Weird name, I know. Trust me when I tell you though, IT’S SO GOOD. If sweet & savory describes your taste, & not just your personality (teehee), then add this to your ‘must try’ list.

P, Sophie, my girlfriend Megan who just happened to be stopping by during dinnertime & myself finished all of ours & had seconds. Sam “doesn’t like soup” so I fished her out the sausage & sweet potato pieces which she happily gobbled up. This was as easy as it was delicious. How can you argue with that?

The original recipe is from Epicurious but I found it via Smitten Kitchen (Makes 8 servings)

1 10- to 11-ounce fully cooked smoked sausage (you could also use chorizo if you wanted a little kick)
2 medium onions, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 lbs sweet potatoes (about 2 large), peeled, quartered lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
1/2 lb white potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
6 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 9-ounce bag fresh spinach

Butter, EVOO & Salt/Pepper

Heat 2 tablespoons of evoo in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add sausage; cook until brown, stirring often, about 8 minutes. Transfer sausage to a paper towel lined plate. Add onions and garlic to pot and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add all potatoes and cook until beginning to soften, about 10 minutes. Add broth. Bring to a boil, scraping up browned bits on the bottom of the pot. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Using a potato masher (or in my case a fork) mash some of the potatoes in the pot. This will thicken the soup a bit. Add browned sausage to soup. Stir in spinach and simmer just until wilted, about 2 minutes. Stir in 1 tablespoon butter. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with crusty bread. Mmm.

For more easy recipes I’ve reviewed click here

I don’t know what it is about Valentine’s Day but it’s without a doubt my favorite holiday to craft for.

Maybe it’s the red, pink & white combo or maybe that it’s my excuse to whip out a doily, whatever the reason I just can’t get enough of the girly, lovey-dovey projects. I mean, when have you ever known me to actually make something for a holiday sooner than the week before?

Today I made the No-Sew Posey Headbands below for the Kaneshow blog & if you haven’t seen yet, I’ve posted a Valentine’s Craft board on my Pinterest account & below are a few from there as well. If you have a V-day project that you love please leave a link to it in the comments below, bonus points if it’s pink, I’m always a sucker for pink.

Valentine’s Posey No-Sew Headband

Pinterest Valentine’s Wrap-Up

Oh my.

A few of you have emailed or commented asking how I either find time to blog & keep a house running or have expressed your concern that I’m going to totally burn out by taking on a 2nd blog. (truth be told, I’m scared too, I’ve certainly been overwhelmed before)

Truth is I haven’t quite figured it out yet. The best thing in my corner is I have a really supportive husband & some really amazing babysitters. Someone commented yesterday that I seem like I have it all together & what an inspiration I am to them. To that I have two things to say…

1- Did you see this post?

2- I have help.

I wanted to tell you what my schedule is like for blogging so you don’t think I’m such sort of magician, or worse, that you must be doing something wrong. I hate when other blogs make me feel bad about myself. I know I’ve thought, goodness, I haven’t even brushed my teeth & she’s already sewn 3 coordinating dresses, done a freezer paper tutorial & made homemade play-doh for her kids. Whatever.

So here’s how I have time, between you & I…

Monday, Wednesday & Friday Sam goes to a half-day of school. Also every Monday I have a sitter come over & watch Sophie while Sam is at school so I can have a good 3 hours of focused work time. (although sometimes that sadly turns into laundry or grocery time) Sophie take a 1 & 1/2 to 2 hour nap every afternoon. During that time I set Sam up with some Barbies, a craft or maybe a tv show so I can blog. This includes making the craft, writing the posts, editing the photos or doing social media. I’m really lucky that I have a very self sufficient 3 year old. At 5pm P gets done with work & takes the kids so I can cook dinner, after that he bathes them & gets them ready for bed while I do my daily chores. Cleaning, laundry, pay bills, that type of stuff. We each put one kid to bed & then he & I both sit on our laptops & finish our work, bouncing ideas off eachother. I don’t really read, watch too much tv or other things people might do to unwind in the evening. And that’s about it my friend. Starting in March Sophie is going to go to school with Sam two morning a week so I’ll have a good 8 hours a week of uninterrupted work time.

In the meantime I’m taking it day by day. For instance I knew I had a lot of writing to get done during Sophie’s nap today so while I was at Target this morning I picked up a makeup kit for Sam to play with while I worked. So far it’s been 2 hours & she & all of her dolls look like mini-prostitutes. But hey, she’s happy & I’ve gotten two posts done. It works.

I’m fully aware of how lucky I am to have such an incredibly supportive husband & also the income to spend on sitters. I’m blessed, I know. I’m the daughter of a single mother & almost every day I think of her at some point & wonder, how the heck did she do this by herself?

So there you go, just thought I’d put it all out there.

