to do it, and boy am I glad I did because they were delicious!!! I would honestly make these in place of normal pancakes. They were tasty and they had lots of health benefits, like being relatively high in protein.

Now when I was researching this topic online, most people just used bananas and eggs. I ran across one that had some baking soda and vanilla in it too. And because my mind runs a thousand miles a minute, this got me thinking about the science behind baking. I did a little bit more research about the difference between baking soda and baking powder, the effect Greek yogurt has, etc, etc. In the end, I decided to freestyle-it and came up with the following recipe,

Flourless Pancakes:

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: 15 min

Makes about 6-8 5″-6″ diameter pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 Banana (online it said for them to be ripe, however my intense need for pancakes couldn’t wait another day for my bananas to get riper, so I used one that was yellow with just a few spots).
• 2 Eggs
• 1/4C Greek Yogurt (I used Siggi’s vanilla)
• 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/4 tsp Vanilla
• 1/4 tsp Cinnamon (if you couldn’t tell, 1/4 tsp was the only measuring spoon I could find at the time 🙂 )
• Pinch of Salt
• Pinch of Sugar (I added this because I was slightly scared of the banana taste, so I thought this would even it out. You could leave it out and they would still be fine)

Directions:

1. Put all of the wet ingredients in the blender and blend until you get a homogeneous mixture.
2. In a small bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients.
3. Pour dry ingredients into the blender with the wet ingredients.
4. Blend until thoroughly mixed. Batter will be thin and the smell reminded me of a banana smoothie my mom makes.
5. Cook on a greased pan on medium to medium high heat until top and sides begin to bubble. This is where I messed up, I didn’t grease my pan before cooking because I have a non-stick pan. However, because these pancakes are so thin, and because they don’t have any flour in them, they kind of stuck to the pan slightly and I had a really hard time turning them over. The next time I make them I will definitely be greasing my pan. If making these in a college dorm, I also suggest bringing a plate with you to the community kitchen to put the pancakes on, because you know I managed to forget that to 🙂 .
6. Once all the pancakes are cooked up, top with butter and syrup and enjoy!

Another good way to top these pancakes if you don’t like syrup is just with peanut butter. I know it may sound weird, but like with eggs and ketchup, don’t knock it ’till you try it! You can also cook this batter in the microwave for even faster cook time! I microwaved some of the leftover batter I had on high for about a minute. Let me know what you think of this recipe!

Enjoy!

 

~Molly