Category Archives: Random Stuff

Follow me…

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… on Facebook!

I have and iPhone and an iPad, so posting quick updates and photos there is so very easy for me, and I do it quite often. Everything from my recent inability to flip a pancake and my scrambled egg fail to yummy homemade pizza and chicken stock. I have had almost 3,000 unique page views here, so I know people *do* visit my blog.

Here’s the deal… I like giving away books. I especially like giving away cookbooks. If I get to 100 likes on Facebook I’ll do another drawing for a cookbook on my Facebook page. :)

So this means you need to go like my Facebook page, and then share it with your friends.

And yes, every time I put Facebook there is a link to my Facebook page. ;)

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Spring Break

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I took the girls down to Alameda for the first week of Spring Break. They enjoy going to Stephanie’s house because they are a little more free to run around outside there. I enjoy going there because we end up pigging out on something baked, craft, and have quite a bit of fun.

I may also love the Bay Area a little bit…

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Who can argue with that?!

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“Is pizza junk food?”

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That was the question asked at dinner last night.

Dinner consisted of Boboli pizzas we topped with cheese, black olives, and turkey pepperoni. While we were eating Sophia asked if pizza was junk food. I told her that yes, pizza was junk food. That was cause for an exasperated remark of “We’re eating JUNK FOOD?!”. Yes, honey, we are. What do you think our “Family Dinner Out” to Buffalo Wild Wings was? David piped in at that point with “Do you think mac and cheese is junk food?”, and I pointed out the french fries. She seemed a bit disgusted with this revelation. She may have even said “ew”. I was already plotting though, which I am excellent at.

“How about, no junk food for 2 weeks?”

Starting today, we will not have “junk food”. No eating out. No pizza. No mac and cheese. And no ramen. David even agreed to it.

A caveat. My parents will be in town as of the 6th, and if the only opportunity for them to go to dinner with the girls is before Monday the 11th, then I will just tack a day on at the end. Grandma and Grandpa being here is very special because it was not expected, and honestly I wasn’t sure when we would see them again. So I am willing to cut some slack on that one, but I will encourage the girls to make some healthy choices.

This has me thinking though. Two weeks is a good start. I want to push myself again. I attempted to do a real food challenge 3 years ago, but I didn’t do as well as I know I could have. I want to try again. Later today I will get some details together. I do not want to do this alone though. So fire up your blogs, your kitchens, and yourself!

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Accomplishments

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I didn’t set out to have at real “resolutions”, but it just sort of happened. I’m also in no way going to argue with a health my habit being formed.

Today is 10 days with no coffee.

Today is also 23 days without soda (save for some ginger ale when I was sick, but that was more to do with nausea and hydration – I had way more water and Gatorade).

Now, I wish I could say the same about carry out pizza. :P

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Shiney!

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I finally got around to making the blog look decent, and I like it! I hope everyone who had been here in the past will enjoy the changes, and I am aiming to be better about blogging. Will it be every day? Certainly not. Will I aim for a few times a week given that no one in my house is suffering from some plague or virus of doom? Yes, that’s my goal.

The new year has not been as kind to my household as I would like. I got something that I will only describe as Norovirus minus the puking (being nauseated the day before it hit full force meant that I was spared that nasty side effect). David and the girls have also been under the weather. Lots of sneezing, coughing, and an entire box of Kleenex has been demolished in the span of a week. Everyone has to be feeling better by February 6th though, no excuses.

Why?

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A long sad week..

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A week ago today I took my parents to the train station.

They are not coming back home.

They took Amtrak from Reno to Miami, and yesterday they flew from Miami to Ecuador.

They will be seeking residency in Ecuador.

I’m still processing it. I may be 31, but it’s still not easy. My younger brother is 1,700 miles away in Canada. My older sister is 2,600 miles away in Maryland. As the crow flies (straight line distance) my parents are about 4,000 miles away in Cuenca, Ecuador.

I need to dust myself off and deal with the fact that the last 18 months have changed my family forever. Buttered Popcorn jelly beans have been helping. :P

A quick note…

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I’m working on finding recipes that past muster in my house.

It’s not easy.

I’m picky as hell. David doesn’t eat pork, and is currently leaning towards being vegetarian. Sophia is a self imposed vegetarian 90% of the time. Nola, well this is a bless her heart moment, because the little turd has decided that she’s only a carnivore and does not like plants. *head desk* Anyone see how this could be tricky for me? No? Me either. /sarcasm

Despite all that, I’m at the very least going to stick to my few rules of thumb when it comes to food for my family…

~ No MSG.
~ No HFCS.

