Five new reads

I love blogs. Duh. When I first discovered blogs, before even the thought of starting one myself, I remember most all of them having their own page for a blog roll. Remember that blog friends? It's sort of a thing of the past and I feel like I don't do enough sharing of new to me blogs that I've discovered. It's fun coming across a blog that speaks to you in a some sort of special way. It's either one that you connect with because of the material or sometimes you're drawn to it simply by how pretty it is! Lately, I've been clicking on the explore button on Bloglovin' and really loving what has been coming up. How do you come upon new to you blogs?

a couple cooks

This blog is beautiful and how can you not love a beautiful young couple who cook together. The photos on this blog on their own have me coming back for more. They're all about cooking healthy whole food recipes, which is right up my ally.

the private life of a girl

Sophie is inspirational and very creative. She focuses on helping creative people keep being creative. We all can relate to being in a rut every now and again and it's nice to have a place to turn to to help get back on the right track. Plus she's super cute. 

pink pot

 An awesome space full of photography, beauty and blog tips. I enjoy reading about what she has to say about blogging in general but she seems like a very well-rounded blogger. 

the band wife

I'm a follower of A Beautiful Mess and well as every other blogger out there in the world. I mean who isn't a following those amazing women. Gems I tell you! Laura is on the ABM team and it was fun when I ran into her blog via another blog. It was a pleasant surprise since I had no idea she had a personal blog. She's obviously a band wife and her blog is totally a reflection of ABM but with her own personal flare. I'm a new groupie. 

hair romance

You can only guess why this blog caught my eye. Hair and romance in the blog name. Hooked! A blog all about hair and hair inspiration. It's perfect for my hair stylist heart. I've been sharing more and more about hair on my little corner of the web and although I don't think I could ever strictly be only a hair blog it's fun to find other blogs out there that are. It's safe to say I'm having a love affair with this blog. Chalk full of hair tutorials, tips and tricks.  

on why I blog....

You knew this post was coming. Eh? I feel like every blogger out there has their own special reasons for blogging daily. I've been blogging since 2009 having been inspired by Julee, the author of My Happy Life By The Bay. It started out to really be a dairy and the daily happenings of me and my little family. Having all my family and friends across the country and being a new mother was hard so I wanted to have a way to connect with all of them through my words and photos. Growing up I always kept a handwritten journal (I still have them!!) so beginning Calico Tales came naturally to me. 

Never did I really truly know how much it would inspire me. The same year I started this blog my husband bought me my first SLR camera and so my passion for photography and capturing every moment started. Once Sebastian turned one and a half I went back to work, so the daily stuff sort of stopped and other things flourished. My love for cooking and making things has become one of my number one favorite things to share. I've always loved experimenting in my kitchen and trying new things. Taking photos of lovely foods and showing you all makes me happy. The thought of inspiring someone to get in their kitchen and create what I have shared just gets me all giddy. Also the power of words is so great in my mind. Reading about things that you can relate to can do wonders for our souls. 

Inspiring people is rewarding. I'm sure most bloggers feel this way. Whatever it may be, whether it's sharing great recipes, or crafts & DIY, or even just words that help someone feel good. It's amazing how much a blog can become part of your life. Not just does a blog provoke great things for others, but also for yourself. For me it's been such an amazing creative outlet. It lets me do things that I never really would of ever thought I would do or share. Plus the knowledge that I've acquired is beyond overwhelming! Just this year I created my own blog template. Okay, it's definitely not what some of these other blogs are out there and I'm fine with that, but it's just fun that I created it. It's feels good and the thought of what I will be able to create next year takes it to a whole new level. 

The blog community is huge. NO. It's colossal! Woah, I was blown away when I went to my first BlogHer last summer. SO many wonderful inspiring people who share their story in so many different ways. I just love that sense of togetherness. Bloggers love other bloggers. We all feed off of each others ingenuity and passions. Then we take it and spit out what we got from it in our own ways. Never ending circle of becoming better writers, photographers, bakers, thing makers, overall better people! It's fun and exciting to be part of it. I like the thought of some random person stumbling upon my blog, to the post with the recipe like my baked ziti I just made last week and cooking it up for dinner for their family makes all of it worth it. 

Just in the past month I've become more outgoing through blogs. Reaching out to people and saying hey. It's been quite humbling because a lot of the ladies I look up to, who have beautiful blogs, actually reach back out! Awesome man. 

