I love that Facebook App, On this day. I love it because I'm always able to look at the beauty of the struggle. Last year, for some weird reason, things kept happening to our house, it flooded because the pipes on a house 4 houses down had burst, the upstairs ceiling had collapsed a bit, and the furnace kept breaking! We weren't having any luck with our old old house, but we were always happy for some reason. So my post last year of "Bring on the locusts...." really made me think of the contrast of this day with last year.

The rainbow in this card symbolizes my Rainbow Baby. A Rainbow baby is a baby born after a loss or death of a baby. My little rainbow weathered a lot of storms with us and his sister after he was born and the house started taking on a life of its own. We had to change Nannies, we had to live on savings because of work and we had to figure out how we were going to get things fixed. It was so hard for us, I owed 3 weeks of sick days so I didn't get paid after maternity leave, we were broke and exhausted, and all of these things kept piling up. But, in retrospect, if we didn't have our little rainbow, our sunshine that made us smile with his giggles, his constant cooing that made us all melt, I wonder what other things would have helped us weather it well?

I've learned to embrace the storms, I've learned to hike up my pants, put on some boots and a little lipstick goes a long way. If I get these blooms after the clouds, then bring it on Locusts!

I used:

Card Base:

AT-0163 - The light, Sunrise burst stamped in

IP-0014 - Pineapple smoothie as my base for the card with

AT-0146 - Dreams Stamps Stamped on

CS-0040 - Whip Cream Card Stock Stamped with

IP- 0041 - Black Licorice Ink Pad

Rainbow made with:

CS-0093- Rich Coral Cardstock 8.5x11"

CS-0087 - Banana Cream Cardstock

CS-0095 - Sweet Pear Cardstock

CS-0004 -Blue Lagoon Cardstock

CS-0016 - Kiwi Lime Cardstock

DI-0039 - Journey Circles cut on the largest die and holes

Clouds: & Flowers

DI-0032 - Cloud Dreams in Whip Cream Card Stock

DI-0019 Summer Bloom Minis in assorted scraps

Thanks for stopping by! Please like and share with your friends! Don't forget to subscribe so you can follow along with me! You can find me on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Google Plus under iHeartScraps!

If you would like to purchase any of the products, please go to www.funstampersjourney.com/569 or

www.funstampersjourney.com/iheartscraps.

Please stop by the other blogs to find out other cool things you can do with FSJ products!

"Thanks for hopping to my blog. Please head over to (---) blog to see what he/she has to share."

1. Christine Pennington : http://www.christinepennington.com/my-blog/FSJ-may-flowers.html

2. Betsye Rose Cimino Erazo: http://betsyerose.blogspot.com/2016/05/april-showers-bring-may-flowers.html

3. Kim Lamos: http://pinkzebrapapercreations.blogspot.com/2016/05/journey-hoppers-blog-hop.html

4. Heather Flaherty: http://www.papercrafteranonymous.com/2016/05/FSJMayFlowers.html

5. Wilma Payne: http://stampintotheoldies.blogspot.com/2016/04/mayflowers.html

6. Carol Norby: http://stampincarol.blogspot.com/2016/05/may-flowers-blog-hop.html

7. Charlene Lindsey Leasor: http://charsjourney.com/index.php/2016/05/15/journey-blooms-blog-hop-may/

8. Sharon Olson Venclauskas: http://www.bloomsbysharon.com/may-flowers-blog-hop/

9. Sandra Kay Tate: http://craftingwithsandra.blogspot.com/2016/05/may-blog-hop.html

10. Ruth Cooper: http://www.sassyangelsstudio.com/journey-blog-hop-may-flowers/

I'm pretty good at cooking on a budget, leftover advice from my grandma when we grew up very poor has helped me tons! This has provided me with countless opportunities to explore different foods.

As part of our local CSA, Community Supported Agriculture, at Blessing Farms here in the Austin area, we get lots of fresh, local organic, pesticide free produce every week. We get so much produce for $40 including eggs, I have to think of creative ways to get things eaten! I received two beautiful Napa cabbages two weeks in a row and had one leftover from left week and thought, I need to eat that up!

I had just taken out some Sweet Italian Sausage for some Paleo noodles, but decided to make it American Asian instead!

Here's the recipe:

Sweet Italian Napa Remix

2 lbs. Sweet Italian Sausage

1 1/2 Heads of Napa Cabbage

1/2 teaspoon of salt or to taste

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 Sweet onion sliced

2 Organic Macintosh apples or a Granny Smith will work well here too! ***Apples have one of the highest concentrations of pesticides, go organic especially if you have kids!

1/4 teaspoon of Apple Cider Vinegar

1 tablespoon of Organic Virgin Olive Oil

2 tablespoons of Organic Better than Bouillon Chicken Stock concentrate

1/4 teaspoon of Fennel seed

Cooking directions:

Fill a large roasting pan with ice cold water, slice up the Napa Cabbage and dunk it in the roasting pan. It saves water and gets rid of all the dirt that is stuck in between the leaves and fall to the bottom of the pan.

Slice the sausages and add them to a large, heavy bottomed skillet with the olive oil. Stir frequently but allow the sausages to slightly brown, this will give your sauce a great flavor. Slice your onions and add those with the fennel seed. DO NOT SALT, salt at the end, you will make your sauce too watery. Sautee over medium heat for 5 minutes or until lightly browned, not burned. Cut the apples in chunks, these will dissolve quickly, so not too small, be careful. Add those and sautee another 7-10 minutes. At this point, add your strained, dried Napa cabbage. Make sure to stir to oat the leaves well. Salt and add your apple cider vinegar. Boil half a cup of water and add the chicken stock to it. Stir well, and pour over the top of the pan. Cook another couple of minutes, this part goes fast and if you're not careful the cabbage which will act as noodles will get too wimpy.

Serve in a deep bowl with chopsticks and enjoy!

Approximate cost of this meal is:

Sausage $6.00

https://www.heb.com/product-detail/h-e-b-sweet-italian-sausage-links/1584902

Napa Cabbage $.98/lb (approximate 3lbs) = $3.00

https://www.heb.com/search/results?Ntt=Napa+Cabbage&q=Napa+Cabbage&prodFilter=none

Organic Macintosh Apples $4.99 bag, or $.42 each at $..88 for the 2 for this recipe

https://www.heb.com/product-detail/fresh-organic-red-apples/320305

Better than bouillon Chicken Stock $.25

https://www.heb.com/product-detail/better-than-bouillon-chicken-base-organic/673355

Organic white onion $1.49/lb, about $1.00

https://www.heb.com/search/?q=organic+onion

So for around $12.00 of organic products and about 1/2 hour, you can have this delicious meal!

Please watch the video of my son's reaction!

Bring on the flowers!

Paleo, Healthy and Budget Friendly!