What is Pintrest?

Pintrest has been popping up everywhere!
I got an invitation to join so I did. And I didn't get it. I didn't get Facebook either, but it didn't take long understand. Same with Pintrest. Once you start following a few friends/companies/awesome people it all starts to make sense.

So here's how it works... You create boards of things that interest you. Some boards I have are: crafty goodness, food stuff, and garden stuff. You find items to pin on your board in 3 ways.
1. Your friends will post pictures and you can repin them.
2. You can search photos on Pintrest and repin them.
3. You can find your own pictures anywhere on the Internet and Pin them with the PIN IT button provided by Pintrest. You add the button into your favorites so anytime you see a picture you click it and it creates a pop up to create a new pin.

Once you log on, you will see all the pins from the people you are following. Across the top of the page you can search for people or topics.
Then the red Pintrest link to bring you back to your Pintrest home page. Then towards the right an Add+ link. Click on it to add a pin, upload a pin or create a new board.
Click ABOUT, get more info about Pintrest, find the Pin it button.
The last link will be your name/small photo to view your profile. This is where you can invite friends and follow people you know already on Pintrest.

Under that bar there is another bar still at the top of the page. You can view Pinner that follow you, view everything (categories and topics, great for special interests), videos, popular, and gifts (search for gifts, a drop down menu with $ ranges).

On the left bar you can see your activity. It will show if you followers repinned one of your pins, new people that are following you.

Finally, the Pins! You can repin from any of boards you see. You can write captions under the pinned pictures. You can 'heart' others pins.

Hope I made you less confused and not more confused. You may want to toggle between reading this and Pintrest.com. I love finding new craft ideas, recipes, pretty things, and helpful hints to make life easier.

Dinner Exchange

Dinner's too much work?
Try a dinner exchange with your friends!
Get a group of 2 to 5 friends together, that's what I did with some friends! We emailed ahead of time with a list of our food allergies, hates, and dislikes. The bigger the group the more difficult it maybe, but it worked for us.
We met once every one to two months and exchanged 1 meal with each person. We made sure that the meals were or could be frozen.
Here are some of the dinners we exchanged:
Stuffed Green Peppers
Quiche
Soups, Chili, Green Chili Stew
Lasagna
Sausage Polenta Casserole
Tater Tot Casserole
Chicken Rice Casserole

Need one of these recipes? Leave me a message and I'll get it to you! Have a great recipe? Leave it in the comments for me to try!!

Roasted Pumpkin Seed Recipe!

1. Carve pumpkin, save seeds. If I'm carving mine in the kitchen, I put a strainer in the sink and just throw the seeds in it as I go.
2. Once I have all the seed removed, rinse them well, removing all the orange bits. (One way I found to do this is to put the seeds in a bowl of water, the seeds will float and the pumpkin - as long as it's not attached will sink. Just scoop out the seed and into the strainer)
3. Try to shake out as much water as possible.
4. Place in bowl and add seasoning. I typically use salt and garlic powder. Try those and black pepper or cayenne pepper, seasoning salt or what ever seasoning you prefer. I put in what feels like a lot and that is usually about right.
5. Add about a teaspoon of oil per cookie sheet batch.
6. You'll want to place them in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Depending on how many seeds you have it may just be one batch (I just made 5) or more!
7. Bake at 350.
8. Stir every 8-10 minutes, should take about a 1/2 hour.
9. Roast until golden brown. Enjoy!

Picture 1: All my pretty little pumpkin seeds!
Picture 2: Baking seeds on cookie sheet.