Saturday Messes

One destroyed kitchen equals


Gluten Free Garbage Loaf (times three)
2 lbs ground beef
3 eggs (which I forgot with my first posting)
Mushrooms
Carrots
All the leftover onion pieces in the fridge plus one onion
the two almost empty katsup bottle plus part of another
Puffed Rice cereal
corn (which I also forgot with my first posting.)
Make into a loaf (or put in muffin stoneware) and bake at 350 until cooked all the way through. This is important because raw meatloaf is disgusting.

Crockpot Applesauce
Cut up a whole bunch of apples. Add a small amount of water. I used half of one of my small plastic cups (don't you LOVE my recipes?) Add some sugar. I was mad at Lindsey because she slept in. I wanted her to make the coffee because I am sick and wanted someone to pamper me, and so I used the rest of her coffee sugar. Muhahahhaa. Joke was on me. She didn't even know how to work the coffee maker. anyhow, I would say, 1/4-1/2 a cup will do you. Turn the crockpot on and cook it all day. Wait! Do NOT forget to add a dash of cinnamon.

Alton Brown's Hot Chocolate Mix (It's your lucky day- you get a real recipe!
Ingredients
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup cocoa (Dutch-process preferred)
2 1/2 cups powdered milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or more to taste
Hot water
Directions
Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and incorporate evenly. In a small pot, heat 4 to 6 cups of water.

Fill your mug half full with the mixture and pour in hot water. Stir to combine. Seal the rest in an airtight container, keeps indefinitely in the pantry. This also works great with warm milk.

BTW- I was out of cornstarch and so I skipped it. I did NOT however skip the cayenne. Yehaw! THat was a spicy and surprising touch. Also, I used dark cocoa. Delicious. It beats out every other mix recipe I have ever used. Try it.

An explanation on my garbage loaf. It is not a brain o (like a typo- but instead of a typing mistake you make a brain mistake) Brain o's are fun. Once, I heard someone (ahem- I won't say who) say that she though pre-marital sex was a good idea. What she MEANT was, that she thought pre-marital counseling was a good idea. Hahaha
Anyhow. THis same person thought maybe my brain had fritzed and I said garbage loaf instead of meat loaf.

I call mine garbage loaf, because I toss in every leftover tidbit I find in the fridge. Stuff that if not used up, would get tossed. It was delicious by the way. I was worried about the the puffed rice cereal- but it worked wonderfully. My kids griped about the onions, but cheerfully ate an entire serving of other veggies without even knowing it.

Some people's trash

I admit it- I like garbage day. Free STUFF! And I love Stuff. I love FREE!!!! And I love keeping stuff out of landfills
Can you believe someone was just going to throw this chair away???? Were they crazy???? I could not believe my luck- I mean, it's in perfect condition- and so, for the first time ever, I actually knocked on the door (usually, I just toss my find in the truck and giggle giddily over finding a treasure before anyone else). The guy said it was being tossed, and he smiled that I would want it. "It's a nice chair", he said. No kidding.

My girlie blanket was an el cheapo find at the thrift store. I don't think I have ever found anything so wonderful before. It didn't have a price tag and I hauled it, lovingly, to the checkout counter, telling myself I would pay even 20.00 if I had to. But, I didn't. 4.00 and I had a whole new pack of woven friends.

My kids pored over it for hours before deciding that this one is me. What do you think?

And would it be crazy for me to pull this chair inside? I kinda love it and want to bounce in it while laptopping.

Could it be?

I am almost afraid to believe it, but the birds chirping outside my window seem to believe it with all their chirp hearts.
My rose bushes tell me as well, that winter has turned the corner.
But winter is so fickle. Perhaps she will decide to come back.

I am feeling a bit pessimistic about the whole thing. Honestly, I was convinced we would never see the sun again.


PS.
The little birdhouses on my mantle are child made. THey are just painted bricks with some dried something or other poked in the holes and cardboard roofs. Grammy Pammy helped the kids to make them and they turned out beautifully. Far better than any decoration that is store-bought.

Good Morning Monday!

A place for everything. And everything in its place. Thanks to my dad and thrity some odd years of practice, it's a lesson I have learned fairly well.
Everything in my kitchen has adesignated spot. If it doesn't have a spot, I don't let it in. I'm mean to stuff. Cruella DeStuff. I have a basket for my root veggies. I have a basket for the dogs this and that, and another basket for all our vitamins and any meds we are currently taking. T

he best way to make you life in the kitchen simple is to take every single thing OUT of the kithen and then put it back ion it's own perfect spot. Now, the perfect spot in my kitchen changes. All the time. I get bored easily. This drives Dustan bonkers as he tries to find his vitamins and they have moved from the cabinet by the sink to the pantry. One day, I will be old and crippled and won't be able to move stuff around, I will probably die of boredom. Anyhow, the point is, that it doesn't. It all still has it's own place. Until it changes addresses, it will go in that specific place. Everything needs a home.

