laugh a little

just a little humor to start your day off right.  :)  if you don't laugh, it's on you, cause this stuff is funny. IMPOSSIBILITIES IN THE WORLD 1) you can't count your hair. 2) you can't wash your eyes with soap. 3) you can't breathe through your nose when your tongue is out. put your tongue back in your mouth, dork. Ten (10) Things I know about you: 1) you are reading this 2) you are human 3) you can't say the letter "P" without separating your lips 4) you just attempted to do it 6) you are laughing at yourself 7) you have a smile on your face and you skipped number 5 8) you just checked to see if there is a number 5 9) you laugh at this because you are a fun-loving person 10) you've just realized that there are actually only 9 things in this list

organization!!!

i love to organize.  i don't always have time for it, but it makes me oh-so-happy when i do.  and, in case you hadn't noticed, pinterest has a ton of awesome ways to organize, and lots and lots of links to organizational sites.

one i found last year is www.mysimplerlife.com.  the woman that runs this site is awesome.  if you sign up for e-mails, you can get a copy of her organization calendar.  basically, she gives you one clean-up/organizing task per day (except sundays) each week, month by month.  it's such a stress-free thing to only think about one thing each day.  i'm not great at doing it every single day, but i try.

one of the things on the list for last week was to clean out a junk drawer.  i did, and it looks amazing now.  see, it's so organized!

yes, all those scissors need to be there...they have different functions, and i made michael promise to never touch my orange Fiskar scissors...those are NOT everyday scissors, i don't care if it makes sense to anyone but me.

it makes me happy to open this drawer now.  i didn't take a before pic, but you can imagine it.  full of batteries (we have a battery holder in the garage, why weren't they out there?), broken rubber bands, birthday candles (yes, i save all our birthday candles, because some of them can be used again and i'm kind of a cheapskate), drawer pulls (from three years ago when i was trying to decide what hardware to use in the kitchen...and no, i still haven't decided), the list goes on.  it was chaos, now it's not.

i also reorganized our medicine cabinet last year.  this was inspired by a picture i saw on pinterest.

if i had a fancy vinyl machine, i would have made better labels, but i don't, so i didn't

every drawer is labeled, so now the hubs doesn't have to come ask me what medicine he should take based on his symptoms.  and the kids' medicine is separated from the adult medicine, which i really like.  and injuries have their own holder, because that's the most commonly used section of our medicine cabinet, which is both a blessing and a curse.

i have a lot more ideas and projects in store to organize our lives a little better, i just need the time and money to implement them.  baby steps, right?  unless i win the lottery, then i'll take huge, giant adult steps.  but that doesn't seem likely.  so we'll stick to the baby steps, for now.

TTFN

something i've learned over the years...

...is that kids can sleep anywhere.  it truly amazes me when i look back at pictures and see all the crazy places my kids have fallen asleep.  i mean, seriously.

she made herself a "bed", rather than sleep in the one she already had

the wait for dinner was just too much for him

she's at the foot of my bed, halfway under JW's cradle

again, out to eat and this one crashes

sometimes eating at home is exhausting, too

to the point that they fall asleep with food still in their mouths

i have no idea how this could be comfortable

my kids are awesome car sleepers

and sometimes it's not just the kiddos who fall asleep in strange places...michael doesn't read my blog, so don't tell him i posted this picture :)

tgif...seriously

this week seems to have taken forever to end.  i don't know why it seemed longer than usual.  maybe i'm still adjusting to Michael's new schedule.  he now alternates between a one day weekend, and a three day weekend, so last saturday he worked and i was home alone all day with three kids.  or it could be because the week started off pretty crappy ~ i got Eleanor's midterm report card, and apparently she's brilliant but won't listen (which, of course, i already knew), and then found out that my dad was a turd to my mom (they're divorced, but have still been communicating on a regular basis).  and then there's the fact that i've worked my tail off this week trying to get new isometric drawings to the customer (that's part of my job, it's not very exciting if you're not into electrical engineering or autocad).