I blog because I love it. Simple as that. Everyone does it for different reasons and those reasons often change. But no matter what it might be or whatever the reason is, I always hope people do it because they love it. So, did I get you thinking about starting your own blog? I'm serious. Do it. Whatever it may be because I bet you someone out there wants to read about it! 

High-Five to all the bloggers, blog readers and people who do what they love in this life! Show some love and post a link with your blog or a blog you love in the my comments :) 

xoxo. 

on a reminder...

March 1st will be drawing the end of Google Friend Connect. Make sure you are following me else where. I love Bloglovin' and I have every single one of my favorite blogs on there! I enjoy how well I can organize all my must read blogs. And we all know how much I like to organize! Push my button and follow me :) And for all you gems who would like to just follow me by email look to the left and submit your address. 

Stayed tuned for another recipe later tonight...

on a belated birthday...

(photo via)

I've come to the realization that I missed my blog birthday. Yes, there's such thing! November 1st, 2009 was when I started this journey of documenting my everyday life, recipes and motherhood joys. It's become very dear to my heart and love doing it :) Happy (belated) Blog Birthday to Calico Tales. Queue: Blowing candles. Cannot believe I've been blogging for two years. Jumping with glee!! ♥A.

on a few good things...

Today I was home with Sebastian. I had a list two miles long of to-dos that I am pleased to say I got done. Speaking of things getting done, have you seen my new improvements to this here blog? Sarah, the lovely gal who designed my blog created some nifty buttons over on the right side under my picture. I am currently working on adding the content-- Coming soon! Oh and doesn't my blog feel nice and roomy?! Sarah made my blog wider which will let you & I enjoy much bigger photos! Eeeeeep! So excited for this. Bigger photos equal prettier photos. I guess this would be the best time to show of some photos of our day today.

 By the way, guess what I used to take these photos? Come on, guess! 

My new 50mm lens that Bobby got me for my birthday :) It's currently my precious and has been on my camera since Sunday. It defiantly will take some getting used to but I'm loving the adventure and boy am I loving the photos it snaps. I mean, just look at the picture of Sebastian sleeping. So crisp and bright and super cute. He was napping in the photo and actually ended up sleeping right through the 5.8 magnitude earthquake (his first earthquake). Actually Bobby was sleeping in our room since he working all last night and he slept through it too!! This is sort of funny because once he woke up and I told him that we had an earthquake he wouldn't believe me. Then he told me he has never felt an earthquake either and I couldn't believe him. I guess because I think I've felt quite a few back in Seattle when I was younger. So anyways my boys slept through their first earthquake like it was nothing were as I was running into their rooms making sure the ceiling wasn't going to drop on their heads (because you know we live in an antique). Well, that was my day! Hope yours was peachy.

♥A.

on a button...

Have you took a gander at my fancy new button?

 Support Calico Tales and add my button to your blog today! 

Start February out right :D

on some blog lovin'...

I am a new lover of Bloglovin'. Have you heard of it? I didn't until just a few days ago. It's great. You can keep track of all your favorite blogs. I have Google Reader but have never really kept up with adding all my must read blogs. It just never really apealed to me. Bloglovin' has a great look to it and I love how you can see the tittle of their new post as well as any images that go along with it. You can mark them as "read" or "unread" so that way you can keep track of what post you have read or not. Oh, and I think the best part is that you don't have to have a blog yourself to do this. Lets say you like to read other peoples blogs this is a site that you can collect and have a organized way to see all your favorites. Great right?

If you haven't signed up for it I encourage you to do so! Then add me :)

Follow my blog with bloglovin

♥A.

on one happy year here...

Happy Birthday to Calico Tales! Today, one year ago is when I started on this journey. I had no idea what I was doing or why I was here. I was inspired and took a shot at it not knowing that it would flourish into what it has become. I love this place with my heart & soul. Here's to my history in the making :)

♥A.

on a little makeover...

So, what do you think? I finally got the motivation to do a complete makeover to my blog. I've always wanted to do my blog up to be more "me". Were as my old blog was just a premade layout that I found, which was just quick and easy so I could start blogging as soon as possible!

