random bits of a relaxing sunday-ahhhhh……

after working saturday, it’s always nice when the second day of the weekend is blissfully free of plans.  we woke up late, had a scrumptious pancake breakfast (my favorite way to start a sunday), made a loaf of bread, then had time to do some crafting.  i printed the cards for mona jean and then made envelopes from a maine cottage catalog.  aren’t they cute?

i bought some fabric from maine cottage awhile back and they sent me one of their catalogs.  while i will likely never be able to afford any of their furniture, there were super cute little illustrations throughout the catalog that just begged to be made into envelopes.  actually, i wouldn’t have been able to afford the fabric either except that it was on a fantastic sale (down from $50 a yard to $15!) and it was pretty much exactly the fabric i’d been looking for for a project.  hopefully, i’ll be able to finish that project soonishly and show you what i mean.

anyway, in case you haven’t ever made your own envelopes, here’s a very nice tutorial that will give you even better results than i got.  (mine were done the slapdash way, but seem to have turned out all right.)

i also got to do some more sewing on the quilting project that will take forever and is still a secret.  oooooh! i wish i could show you!  but i’m getting closer to being done.  slowly, but surely.

then, we biked to church and on the way home, mr. happy stuff spotted a turtle by the side of the road and we turned around to look at it more closely.  it wasn’t a particularly noteworthy turtle, but i just like the fact that he noticed it, called my attention to it, then we turned our bikes around to observe it closely enough to notice that it had both yellow and red stripes on its legs and shell.

we ended the day on another yummy note with my favorite bean and chicken burritos.  these take a little more time than the canned-refried-beans + shredded cheese + tortilla variety that mr. happy stuff eats when a quick meal is called for, but they’re soooooo tasty.  since we had all of the ingredients on hand and cooked, they came together relatively quickly.  here’s the (slapdash version of the) recipe as i made it this evening:

yummy bean and chicken burritos

cooked and shredded chicken + chili powder + salt + pepper

black beans (rancho gordo variety) + green onion + lime + cumin + salt (this particular combination always makes my nose swoon with pleasure)

cooked rice + cilantro

shredded cheese (i used medium cheddar and something called “apple jack” that seems to have nothing to do with apples, but is a quite tasty jack-style cheese nonetheless)

flour tortillas

on top of a square of foil, place one tortilla and top with rice, beans, meat and cheese, fold the tortilla around the filling and wrap it tightly in the foil.  repeat until you run out of ingredients.  bake foil packets at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, or until hot.  these are so simple, but so yummy.  and they re-heat beautifully if you have a toaster oven.  (microwave would work okay too, except for the whole foil thing.)  sadly, i have no photos of these, but i think you can imagine the yum.

anyway, it was a very nice, car-free, spend-free day.  i needed that.