i don't know; but i do know that i'm tired exhausted completely freakin' wiped out today.  and i don't get a break this weekend, because JW's baptism is tomorrow, and we have an appointment on sunday to get the kids' picture taken.

all i really want to do is go home, curl up on the couch, and read a book for hours until i finish it.  i'm currently reading Last Sacrifice, by Richelle Mead.  my "adopted" sister Sandy gave me the six books in the Vampire Academy series for Christmas, and i've read the first five already and am just about halfway through with the last one.  they're good, and i've enjoyed reading them.

i'll be sad when i finish the sixth book, but there's a spinoff series with three books in it so far, so i'll have something to ease the pain.  at least for as long as it takes me to read those three books.  which shouldn't take very long, except that the place i read most often is the bathroom. 

don't judge me; it's the only place i can sit for a few minutes where the kids won't bother me.  okay, so they will bother me if they know i'm in there, which is why i sneak off to the back bathroom when they're not paying attention.  it doesn't last long, but i can usually get a few pages read that way.

sooooo.....

in case you can't tell, or just don't know me, i'm a HUGE reader.  i love, love, love to read.  my tastes have varied over the years, and i've kind of migrated from lighter fantasy (think Piers Anthony or Anne McCaffrey) to what was then called urban fantasy, which they know call either horror or paranormal romance.  i HATE having to go to a section called paranormal romance to get my new books.  they're NOT romance novels, and should NOT be in the same area of the bookstore.  these books are about vampires and werewolves and witches and fae, with adventures and danger and sometimes a little love thrown in, not some sex-filled sexcapade story with a half-naked couple dangling on each other on the cover.  grrrrr.

some of my current favs are Patricia Briggs (her Mercy Thompson series is awesome! so is the spinoff Alpha and Omega series), Jocelynn Drake (her Dark Days series is a little heavier fare), Kelley Armstrong (i have read every one of her Otherworld books, and highly recommend them), and Kim Harrison (Rachel Morgan is one of my favorite fantasy heroines).  i also enjoyed Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series, which isn't entirely finished yet.

my biggest problem is that i prefer series books, as opposed to one-off stories.  so i find a series i like, read everything that's been published so far, and then have to WAIT PATIENTLY for the next book to come out.  i don't wait patiently.  so i look around for another series to read.  then i'm half-way through that new series, and a new book comes out in the series i already read, so i have to stop mid-series and read the new book, then come back to the second series.  then i finish that series and have to move on to a new series while i wait for new books to come out in the first and second series.  which inevitably happens when i'm about half-way through series #3.  it's a vicious cycle.  and it causes my book shelves to look like this:

please ignore my dusty shelves!  we can't keep the dust out, no matter what we try...and yes, we have tried dusting, thanks for being a smart-ass

This is Michael, I rarely dust and you have never dusted since we met.

sorry about the picture quality.  my cell phone camera couldn't decide what it was going to focus on.  and this is just the top half of the book shelf.  the bottom half is equally full, but has even more random crap sitting in front of the books.  and don't worry, that's a black-powder pistol on the shelf, so it isn't loaded or usable in its current condition. 

and yes, those books on the top three rows are double-layered.  i don't have room for another book shelf at the moment, and i don't get rid of books.  like, ever.  i can give away or throw away clothes, shoes, toys, children (just kidding), but never, ever books.  once a book enters my house, it's mine forever.  and i've read most of the books on my shelf at least a second time.

luckily, my love of books seems to have been passed on to my children.  one of their number one requests is that we read them books, which the hubs and i are trying to agree to more often.  here's daddy reading Alice and Wonderland to Eleanor (this is her current favorite).

Me again. Look how romantic I am. I am wearing a shirt from the place we worked when we met.
i won't show you the kids' bookshelves, because they're currently a disaster.  i have a plan for better organization, and if i pull it off, i'll show you.  but not until then, because it's a little embarassing.  okay, it's a lot embarassing, especially for someone who's as careful with their books as i am.

hopefully i'll have something to show you soon in that department, but until then...