And if it doesn't have one- this is what happens to it: I love freecycle. It's the best thing that happened to mankind. I'm too lazy for a garage sale, and so, I posted the following offer on freecycle today.
OFFER: Half a garage sale. Not the stuff I didn't sell, but the stuff I am to lazy to bother to sell. make some money on my stuff. Pick it up by noon, and take it ALL.

It was gone within half an hour. It would have taken me three times as long to pack it up, drag my kids out, and drive to the goodwill. I heart freecycle. It helps me to declutter my life.

Work Day again.

It seems to be a never ending project. When I woke up this morning, my family room was fit for company. By 8 o'clock it looked like a construction zone.

Boring white. I finally painted those pantry shelves too. And yes, I painted them white. I was all for having a memorable pantry, but Dustan and Mom snagged me with their reality lasso and forced the white upon me. In case you were wondering- it was painful.

Here's what was going on behind the door. It was such a lovely shot that I couldn't resist taking it. We have had a burst of learning here lately. Weston is the one reading here. Doesn't it make you want to curl up with them? It seems so...cozy.

Pretzal Party

I am finally catching up here on toasty toes blog. I have finally after a couple of hours of uploading pictures, reached the pinacle of the year. Christmas Day.
By the time the Christmas pretzal party time arrived, I was sick as sick could be of being in my kitchen, so I begged my daddy and Dustan to head up the task. I just snapped a million pictures, cringed at all the finger licking, and laughed at the crazy candy combinations they came up with.
Also, you will perhaps see reason number 523 why I have not blog posted in so long. Work day never actually did end. It's still going on. In fact, it went forward even today. Dustan is busy laying flooring as I type and I am busy waiting for my freshly painted pantry door to dry so that I can move it out and start painting my basement door. You will see our new cabinets, and new paint color. You will not however see any window coverings, or a countertop. The countertop will be here next week, and the floor will also be done next week. I have lived in a quasi kitchen for over a month (we started this at the beginning of Nov., and I am ready to have a kitchen back. for those who may be wondering why we got new cabinets when the old, lovely blue ones were so cheery and pretty...well, the best explanation is that we will be selling the house. Which is reason number 524 for the lack of posting. I am mourning my lovely house- But, God has big plans for my family, and the first step is to get this house sold. So, I am no longer making decisions based on my own likes, but the possible likes and desires of the "everywoman". I am not everywoman, and this has been quite a grueling task for me.

But without further ado, here is pretzel day: (oh, and blooger pics is broken at the moment and so I had to use photobucket- which means I can't control the size. if this causes your computer to have a stroke and die- I am sorry. check back later and hopefully blogger will fix their issue AND I will have time to add smaller pictures.)

Work Day

Weston is such a helper.

He even lays down flooring. It's like having our own personal slave,

who takes continuous breaks for dog licks and snuggles.

"come on Heidi. Time to get to work now. Out of the way."

Heidi scoffs at our attempts to move her and lies down right on the flooring we are trying to lay.

And she says, 'I ain't movin'. Just try to make me."

Good Morning Monday!!!

Fall is here and the skies have become gray. My Monday morning pep has gone the way of the Canadian geese. South.

It happenes every year. Fall is my favorite season but I can hardly enjoy it due the the foreshawdowing of winter. winter is cold, gloomy, and lonely. And every year I fret that my trees will not burst forth in new foliage come spring. By the time winter gets here I am tired of gloominess and seek out medicinal help. It happpens every winter. You would think my doctor would see a pattern and diagnose me with seasonal depression. or whatever it's called.

But, because I have a goal to declutter my life, and because gloominess has no room (I filled it up with smiles, and laughter, and soft-voices remember?), I am going to be proactive. I have heard that there are special lightbulbs that can help with SAD (seasonal affective disorder- I just looked it up) and I plan to buy some. It can't hurt. I also plan to do some research and see if there are some herbal remedies that may help.

Do any of my readers suffer from SAD? Have you heard of it? Do you know of any non-medicinal remedies? Let me know.

no picture today because blogger is broken. How depressing. I think I will go back to bed...

It's Friday

and time for Show and Tell.

Today I want to show a before and after. And this is the second SnT that I will make my sister cry (the first was a gigantic spider web). This one is not as frightening.
Before:


After:

I am not a fan of dark wood, and I adore painted wood. So paint it I did, and I love the way it turned out. I used the directions I found at (oh boy, I forgot where I found them and a half an hour search has tuned up nothing) Anyhow, I also colorcoded my books which is something else I saw on a blog somewhere. Blogs are great for ideas.

Show and Tell Friday

My great-grandmother is one of the most talented crafters I have ever met. When I was just barely old enough to remember it, she began to teach me how to crochet. I watched the yarn slipping through her fingers and became addicted to the rhythm of the art. Loop, turn pull. Loop, turn, pull.

