CHRISTMAS IS OVER AND ITS ALMOST THE NEW YEAR

Wow, I cannot believe how fast the holidays have flown by already. I'm beginning to think I might need to take vacation time off the week of the holiday to really be able to relax and ENJOY it. I got almost none of my baking done that I'd hoped to accomplish. Its gotten so hectic and rushed. Maybe that's the reason I am drawn to simpler things and ways not only over the holidays but in general.

I was going through Mary Jane's Farmgirl Wisdom and there's a magnetic board (maybe 3" by 4") with pictures and wise sayings you can mix and match. I took mine into work and have it on my desk. Today's quote I put on it was "There is more to life than increasing its speed. - Mahatma Gandhi". Truer words were never spoken. It seems like my son just flew in but tomorrow he's flying back out. I don't think he'll ever realize how much I miss him. It seems like Christmas flew buy in a blink and in a couple days the new year will be upon us. Yes, there is more to life then speeding it up any faster.

Granted I love the speed of my cable Internet, but sometimes you need to disconnect and enjoy the quiet and your family. No cellphones. No Ipods. No computers. No TV even. I know, I know....have the aspirin and smelling salts ready for any heart attacks or vapors this may cause. My kids and I use to enjoy shutting off all the lights and using only candles or oil lamps to give us lights. Last night after a long day of driving to Frankenmuth, visiting Bonner's, and having a famous chicken dinner for supper it was so nice when I got home to stop the speed and sit and put a puzzle together with Matt. I can't remember the last time I did a puzzle. I know the kids and I use to do them but not in recent memory. So take the time during this hectic, busy, speeding holiday and enjoy your kids and your partner. Do something you've never done before like play a board game or do a puzzle together. You might even try doing the puzzle by candlelight. Pop some popcorn the old fashion way and make some yummy hot chocolate for a special treat and enjoy the taste of a time that moved slower.

THE PRAIRIE GIRL'S GUIDE TO LIFE

I just finished reading 'The Prairie Girl's Guide to Life - How to Sew a Sampler Quilt & 49 Other Pioneer Projects for the Modern Girl' by Jennifer Worick. Overall I'd say it was a good book. I liked the stories that she gives regarding different projects and wish she'd put more of the stories into the book. The crafts and projects were pretty basic, but what one would expect from this type of book. If you're fascinated with pioneer girls or farm girls this book would probably be a good read. If you're a city girl totally and shudder at getting dirty this might not be your type of book. If you're a farm girl wannabe this would probably be the ideal book for a general overview of skills and things a farm girl might need to have.

She describes skills that most pioneer or farm girls need to have including quilting, knitting, and soap making. She also includes things like lacing corsets, recipes for making cleaning supplies, how to brush a horse and directions on how to square dance. Each chapter is a room of the house or barn/outside and includes a wide variety of things to do and crafts. For example in the chapter Kitchen she gives directions on how to make a flour sack apron. I enjoyed reading it even though I know how to do most of the craft projects she gave, which is probably why I enjoyed the stories she wove into it the most. Amazon currently has it marked down to $5.95 if you're interested in buying it.

WHERE IS THE SNOW?

Now that I've got my head wrapped around the fact that it is actually December and we have most of our Christmas decorations up I'm ready for it to snow. It probably helped significantly that I received a call from my oldest son saying he'll be home on Christmas to finally push me over into the willingness to accept that it's December. When I wasn't ready for snow in November, the flurries taunted me with the fact they were coming. Now I get flurries that just tease me but produce nothing. There's nothing more depressing then not having snow for Christmas. It's just one of those mandatory things in life. How can one go dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh? Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house? Make snowmen? I just can't imagine living someplace that wouldn't have snow for Christmas. I don't know if I could get in the mood without it. I also have an issue with cold, cold temps without snow. Those that know me, know how much I hate being cold but at least if there's snow it mentally tells me it should be cold - like an excuse. Besides, the pups love playing in the snow. There's nothing more amusing then watching Tip run into a snowbank and then throw snow into the air. He looks like he's laughing as he does it, just like a kid. He loves catching snowballs too. Hopefully we'll get some snow soon, but hopefully on the weekend so I can enjoy it and not dread driving in it.

NEW ADDITION TO HOUSE - LUNA

I totally forgot to post about our new addition to our household - Luna. Matt's niece found her for us. She works at an animal shelter and when she saw this little girl she instantly knew she belonged to Matt. Matt wanted an orange kitty and I requested long fur. She was 12 weeks when Megan sent us her first picture and we had to wait two weeks until she got up to weight so she could be spade before they allowed us to adopt her. If I recall right we got her on November 13th. She's gotten so big already. We should have named her Trouble though. Curious and hyper at this point. Hopefully she'll calm down. Aren't her whiskers just adorable though! Mouffet (aka Moo-moo), my kitty, is not impressed with this new addition and the transition is not going smoothly but its getting there.

DECEMBER? ALREADY?

Am I the only one not ready for December to be here already? It's like wow, the year is almost over. I'm not sure I'm ready for that. Of course to commemorate the occasion it has decided to snow all day - thankfully only flurries with no accumulation. It's pretty to look out the window but doesn't appear to be getting nasty out there, at least not yet. It's on snowy days that I miss our fireplace at our old house the most. My oldest son use to love bringing in wood and getting it going and then watching it so it burned all day. We'd sometimes all curl up on the couches together and watch videos, read, or do crafts. Sometimes we would bake cookies and make hot chocolate and curl up on the couches and watch the fire as we had our snack. They were blessed days with my children that I miss. When we got enough snow we'd take the dogs for a midnight snow walk. It was a weird tradition we had but one we enjoyed. Maybe its the nostalgia getting to me with the kids on their own and rarely getting to see several of them.



This week gets more hectic with the holidays coming up and slows down at least from a work standpoint. This entire week has been super slow at work so I was able to knock out the entire first sock already. Sorry for the poor quality but I'm taking pictures with my cellphone, uploading them to Facebook, saving the pictures to the computer, converting them to jpeg and then uploading to the blog. Hopefully after Christmas I can look at getting a new camera. I'm way ahead of schedule knitting these and hopefully will now have them completed before Christmas. I've got the next one cast onto my needles and ready to start. I'm already planning new craft projects and purchasing books to occupy myself.

WHAT A HOLIDAY WEEKEND

Wow, it was a busy holiday weekend. One I don't think I want to repeat. Thanksgiving was super busy as only did we do a dinner for the kids at our house but we went to Matt's brother's as well for his family's gathering. My son's work schedule was repeatedly changed for working that day (he works at a restaurant). First they had him scheduled from 3pm to 4am, then he was supposed to work 3pm to 11am, then 3pm to 9pm and finally ended up working 3pm to 6:30pm. Crazy!!! We had to drop him off at work early to not be too late to Matt's family dinner. His family had initially scheduled their dinner for 1pm and then changed it to 2pm so I scheduled dinner with the kids for 6:30pm. My daughter asked that morning if we could back it up until 7:30pm. No problem, I put the turkey in as we walked out the door with plenty of time for it to slow roast in the oven. Thankfully I'd baked the pies and pumpkin bread the night before.