TTFN

love and sacrifice

happy valentine's day!  eleanor is super excited, because we made valentines for her classmates, and she finally got to take them to school today.  i found this awesome printable

~ http://www.skiptomylou.org/2012/02/07/printable-butterfly-valentine/ ~

on pinterest (where else, right?), and eleanor decided she wanted to do pink ones for the girls, and blue for the boys.

and amazingly enough, i actually got started on these on monday night (!), so we weren't rushing to finish them last night.  i am sooooo a last-minute-hurry-and-get-it-done kind of person, so i'm really proud of myself for starting a project like this ahead of time.  excuse me while i pat myself on the back for a moment.

okay, done.

apparently, though, i'm not "fast enough", so even though i did all the legwork and got all the materials and started the project, daddy gets to finish it up because he doesn't take as long as i do.  while i think that's highly unfair, it's not like i can argue that point with a 4 year old. 

so here's daddy on wednesday night putting the butterflies together:

brother got to help, too!

the finished product!

aren't they adorable?!

the most important part is that eleanor is happy, and she actually got to help make them (she put all the stickers on herself).

speaking of making children happy (how's that for a segway, eh?)...

lent started yesterday, and of course i hadn't decided what to give up yet, so i had to think about it all day.  i finally decided on something last night when i was driving home from work.  i actually sort of stole this from another blog, but i can't remember where i read it (if it was your blog and you're reading this, please let me know so i can give credit where credit is due!).

i'm giving up being a "no-mom" for lent.  i've realized that i tell my older kids "no" way too often.  they ask me to come play with them, or see something they've created, or read a book, and i say "no".  i have a million excuses, most of which center around the fact that after a full day at work, i'm tired and just want to be lazy for a few minutes.  but that isn't exactly fair to the kiddos, you know.

so for the next 39 days, i'm going to be a "yes-mom".  when they want to show me something, i'm going to say "okay", and go see it.  when eleanor brings me a book she wants me to read, i'm going to say "sure, honey", and read it.  when victor wants me to follow him to the back for no real reason, i'm going to say "absolutely, buddy", and let him pull me around the house.

*there are, of course, exceptions.  if i'm in the middle of cooking something i can't walk away from, i'll have to ask for a temporary delay; and if they're asking for something we can't actually do (like go to the park at 8 o'clock at night), i'll have to say no.*  but you get the idea.  "yes-mom", i am.

TTFN

she lives!

ok, so i've been inspired.  i haven't touched this blog in a year, mostly because i overwhelmed myself with ideas and schedules and things i wanted to include here, and gave up to get away from stressing over something that hadn't even happened yet.  i have been known to bite off more than i can chew on occasion. bleh.

it's a virgo thing.

but i've recently started reading two blogs that i've fallen in love with, and the ladies that write them have inspired me to rejoin the blogosphere.  not for everyone else, but for me.  this will be something i can look back on years down the road and remember what was going on in my life at the time.  and with a memory like mine, i'll need it.

*in case you're interested, those two blogs are Tidbits from the Tremaynes and Domestic Imperfection.  i highly recommend them both.

so i don't know exactly what i'll share here, and i'm not going to try to schedule when i'm going to blog (!).  i'm just going to do it when it feels right.  and, more importantly, when i have time.  i'm back to work after my maternity leave with JW, so i'm now juggling a full-time job and three kids at home.

and in every spare moment, we're working on renovations around the house.  here's just a sample.

this is the master bathroom re-no we've been working on for about a year and a half now.  it's still not done, but getting closer a little at a time.

 that's new trim we just put in this weekend - it's getting done, Mom, i promise!

here's the giant shop my dad just built for us in the backyard (yes, my dad is cooler than yours, but we did pay for all the materials ourselves).  we're partially through relocating all the crap from the garage out here.

does it look huge here?  it looks huge in the yard.  like ridiculously huge.

