Chile Earthquake

Armando’s family lives in Santiago, Chile. Today was a nervous time for Armando and I as we awaited news from his family. Thank goodness his family and what friends we were able to contact, are okay. They awoke in the early hours of the morning scared with a big force and movement. The communication was unstable for many hours. Some areas still have basic services not working.

Sadly, many areas were affected with some damage to roads, homes, injuries and loss of life. In the coastal areas a tsunami followed the earthquake. More information will be available later, as they make their way to review the full damage.

The earthquake measured 8.8 on the Richter scale and was stronger than the earthquake they had in 1985.

Watch local tv for Chile here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tv-de-chile

If you are looking for a family member in Chile, check here:

http://chilepersonfinder.appspot.com/

My thoughts are with all those involved. Please keep Chile in your thoughts and prayers.

 

Easy Italian Sausage Pie

Makes 8 servings

Prep: 20 minutes

Cook: 1 hour 15 minutes

Bake at 375F for 1 hour, 15 minutes

1 pound mild Italian sausage, cut into 1-inch pieces
5 eggs
1 package (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, drained
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2/3 cup ricotta cheese
1 shallot, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 package (15 ounces) refrigerated ready-to-roll pie crusts
1 egg beaten lightly with 1 tablespoon water

1. Heat oven to 375F. Place sausage in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and cook 5 minutes, until browned on all sides.
2. In a large bowl, combine sausage, 5 eggs, spinach, mozzarella cheese, ricotta, shallot, pepper, garlic powder and salt.  Line a 9-inch pie plate with 1 of the pie crusts.  Spoon in the sausage-and-spinach mixture.  Top with the remaining pie crust; seal and crimp edges.  Poke a few holes in the center of the pie crust and brush with the egg-water mixture.
3. Bake at 375F for 1 hour, 15 minutes.  Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.

From: Family Circle Magazine - November 1, 2009

 

NOTE: I USED MORE RICOTTA CHEESE. I JUST MIXED RICOTTA CHEESE IN UNTIL THE MIXTURE WAS AS CREAMY AS I WANTED IT.

Enjoy!

(The picture of this is in the post below.)

Dinner Tonight

I tried a new recipe tonight. I made Italian Sausage Pie. We both enjoyed it along with wine.

I had Barefoot White Zinfandel from California and Armando had a 2005 Marques de Caceres red wine from Spain.

If anybody wants the recipe just let me know and I will be happy to post it or you can email me at blog at msloyola.com.

I won! I won!

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was when I checked my email and saw that I had won one of the items in the OWOH giveaway!

I won it from Joe and Bethany. Check out their blog It's a Wonderful Life here:

http://www.joeandbethany.blogspot.com/

I have never won a giveaway before. That is why I awoke Armando with screams of excitement. LOL But he loves me so it was okay. :p

I won a pencil drawing one subject portrait by a wonderful artist!

See Joe Everson's beautiful artwork by going to:

http://www.joesstudio.blogspot.com/ or http://www.joeeverson.com/

I also love to draw with pencil but have not done it in quite a while.

Thank you a lot Joe and Bethany for your very generous giveaway.

http://www.joeandbethany.blogspot.com/

If you haven't ever entered an online giveaway, you should try. It is a lot of fun. I think they do twitter giveaways too, but I have never tried those before.

Update

I have a new desktop computer now. It has Windows 7 and is running much smoother than my notebook was previously. My notebook seemed to crash/freeze quite often at the most inconvenient times. (Not that there ever really is a convenient time for a computer crash/freeze).

Just as I was getting geared up to write a blog entry tonight and add several pictures using my faithful blogging tool I realized that I did not have that program configured on this machine. I will configure and set it up another night though.

Did you have a good Valentine's Day? I had a great time. My husband brought me some very pretty flowers. (See them in the picture above.) He treated me to a little shopping spree at a place I had wanted to go to since he showed it to me. At night we came home and watched a movie and had sushi and wine. It was so very windy and cold that day that we decided to not go to the movie theater and wanted to just be comfy at our apartment.

I just feel so blessed to have such a loving husband and I am happy that we just enjoy being together and goofing off and being our silly selves. It is refreshing to always know you have someone who will laugh at your jokes and even put up with you singing silly songs that stick in your head and who joins in with you and sings the silly songs too! :P Now that is true love, right?

I have been feeling very crafty lately. Well, I always feel crafty, but so many websites and blogs and other people's beautiful creations are inspiring me. I have found a lot of cute patterns online lately and before too long this new computer hard drive might be busting at the seams with craft patterns and ideas. (Just kidding... sortof)

I have a few projects going now. I am in the process of making a wrap for myself and a crochet shopping bag since we prefer to bring our own when we can. I also am making another little crochet craft that I found the pattern online, but I will not say what it is right now, because I may put it as a giveaway item.

I am still trying to figure out what I want to craft for my blog giveaway. More than likely it will be something that I crochet. Although it could be something else handmade too. I want to make the giveaway enjoyable for both a man or woman to enter, since I have several male and female blogging friends. But, the giveaway is also open to anyone new to reading this blog as well. Anyone can enter!

I will be thinking about it. Feel free to offer some suggestions too of what you might enjoy winning. Thank you! :)

Too late, but still will do.

I wanted to particpate in the One world One Heart giveaway but sadly, I was a bit too late to find out about it. I have always wanted to do a giveaway on my blog. So, stay tuned. I am going to make some things and be offering a giveaway soon! :)

New books and a fun necklace!

I dropped by Half Price Books today and got these :

I have seen the movie, but I have heard the books are even better.

 

Those 2 should keep my fingers busy for a while.

I also just purchased this altered necklace. I really like it. :)

Mayfield Garden

 

Mira! A peacock. :)

Armando took this photo of me photographing the peacock.

 

Reflections in the water taken via my cell phone’s camera.

 

Completely unrelated, and a blurred photo, but I have new eyeglasses!

Here is me trying them on. It is extremely confusing to pick new eyeglasses out.

I cannot seem to pull off too many colors in eyeglasses. Believe me, I tried. (hehe) But, some looked terribly bad.

I could not get used to seeing myself in more square lenses at first.

In the end, I decided to get away from my safety zone of plain old silver eyeglasses.

I went with purple eyeglasses. :)

Doily completed

I made this doily design up. It is the second doily I ever crocheted.  I started this while my Mom was not well, as a way to keep my mind busy.

Now she is much better and I am thankful. I will mail it to her soon. Her favorite color is yellow, hence, well… it is yellow. :)