Been a long while :)

Hello all. It has been a while since I have been able to post something on here. A lot has been going on.

I passed my certification!!! For those of you that know me, you are like "that isn't surprising" and for those of you that don't know me, trust me. The week it took to get the results back was nerve racking. The information covered in the class had nothing to do with what the class was billed as, and the class didn't prepare us for squat to take the certification. Even the study guide sent to us by the people giving the certification exam didn't cover what the certification was over. But it is done, I passed, and now I can relax about that.

Work has been the same as usual. Just got done archiving about 5 months worth of charts. Took 2 days and 28 Xerox boxes. We had some personnel changes take place. We are getting a new nurse manager and a new director of clinical services. We also lost our scheduling coordinator. Hoping the transitions are easy and not chaos.

Little man is doing great! He just turned 6 months old and is such a cutie pie. He is sitting up on his own for the most part, rolling over like a champ, and is eating baby food without putting up much of a fight (although he is not a fan of his green veggies :) ). We are certain that once he learns to crawl it won't be long before he skips right past walking and goes straight to running.

So I do not have any new recipes to post this week. We have tried a few new ones but don't have them perfected yet but I assure you that when we do I will post them. So this post will have a bunch of my quilts that I have yet to post pics of.

This is a pillow case and a pillow t-shirt quilt I made for AB, a fellow army wife.

These are 3 tshirt quilts that I made for my former trainer DN. I made her one as well as one for each of her daughters.

This is a baby quilt that I made for a fellow army wife, GB.

This is a baby quilt that I made for my bridesmaid and lifelong friend, LJ.

This is a tshirt quilt that I made for a co-worker, NS.

These are baby quilts that I made for a fellow army wife, SS. These were for baby #2 and #3.

This is a tshirt quilt that I made for our CEO, VS.

Long week and a bacon chicken pastat recipe

So this past week has been a long one. We are half way through my certification class and have started the computer labs. This is where you can really tell who is gonna make it and who isn't. All I have to say is that if you have no computer knowledge base of any kind (say such as not knowing how to minimize a window) then an electronic medical records management is probably not such a good career choice. Plus on top of that, if you can't follow along in the book where they have every screen shop of each step for what you are supposed to do, then how are you going to manage in an environment where you have just days of on the job training with no step by step picture instructions? Just saying. And let me just say, when policy and procedure changes, just go with it. If you have questions, just ask. Don't flip out to the point where you threaten to turn in your resignation, make your blood pressure sky rocket, and when the answer to your question is something you don't like, tough. Yes I have been guilty of all these things before but when your employment is already on the line, its not best to act like that (and no i am not that person :) ).

Moving on to our recipe this week. My husband and I came up with this one one night after rummaging through our pantry. The recipe we were going to make we were missing 2 key ingredients plus we didn't realize we needed to marinade for 2 hours so here is what we came up with instead.

Creamy Bacon Chicken Pasta

Ingredients:

3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, stripped / cubed
seasoning for chicken - your choice (we use spud spice from our local Fuddruckers)
1 jar of cream sauce (your choice, we use a form of either Alfredo or Parmesan)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/8 - 1/4 cup bacon bits / chopped cooked bacon
pasta - your choice (we use something that will hold sauce like shells, rigatoni, or penne)

*Cook all ingredients at the same time*

Season chicken and grill
Cook pasta according to package
Mix sauce, cream, and bacon bits in small pan over medium low heat, stirring occasionally
Plate pasta, topping with sauce and chicken

Enjoy!

Two for one! (chocolate toffee cookies and forget-em beef tips)

So I forgot to post last week so this week is a 2 for 1 :). The past 2 weeks have been ordinary. Work is the same as usual as is school. only 6 more weeks to go until the final and the certification test. Long days make for long weeks but it will all be worth it.


So now for the recipe for beef tips. Now these are slow cook tips in the meaning that you make them and bake them for 3 hours. Gives you the convenience of a slow cooker type recipe (set the timer and go about your business) but half the time of a slow cooker to cook it.

Ingredients:
2 lbs. beef tips/stew meat/chuck roast/chuck eye, cubed
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 packet brown gravy mix1 packet dry onion soup mix1 cup water or ginger ale soda

Preheat oven to 300
Put cubed meat into 9x13 baking dish
Mix all the other ingredients and pour over meat
Cover with foil - DO NOT REMOVE UNTIL COOKING FINISHED :)
Bake for 3 hours
Serve over rice/mashed potatoes/egg noodles

**The original recipe can be found here:http://www.mommyskitchen.net/2008/08/no-peek-beef-tips.html


And for the cookie recipe.