Unfortunately, instead of putting the food on the table at 2pm as we'd been told, his family didn't end up eating until 4:30pm, which is when we'd planned to be leaving to go home. We ended up leaving their house after 6pm as they were serving the desserts. My son called while we were driving home to say he was off so I dropped Matt off to start peeling potatoes and such and I went and got him. We ended up eating at 8:30 with the kids - only 4 hours after we'd eaten a full dinner at his brother's. The meals were way too close together time wise and we ended up feeling bloated and uncomfortable. I think next year we'll only do one dinner per day and either we'll do dinner with the kids on Thanksgiving or we'll do it on a weekend day that works for everybody.

We stayed home Friday as I refuse to go out with people in that type of shopping frenzy. We did venture out for what we thought would be a safe trip to visit a couple furniture stores to look at dining tables. We were in the first store roughly 20 minutes at the most - 20 minutes. We came out to discover after starting the car that someone had sawed my catalytic converter off and stolen it - 18" of my muffler was gone. We're talking about a vehicle that was parked in front of a store, in plain site, at 3pm in the afternoon, on a busy street and nobody saw anything. We went back into the store since I didn't have my phone with me and the store personnel said one of their employees had the same thing happen two weeks prior. The officer when he showed up said they'd been doing it all up and down that street and they hadn't been able to catch them they were so fast and that he was getting tired of writing up the same report. Thankfully we weren't robbed or carjacked or anything but there's still a sense of anger and violation. Fortunately the insurance will cover it as partial theft. Matt says that due to the way that they cut the pipe I'll need a whole new exhaust system as well as the catalytic converter. He put a test pipe on with extensions so I could drive it until we can get it fixed. Insurance claims will be out tomorrow to look at it. As I said at the beginning, don't think I want to repeat this holiday weekend.

SOCK KNITTING

As it gets cold my thoughts turn to keeping my feet warm, which means I start thinking about knitting socks. I finally took the plunge last year and tried knitting a pair of socks, which turned into 3 pairs of socks before the winter was over. The second pair I knitted was my Christmas gift to Matt last year and he loves them. I've gotten the hang of it and this pair that I started 2 weeks ago is going a LOT faster then I thought they would. I had actually thought I might have this one done this weekend but as usual fates decreed otherwise. I apologize for the poor quality of the picture but I was using my cellphone. I'm really happy with the colors of the yarn as I bought it primarily due to the fact that I liked the yarn color name; Nymphadora Tonks. As a Harry Potter lover who couldn't love a yarn with that name? The colors are a lot darker then they appeared when I got the skein so I'm very happy. I'm using 2 circular needles, size 3. I prefer this method to using 3 or 4 double pointed needles. I would like to try the Magic Knitting method using a single 30" circular needle that you can knit both socks on at the same time. I'm hoping to attempt the method sometime this winter. I'll keep you updated on that experiment.

CHICKEN A LA ORANGE

I found myself watching $10 Dinners Sunday even though I hate the show. Anyway, for the first time she had recipes that I found interesting enough to try; Chicken a la orange and crispy potatoes. We made both last night. They were absolutely delicious. We modified her recipes based on our tastes. For example she only used salt & pepper to season the potatoes but we added seasoning salt and fresh chopped rosemary to kick up the flavor. We doubled the sauce recipe and reduced the honey she used. Matt suggested trying some agave syrup in the sauce the next time for some of the honey. She used 3 chicken breast with bones but I found markdowns on a package with only 2 breasts with bones and a package of thighs so we used both packages for the 3 of us. The boy went back for seconds and amazingly thirds. He's already 5' 11" so I'm praying he's not getting ready for a growth spurt again. Total cost of the chicken and potatoes was roughly about $6 to $7 which fed 3 of us plus there was enough left over for my lunch today. I had thought about preparing some green beans but we're having green bean casserole for Thanksgiving in a couple days so I decided to fore go them.

Fall has been such a busy time and I've neglected this blog horribly. Hopefully I can get back into a posting schedule again. I don't know why it's easier to post on Facebook compared to here, but for some reason it is. So here's an update on what I've been doing:

Completed some crocheted snowflakes to put on the Christmas tree this year. I think I've completed about 10 of them and probably have enough thread to do at least one more. I'm hoping to take some pictures this week and post them. It's a beautiful brilliant white thread with a white metallic sheen to it. I really like it better than the white with gold or silver threads in it.

I'm in a dilemma over what to do with the baby blanket I have been working on for one of my female soldiers who had her baby in July. I waited until the last minute to start it and ended up having to purchase yarn that I wasn't entirely thrilled with because I couldn't find anything in pink that I liked. Now I absolutely hate the feel of this baby afghan and I just can't seem to make myself finish it. I don't know if I should just finish it and give it to her anyway, start another one with better yarn, or just purchase her something. As I said its a dilemma.

With fall weather came the desire to start knitting a pair of wool socks and so I'm using the last skein of merino wool yarn I bought last year to make a pair. I think I bought the yarn because I liked the color name - they named an entire group of yarns after characters from Harry Potter and this one is called Nymphadora Tonks. I'm really like the color a lot better now I have the skein balled and about 6 inches of the cuff knitted. I'll try to post pictures of this also.

I recently started reading everything on Mary Jane's Farm web page and for my birthday present to myself purchased a membership into the Sisterhood program. I'm really looking forward to it. I'd picked up Mary Jane's magazine eons ago when it was in its infancy and it just did not connect with me enough to subscribe to it. Now it does. I've also started looking into finding a local chapter in my area to be able to meet other like minded women and to learn new skills. Maybe its resonating with me now because I have a man that appreciates and encourages my skills in these areas.

BUSY, BUSY WEEKEND

This weekend was packed and so much fun. Matt and I went with a group of my friends Saturday to the Michigan Ren Faire. I have gone every year for probably close to 7 years or so. I absolutely love everything about it. I enjoy getting dressed up in garb to attend. I enjoy getting to walk around and having men be gallant gentleman. I mean seriously, what woman would not practically swoon when a man takes her hand, kisses it and says "Good morrow my lady." It is just too much fun. Granted the food is mediocre and everything is priced high but it is the experience of going and watching jousting and sword fights that makes it so worth it. I spent the day enjoying mead and friendship - a most excellent way to spend a day. I jokingly claimed it was Kristine's practice bachelorette party. We also picked up some wonderfully smelling cinnamon and chocolate incense. I bought Matt a wonderful hat for his garb and he in return bought a flower wreath for my hair.

