PBR Man Burgers

My husband came up with this awesome recipe (with just a couple of tweaks by me) so he got the naming rights. Well, actually he named them "Shelby's PBR Man Burgers" but that seemed a bit narcissistic (and confusing since he has a girl's name but calls them "man" burgers) so I shortened it. ;) These are seriously the best burgers I have ever had! We have made them two weeks in a row and just thinking about them makes me hungry again. 

They are pretty versatile too. You can make them exactly like the recipe below (which is amazing) or you can switch it up by topping them with some bbq sauce or using pepper jack cheese instead of muenster  So you don't have to worry about getting bored with them.

PBR Man Burgers

by Shelby Jones Online a.k.a. Mr. Polish The Stars

8 Bacon Slices

1 cup White Bread cut into 1/2" pieces, crusts removed (1-2 slices)

1/4 cup Milk

1 pound Lean Ground Beef

1/2 pound Mild Italian Sausage

1 teaspoon Salt

1/2 teaspoon Pepper

Small Red Onion, thinly sliced

1 can PBR Beer

6 slices Muenster Cheese

6 White Burger Buns

Butter

Spray Vegetable Oil 

Fry bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Transfer bacon to a plate lined with paper towels to drain. Spoon 2 Tablespoons of bacon grease into heatproof bowl and place in refrigerator while preparing other ingredients. Keep 1/2 - 1 Tablespoon bacon grease in the skillet and add the red onions. Saute until soft and translucent. Remove from heat and set aside.

Place bread in small bowl, add milk, and let mixture sit until saturated, about 5 minutes. Using a fork, mash bread and milk until it forms a smooth paste. Break up beef and sausage into small pieces in medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper, then add bread paste and reserved bacon grease. Using fork or hands, lightly knead together so that ingredients are well incorporated and mixture forms cohesive mass. Divide meat into 6 equal balls. Using hands or a burger press, tightly pack meat into patties. 

Place bacon strips and onions in a skillet on the top rack of the grill to keep them warm and let them soak up the smoky flavor. Lightly butter the insides of each bun and place on top rack until lightly toasted.

Spray cooking grate with oil and grill burgers over very hot fire. When first placed on grill, brush a small amount of beer over the exposed side of each patty. Do not press down on burgers while cooking. Continue drinking unused beer while grilling the burgers. Cook burgers until well seared on both sides, 7 to 10 minutes. When burgers are almost finished, top with bacon and onions and place a slice of cheese over them.  The cheese on top will lock the bacon and onions in place and keep them from falling off of your burger. Place burgers on toasted buns and enjoy!

Makes 6 Burgers

You can usually find me linking up at:

Monday: C.R.A.F.T. * Keeping It Simple * Jam Hands * Tuesday: Not Just A Housewife * Today's Creative Blog * Chef In Training * Sugar Bee Crafts * Homework * Wednesday: Someday Crafts * Lil Luna * Ginger Snap Crafts * White Lights on Wednesday * Thursday: Somewhat Simple * House of Hepworths * Tidy Mom * What's Cooking, Love? * Friday: Tatertots and Jello * Simply Designing * The 36th Avenue * Saturday: I Heart Naptime * Six Sister's Stuff * Sunday: Flamingo Toes * Nifty Thrifty Things

Now this is the story...

"...all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down."

Do you have the Fresh Prince theme song stuck in your head now? No? Hmm...

"And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there. I'll tell how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air."

How about now? Yeah, you're welcome. :)

The last few months have been CRAZY around my house! I have been waiting to talk about it because there were some things that needed to be straightened out and people who had to be told in person and I didn't want to be one of "those bloggers" and allude to big news that I couldn't actually talk about yet. Anywho...Remember when I talked about how we were purging and simplifying? Well, what really kicked that into high gear was our upcoming move! 

Yep. We are moving. Again.

The answer to your question is: Yes. We have lost our minds. Lol!

You see, the simplification that we have begun doesn't just involve our possessions. We are simplifying our lifestyle as well. We are sick and tired of life in the city. We thought moving to a smaller city would make it better but what we really want is to move out to the country. So after lots of discussion and prayer, we have decided to move a couple of hours south to where my husband grew up.

The closest "city" (if you could really call it that) is a couple of towns away. For a few years we will be renting a house in town while we save up to buy a few acres in the woods to build our small house on. Our new place is on a double lot though so none of the neighbors are super close like they are here and there are lots of trees in our yard. It will be a big change going from where we were a year ago (the third largest metropolitan area in the country) to a town of around 2,000 people. I am really excited about it though! Jer  is too since he will have tons of cousins around to play with and woods to tromp around in.

The other area that is being simplified is Shelby's job. Time spent traveling has steadily increased over the last five years to the point where he was on the road 4-5 months out of the year and it has really taken its toll on all of us. He has also felt called to get back into some kind of ministry but since the traveling was often on short notice, he couldn't really commit to any sort of scheduled activity. He will still be working for the company but in a different position that will just be a side job and won't involve any travel. For his main job, he would like to get back into welding if he can find an open position. Whatever he ends up doing it will hopefully be some kind of 9-5 job where he can just go in, do his job, and then clock out and not have to think about it again until the next work day.