this is where my new pantry is going.  this is another baby step project.  eventually this part of the garage will be walled up and a doorway added between it and the laundry room, and every wall will be lined with shelves.  it's going to be awesome.  it's just taking for.ev.er.  i hate being frugal.  :(

those bottles on the floor are our emergency water supply, just in case

and here's the real reason i never have any "mommy" time anymore.  i can get this:

or i can get this:

but never at the same time.

and on top of the renovations to the house (plus the continuously expanding "to do" list), i'm trying to squeeze in smaller projects, mostly things i've seen on pinterest.  *that site is absolutely addicting.  seriously, it's crack for the suburbanite.  i have wasted spent more time on that site than pretty much anything else, except when i used to work from home and played on facebook all day.*

this is the awesome stuffed animal zoo the hubs helped me build:



and here's what it looked like 5 minutes after installation:

yes, that's my 2 year old climbing around with the stuffed animals.  he told me he was going to sleep in there.  he hasn't yet, but i'm certain one day i'll be looking for him, and find him curled up and napping under a pile of toys.

anyway, that's what i've got for today.  here are a few pics, just because i can.  :)

this is Eleanor in the beautiful flowergirl dress my mom made for her

in case you're wondering, this is what being pregnant with a 9 lb baby looks like - this was taken 8 days before JW was born

my children all think they're mountain goats

Victor, being "bat-hulk"

JW, pondering life on the outside

and of course, the only picture i have so far of everyone being nice to each other

TTFN

Five Week Meal Plan

This is for all the ladies on BBC that requested my meal plan.

Some background first.  I’ve tried several methods of preparing meals ahead of time, and this is the one that works best for me.  If this doesn’t suit you, feel free to modify however you need to to make it work.  I’ve tried the method where you actually plan out which meals you’re going to eat on which days of the month or week, but I’m not good at sticking to that plan.  Plus, being pregnant doesn’t make it any easier, because I may or may not be able to eat whatever is on the “menu” for a given day (yay for food aversions!).

What I did is sit down with the Excel grid (it’s also attached to this e-mail) and write in all the meals I make often and don’t need recipes for.  Things like spaghetti, chili dogs, quesadillas, etc.  Then I fill in at least four boxes with “leftovers”, because I know we’ll have them, and that’s a few nights during the month that I don’t have to worry about food.  And of course we like frozen pizza, and it’s great for busy nights, so I put that in three boxes.  Then I look through all my cookbooks (I have probably 200, no joke) and find recipes that we’ve tried, and some that we haven’t, to fill in the rest of the boxes.  I also add at least one side dish to each meal, and bread.  DH also insists that every meal contain meat, so if your household isn’t so specific, you could probably save a little money by substituting vegetarian meals once or twice a week.

One final disclaimer.  DH hates Hamburger Helper, so I found a website that gives you the recipes so you can essentually make Hamburger Helper dishes from scratch.  If you don’t mind Hamburger Helper from a box, you can use that on the nights where I have an actual recipe.  Personally, I think it takes exactly the same amount of time to cook it either way, and I think the scratch recipes taste better.  But that’s your choice.

So once I have all my boxes filled out, I start making a rough draft copy of my grocery list.  A lot of the spices and pasta that I need, I already have as staples in my pantry.  I like to keep at least four different kinds of dry pasta, and I have a separate can pantry where I keep veggies and beans and other canned goods.  So I take stock of all these things while going over each recipe, and write down anything I don’t have.  I call it my rough draft because it gets messy, and I always rewrite it in a better format before I leave for the store.  Once the list is ready, I go to the store and get everything I need.  I only get some of the fresh bread and veggies that I need, because I don’t want stuff to go bad.  I still have to make a trip to the grocery store every week for milk and juice and sandwich bread, so if I need some fresh veggies I’ll get them then.