My friends Kristine and Ryan were handfasted on Sunday and we were blessed to be able to attend and spend another day with friends and lots of great food. This was my first handfasting to witness so it was even more special. They did a potluck style meal and it was delicious as always. They were celebrating the harvest as well so the theme was fall/harvest type foods. They served a pork roast that was falling apart tender. Kristine asked me to bring pumpkin bread so that was my contribution along with homemade cinnamon butter and a bottle of vanilla and cinnamon mead. There was a sweet potato casserole, baked squash, cabbage rolls, and cabbage soup just to name a few other dishes and a delicious cake with chocolate mousse filling in it - yummo.

WEDNESDAY, YUCKY DAYS AND REDBOX

Yesterday once again I started feeling feverish and achey about midafternoon. I had planned to do a large meal with the pork roast but just was not feeling up to a heavy meal or one with that much preparation - zero prep sounded really good. Some of the headachey feeling I was having was probably due to caffine withdrawal so I decided to go to Kroger's and grab some of my caffine of choice, Code Red Mountain Dew.

While there I realized that Kroger's had California Pizza Kitchen frozen pizza on sale for $4.99 so I grabbed a bbq chicken one for Matt and I and a pepperoni one for the son and a container of Kroger's buffalo wings on special for $7.99 along with some Code Red Mountain Dew on sale for 88c. When I checked out I got a coupon with a free Redbox code on it to sweeten the deal. Pizza and a movie sounded like a good way to curl up on the couch and rest. After I got home my son texted me that he was at his girlfriend's house and wouldn't be home for supper so that pizza got put into the freezer. Otherwise, the night was pretty much as relaxing as I had hoped it would be.

I rented Prince of Persia, which I must say was an excellent movie, and worked on the baby blanket that I still haven't gotten done. For those who haven't tried Redbox yet or have never heard of it, it is a great budget friendly way to rent movies without the high costs. Cost is $1 per day for rental. The best way to find a Redbox is to go to their website www.redbox.com and search for one in your area. The Kroger's I go to by work has one that I use frequently but there are ones closer to my home. The great thing is you can rent at one location but return it to another location so it is super convenient. Kroger coupon machines frequently give coupons with free rental codes or you can sign up on their website and occasionally get codes. Free rentals are always extremely friendly to the budget.

Breakfast: Jimmy Dean light breakfast muffin sandwich
Lunch: leftover shepherd's pie, pudding cup
Supper: California Pizza Kitchen BBQ chicken pizza, hot wings

MENUS

Here are my menus for this week. Matt and I worked out the menu on Sunday. This week I'm marking which meals that Matt prepared and I've marked modifications to the menu that have already occurred based on what we were hungry for that particular day.

1. Porcupine meatballs, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole (this has been on the menu but not prepared for several weeks now -hopefully I'll get it made sometime this week)

2. Texas chili, cornbread (Matt Sunday)

3. pork roast with gravy, potatoes, carrots

4. hamburgers, salad (salad was changed to copycat Chili's Texas fries) (Matt Monday)

5. hot ham and cheese sandwiches, scalloped potatoes

6. shepherd's pie (not originally on menu) (Tuesday)

7. pizza, hot wings, and movie night (Wednesday)

Lunches so far this week:

Monday: chili, pudding cup
Tuesday: Thai
Wednesday: shepherd's pie, pudding cup

SHEPHERD'S PIE

Shepherd's pie is one of those recipes that everybody has one and every recipe is different. In the past it was a great way to use up leftover meat, veggies, gravy and mashed potatoes. This is also one of those dishes you can improvise and use what you have on hand.

This is my recipe:

1 lb. hamburger
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
packet of brown gravy mix
can of cream of mushroom soup
jar of au jus gravy
bag of mixed veggies
1 c. or so of frozen corn
can of creamed corn
mashed potatoes (I start cooking these when I start frying the hamburger or you can use 1 box (both envelopes) of instant

* Fry hamburger with onion and garlic until done. Add gravy packet, cream of mushroom soup, and jar of au jus gravy and stir together. Season with salt, pepper, and seasoning salt as desired. Put mixture into bottom of 9 x 13 pan (or use 2 smaller pans)

*Pour bag of mixed veggies and corn over top of meat mixture.

*Pour can of creamed corn over veggies.

*Spread mashed potatoes over top of everything.

*Bake at 350' for 45 minutes or until center is hot and bubbly

TUESDAY

Matt did most of the cooking for the past several days, so last night was definitely my night to cook. Of course, by mid afternoon yesterday I was getting the flushed, fever-ish, headachey feeling and was most definitely not feeling up to cooking. Thankfully by the time I got home I was feeling better and accomplished a tasty meal for us. Supper last night consisted of shepherd's pie, Hawaiian sweet rolls, and a peach cobbler for dessert. Since there was just the two of us last night, I actually made two shepherd pies and put one in the freezer for a future meal. It was so nice to be able to make one of my fall/winter favorites without heating the house up. I love fall and it has been my favorite season for as long as I can remember. I love the cooler days, the cooler nights, wearing sweaters, snuggling, apple cider, cider mill visits, pumpkins - the whole thing. I got my first gallon of cider this week from the store and have enjoyed savoring it, both hot and cold. I enjoy adding cinnamon syrup or caramel syrup to hot cider for a special treat.

Breakfast: I was bad and nibbled on some party mix
Lunch: Hot and Sour soup and orange chicken (Thai restaurant)
Supper: Shepherds pie, rolls, and peach cobbler with a drizzle of cream

Chores: Dusted living room and swept living room and hallway

THIS WEEKS MENUS

Menus for August 30 - September 5th:

I'm sure we won't eat all these this week, especially with it being a holiday weekend, so some will probably be carried over to next week. The Steak Kabobs have been on the menu for 2 weeks and haven't gotten made. The meat is in the frig unthawing now. I'm also thinking about doing a cinnamon bread loaf for breakfasts, I'll probably have to make multiple loafs as I can see that disappearing quickly.

1. Porcupine meatballs
mashed potatoes
green beans

2. Manwiches
potato salad

3. Curried chicken salad in pita or croissant rolls
pasta salad

4. Pork chops
potatoes with rosemary and garlic
Italian veggies

5. Enchiladas
salsa/guacamole/chips
salad

6. Steak Kabobs
corn on the cob

VISITING WITH RELATIVES

Since I mentioned it in my last blog, our visit with Matt's sister went really well after some communication issues. We got to spend about three hours with her and her friend. All the worries the family had were needless as he was not observing Ramadan so that helped considerably with the meal issue. Everybody really liked him. His sister showed us picture slide shows of various places she had visited and camping trips she had taken outside of Dubai. They were absolutely beautiful. I think we all have thoughts of visiting Dubai and Egypt dancing in our heads for future vacations.

