Creativity Strikes

You change when you get married...in a lot of ways. Something that comes with those changes I think is a new amount of creativity, either forced or an obligation to be more creative. I have never been a creative person. When I try to be, it usually turns out like I tried to be creative but failed. Example? When I worked at McDonald's 5 years ago, the kid magazines they make had a "make your own water globe". How hard could that be? So for Valentines Day, I made Mark a snow globe with our picture in it. Nice and all, only the oil and water distorted the picture so I looked way fat and Mark looked excessively skinny. (Couldn't it have been the other way around?!) My children will never see their mother sewing like I did, or have quilts, clothing or cute hair barrettes made by me. It's just not in my blood.

On the contrary, below are some creative creations by me or my hubby in the last week or so that I am rather proud of:

I have been waiting to try these meringue cookies for some time. 3 egg whites, 1 cup of sugar and mini chocolate chips. I thought my little hand mixer was going to overheat from mixing for so long waiting for stiff peaks to form. Key note: stiff peaks form faster I learned when eggs are at room temperature so it's best to set them out earlier. The cookies taste like marshmallows on the inside. The outside is this thin, crusty, sugary texture. Don't think I'll be making these for any parties, but it's one more dessert recipe/treat I've experimented with in my box!

What is this exactly? It happens to be a black metal trashcan my sisters got for me years ago and has served me well in many college apartments. We still have yet to invest in night stands. I have a plastic 3-drawer one I use, but as you can see, the bed is up rather high and poor Mark has to almost fall out of bed every morning when his alarm goes off to reach it. So, I put extra towels in the can so it wouldn't rattle, covered it with an extra pillowcase and - tada! Only a slightly-ghetto nightstand. His side as you can see is on the far side so no one ever really sees it anyway.

I think Mark can secretly tell when I don't feel like cooking. I'm not sure how it came about but he decided one night that he was going to make dinner the next day. All I did was set out the chicken to defrost. He used a recipe his sister suggested and after a secret trip to the grocery store, came home and went to work with all sorts of spices, oils and crazy stirring going on. He was worried it would be to garlic-y for me which ended up in it being a little plain tasting, and he likes noodles cooked "al dente" which gave me a slight stomachache later, but overall, I was very impressed with his cooking skills! This one is a little late in getting started. This starter box was a bridal shower gift from my sister-in-law. I finally got it out and decided to try my hand at gardening. Miracle upon miracles, it hasn't died yet! I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I have to move it to a bigger area to grow. But maybe....just maybe I have potential to grow a small garden when we have a home. Maybe some tomatoes, cucumbers, or zucchini....
Still trying to get around to making those homemade doughnuts and see how bad I fail since the recipe even says it takes practice. Maybe that will be tomorrow or Saturday's adventure.