When I get back from the store, I separate out all the things that can go in the fridge or freezer in their current state and put them away.  I do the same with things going in the pantry or cabinet.  Then I work with the meats that I’m not going to cook ahead of time.  For this meal plan, I set aside two packages of porkchops and two packages of chicken, labeled with the meal they’re part of.  Then I start on the ground beef.  I’m pretty sure my menu used 10 pounds of ground beef, so I separated it out into one or two pound groups, depending on how much I needed for a particular recipe.  Then I cooked it all, put it in pre-labeled ziploc baggies, and put it all in the freezer.  The only thing that needed to be cooked ahead of time that I didn’t do the first week was the red beans and rice, and only because I got tired.  I cooked them the following weekend.

I think that covers the preperation.  The spreadsheet that comes with this document will show the names of the meals and the sides that go with them.  The rice I use is Rice a Roni, and I just pick a couple flavors that sound good.

First, the meals that require little to no explanation:

Fishsticks and french fries – we use the frozen variety, and make ours in our fryer

Chili dogs – I used canned chili with no beans

Hamburgers – it’s up to you whether you make your own patties or buy pre-made

Spaghetti and meatballs – I like to buy a bag of frozen meatballs, because they last for a long time, and you can use them in multiple meals

Chicken patties – I buy the pre-made frozen breaded patties from Tyson.  They come in a resealable package of about 10 patties, and they only take about 20 minutes in the oven.  I like to serve them with Knorr noodles (in a bag) in the butter and herb variety, and frozen niblets corn with butter sauce.

Frozen pizza – obviously this is an easy one

Beef tips and noodles – this is a frozen meal I bought at Walmart (it’s their brand), and it feeds the four of us

Frozen chicken and rice dinner – this was a Stouffer’s meal I bought at Walmart, and it was actually pretty good

Breakfast tacos – I use a pound of breakfast sausage and six eggs.  I cook the sausage ahead of time and freeze it, then thaw it out when I’m ready to make the meal.  Once the sausage is warm in your pan, add the eggs and mix together while the eggs cook.  You can add other things to the eggs and sausage if you like, but my family eats them plain.  DH adds salsa to his taco after it’s made.  Once the eggs are fully cooked, you just spoon the mixture into your tortillas and enjoy.

Tacos – I cook a pound of hamburger meat with taco seasoning for these ahead of time, then freeze it until I’m ready to use it.  Then just thaw and reheat the meat, cook your rice and beans, and enjoy.  Obviously if you like to add lettuce and tomatoes, or anything else, to your tacos, feel free.

Leftovers – we call these “biblical” at our house.  It stands for “seek, and ye shall find”, basically meaning “help yourself to whatever is still in the fridge”.  You should do this every so often (once a week is probably best) to make sure that none of your food goes bad before you get a chance to eat it.

Quesadillas – I make these with canned shredded chicken in my quesadilla maker, but you can make them in a skillet.  I just take a tortilla, put some shredded cheese on it (I use the “fiesta blend”), then add shredded chicken and more cheese.  Then I put another tortilla on top and cook it.  For DH, I add salsa when I’m putting the chicken on.  Cook until the tortillas are crispy, flipping when necessary, then remove from the skillet and cut.  I use a pizza cutter for ease of cutting.  Let cool a little, then serve.  I also make Rice a Roni Spanish rice and heat a can of refried beans to go with the quesadillas.  If you’re a fan of guacamole and sour cream, feel free to bust those out, too.

Chunky soup over rice or potatoes – got this recipe from a magazine.  Take a can or two of your favorite chunky-style soup, and pour it in a bowl on top of either white rice or mashed potatoes.

Corned beef hash and corn – this is something my family has made as a cheap and easy meal my entire life.  Buy a can of corned beef hash (make sure the can says HASH, not just corned beef), put it in a pan and add a can of whole-kernel corn, drained.  Cook until heated through, then serve and eat.  The food is already cooked in the can, you’re just reheating it and searing a little by cooking it on the stove.

Here are a few that take a little more explanation:

Poor Man’s Pot – this is one of my personal inventions.  I created it years and years ago when it was just DH and I, and we were really broke.  I just threw together what we had, and it actually turned out pretty good.  It’s been a staple ever since.