His sister was extremely generous and brought us a large collection of spices from the Dubai market and a cookbook that uses the various spices. I cannot wait to taste and experiment with some of them that I have never tried before. There are some I have used, but these are so much richer then what we can get here in the states. It does not take much to make me happy. They also gifted me with a gold chain hair piece when they found out that I belly dance. It is a beautiful piece. They also gifted me with a box of hibiscus tea. I opened the box today and brewed myself a cup of it and it is delicious - nice mild floral taste. Hibiscus tea is also good for blood pressure, which I had not known about. I was instructed to drink it hot if my blood pressure was high or cold if it was low. Since I have problems with high blood pressure I will be drinking this hot.

It is so nice to have a visit that could have been difficult go so well. So now I have met Matt's entire family.

MENUES 15-21AUG10

It was a slow morning at work so I was able to to get my menues for the week completed and shopping list made. I'm attempting to use up all the meat in the freezer to clear up freezer space for all the processed tomato sauce and peaches that still need to be processed. These might get mixed around based on Matt's sister visiting and other plans going on this week. We might do the kabobs on Friday night as a stay in date since we plan on being at the Armada Fair Saturday and I might decide to plan a romantic picnic to take with.

Sunday - Grilled BBQ Chicken breasts and corn on the cob
Monday - Grilled chicken salad (made with leftover chicken breast from Sunday)
Tuesday - Panfried perch and mac & cheese
Wednesday - Pastrami & Swiss on Rye (or Country White) and pasta salad
Thursday - Porcupine meatballs (crockpot recipe), mashed potatoes and corn or green beans
Friday - DATE NIGHT
Saturday - Steakhouse Kabobs (from the Love of Cooking Blog site), salad

FRUSTRATING MONDAY

For a Monday, yesterday wasn't unproductive but it just wasn't the way I had planned it. My goal yesterday was to knock out or at least hugely dent the tomatoes. Those never got touched to my utter frustration. Checked the peaches this morning and they HAVE to be processed today.

Playing into my frustration is the fact that Matt's sister has come to visit from Dubai (she works there) and we have no idea what day we will be able to visit with her. This is the only sibling of Matt's I haven't met . Matt told his mother we'll be free today and tomorrow to visit. To add to the issue she has apparently brought home a friend who is Muslim and is observing Ramadan so we may have to make changes in our eating time to accommodate him. Fortunately we tend to eat later anyway so hopefully this won't be too much of an issue. At this point it is still unclear if we'll be eating out or if Matt and I will be hosting the meal. I am also not sure what dietary restrictions this person may have either. Makes it difficult to plan and I am a planner, which I know is what is throwing me off my stride.

Its one of those weeks with way too many balls being juggled for comfort. I did manage to get some cleaning in yesterday. Since I couldn't get into the kitchen because Matt was unloading and reloading the dishwasher, I cleaned.

Monday:
Chores: Cleaned bedroom. Swept and mopped bedroom and hallway. Completed 2 loads of laundry.
Menu:
Lunch: Subway 6" turkey.
Dinner: Matt made a grilled chicken salad with chicken left over from yesterday's grilled BBQ chicken.

GARDEN HARVESTING

Yesterday I went to the Farmer's Market in Warren to pick up some fruits and veggies. I picked up a 1/2 bushel of peaches to process and eat. They still aren't totally ripe so I'll give them a day or so to ripen up a bit.

I was able to make 4 pints of salsa for consumption yesterday. I'm thinking at least one Tex-Mex theme night dinner this week. I'm sure my daughters will each be over for a container as soon as word makes it to them that its in the fridge. With so many peaches I decided to chop up one and add it to half of the batch and try for a peach salsa. It wasn't bad but I'll have to work on it a bit.

I went out to the garden to cut some cabbages to make into freezer slaw yesterday afternoon. While cutting them, the wind picked up and snapped some more of the bamboo poles with tomatoes and green beans attached to them. I rushed in and got Matt to help me try to salvage as many tomatoes as possible before the storm hit. I was worried about the storm possibly ruining the tomatoes. We ended up with 2 - 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes. It was just too hot in the house yesterday to process them so now that the weather has cooled a bit hopefully we can get those knocked out and into the freezer.

A CAMPING WE WILL GO

It is amazing how much time it takes to prepare for a vacation, whether a weekend trip or longer. We are going on a 3 day mini-vacation to camp and canoe this weekend. I have been going over camping lists to make sure I am not forgetting anything, and I always do despite the lists as each trip is different and requires different things to be taken.

This year I was not asked to bring any food so that is one huge or small item I don't have to worry about. I do plan on making some chex mix up for Matt and I to nibble on - at least its semi-healthy. I'll have to go grocery shopping tonight to get the rest of the ingredients and make it. I actually use Crispix cereal instead of the rice & corn Chex. I like the taste better and the kids agree with me on that. I do use the wheat Chex along with honey roasted peanuts. I found a recipe about a year or so ago using a slow cooker to cook the mix in and have found that we really like doing it this way even though the time is longer as it reduces the burned pieces I got when making it in the oven. I also need to figure out what we will be wanting to drink and get all our drinks purchased. I will wait and purchase the ice Friday morning prior to leaving.

Matt put the tent up Monday night to discover some mold on the inside walls so last night he got some cleaner for that. We had to let it dry overnight and take it down this morning due to storms being predicted for this afternoon. Tonight we have to take the futon cover off and get that washed. I do not sleep on an air mattress, but take a futon, which is way more comfortable to sleep on and you never have to worry about waking up on the ground because your air mattress had a hole in it. Another advantage is that if you want you can take and prop it up against a tree and use it for a couch. I would definately keep a tarp or rug or something to put under the futon if you put it on the ground to protect it. We use a waterproof mattress cover on ours to protect it against moisture and dirt. If I know the weather is due to be cold I also take my down comforter with. No reason to be uncomfortable while camping if you don't have to.

HOW THE GARDEN DOES GROW

I cannot believe how much our garden has grown this summer. In this picture you see the 6+ foot tall pole beans, red cabbages, oregano in the front left corner of the picture and the tomatoes in the back. The white pvc structure is something we built 2 weeks ago after the storms broke and bent the bamboo poles we had used to stake the tomato plants. The heavy vines were just laying across the ground they were so heavy with tomatoes. It was a sorry site to say the least. The vines were so heavy Matt was having problems lifting them all up so I could get the poles in underneath to support them. It wasn't a perfect solution but it appears to have worked and it is supporting the plants and keeping them upright. The huge plant you see on the right bed is the tomatillos. The fruit is really uniquely intriguing, they look like miniature paper Chinese lanterns. The fruit grows inside and fills up the paper like cover. The parsley is in front of the tomatillos, growing over the edge of the bed.