Also speaking of underage makeup, today over at the Kaneshow blog I’m writing about my opinion on 14 year olds who are being offered makeup classes in their school. I kind of lose it. Check it out & tell me what you think…

I’m just kind of, seeing other people. But you can come to! In fact, that would be amazing, if we could all just “be” together.

Am I perving you out yet?

I’m oh so excited to announce that I have been invited to write for an outstanding website. It’s an entertainment website that’s incredible. And the host? He’s a total hottie. I hear he rubs his wife’s feet at night after bathing & feeding their two kids. Well, the bath part is true…working on the foot rub part. Yep, the lovely folks at Clearchannel have decided to take a chance on a “wife blog” & are giving me my own page on my husband’s radio website www.kaneshow.com. I’m beyond excited & hope to make a huge impact & show them that someone needs to be representing us wives, mommys & ladies.

Here’s the way I see it working. LPM is my firstborn baby & will always be a priority. I plan to post weekly tutorials, recipes & my usual type posts here. The little taste you’ve gotten of bitching editorial columns like this & this will live over there. I’ll also be posting my retorts to when my husband likes to talk about me on the air as well as some fun fashion & beauty posts. If this is where you’re used to finding me than don’t worry, I’ll always let you know on here, what I’m posting about over there. That way it’s kind of like a Natasha buffet & you can just serve yourself whatever you’d like. Ooo, that sounded dirty.

I hope you’ll bear with me during this, I decided awhile ago that my dream goal would be to pick up some freelace writing opportunities & one day, just maybe, be able to do some television work. Did you know I got my degree in TV Journalism? I never used the darn thing & have always kind of regretted it. This opportunity certainly seems like it could be an amazing step in the right direction. Say a little prayer, ok?

You have been so ridiculously supportive of me throughout these last four years. Post partum depression, adding a 2nd child, Lyme disease…you’ve played a major role in being my friend through all of them & I know you’ll support me as a BFF now too.

So here’s my first post over at www.kaneshow.com/natasha, it’s about vasectomies. Because why not hit the ground running with penis talk? Can you believe I actually worked in marketing too? Ha! Guess there’s a reason that didn’t pan out…

Take a little peek & tell me what you think. You’ll notice some of my old LPM posts are on there already, that’s because I thought it’d be a good idea to launch it with some meat on it’s bones. Someone once told me…”you don’t open a grocery store without already stocking the shelves”

I’d love love love any topic ideas you have too!! Just leave a comment here or there or email me at natasha@littlepinkmonster.com  I’m supposed to post over there 5x per week so any ideas you got would be gold!

Much love,

Nat

It’s my last day in Utah & I’m ready to go home. The Alt conference was AMAZING, absolutely stellar, but I learned something about myself this weekend. My brain has a maximum capacity level & when it hits that level it shuts down. No matter how persistent or dedicated I tried to be after too much stimulation I just had to put myself to bed. It’s not the way I want it to be but that’s ok, it’s me.

(getting grumpy by end of day, so glad Susan decided to capture the moment, she then promptly sent me to my room)

I learned that from listening to Gretchen Rubin speak. That sounds bad, she didn’t make me feel like I had to go to sleep, she taught me to accept who I am. She wrote “The Happiness Project“, have you heard of it? It’s sounds wonderful & I’m totally going to buy it in the airport bookstore. She talked about all the little changes we can make in our everyday lives to achieve happiness. One of which being recognize who you really are & accept it. If you don’t like to journal or listen to music, fine, don’t force yourself to be something your not. Good tips…

By far the most fantastic part of my trip was I won a computer! I’m sure I should say the best experience was everything I learned or bonding with other creative women but no, it was definitely winning a free computer.HP had a design contest with Anya, season 9 Project Runway winner. You had to design a dress that could be part of her “Carribean Chic” collection using their HP touchscreen computer & the Art Rage software, she then narrowed it down to 12 finalists & then picked the winner. Somehow, I’m still not sure how, I actually won!!SO. FREAKING. EXCITED. And honestly, I’m absolutely thrilled about the computer but the part that makes me smile while typing this is that someone so talented & creative actually thought what I designed was worth something. I’m sorry but that type of validation feels great. Also my roomie Susan was one of the finalists! Perhaps it was something in our water…

Next best part of the trip? Meeting the actual human beings that write some of my favorite blogs. Despite some of my suspicions they really are people & not robots. Every single one of them was so sweet. We chit chatted forever & I loved every second.The amazing Heather Armstrong from Dooce, she also wrote this book which, quite literally, saved my life.