Some say that he is wasting his genius I.Q. by going back into blue-collar work but we've never really cared about what others think. ;) We have come to realize that there are a lot of things that we are *supposed* to want for our lives but we just don't. We have no desire to keep up with the Joneses. Our goal is for a simple, self-sustaining lifestyle. So we will continue driving our beat up 20-year-old vehicles that we paid cash for, work blue-collar jobs, and save up the cash for our little house that we plan to build by ourselves with enough land for a small farm to feed ourselves. I know it all sounds weird to most people but to us it sounds like heaven on earth.

Now that I am done rambling on about all of that, I should probably update you on my 90 Day Challenge.

The goals were:

• Get healthy - I haven't done much any working out but I have been eating more whole foods and making more things from scratch. Some of the recipes that I have found have required tweaking and multiple attempts but I have found some good ones that I will start sharing with you soon.
• Read the Bible everyday - big, fat fail. I have been praying every day though.
• Spend only on necessities - success. Since we have been spending so much time sorting and purging our stuff, it makes me want to stop buying new stuff altogether because I don't want to have to deal with getting rid of it later!
• Make one new shop item a week - success-ish. I have added a bunch of new items but many of them were from our Halloween collection that we are getting rid of and not items that will be part of the regular inventory. I will start working on that goal again after we move.
• Write one quality blog post a week - January and February went alright but I didn't have much for March. I got busy with the purge and I am trying to figure out where craft blogging fits into our lifestyle simplification. I will still be crafting and  blogging but I want to make sure that I am making things that we really like or that serve a purpose. I don't want to make something just so that I can write a post about it and then have that item sitting around adding to the clutter in our house. So I have ended all sponsorships except for AdSense and I will be posting whenever I have something to share instead of keeping to a strict schedule.
• No recreational Pinterest or Facebook - success! Well, I think I ended that challenge about a week early but that's close enough, right? Since going back, I have removed a bunch of people from my Facebook news feed because there was too much negativity on there. I spend some time on Pinterest while watching tv in the evenings but not during the day at all. Even then, most of it is looking for new recipes to try and occasionally hitting the geek and humor sections for fun. I have mostly been staying away from the craft/diy section because it makes me want things that I don't really need.

There you have it. With the move coming up in less than two months, my new 90 day challenge is simply to keep my sanity intact. Lol! I am working on increasing the inventory that I have for the shop so that I can continue accepting orders while we are moving without having to worry about everything selling out. I will also be continuing the purge and spending freeze until after we move. That is pretty much it. I hope to get some posts scheduled but with all of this craziness going on, I'm not making any promises. :)

How about you? Did you give yourself any challenges? I would love to hear about how they went!

Monster Knee Patch

A couple of years ago I saw this Monster Knee Patch and thought that it was awesome! Unfortunately I didn't have an opportunity to try it out because by the time Jer gets holes in his jeans, he has already outgrown them so there is no point in patching them up. It's kind of funny how disappointed I was that my son *didn't* get any holes in his good jeans. ;) It finally happened though! I hole appeared in a pair of jeans that hadn't turned into high-waters yet. So I surprised him with this fun monster patch and he couldn't wait to show it off to his friends at school. 

This is how the hole started out.

You will need to cut away all of the horizontal strings so that you have an open hole for the monster mouth to show through. Don't trim off the vertical fuzz though because it gives your patch something to hold onto. If you trim this off it will just unravel more anyway and take your patch with it. I made this mistake and had to go back and reattach the patch after one wear.

Cut a patch out of thick red fabric or use two pieces of thin red fabric pressed together with fusible interfacing for extra strength. Be sure to cut your patch bigger than your hole. About 1/4 - 1/2" all the way around. Cut some teeth out of white fleece with about 1/4" extra along the top. You could use felt instead of fleece but it doesn't wash as well and could fall apart.

Sew the teeth onto your red patch with a sewing machine.

Place the patch inside the jeans with the teeth facing out. Pin in place and hand sew all the way around the hole. You will want to go over it a few times to make sure that it will hold up to continued wear. Sew close to the edge to keep it from continuing to unravel then sew 1/8-1/4" from the edge so that it grips the good part of the jeans as well.

Cut out two small circles of fleece for the eyes. Sew them on above the mouth using black embroidery thread. Use knots to make the pupils.