Here's another picture showing the other bed with Roma tomatoes in it. We harvested those sweet red tomatoes after I took the picture. The broccoli plants are next to it and we're waiting the next batch of broccoli after the wonderful first cutting. There are actually jalapeno peppers between the tomato plants and broccoli, but they're hard to see.

Tonight's supper:

Brisket in the crockpot

with fresh cabbage from the garden

quartered red potatoes

and quartered onions

I'm a bit behind on the cleaning chores but not horribly so since I lost a day yesterday due to judging at the St. Clair County 4H Fair. I judge 4H dog agility. Its extremely enjoyable to work with the kids; although, sometimes frustrating. Yesterday was one of those days were it was very frustrating as they kids and dogs were just not ready and I only had 2 that had qualifying scores. The rest I had to disqualify for a variety of reasons; i.e. fouling in the ring, not completing the course, refusing to do obstacles, etc... I have never had to disqualify that many kids since I started judging and it really bothers me. We were able to have a good laugh as a dog jumped on top of the tunnel and tried to walk down the top of the tunnel instead of going through it. I've seen dogs jump on top and then off the tunnel or jump over the tunnel but never walk it - it was a good laugh that we were able to have in the sheer joy the dog was having despite being disqualified.

Chores completed today:

4 loads of laundry (so far)

living room: decluttered, dusted, swept, mopped and de-furred

bedroom: decluttered, dusted, swept, and mopped

COPYCAT PF CHANG LETTUCE WRAPS

Since Matt was gone all weekend he decided to spoil me yesterday and let me sprawl on the couch and work on the baby blanket while he cooked. I had planned to go to yoga but came home absolutely exhausted, so I decided it would be better to stay home and rest. While I was at work and still planning on going to yoga, I came up with the idea of lettuce wraps since its hot outside and I liked the idea of a light meal. I did some searching and found a copycat recipe for PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps. Never had their lettuce wraps but figured they should be pretty tasty. Matt got the ingredients we didn't already have on hand and prepared the tasty meal. Due to their not liking various thing like mushrooms and water chestnuts we decided to put everything in individual bowls to serve instead of mixing everything together. This recipe was a hit with both Matt and I, but the boy didn't like it. Basically he didn't like the lettuce wrap. I'd suggested a tortilla wrap but only had multi-grain tortillas which are too healthy for the boy to eat. I'll have to stock back up on plain tortillas apparently. My lunch today was leftovers.

WEEKENDS MEAN CLEANING?

Actually I've come to notice that I'm enjoying my weekends less and less. After this weekend I finally realized why, I spent the entire weekend cleaning the house. I'm going to have to work on this issue as I need my weekends to be enjoyable and to have a break from work and that includes housework. I realize this cycle came about while I was working 2 jobs and weekends were the only time I had time to clean or the energy.

Part of the problem this weekend was Matt was working the boat races downtown in Detroit at the Detroit Yacht Club (DYC) and wasn't home for the entire weekend. He works on one of the tow boats every year. He even had a front row seat for the boat hitting the wall. None the less, I don't like being separated from him. I also can't sleep when he's not home so I go into cranky sleep deprived mode - not a good thing.

The boy unit had to work doubles Friday and Saturday night so I couldn't even suggest that we go see a movie or anything. Friday I did go to a BBQ for my friend, Becky, who was visiting from Tennessee. It was awesome seeing her and a really enjoyable BBQ. I got to see another friend, Ralph, whom I haven't seen in probably 2 or more years and catch up with him.

I went to a psychic fair with Matt's sister and then out to lunch afterwards Saturday. It was interesting as I've never had a psychic reading or any other type of reading to be honest. The woman I chose was a tarot and playing card reader. It wasn't a bad reading. The Lover card was the first card drawn showing my partner really loved me - as if I didn't know that - but it was still nice to see in a reading nonetheless. Scary part was that the pregnancy card appeared 3 different times in back to back shuffles. I'm to old in my opinion at 44 to start another family and I'm hoping its none of my daughters (or sons) as I'm not ready to be a grandma yet. I'm hoping its all the pregnant females I have around me.

The rest of Saturday and all of Sunday I pretty much spent cleaning. As it was hot and the air unit isn't working well, I had to take frequent breaks to cool off. Saturday the living room got a thorough cleaning along with the hallway. Sunday the kitchen was thoroughly cleaned. I'd hoped to knock out the bathroom and our bedroom Sunday also, but just got to tired. The boy and I went out and grabbed Jimmy John sandwiches for supper as I wasn't about to dirty the kitchen after spending that much time getting it clean. I think Matt's comment after walking to the bedroom to drop his stuff off and coming back out was "Wow, were you bored or what." He was impressed enough that I received a nice foot massage for my work.

KROGER SHOPPING AND COUPONS

This morning I grabbed my coupon organizer and all the loose coupons that I have been needing to sort and brought them into work with me. I also decided to try a 4 week trial subscription to The Grocery Game to see if it is worth the expense and if it would help me get better deals. I'll let you know what I think at the end of the trial. Got my coupon organizer straightened up and the coupons sorted this morning and then pulled the lists from The Grocery Game website for my local stores. I also went to the Kroger webpage and loaded digital coupons to my card. Ran down to Kroger at lunch and did a fine job playing the game if I may say so myself. Between sales and coupons I saved $24.94 and paid only $46.85 for $71.79 of groceries. Not bad if I may say so myself. About $4 of that amount was my lunch too. Its definately not the best I've ever done but its pretty good.

I bought 2 deli chicken sandwiches ($1.99/ea) and had Kroger online only coupons (digital) for $1.00 off each sandwich. I only ate one of the sandiwiches, so I'll save the other one for tomorrow's lunch. Still 99c for a chicken sandwhich isn't bad.

Another good buy was A&W Root Beer 2 liter - on sale for $1.00, digital coupon for 60c = 40c.

They had Starkist Tuna pouches (regularly $1.79 ea) on sale for $1 and I had coupons for $1/2 pouches & B2G1 free so I picked up 5 pouches for $3 = 60c each.

Twizzlers (17.6oz) were on sale for $1.49 (regularly $2.19) - $1/3 coupon = $1.15 each

EVENINGS OUT

Last night we had a pretty good family time. We went out to Angelo's Avenue on Van Dyke & 15 Mile Rd. I tried their pan fried perch with red skin potatoes - yummm. I also had a bowl of chicken noodle soup for my appetizer (came with the meal) along with a slice of their yummy fresh bread. There were peas on my plate and even though I love peas I don't touch canned grey things. Matt decided to try their Italian combo and he also said it was very good. The boy decided on 2 coney dogs and fries - not adventurous at all is he. Matt and I typically get the polish combo when we get over to this side of town and get the chance to eat here. The polish combo is absolutely delish and sooooooo much food. All the combo plates are actually about 2 to 3 plates of food. I have to agree with the boy that the restaurant is noisy. He seems to have developed an aversion worse than my own for noisy restaurants, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but a rare thing for an 18 year old to complain about. I'm really not sure why this restaurant is so noisy either. He's also started critiquing the food he eats now that he works at a restaurant himself and recently they've been teaching him to cook.