Pretty simple. I get a little skeeved out by the word hydrogenated as well, but that’s less a concern than the two listed. I’m not in a position to buy all organics anymore, and I’m not going to turn my nose up at a cheap bag of pasta. My problem is that so many of these “easy” or “omg yum” recipes contain cream of something soup, or Lipton onion soup packets. Both contain MSG. While I still have some left, and will use them up as not to waste them, I will not purchase them again. I can make homemade cream of mushroom soup, and I have a homemade “cream of ?” mix I made from a recipe on Pinterst as well. I’ll have to find an MSG free alternative to the Lipton soup mix. If you know of one please let me know!!

Now, back to getting this house back in order so it doesn’t look like I’ve neglected it for an entire week. :P

Oh hey there!

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I am SO behind this week now. Monday I started the week with the house caught up, lots of baking bread, and feeling like I would conquer this week. Tuesday after making some bread I got a phone call from my mom saying they were just about to my house. I forgot they were going to be in town! Crap! So Tuesday afternoon was spent with Sophia and my parents. I’m not complaining because my parents leave in 11 days to move to Ecuador.

While my mom and I were waiting in the atrium of the Montessori school for Nola to get out of class Nola’s teacher approached me about chaperoning the field trip the next day. I agreed. That night Nola had soccer practice, and it was our end of season party.

Wednesday morning was spent at a pumpkin patch. The afternoon I took Sophia to a few thrift stores to mill about that are right around the corner from the school. I need to save gas, because the van is a gas hog. Wednesday afternoon Sophia had soccer practice.

Thursday morning I agreed to help Nola’s teacher get her address book in Outlook cleaned up and cross referenced with what she has on file to ensure parents are getting the e-mails. Before I even got started on that it was discovered that one of the class rats had died. There was questions, theories, crying, and concern by the teacher as to what should be done. I did though get to see how the teacher and her aid dealt with such things on the fly. Montessori is far different from traditional school to begin with, and to see how something so sensitive was handled was very interesting. I milled around Savers a bit, and treated myself to lunch before getting Sophia. After that we needed to hit up WinCo to get apples for her apple tasting on Friday, and I got all my paperwork in to the Girl Scout office so I can start a troop. I also had PTO meeting that night. Looking back Thursday was a day of pure crazy.

Friday morning was the “Second Cup of Coffee” with the principal of the school, and after that I came home, got the PTO stuff e-mailed to Nola’s teacher (did I mention I’m the PTO class representative, because I am). Then I went to Target to get my free Lindor Truffles (go like them on Facebook and look for the giveaway coupon to print!), and while I was there I picked up the flyers for the Target Debit card to put at the front desk of the school. 5% off, and 1% back to the school of your choice, can’t beat that!

Saturday was the last 2 soccer games of my soccer coaching career, because I have no intentions of doing it again to be honest. I think starting up and maintaining a Girl Scout troop will be more than enough for me from here out. There was also an event at the school for the PTO I attended as a “vendor”. I put out some photography business related stuff and ran a ring toss. Then we came home and had movie night. Popcorn, root beer floats, Monsters Inc., and a Hot Pocket each.

Today I need to get caught up. Laundry, dishes, sweeping, moping, dusting, and using the chicken that has been thawed out for 2 days now. This weeks Baking Bucket List hasn’t been done. I think I’ll likely combine it with another week or two. I still need to order vanilla beans, and my mom has requested a pecan pie for the train portion of their move to Ecuador. So pecan pie on week 11 will switch places with apple pie on week 4 (which is when I think I’ll do vanilla bean ice cream).

I have other things planned too that will be keeping me busy for awhile. Trying to make things easier in the long run means putting some time and effort in now, and of course my life wouldn’t be normal right now without chaos. ;)

I hate moving…

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We moved a whopping 161 feet. I know it sounds rough, but we did it all with a minivan, a Prius, 1 appliance dolly, and 1 furniture dolly. We may or may not have used my parents truck to move 2 twin size mattresses and 2 “bunky boards” as well. ;)

The old unit is empty and I give back the keys and garage door openers today. That means I get to spend my weekend putting things away. I tried to get things organized as I went along, but as anyone who has ever moved knows by the time you get halfway through you’re just chucking stuff in any corner you can find. I really need my laundry baskets back too. Oh and Monday is my birthday. I’d really like to have a clean organized house so I can relax and not feel like I need to unpack things. :P

Somehow in the jumble of the last few weeks a rather important bill went by unnoticed, and we had to double up the payment. We also had $160 in school fees for the girls, and almost $60 for soccer photos. So the bank account is lower than David likes, as he always wants a little bit of a buffer just in case, because you never know when you’ll have a co-pay for something or another (like the ER or for our POS van). I had wanted to go to the rib cook-off for my birthday, but since that can be disgustingly expensive I told David I would be more than happy to make up a dry rub to accompany my homemade BBQ sauce if he would grill me some ribs instead. He agreed. :D

Both girls are now in school so I will have 4 whole hours every day to do stuff! I will be doing lots of cooking, baking, and making of things this winter for sure!!

Now to get this place back to normal…. O_o