Month: January 2009

Update: Thanks for playing everyone! I am now full, but feel free to post on your own blogs! 🙂

When I saw this in my friend’s journal I just had to participate! I think this will be fun 🙂

The first seven people to respond to this post will get something made by me.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

• What I create will be personalized and intended for you.
• It’ll be done this year (2009).
• You will have no idea what it’s going to be. It may be crocheted, sewn, embroidered, papercrafted, beaded, or even a mix CD. I might even bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!

The catch? You have to put this offer in your journal as well, and make seven things for your friends! (If you have already done this, then I will happily add you to the list.)

1. Kathy
2. Christina
3. Mar
4. Wendy
5. Shanee
6. Lisanne
7. Cady

8. Margie

For the most part I did OK sticking with last week’s menu. A couple of things got shifted around and we ened up going out to eat twice instead of once. The taco ring was a big hit. I hadn’t made it in quite a while and Drew enjoyed the change from regular tacos. In a surprise move, Noah (who has been, well, let’s just say “picky” as of late) devoured half of his portion before I even got to the table. Jake thought it was OK, but said he prefers regular tacos. I know he likes the crispy shells. I also tried the recipe for Slow Cooker Pea Soup that Sandra had posted. I did not add the milk at the end as the recipe indicated; I just added another cup of water instead. Overall, the soup was really delicious, but next time I will use my food processor to chop the ham extra fine. The ham cubes lost their flavor after all that slow cooking since it went right into the soup. It is certainly worth making, though. Cheap and hearty!

On to this week:

Monday: Black bean & corn frittata, salad

Tuesday: Greek-style chicken breasts, green bean salad, orzo

Wednesday: Filet mignon with blue cheese butter, caprese salad, baked potato, vegetable

Thursday: Penne with artichokes, olives, tomatoes & capers, salad

Friday: Dinner out (found out that kids eat free on Friday at our local diner!)

Saturday: Soup & sandwiches or leftovers

If the filet mignon seems extravagant, Shop Rite is running a sale this week and whole beef tenderloins are $3.99 a pound. I will be hightailing it over there tomorrow! As always, this is just a guide for me and is subject to change. (And probably will!)

For more menu ideas, head over to Organizing Junkie.

Seriously, I’m feeling ’em today. I checked the weather online earlier and learned that we can expect between 6-12 inches on snow on Wednesday. Yeah, yeah, I know that it’s the middle of winter but this winter in particular has felt so long. It seemed to start in early December with that big ice storm, and the temperatures have just been frigid. Maybe I’m getting too old to live in the cold. (Yet I seriously doubt I could convince Drew to move south, LOL!)

My day was also thrown off at the last minute this morning. I’m a scheduler, you see. And I’m not good with last-minute changes. So when you throw me a last-minute change that screws up my schedule for the day, it really messes me up. I had an interview this morning for a  feature story that I need to write. I’d already had difficulty scheduling it, so I was thrilled we could do it early this morning and get it out of the way so I could write up my story. I’d settled Noah down with a snack and his favorite cartoon to keep him occupied while I’d be on my call and I had my questions written up and ready to go. About eight minutes before I was going to call my contact, she called me and needed to reschedule because the person I’m supposed to speak with couldn’t do it at this time afterall.

Sigh.

So now I get to do it at 7:30 tonight. Oh well. It won’t take long and tomorrow I’ll write up the story and get it over with. (Which, of course, also means shifting around what I had wanted to do on Tuesday.) Sorry for being such a complainer. Maybe I should say “forget it” with this whole writing thing and look for jobs in IT instead. What do you think? LOL… Yeah, I’m not sure that’s a good idea, either. We’ll leave that to people who actually know a thing or two about computers.

Maybe if my day hadn’t started with Noah screaming at 6:15 a.m. because Jake was giving him wet willies I’d be in a better frame of mind.

I’m a big believer in buying things second-hand when possible. First of all, in theory you save money. Second, I like that I’m giving something a new lease on life instead of ending up in a landfill. In my younger days when I had a lot more time, I would spend every Saturday afternoon scouring the shelves and racks at Salvation Army and Goodwill, often finding some real treasures. These days I don’t have quite as much time (obviously) so I tend to turn to sites like Ebay and Craigslist (as well as our local eCycle chapter). But lately the prices people are asking for items on Craigslist is getting ridiculous! Someone was asking $150 for a used travel system. (I can buy a brand-new one for less!). Even things like maternity clothes or baby clothes that should be cheap (if people indeed want to get rid of them) are pretty pricey. If I am going to pay $50 for something to put my television on, I’d rather check out new tv stands for that price, rather than spend my money on a boring scratched-up one that probably didn’t even cost that much new.