After our meal we went to see Twilight Eclipse, which we've all been waiting impatiently to come out. The boy had to work doubles the whole weekend so we didn't get a chance to go see it. This was my least favorite of the books, but I have to say I liked the movie. In the books, Bella's back and forth emotional roller coasters drove me nuts. I felt like she was playing with both of them and that's something in a female I detest and it actually almost made me quit reading the book. Matt and I also both read "The Short Second Life of Bre Tanner" and would have liked to have seen that incorporated into the movie. For those that aren't as Twilight crazy as we are, "The Short Second Life of Bre Tanner" was written after the original series. Actually she wrote it after the second movie came out and prior to the third one being released. Its a short novella I guess you could call it to give more background on a character that appears in the third book and movie. As for the movie, definitely considered a good movie by all of us.

GARDEN HARVESTING AND BABY AFGHANS

The garden is at full throttle with tomatoes growing and baby green beans appearing. I'm dreading the tomatoes ripening as we're going to end up with a TON of tomatoes - I have 13 tomato plants. How somebody that is allergic to raw tomatoes ends up with that many tomato plants I'm not sure plus we have another 4 tomitillo plants. I need to get a food mill, pressure canner, and lots of jars so we can process and can them. We harvested several good size zucchini's and I made my first batch of chocolate chip zucchini muffins. Matt hates zucchini so the fact that not only did he try one but had them again today for breakfast is impressive. My theory is that if you add chocolate chips to something everybody will eat it and like it. We also harvested 3 heads of broccoli. It taste so good. We did up a foil packet adding italian dressing to the broccoli and a couple ice cubes then put them on the grill.

The baby afghan is coming along. I've got about 7 inches completed (planning on 36 inches total). I would have had more completed but last night realized I'd made a mistake multiple rows back and had to do the frogging thing (or ripping out the stitches thing) for about 3 inches. Heartbreaking, especially since I'm on a tight timeline with starting this project so late. The needles I have are double ended hooks and the stitches kept falling off the end when I had the entire row on the hook (this is why the tunisian/afghan stitch is different then regular crochet). I thought I'd been diligent about picking them back up but obviously not. My plan had been to get some polymer clay and make some type of cap on one end but hadn't gotten to it. After frogging back I went on a hunting expedition to find something that would work to keep the stitches from falling off. Matt and I searched and searched and then I found it - a rubber knitting needle tip - perfect!! So I've now caught up with where I originally was before having to frog and hopefully will stay on track.

Supper last night was skillet steaks that I'd picked up on a manager's special for 50% off - they were less than $3 for 6 smalls skillet steaks. Matt marinaded and grilled them. Being so thin these take minutes to cook and would be easy to overcook but Matt's really good about not burning food on the grill. We wanted a light meal so I made a crunchy chinese slaw with asian ginger dressing that I've been wanting to make. Matt liked it and my son hated it. I put chopped green onions in it and my kids hate onions. I put some of the slaw mix without dressing into a container to bring to work today and then put some dressing into another container so it wouldn't get soggy. I also brought my leftover fajita from Monday's dinner out to use that up.

YUMMY BBQ CHICKEN

Yesterday's menu was supposed to be BBQ chicken, caprese salad and potatoes but Matt was cravying green bean casserole and bisquits so the menu, except for the BBQ chicken, got tossed and we went with what sounded good. Matt did a fabulous job grilling the chicken leg quarters that he'd separated. Before Matt told me he was cravying green bean casserole I'd thought to make bacon wrapped balsalmic aspargus but unfortunately the aspargus tips had started to go bad so they had to be tossed.

My oldest daughter stopped over last night and raided the leftover stash so today for lunch I brought what was left of Monday night's roast, carrots and mashed potatoes to get them used before they went bad.

Yesterday I found a pattern for a tunisian baby blanket that I wanted to make for one of the female soldiers I work with that is expecting next month. I know, I'm getting a really late start on this. I found downloadable pattern books on Annie's Attic website. Went to Joann's last night to get some yarn and could not believe the horrible selection of baby yarns. I found a couple I was okay with but then discovered they didn't have either of them in pink. Seriously - no pink. That's like a standardized color for babies isn't it? I ended up purchasing a yarn that I wasn't happy with - which teaches me not to wait so long to start.

Well being that I was in a hurry to get this started, I didn't think to pay attention to the tunisian classification. Its crochet, but not crochet, and I've never done it before. Tunisian crochet is also referred to as afghan stitch or afghan crochet. It uses a crochet looking hook but its about the length of a knitting needle. I apparently at some point had thought about learning to do it because I actually had the specialized afghan crochet hooks in my stash - good thing as Joann's had one size and it wasn't the size I needed. Well it's a bit more complicated then I thought it would be to learn so the pattern I wanted to use is on hold, maybe for Matt's niece's baby due in October, and I'm just using the basic tunisian stitch for the entire blanket to perfect my skills at it before branching off into more complicated patterns and I'll but the cute border on it that the pattern used. Life's adventures in crafting land.

MARGhARITA PIZZA

Sunday our use the leftovers in the frig continued. We had a leftover premade pizza crust (generic), 1/2 jar of pizza sauce, a partial log of mozzarella and a ton of basil I'd chopped to cut back the basil plants so Matt suggested margharita pizza. A typical margharita is fresh slice tomatoes instead of pizza sauce for the base but as I'm allergic to the raw version we'll stick with a cooked pizza sauce. Top the pizza sauce with thin slices of fresh mozzarella cheese (or shredded if you don't have fresh), and then sprinkle chopped or whole basil over the cheese. Bake and enjoy. I liked the taste - nice, simple and light. The premade pizza crusts are definitely not a hit with me. I think they taste like cardboard. Next time I'll make some fresh pizza dough to use. To round out this tasty pizza we served a Greek salad.

ONE HAS TO LOVE PRESSURE COOKERS

A pressure cooker is a cook's best friend. Sunday I totally forgot to take the roast out of the freezer to put into the crockpot on Monday. I realized my mistake Monday morning. To the rescue - my trusty pressure cooker - able to do a frozen roast in 45 minutes to perfect tenderness. Its one of the awesome things about pressure cookers is that you can put a slab of frozen meat in and it will be cooked and tender in under and hour.