One can of black beans, drained

One can of red beans, drained

One can of ranch style beans, not drained

One small package of Kielbasa sausage links

Two cups of cooked white rice

Basically, just throw all the beans together in a big pot, put your sausage on the grill (or on the stove, or in the microwave, whichever you prefer) and then start your rice cooking.  Once the rice is done, add it to the beans and stir.  When the sausage is ready, cut it in to small slices and add it to the bean and rice mixture.  Stir again, and serve.  Easy-peasy.  DH likes to add salsa to his bowl, but I prefer it as-is. 

Red beans and rice – this is an old family recipe. 

Two pounds of dry red beans

One ham steak slice

Onion

Bell pepper

Celery

Salt and pepper

I use two pounds of dry red beans so that I have plenty of leftovers to freeze for later.  Some people soak their beans first, I don’t.  I put the beans in my “bean pot”, add enough water to more than cover the beans, then turn the heat on to get a boil.  Once I have a good boil, I turn the heat down to just above a simmer, put the cover on the pot, and let the beans cook for about an hour and half.  Check on them periodically, in case you need to add more water.  I prefer to have to add water later than start with way too much.  After that hour and half, I add a heaping handful of diced onion, diced celery, and diced green pepper (my cajun grandmother always called those the “holy trinity” of cajun cooking), and the ham steak cut into bite-sized chunks.  Stir the veggies and meat into the beans, and recover the pot.  Check on them every 20 minutes or so, just to stir the beans and make sure they’re not in need of water.  Cook them for about another hour and half (we’re going for close to 3 hours total cooking time), then add salt and pepper and restir.  Taste the beans.  If they’re a little hard still, let them cook longer.  If they need more salt or pepper, add and retaste.  Once your taste-test meets your satisfaction, take them off the heat and serve, or put into containers for the fridge and freezer.  When you’re ready to eat the beans, just make some instant rice (I usually make two cups) and serve the beans on the rice.

Chili casserole – this is a modification on a recipe I found years ago.

One can of chili with beans

One can of chili without beans

One can of black beans (drained)

One can of whole-kernel corn (drained)

Shredded cheese

One package (box or bag) of cornbread mix

In an 8x8 square pan (I use glass), add half of each of the chili cans and mix together.  Then add the black beans and corn, just as much as you think you’d like (I actually only use about half of each can).  Then add the rest of the chili on top.  You can’t really mix it at this point, so I just kind of spread them both out to get a sort of mix.  Then sprinkle the shredded cheese on top (I prefer a colby-jack mix).  In a separate bowl, make the cornbread mix as called for on the box or bag.  Once mixed, pour the cornbread batter over the cheese.  Try to spread it out to cover the entire meal.  When the batter is spread, put the whole pan in the oven at whatever temperature is written for the cornbread itself, and cook for the directed length of time.  When it’s done, take it out of the oven and let it cool for a few minutes, then serve.

The rest of the meals have actual recipes, either from one of my cookbooks, or the internet.  The three home-made hamburger helper recipes on this particular menu are from a website called Chickens in the Road.  I’ve scanned the pages for those meals, and they’re at the bottom of this post.  That covers Cheesy Italian shells, Beef Stroganoff, and Cheeseburger Macaroni.

Meal in One Potatoes and the meatloaf came from a book called Once a Month Cooking.  I've scanned those pages and included them here, as well.  Lemon-Garlic chicken, Golden-Onion Baked porkchops, and Skillet Chicken Parmesan are all from a book called Back of the Box Cooking.  Those pages are also included in this post.  Honey-Mustard Glazed porkchops is from Good For You Cooking.

Chicken Alfredo Rollups and No Boil Baked Penne are recipes i found on Pinterest.  Click their names for links to the recipes.  Mozart Mozarella and King Ranch Chicken are from Cooks.com.  The only difference in my recipes is that i use canned chicken for the king ranch chicken, because it's easier for me to store than buying a whole chicken or even extra chicken breasts.  and i don't use mushrooms.

So here are all the pages of recipes, plus the printout for the 5 weeks of meals.