Jenny from Little Green Notebook, my favorite design blog

Dana from MADE, seriously, such a sweetheart

Susan, aka my roommate & possibly a robot, from Crafterhours

Susan & the infamous Amy Butler

And yes, I actually did learn a lot from the conference too. There were courses on utilizing social media, photography workshops, vlogging seminars & advertising tips. People like Maxwell from Apartment Therapy & Ben from Pinterest spoke about how they started their fantastic (& ridiculously successful) websites. It was so reaffirming to hear how some of their first ideas didn’t take off. Or that each one of them hit a slump where they were completely burned out on blogging.

Speaking of Apartment Therapy I cannot believe my castered crates were featured by them this past week! I went up to Maxwell & thanked him personally for still recognizing little bloggers like me. Their post has sent me a huge amount of traffic. THANK YOU AT!!

So here I am, sitting in a lovely hotel lobby, sipping coffee that’s actually hot & typing away, uninterrupted on my laptop. I should be soaking up every second of this but all I can think about are these two faces…

Makes me tear up a bit. In fact I’d better leave it at that. People are starting to stare.

Miss you all & happy to be home!

…or at least room service & a bed to myself.

I’m at the Alt Design Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah for their 3rd annual blogging conference & I gotta tell you, I’m not sure which I’m more excited about, the fantastic things I’m going to learn about growing my website or the fact that I get 5 (FIVE!) days to myself in a fantastic hotel room. Sighhh. I love my girls, love them dearly, but I was in desperate need of a break. And I love my husband, more than life itself, but I needed to go away by myself. I haven’t been on a trip by myself since 2004. Honestly, I never had any desire to travel by myself, I’m not very good alone, but now after having someone demanding my attention 24/7 I’ve learned to appreciate the awesomeness of having some time to yourself. I’m sure I’m going to miss them depserately soon, I did tear up when I left them this morning, but for now I’m still excited. Excited to be away but even more excited to see what I can learn about myself & my passions when it’s just me. Hooray!!!

I’ll have pictures & updates coming soon, Susan from Crafterhours is my travel partner/roommate so I’m sure we’ll have some adventures. In the meantime if you’re interested in alt check out my twitter, I’ll be tweeting throughout the days! (Woohoo, I have time to tweet!!)

One of the most common email questions I get is what kind of camera do I use?

I was hesitant to write about it in a Sunday Love post because it is a bit of an investment piece & I like to keep these posts more everyday items but hey, if you guys keep asking then why not answer right?

A few years ago, Sam’s 1st Christmas actually, P & I decided it was time to invest in a really nice camera. After all, these moments with our kids are going to be images we cherish forever. I’m absolutely camera illiterate so P did all the research & we ended up with the Canon EOS Rebel T3i Digital SLR Camera. I use the regular lens that came with it & although I read the handbook I still end up keeping the darn thing in automatic mode 99% of the time.

I’d say there are three things I’ve learned since having this camera that are the key to getting shots like these…

1.) Never EVER use the flash. Just turn the darn thing off. Or better yet, buy one of these. The flash just sucks the warmth, life & spirit right out of your photos. Ok, that’s a bit dramatic, but seriously, it’s a good tip.

2.) Use the macro mode (it’s the setting that looks like a tulip) whenever you want to take a photo with detail. For a crafting & cooking blog this is a must.

3.) Make friends with a photo editing program. I <3 Picnik in a major way. It’s just fabulous. And free. And did I say fabulous? So incredibly easy too, I’m sure one day I’ll learn photoshop but for now this if more than perfect.

So there you go, my photo secrets. Try not to burst with excitement, ok?

Sorry for the craptastic cell phone photos, the whole family was starving & I worried that if I went hunting for our camera they might attack.

Regardless of the photos you’ll just have to trust me that these were DELICIOUS. I served them with my new favorite way of making frozen (yep, frozen) corn, along with sweet potato fries. (also frozen, we’re all about the quick & easy here people) The burgers themselves are topped with crispy fried garlic slivers & white cheddar. If we didn’t have young mouths in our house I would’ve used gorganzola crumbles…mmm, that would’ve been good. We also don’t eat buns in our house. I’m not sure why, I guess we’re just really into our meat, but I suspect a nice toasty bun would be lovely.

Ginger & Garlic Turkey Sliders with corn & sweet potato fries (serves 4)

• 1 bag frozen sweet potato fries
• 1 bag frozen sweet yellow corn
• 1-1.5 lbs of ground turkey (I used ground thigh, ground breast is VERY lean & I find to be dry in burgers)
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp fresh grated or minced ginger
• 1 tbs worstershire sauce
• butter & evoo

Preheat oven & begin cooking sweet potato fries according to directions. They usually take around 20 minutes which is how long it will take to make the burgers & corn. In a large bowl combine turkey, thyme, 1 garlic clove finely grated or minced, ginger, worstershire & a decent sprinkle of salt & pepper.

*Tip*I like to use my microplane zester for the ginger & garlic, the fine texture incorporates throughout the meat nicely & it also seems to release a lot of the juices. This is one of my favorite kitchen tools!