At first I started to search online for help to see how I actually go about creating the perfect look for me. I was pretty frustrated because even though there are alot of resources out there, I just don't have the patience to read and then do. Then it dawned on me that I had a man sitting right next to me on the couch that is a computer nerd and so most likely could do everything I want with a few clicks! He did make it look easier than I thought and was able to make everything come true that I had visioned. He is just so great, and I am so lucky to have him! I told him that from now on I'll just be coming to him to upgrade or do-over my blog whenever I need...his response was "grrreeeaaaat" with a sarcastic smile.
As you can see the background has changed to a lovely floral print, which at the moment I am very found of. Then I added another column to the whole page. Now I have three columns with more room to have fun with. 
Yes, that is my little makeover story. Not sure why I am so giddy about this wee change but I am.

Today has been a slightly more productive than yesterday, basically due to the fact that the storm has subsided and we could actually step outside without the wind carrying us up, up and away. That storm was frightening. I would look outside and see trees way to close to us swaying back and forth wishing and hoping that one would not come crashing down on top of us (since we are on the top floor and technically inside the roof).
Today I've tidied up, cleaned the toliet bowl (joy), cleaned out the fridge/orginized, baked & cooked plus done major food shopping. Think I've done pretty good!
Speaking of food shopping, I've observed that I always have such kind people that stand infront of me at the check-out line. Today the lady infront ended up spending 89 dollars (don't ask me why I always look at what people end up spending, it's weird) and so she turned to me and handed me a coupon for 10 dollars off your purchase over one hundred dollars!! How sweet is that? I had no doubt that we were spending over a hundred since we had to do a good week and a halfs worth of shopping. There really are people out there that do care and makes me feel so good inside. I however after being given this coupon couldn't stop thinking about why the hell I didn't have this coupon in the first place. I was about to ask her where she got it because I look in the newspaper every week and there was no 10 dollars off..? Hhhmmm.

I want to share with you my new guilty pleasure. Guilty because it's not exactly the most healthiest snack there is but it's also not horrible for you. A nice in-between sort of happiness--

Wis Pride Garden Vegetable Cheese Spread. Yummmy! So good with Snyders Pumpernickle & Onion Pretzel Sticks. I devoured half the container & pretzels just all while putting groceries away, with Bobbys help of course.

Tonight I wanted to try a new receipe and since we haven't had any sort of pasta for a while I chose to cook up some scrumptious Spinach & Cheese Stuffed Jumbo Pasta Shells.

Ingrediants:

32 jumbo pasta shells

2 cups ricotta cheese

2 eggs

1 packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese 

2 teaspoons dried basil

4 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

3 1/2 cups spaghetti sauce

First, boil up the pasta shells. I made my sauce beforehand because I don't care for jarred sauces. Then you must combine the riccota cheese, egg, spinach, salt & pepper.

Once that is all done and the pasta shells are tender you are ready to stuff them! Now this step can get extremely messy & time comsuming. After stuffing 10 out of 32 shells I threw the spoon into the sink and just dug straight in with my hands! Much easier.

My first shell...after that one they kept getting messier and messier.

Once all are stuffed I put about a 1/2 cup of the sauce on the bottem of a 9x13 baking dish, lined up the shells, topped them off with a little more sauce and parmesan cheese and ALLAKAZAAAMM--

Perfect with a nice tossed salad and a warmed rosemary & garlic crusty bread.

Honestly, I'm a damn good cook my friend. Great for the family. Let's just say my boys gobbled everything down. Sebastian couldn't get enough of the bread & kept wanting me to dip it into the sauce :) Such a ham!

To sum everything up Bobby and I watched Avatar lastnight. I loved it and then hated it all at the same time...uh huh. I loved the whole Avatar world and everything about it. The people were intersting and I sort of envied how everyone was so "one" with everything around them. On the other hand I didn't really care for the war aspect of the movie, I'm sure they could of made do with out all that.

Hope you had a swell weekend!

♥A.

Hmmmmm..

Dear Readers, firstly good morning! I have a little free time so I thought I would post on reason why I am doing this whole blog 'thing'. This is kind of more for my benefit but take it as if I'm 'speaking out loud'.

• The biggest reason I started this is because I've always wanted to! It's been on my 'to-do' list for quite sometime, and I actually really wanted to have one up & running way before Sebastian was born, so I could keep everyone up to date. But time just got away from me.

• I enjoy expressing myself & what better way than here! Most of all I just want to be as honest & true about everything I write about. Maybe bring up things that might be a little out of my comfort zone & or things that I do not usually discuss or even say!! What do I have to lose?!

• This gives me a way to give people (that I might not be so close to personally or physically) a glimps of me & my life.

• I love to write although I might not be the best writer, this is a great learning experiance for me.

So, there it is...hope everyone is starting the day out right! Til next time.