I added a quartered onion and carrots along with a jar of au ju gravy, a packet of au ju gravy mix (didn't have brown gravy), 2 cups of water, 1/3 cup of Italian dressing (or you could use a packet of dry), and a can of cream of mushroom soup to the roast. I would have typically have added mushrooms to the roast also but Matt doesn't like mushrooms so I'm preparing them less and I didn't have any in the house anyway. The gravy mix on top of the roast and the side of mashed potatoes that Matt whipped up to perfection were delicious after I got home from yoga last night.

For those that fear pressure cookers because of stories they've heard I can assure you the new ones have tons of safety features built in and I maintain are a cook's best friend. The new digital pressure cookers are fool proof and absolutely safe. There are several good yahoo groups for recipes. My first pressure cooker was a stovetop version that I still use. My digital lasted about a year and then died - buy a known brand would be my word of caution when getting a digital. I really miss my digital as I could set it to start later or turn to warm when finished.

LEFTOVERS

Use of leftovers is an extremely helpful way of helping with the food budget. Last week I picked up a package of chicken tenders on manager's special for a little over $5 for a large package. My first thought was to make satay chicken with peanut sauce as I've been wanting to try that recipe. I fixed the satay chicken on Thursday night with great results but with a fair amount of leftover chicken. Friday night Matt made me grilled lamb chops with several pieces left over from that. Neither was really enough for an entire meal for us but by using them in another way we were able to pull 2 lunches out of them.

Saturday for lunch we took and chopped up the chicken and lamb to make pitas with. We also make a homemade cucumber sauce with greek yogurt (yum) - also another first time recipe for us. We heated the pitas up and then heated the chicken and lamb up together. On the pitas we spread the cucumber sauce, added the meat mixture, and then added lettuce, banana pepper slices, and I added pickles and then rolled them up. We actually had enough of the meat mixture left over that I was able to make these pitas again Sunday for lunch we liked them so much.

Another option would have been to use them in a chicken ceaser salad, crunchy asian salad with chicken, chicken salad, etc.... Don't limit yourself to only using your leftovers in the way they were originally cooked. Sometimes they can be stretched much further by being used in a totally different recipe.

With the temps soaring here the last thing I want to do is cook most days. On days like these I try to utilize kitchen appliances that do the work for me. For my BBQ chicken I put 4 split chicken breasts with a bunch of freshly chopped thyme, rosemary, sage, and oregano into the crockpot and let it cook on high all afternoon. After about 6 or so hours I took the chicken out and put it on the chopping board to cool. After it cooled but was still warm I pulled the chicken off the bones and then added a bottle of BBQ sauce. Served these on some nice buns with sesame seeds on top along with some fresh salsa and chips.

I also served limeade with this that was extremely tasty. I used a can of frozen limeade and added 4 cans of water (they call for 3 cans). I used part of a leftover lime from my salsa making and slided it up and up that into the pitcher along with a lemon and some fresh cut peppermint stalks. Yummy and refreshing.

Okay, now back to the job of blogging.

This weeks menues:

bbq chicken sandwiches
salsa and chips

roast
potatoes
carrots
rolls

grilled chicken quarters
pasta salad
caprese salad

mac & cheese (homemade)
green beans

Skillet steaks
roasted potatoes with rosemary and thyme
salad

MOMMY LAMENT

Today is my son's first official lacrosse game and I have to work so I won't be able to see it. Most would consider it no big deal, but I do. See my son has never played lacrosse until last week when he joined the high school team. He's played soccer and roller hockey since he was probably 5, but none of my kids have ever played lacrosse. Having been a stay at home mom and then a work from home mom for most of my kids lives, its very difficult to not share these moments with my children like I use to. I feel robbed of these first moments. The first time he goes on the field. The first time he gets the ball. The first time he scores. Now that he's 18 the chances of seeing or experiencing firsts with him are not going to happen to often and it truly saddens me that I've lost one of them.

COOKING WEEKEND

With spring in the air the weekend ended up being the perfect weekend to do some massive cooking. The funny thing was my ds informed me that I was cooking too much food.

Friday Matt and I always have date night. We went to Joe's Crab Shack this week for our date. We've both been in a seafood craving so this was hitting the spot.

Saturday morning I made fresh salsa. I used a recipe off The Pioneer Woman's website and modified it as I mixed it to our tastes. I'll make a couple more changes to kick up the heat the next time. As we've already eaten half of it I'd say its a winner. For lunch I fixed a homemade chicken salad with red grapes and almonds on croissants. Supper was grilled terriyaki salmon and fried potatoes with a delicious moscato wine. We're definitely going to be ordering several more bottles of the wine it was so good. Nice fruity taste. If you don't like white wines you might want to give this one a try. The salmon I picked up Friday after leaving work. I found a 4# family package marked down to just under $15 - the package was initially marked at $25. After I broke the package up it gave us 3 meals so 3 salmon dinners for approximately $5 each meal - that's a pretty sweet deal. At Joe's Crab Shack the salmon dinner was almost $20 a plate so a significant savings.

Sunday night we made pizzas. I got the idea off of The Pioneer Woman's blog earlier this week. She posted about making a caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza that made me crave one. I put the ingredients in the breadmaker to have ready for supper and Matt finished up the pizzas while I did some legal work.

LIFE

Unfortunately life has kept me from my blogging. I had oral surgery to extract an infected tooth a couple weeks ago. Prior to finally getting the surgery done, my energy level and overall well feeling totally hit bottom. Even my beloved Matt was concerned over the obvious change in my health. I was pretty certain it was the tooth but could only wait and see. I had the surgery on Saturday morning and spent most of the day in a Vicodin haze. The next day I just had minimal discomfort which ice helped alleviate so I didn't take any pain meds. That Monday night I remember feeling like my jaw was sore, sort of like I'd been punched but tossed it up to the surgery. By Tuesday I started to wonder as the pain increased to the point I had to start taking Motrins. Thursday night was so bad I had to break out the Vicodins and take one after I got home and another before bed. Got an appt. for that Saturday morning to have it checked out. I'd apparently developed dry socket and had to have a medicated cotton coil packed into the socket. The surgeon was talking at least 5 straight days of having this treatment done. Unfortunately 6 hours after I left the office the coil fell out while I was eating. I was rather surprised and happy when I went back the next Monday and they said since the pain had reduced so much they weren't going to put any more in unless the pain started back up again. The 6 hours of medication was all it needed. Thankfully no problems since. Finally this past weekend I finally started to feel like my normal self and had some energy.

Menues for the week /partial

Here's my partial list of menues for the week. Matt and I found some awesome looking salmon while we were at the veggie market Saturday and picked it up. As my 17yo ds doesn't eat fish, we'll have it tonight since he's working.