Use a large spoon to make 8 or so even patties & cook them in a skillet with extra virgin olive oil over med-high heat for 3 or so minutes on each side. Set patties aside on a plate, place a thin slice of cheese on each & cover with foil to keep warm & allow the cheese to melt.

In the skillet where you cooked the burgers turn the heat down to medium low & add about a tbs of butter. Swirl the butter around & scrape up all the yummy brown bits with a wooden spoon. Add the entire bag of corn, a splash of water & cover with a lid. Cook for around 5 minutes stirring periodically. Season with salt, pepper & more butter. The flavors from the skillet season the corn beautifully & brown it to give that lovely grilled flavor.

While the corn is cooking, in a separate small skillet add thinly sliced garlic pieces to extra virgin olive oil & fry over medium heat. Keep an eye on these, they won’t take long to be golden & they burn quickly. Remove with tongs & place on a paper towel. When you’re ready to serve place them on top of the burgers.

*Tip* If your burgers have gotten cold or the cheese isn’t completely melted…place the corn in a bowl & use that skillet over medium heat to re-heat the burgers. If you place the lid over top the cheese will melt quickly, just don’t burn or dry out your burgers. You only need a minute.

For more quick & easy LPM recipes click here!

You know when something is so ugly it’s cute?

I was really hoping to have these ribbon dowel holders I’ve been working on finished & installed for today’s post but I just couldn’t find a way for naptime & my drill to mesh. Perhaps tomorrow. Hope you liked the sloths. (if you didn’t you might just want to have a loved one pull our their soul detector & give you a once over)

I’ve been trying to keep momentum with my organization annihilation by tackling a cabinet here or a junk drawer there every day or so. Over the weekend I cleaned out Sam’s closet & found a slew of clothes & toys I had stashed away after her birthday, some of which she had already outgrown. Oops. Today I decided to gather all of the kid’s craft/art supplies & find space for them in what was previously the ‘baby cabinet’. I gladly tossed all of the baby food, bottle warmer & breast milk bags. After all, it’s been awhile since Sophie was an “infant” per say. After I had placed all of the paint supplies, play-doh & construction paper neatly on the shelves I stood back, let out a deep sigh & patted myself on the back for a job well done. I then went to empty the dishwasher & realized I had made a bit of an oversight. The one thing I was still using the baby cabinet for was storing Sophie’s bottles. Now there were glue sticks in their place.

At first I thought to myself, well, perhaps this is the reason I needed to chuck the bottles. I’m sure she’d probably be ok with a cup of milk at night instead. After all, the pediatrician had said at our last visit that it was time to let them go. I just had decided to quite intentionally ignore her instruction.

I actually started to panic a little when I couldn’t come up with a good reason to keep them. Sophie takes 2 sips of it on the couch before tossing it, she doesn’t need it to go to sleep & probably would not even notice if it were gone. I had always figured I’d take away the bottle at 18mths…Soph is 17 months next week. So what’s the big deal? Why was I actually considering re-working all of our pantry space to make room for bottles? Then I realized it. Having a bottle was the last bit of baby for Sophie. Last bit of baby for me.

I’m not so sure we’ll have a third & if we did it wouldn’t be for a very long time. With every stage Sophie completes there’s always a little sad thought in the back of my brain, “that’s it.” Last swaddle, last time for nursing, last first steps. I’m just not ready for giving up my very last “last”. And honestly, I’m not so sure that’s such a terrible thing. She’s only 17 months old, is it really going to hurt her in the long run if I heat her up some milk in a bottle before she goes to bed? She’s not falling asleep with it so her teeth won’t rot. She’s not carrying it around all day. If it’s a little something I hold onto for another month or two (or three) who is it really hurting?

All I’m saying is maybe I kind of get why Katie Holmes kept giving Suri a bottle even though she was like, 5. She’s old enough to wear 1″ heels everywhere but she’s still Katie’s baby. I always judged her but for the first time today I kind of understood. Now in hindsight however I’m wondering if I should try to stay away from making decisions based on tabloid photos of celebrities…perhaps not the most sound rationale.

img via hollywire

On the other hand when I see a kid who’s way too old for their paci or bottle out in public I found it hard not to roll my eyes at the mother. My biggest pet peeve is seeing a kid who’s like, 8 years old & is in a stroller. They’re so big they have to bend their knees up to their chest to keep their legs from dragging on the ground. I’ve always wondered what the heck went wrong? Is it just that the parent can’t say no to their child?

Now however I’m wondering if it could have more to do with a parent who couldn’t let go? Is holding on to Sophie’s bottle a slippery slope that could eventually lead to being “that parent”? Or is it really such a terrible thing to hold on to your child’s youth once in awhile?

Have you held on or do you drop it as soon as the parenting book or doctor tells you to?