EZ and Delicious Chicken in Cilantro

I have a super easy and delicious chicken, crock pot recipe for you today.  It is my mother's "pollo encilantrado" recipe. It translates to cilantro chicken.  Perfect for those cold winter days. Here's what you will need: crock pot 4 chicken thighs 2 small cans of Herdez brand salsa verde one cube of Knorr chicken bouillon fresh cilantro Start by putting your chicken thighs to cook in the crock pot on slow for about 4 hours  or until fully cooked. Once they are done, pour in both cans of the salsa verde, cube of buillon and fresh cilantro to taste ( I add a handfull of cilantro) Continue slow cooking for about 45 minutes.  Stir to make sure all chicken is coated. That's it! I then debone the chicken but at this time the chicken is already falling off the bone.  I love thighs because dark meat is usually not as dry as white meat but you can use any cut. I love to make tacos out of this.  Just warm up some corn tortillas and fi

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{Junk Transformation-Media Center}

As usual, I leave everything until the last minute. For a year now I've been wanting to transform this piece (of junk) into a modern masterpiece :)  So in a matter of days I prepped, primed and painted this old dresser so it could make it's debut on Christmas Eve.  I got it a year ago from someone who was going to throw it away. I saw a great potential for it but it has been in my garage since then. I finally convinced my hubby to bring it in already so I could (be forced) to start it. I went back and forth on how I wanted to paint it: distressed with chalk paint, sanded and stained, a combo of both or --- use this awesome new paint I discovered! Modern Masters-Warm Silver. It took a while for me to come up with the cash and the retailer to finally make up my mind. But boy, oh boy, am I sure glad I did.  Here is the before: As you can see, it was nothing to write home about. Pretty drab and 1980s-ish. But like I said, I had imagined it to be my new

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Rustic and Simple Christmas Mantle

My Rustic and Simple Christmas Mantle I hope you all are having a great December so far.This year I decided I was going to scale down on my decorating and I am sticking to my promise. But when I saw this cool chalkboard printable at dearlillie.com It sparked a bit of inspiration. So I got it on her black Friday sale, had it printed at Staples and then I made the frame myself out of 1X4s! Yay me! I didn't have my handy husband help. I'm so proud of myself. Can you tell? So anyway, if you want to see how to make your own head on over to Dear Lillie to see how she makes this cute frame. I wanted a rustic mantle and this is what I have so far. I am planning on adding a branch stocking holder, but it's still in the works as are the stockings. So basically I made the chalkboard frame according to her instructions, then I gathered a piece of burlap with a thread (I'm no sewing person btw) and just weaved the needle and thread in and out until I had this.

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How to Make a Ruffled, Burlap Tree Skirt

Brrr. Yes, I'm still around. Ha! It is very cold in North Texas today as is the case in most of the country. We are covered in ice and most of the city is  being held hostage by this cold weather. I took advantage of the cold to stay inside and craft a lot! Here's one of the things I've been working on. I've been wanting to make one of these for a long time. Ruffled, burlap, tree skirt Here is what you will need: about 2 yards each of red and natural burlap needle thread scissors hot glue or fabric glue (preferred, no burning) $5 felt tree skirt from Target lots of patience First I got my burlap and cut out some strips about 4-6 inches wide. Then I started sewing (and by sewing I mean weaving the threaded needle in and out of the burlap. I am not a sewer.) the strips to make ruffles. I pulled on the thread to make my ruffles tighter then tied a really good knot at the end. (make sure you do this at the start of the ruffl

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Blog Changes

New Blog Name! Ahhh I am so excited. I have been thinking about revamping this blog for quite some time. I just didn't know how or what direction it should go. I finally decided that I wanted to re-name it to something that would reflect more what I feel about life. If you are a follower, you know all the ups and downs I've been through the past couple of years. How I love to savor every little bit of my life. And so here it is. My new blog name and theme: How Sweet It Is That's how I feel about life, love, family, and my extraordinary, ordinary days :) So, come with me and savor all that life has to offer. I hope that you too will find yourself humming... How sweet it is.... xoxo Patty p.s. the blog address is the same only the name changed. In the future I will get a new domain name and redirect all that is on this blog over to the new one. But that's far in the future.  In the meantime, check out my facebook page

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How I Turned a Bedroom into A Classroom {Home School Project}

Here is the promised post! How I turned my daughter’s old bedroom into a class room For our home school and a craft room too! First I must mention that every single thing in this room has cost me nothing. I either already had it and moved it into this space, or I sold something that I no longer needed/wanted/used and took that money to buy whatever else I needed in this room. My husband loved that idea. And being that I wanted to create an incredible space, I  got REALLY creative! I never knew I had so much stuff I could get rid of (thank you facebook online garage sales!) We started home schooling our then 9 year old son last year and it seemed that no matter where he was doing his work downstairs, it was way too distracting for him. He is easily distracted anyway, so I decided that once my daughter moved out I would turn her bedroom into our classroom!! Unfortunately I don’t have a before pic, but trust me it wa

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Home School Classroom Update and a Surprise

It's finally finished!  The home school-class room is done! Boy am I glad it's finally put together. I still have some finishing touches on the walls to add, such as decor, but all in all, it's usable now! I will take pictures in the morning and post tomorrow. The little guy and I are having so much fun learning in here. In the meantime I wanted to share a short story I wrote several years ago. I find it is my duty to let my children and their children know where I came from and how far we've come as a family so I have written snippets of my life in short story form. Some of the names have been changed for privacy purposes. These are my memories of my childhood.  They belong to no one else but me.  Enjoy! *********************************************************** Memories of Me A Collection of Short Stories By Patricia Martinez OREOS    My cousin was wearing the necklace again. It seemed that whenever she wore it, it was when I was the

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