It’s too bad people are so money-hungry, you know? I understand wanting to get a fair price, but they need to be reasonable at the same time. Isn’t it better to unload the item for less rather than have it sit around your house because no one wants to spend what you’re asking? I don’t know… maybe it’s just me.

This morning I went grocery shopping and as I was walking into Sam’s I thought, “Man, it feels downright balmy compared to last week!” Uh… as I look at the temperature outside right now I see that it’s only 21 degrees out. Isn’t it sad that these kinds of temperatures actually feel warm to me? Ugh. I will say it a million times between now and March 21, but man I just can’t wait for spring. I’ve been looking through seed catalogs and dreaming of planting cheerful annuals around the house. I’d love to make a planting mound on part of our yard with one of these Japanese Magnolia trees in the center and perennials surrounding it. Yeah, that’s a bit ambitious for this year, I know. But it’s fun to plan!

This year’s garden will be kept simple: a couple containers of cukes on the deck, some easy-care annuals for splashes of color, and the rest I’m leaving to my CSA. Though there’s a chance I still might attempt a cutting garden this year of cosmos, zinnia, and a couple other flowers. We’ll see.

Ah, Monday. I rather like Mondays. Jake is (usually) back in school and it’s the one day a week that my telecommuting hubby (usually) goes into the office. Normally I like to crank through some cleaning and organizing and planning to get the week off to a running start.

Today was a little bit different since Jake is off from school and D. decided to go into work tomorrow instead because Jake is home. But I still managed to do a good cleaning of the kitchen (always the best place to start, in my opinion), and write up a menu for the week. I’m realizing that I need to start planning lunches too. I didn’t this week, but next week I will. Anyway, here’s what I’ve planned:

Sunday: Sausage parmesan wedges with onions & peppers (D. cooks)

Monday: Tortellini with ham & peas (D. cooks)

Tuesday: Tacos or taco ring (held over from last week)

Wednesday: Chicken curry (or some other chicken dish), rice

Thursday: Cube steak with mustard sauce (D. cooks), pasta salad, veggies

Friday: Soup & sandwiches or out to dinner

Saturday: Steak, baked potato, veggies & salad

Drew wanted to do a little more cooking this week, so he chose a couple of his specialties 🙂

This afternoon I got to go out by myself for a little while. I have been wanted to do some thrifting, but I didn’t find anything other than a 99-cent basket at Goodwill today. The deals just aren’t there like they used to be (or maybe the one I go to is just priced higher, I don’t know). Then I went to Michael’s and bought yarn for Drew’s hat and handwarmers. He wants a pair to wear over his gloves when he is snowblowing. Poor guy could have used them this weekend, so I plan to get that going ASAP. I also bought two scented candles — lilac (one of my favorites) and ginger-citrus. Oh, it smells so good. At this time of year I love lighter scents like this instead of the heavy, spicy scents of autumn and Christmas time.

After that I went to Starbucks to use a coupon for one of their new tea lattes. I’ve been hearing a lot about them, but honestly I was not all that impressed. I ordered the vanilla rooibos latte (I drink this flavor of tea at home quite often), but it had this weird spiciness to it that reminded me of chai. It was basically like drinking steamed milk that had a bit of tea flavoring in it, in my opinion. In the future I’d be better off spending $2.95 on good-quality tea and making it at home, as usual.

Let’s see, what else is going on. Oh! We decided to do a little midwinter vacation again this year. We weren’t going to but figured we won’t be doing much this summer, so we looked into going back to Woodloch again. We tried to book it online yesterday and were having trouble, so Drew said that he’d just call today. Well, how funny is this: starting today there was a special promotion for the week we want to go and it ended up being even cheaper! That is certainly a wonderful thing. We’re not telling the boys. I think we’re going to surprise them 🙂 The only bad thing is that now I have to find a maternity bathing suit — ugh. Shopping for a regular bathing suit fills me with dread, so this will be even worse, LOL.

Tomorrow I need to catch up on laundry and I am thinking of cleaning out the toys in the den. Maybe while I’m surfing online I’ll see an ad that says, “Get free life insurance quotes here.” Because let me tell you, I might need life insurance when I dive into those toys bins! They’re actually not quite that bad, but they do need a good cleaning out.

Hope your week is off to a good start!