Now your jeans look even cooler than they did when they were new! :)

You can usually find me linking up at:

Monday: C.R.A.F.T. * Keeping It Simple * Jam Hands * Tuesday: Not Just A Housewife * Today's Creative Blog * Chef In Training * Sugar Bee Crafts * Homework * Wednesday: Someday Crafts * Lil Luna * Ginger Snap Crafts * White Lights on Wednesday * Thursday: Somewhat Simple * House of Hepworths * Tidy Mom * What's Cooking, Love? * Friday: Tatertots and Jello * Simply Designing * The 36th Avenue * Saturday: I Heart Naptime * Six Sister's Stuff * Sunday: Flamingo Toes * Nifty Thrifty Things

Simplify

That is my current motto. Simplify. While I am trying to keep this in mind with how I spend my time - my main focus at the moment is on "stuff". All of the crap sitting around our house that we don't really need. We started purging a couple of years ago and each time we get rid of a big batch of stuff our house feels so much lighter that it makes us want to get rid of even more! I swear, it is like a freaking clown car or Mary Poppins' bag. We keep finding more and more crap that we don't really need and it makes me wonder how we ever crammed all of it in to begin with.

Lately we have been talking about building a small house in the country and by small I mean that my latest sketches are less than 500 sq ft. Not only will a house this size be cheaper to build and maintain, it will also force us to evaluate our belongings and determine what we really need because there just isn't a bunch of extra space to store the useless junk. We aren't getting rid of everything that would be considered "unnecessary" we are just going through all of our stuff with a more critical eye than before and only keeping the things that we really enjoy or that are used frequently enough to justify the amount of space that they occupy.

If you have spent much time around here, there is one area affected by the purge that may come as a shock: Halloween Decor. 

That's right. We are getting rid of it. All of it. I started thinking about this after last Halloween. We had a really small turnout for our party and we decided that in the future it would be more fun to just have a scary movie night or carve pumpkins instead of putting together elaborate prop displays and a big food spread.

So when we got to the Halloween decorations during our purge, we decided that it was time to enter a new phase in our Halloween celebrations. I still love Halloween and plan to craft and party, it will just be done in a different way. It will be more about pimping out our car for trunk or treat, making costumes, having a low-key movie night with a few creepy food items, and maybe throwing a cute monster party like this one for Jer and his friends. I will probably also make some vintage-style paper decorations that are really inexpensive to make and are small enough to be tucked away in a file folder. I will also continue making elaborate props but when I am finished they will head to my Etsy Shop instead of sticking around my house.

Which brings me to the part that might make the Halloween-lovers out there really happy - over the next couple of weeks all of our small(ish) Halloween props will be showing up in the Shop! I have already added a few and there are bunch more still to come. So if there are any of my props that you have been envious of, keep an eye out over there because it just might pop up for sale! I won't be holding items for anyone but if there is a specific item that you are interested in, you can shoot me an email to ask if that will be one of the items up for sale or if you want to request an email notification when the listing for that item is live.

Guest Post: Tetris-Chic Mirror Make Over

I haven't really been accepting guest posts for awhile now but Sarah sent me a photo of her Tetris Mirror and I fell in love with it! It fits so perfectly with the retro arcade style that we have been working on in our living room and I knew that it was something that needed to be shared here at Polish The Stars. I hope you all like it as much as I do! Take it away, Sarah...

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Hi Everyone! My name is Sarah from Sewing Parts Online and I'm thrilled to be sharing a fun and inexpensive home decor project. My fiance and I are moving into our very first home and, in true first time home buyer fashion, the budget doesn't leave much room for decorating. Let's be honest; it leaves no money for decorating. But, a happy wife is a happy life, and the old man agreed to a $10 'splurge': Thirft store mirror for $3 bucks and a tube of cheap ceramic tiles. Score!

Supplies

Thrift Store Mirror
Grey Acrylic Paint
Orange Acrylic Paint
Paint Brushes
Ceramic Tiles
E6000 Glue


If the frame of your mirror is smooth, you can jump right in and paint it grey. If there are a few bumps or grooves, give the frame a quick sanding to even out the surface.

Glue the tiles on the mirror with E6000 glue. Start around the edges. Don't worry about a color scheme unless you already have one planned. We are going for an "intentionally random" look. It should look random, but balanced.

Next, we want to create rows that extend out at different lengths. Once again, we want random, but balanced. If mentally Tetris while gluing, you'll get awesome results.

Paint all the white tiles bright orange.

That's all there is to it! Mount that sucker on the wall and admire your new ode to modern thriftiness. Thank you so much for reading and thank you Megan for allowing me to share on Polish The Stars!

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You can usually find me linking up at:

Monday: C.R.A.F.T. * Keeping It Simple * Jam Hands * Tuesday: Not Just A Housewife * Today's Creative Blog * Chef In Training * Sugar Bee Crafts * Homework * Wednesday: Someday Crafts * Lil Luna * Ginger Snap Crafts * White Lights on Wednesday * Thursday: Somewhat Simple * House of Hepworths * Tidy Mom * What's Cooking, Love? * Friday: Tatertots and Jello * Simply Designing * The 36th Avenue * Saturday: I Heart Naptime * Six Sister's Stuff * Sunday: Flamingo Toes * Nifty Thrifty Things