Saturday: Don Pablos - took my 17 yo ds out to eat and let him pick since it was his night off

Sunday: sticky/beer can chicken, mac & cheese, and fried corn - I used the sticky chicken rub on the chicken and then inserted the beer can instead of an onion and it was fabulous. I was going to take pics but I forgot about it until the end of the meal. I might have to put Matt in charge of photos lol.

Monday: Salmon, caprese salad, and aspargus. Since I'm allergic to raw tomatoes we use roasted red peppers in my salad. When my basil is growing well in the summer we eat a ton of caprese salad.

Tuesday: Teriyaki pork roast, roasted potatoes, carrots

Wednesday: Sausage patties and mac & cheese

I haven't gotten the rest of the week figured out yet. What's on your menues this week?

Valentine's Day

I hope everybody had an awesome Valentine's Day with their sweetie. Matt has been wanting to take a massage class for over a year so my Valentine's present to him was a 4 hour class on Valentine's Day. We enjoyed it immensely and might take it again as there is so much to absorb. They gave us sample bottles of cold pressed organic apricot oil to use for the massages. It has an almost almond scent to it, which I love. I had bought some of my own eucalyptus spearmint oil but liked the scent of the apricot oil so much I used it.

Matt's gift to me was a hand blown glass rose in vase. I'll take a picture and post it. He also cooked me a wonderful supper of grilled sword steak with fresh dill and lemon, rice pilaf, roasted mixed veggies with Italian dressing, and his awesome homemade apple dumplings with carmel sauce and vanilla bean ice cream. YUMMO. He even got me a bottle of Moscato wine. It was so much more relaxing then going out and having to wait for hours for dinner. I'm definitely glad we stayed in.

First Major Snow Fall

These are our two border collies, Tip and Lacey. Lacey is the timid one in the back and Tip is the one with that huge grin in the front. Isn't he adorable. Both my furkids are rescues.

We got our first major snow fall today. Snowfall was predicted to start at 10 this morning. I watched from the office window as the morning progressed and was feeling quite robbed that the predicted snowstorm was not producing the quantity of snow the great snow forcasters had predicted. Finally about 2 this afternoon it finally started producing some significant flakes that started to stay on the ground. I should have been happy that the storm was holding off because I forgot to consider the fact I had to drive home in it. The trip from our house to my first job is roughly 35 minutes - it took me an hour and 20 minutes to get home. I called in a snowday for the second job due to the nasty road conditions.

It was nice to be home early tonight. While my hardworking man, Matt, was showering I was able to pull out the pork steaks for supper and get them marinated. I marinated them with a combination of Worsteshire Sauce and soy sauce - I just sprinkled them over the top - and then sprinkled Grill Master Steak Rub. I let them sit marinating in cookie sheet for approximately 45 minutes and flipped every 15 minutes. Matt grilled these lovely pork steaks to perfection outside on the grill. Sides were some yummy, comforting creamy mashed potatoes with au jus gravy and broccoli cooked in italian salad dressing. Fabulous meal for a snowy cold evening. Wish I had remembered to take a picture of it. The furkids got a couple bites after we finished our dinner and from the liplicking I will assume they thought the steaks were as tasty as we did.

Being Sick Is Not Fun

So much for posting more consistently. I got flattened this weekend with a stomach bug, probably food poisoning, that started suddenly Saturday night. I hate being sick and of late seem to be having a hard time fighting stuff off. I don't necessarily come down with a full blown case, but it pulls my energy level way down.


On the positive side, Saturday morning/afternoon my man and one of his sisters went to see the Edsel Ford House and did a tour of the house and grounds, including the playhouse and garage. We then ate at the little cafe. I had a bowl of warming wild mushroom bisque and a reubin sandwich on pumpernickel and rye swirled bread. For those that live in the metro Detroit area or are visiting, I can definitely recommend taking this tour. The house tour took about an hour and the grounds about 30 minutes, but it was bitterly cold outside so we would have been out longer if the weather had been nicer. The playhouse, pictured, is absolutely adorable. It was a house built to 2/3 scale of a real one for their daughter to play in while she was growing up. Everything was 2/3 scale from doorways to electrical switches. Wouldn't this have been a fabulous place to play as a child! We definitely want to go back after the rose garden blooms and see the gardens again. We noticed when we were checking out the web page that they offer wedding photos and we plan on looking into what that allows and where. Currently there are no photos allowed in the house and I would definitely want a photo on the staircase if we decide to go with this idea.



My cleaning tip today is to keep a container of disinfectant wipes under your bathroom sink or on the counter and use them each morning to wipe down the counter, sink and toilet. I alternate days and do the counter & sink on opposite days as I do the toilet. Makes for a quick bit of cleaning after I get done with my shower in the morning.

Life is a Funny Thing

Life seems to constantly get in the way or to explode so that I don't have time to get those things done which I want to do. Migraines, my daughter moving into her first place and getting engaged, allergic reactions, and crazy work schedules. On top of it this past weekend my man proposed so we've been having to make the rounds announcing our engagement. In the end, nothing got done.

One of my goals this year is to get a cleaning schedule put into place. To facilite this I've been re-reading Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley - The Flylady. I'm not a diehard flyperson but I think the book and her sites if you have time to follow them can help. I've decided to use my Google Calendar to help me get things organized. I have made separate calendars (ie menues, medical, cleaning, etc). I've started making some basic schedules with these calendars to try and get things rolling. I'll see how Google works.

I've made a medical calendar to keep track of my blood pressure readings as we're having problems getting it stabilized and they just had to change the medications again after I had an allergic reaction to the ace-inhibitor in on eof the meds last week. I have to send my readings to my doctor about every 2 weeks for him to look over for adjustments. This way I can print out a calendar that just has my bp readings on it. I also have input info on days I have migraines or other issues that might affect my bp or that I might want to discuss with him.

I've also made a cleaning calendar that I've started making basic daily and weekly routines in. Since I get home after 7:30 pm, it can be difficult to clean an entire room so I'm trying out working 10 minutes in each room to try to keep on top of things through the week.

Today the man is home sick with strep. I've been fighting the bug all weekend and thankfully haven't gotten as sick as he is. I was supposed to have oral surgery this morning but the office postponed it. Since the bug seems to be going around I decided to make the best cure - a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup and some beer batter bread, which I used a bottle of hard cider instead of beer since we didn't have any in the house.

Each of us makes some type of New Year's Resolution whether its a lifestyle change, job change, or something more personnal. I've toyed with the idea of starting a blog but not being able to figure out exactly where I wanted to go with it have procrastinated until now. With some nudges from my man I have decided to launch myself. He feels my experiences might help someone else out there that's struggling with something I've already struggled through or have learned from. So welcome to Our Twilight Burrough. Cozy up with us and hopefully we'll develop into good friends.