Ingredients:
1 box triple chocolate fudge cake mix
1/2 cup veggie oil
4 oz toffee bits
4-6 oz chocolate chips
2 eggs
3 heaping tablespoons of toffee cappuccino mix



Preheat oven to 350
Combine all ingredients together
Spoon onto cookie sheet
Bake 10 min

 

 **The original recipe can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/semi-homemade-cooking-with-sandra-lee/stephanie-tylers-chocolate-surprise-cookies-recipe/index.html 

3 months and baby quilts

So little man turned 3 months last week! How time has flown by. Doesn't seem that long ago we were discharging to bring him home. Work has slowly gotten back to normal (after 1.5 months of being back). School is still going well although I am finding out that the "real world" of medical records is so much different than the "select world" of medical records. But i am learning a lot and still enjoying it. I am considering in the future going back and getting my degree and certification in health information. But that's a while off.

So in my quilting pursuits I have done quite a few baby quilts. Each one has the baby's name cross-stitched along the bottom. Here are 3 that I have done:

Bush baby - girl

Brasel baby - boy

 

Henry baby - girl

Back to school, xmas quilts, and a messenger bag

So this week I started "back to school" so to speak. I am taking a certificate course in Electronic Health Records Management. My employer is converting from paper charting to electronic over the next few years and I figured this would be a good jump start. I am also considering going back to school and getting a degree and certification in Health Information Technology. But right now that's just a thought :)

Little one turned 3 months old today! He is growing so fast. Starting to teethe already. And still hating tummy time lol.

So now for the rest of the title. For Christmas the past few years I have been making homemade gifts for some of my family members. I have been into quilting but decided this year I wanted to do something even more personal for my mother. But before we get to that, here are the 2 quilts I made as xmas gifts:

This one was for my mother - it is queen sized, backed with a lime green flat sheet, and stitched with hunter green thread so there is a design element on the back.

This one was for my aunt - it is also queen sized,backed with a black flat sheet, and stitched together with yellow thread so there is a design element on the back.

As I mentioned above, this past xmas I wanted to do something more personal and much more challenging than a quilt (because my quilts are just squares  sewn together- not very hard). So I got together with my aunt and got a hold of some of my grandfathers Air Force uniforms. He was a retired Senior Master Sergeant and passed away when I was one. So, I made something that my mother could use for multiple occasions (including a diaper bag) and she would have something to remind her of her dad. This is what I came up with:

The bag is 85% used/worn uniform with a navy lining. The side pockets are his actual rank (although from his Technical Sergeant days) and the front flap has his actual name tape and branch tape. And it goes without saying that it was a HUGE hit.

Not sure how I am going to be able to top that this upcoming xmas season but I better put my thinking cap on now!

More weather and another quilt

So this past week was relatively uneventful minus the ice storm that hit. Now ice for us is much worse than snow bc even fewer people know how to drive in the ice LOL. Was still made to go to work but that just meant that I had time to rearrange my office :).

panoramic of the before (sort of) from the back corner looking towards the door

the new arrangement looking at the back corner from the door.

Also finished another quilt. This one was for a co-worker.

Snow and a quilt

So this week was an interesting one to say the least. Car was in the shop until Thursday only to have to return Friday to be fixed again. But it is finally fixed yay! This made for a week of car pooling. Not a bad thing except for Thursday when the snow hit.Now for those of you who don't know, snow is a 4 letter dirty word here in certain parts of East Tennessee. It means that you must go to the nearest grocery store immediately to buy eggs, milk, and bread (all of which are pretty much perishable if the power goes out - smart huh). 9 out of 10 times the snow never comes. This time it actually did. We got 3-6 inches in my area! That's a lot lol. So thanks to my car being under the weather I have been carpooling as mentioned earlier. Now, the snow made this interesting because the day the snow came, my ride was not able to come get me at work. I had to walk 5 blocks in the snow to meet my ride. Talk about a cardio and breathing workout :). But there was no way I was staying at work overnight. By the next day it was already melting which is normal here. We haven't had a good snow / storm in YEARS. Little one had his first snow experience - was not a fan this time around. Next time it snows he should be old enough to enjoy it.

Work this week was much better than last week as I have almost gotten everything caught back up. Got the dirty job of archiving done with the help of a co-worker. Only took 5.5 hours and I no longer have any space in my office to move from all the boxes but I now have shelf space again :). Only 6 months until I have to do it again.

So this week, I don't have a recipe to post. This week I am posting a quilt that I have done. This one was my first ever quilt I did several years ago when i was in high school. Found the pattern in a book from the library. It is a pinwheel design and the colors are my high school colors.