She also quilted. As a child I thought the quilts were made of magic. I never saw her quilting, but everytime I visited, Voila. A new quilt. Like magic. One of her quilts was made for my father when he was just a boy. It had a Davy Crockett print on the back and was my absolute favorite blanket. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a lovie and therefore it was well-used, and ill abused. I still had it in highschool but somewhere along the way, the threads gave out and it became more shreds than blanket.

Last year I was given the one in the picture. I love its cheery colors. Don't you?

By the way, she also made the pillowcases. I got those when I got married and I just recently got brave enough to pull them out and use them.

Check out all the other Show and Tells at Kelly's site and join us by adding your own.

Good Morning Monday!

Let's Simplify our lives shall we?

These Monday Morning posts come to you from an effort to make my life less cluttered. Read this post to understand better.

Todays tip is:
Slow down your morning. Take at least the first hour of your morning and press the sllllloooooowwwww button on your life's remote. There is no need to zip through your morning routine as if your life will pass you by unless you hurry hurry hurry. actually, I have found it to be the opposite. Life passes you by while you hurry and scurry doing things that don't really count as living. However, if you slow things down a bit (ok- a lot) you will find that you have time to do a lot of living in those simple mundane moments.

Choose something you love for that first hour of the morning. If you have a task that MUST be done, find a way to enjoy doing it. Do it slowly with reverence and calm for the gift of a new day that God has given you.
*Make your bed and take a deep breath. Sigh with pleasure about crawling into a nice soft bed after a long day.
*Take your dog outside and don't hurry him. Even if it's raining. Take time to enjoy the rain. Take a deep breath.
* SIT DOWN with a cup of coffee and your favorite magazine. Take a deep breath.

I want to also say that in this age of rushing, rushing, and more rushing our children are likely feeling as frazzled as we are. Let them slow down too. I payed close attention to my mornings for a week, and I noticed that when my children sat down to curl up on the couch, went outside on our deck to snuggle with Heidi, or laid down on the floor for a good old fashioned stretch, I was quick to give them a barrage of to-do questions.
Did you make you bed?
Have you gone to the bathroom?
Did flush the toilet, wash your hands?
Marcus, take this washcloth and wipe down the bathroom sinks.
Weston, bring down your laundry baskets so I can do the laundry.
Esther, go straighten up the shoes in the foyer.
all of you, get over here and eat your breakfast.
Are you done with that?
I need to wash these dishes. Hurry up.
Lets' get our school work started. Sit down. get your glasses on. Go get your math book.

And on and on and on.

No wonder it felt like our lives were cluttered

Our new mornings are clear from all this garbage for at least one hour. We have things we have to get done. Breakfast has to be eaten, the dog has to be taken out. But we slow it down, and we enjoy each other while we do those things. Anything that can wait until hour two, waits until hour two.

For those of you who have to leave the house in the morning- you will probably need to wake up and hour early for this to work. I homeschool and can allow ourselves an extra hour in the morning. However, I have found myself getting up earlier in order to extend the morning calm. Now I usually have at least half an hour of time to myself before the kids wake up. I slllloooowwwwwly make myself a cup of coffee and stand on my deck watching all the suburban wildlife scamper through my yard.

This slow time always feels a bit like camping. Which hapens to have been the point.

And because it's Monday: Here's my weekly menu

Fennel-Crusted Pork Loin with roasted potatoes and pears
Roasted pacific cod with olives and lemons
Spanish chicken and rice
Easy Shepherd's Pie
Chicken Picada
Tamale Pie
Autumn veggie Minestrone (Crockpot meal)
2 14.5 oz cans vegetable broth
1 18 oz can crushed tomatoes's undrained
3 medium carrots -- chopped (1 ½ cups)
3 small zucchini -- cut into 1/2" slices
1 medium yellow bell pepper -- cut into 1/2" pieces
8 medium green onions -- sliced (1/2 cup)
2 cloves garlic -- finely chopped
2 cups shredded cabbage
2 teaspoons dried marjoram
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup uncooked instant rice
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

Mix all ingredients except rice and basil in a 3 ½ to 6 quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on low heat setting for 6 to 8 hours or until vegetables are tender. Stir in rice. Cover and cook on low heat setting for about 15 minutes or until rice is tender.

Per serving: WW Points: 1; 195 Calories (kcal); 2g Total Fat; 7g Protein; 39g Carbohydrate; 1mg Cholesterol; 1198mg Sodium

Good Morning Monday!

Happy Monday Morning to you all! Why am I chipper this morning? Because being chipper is less complicated than being grumpy- and I am on a mission to simplify my life. Wahooo! Exciting isn't it? So every Monday, I plan to share a tip on life simplification. Join me on my mission to unclutter our lives. Today is such an exciting day that I am going to give you two tips. TWO! Yay! Free tips! Wahoooo!

Tip number one: Don't answer the phone. I spent a day calculating how much time I spent running after that annoying ring. Ridiculous! I would stop everything, reading, doing dishes, laundry, helping kids with work...everytime I heard a bdddrrriinnnnnggg. Stupid me. No more. Now I am smart me. Now, if I am in the middle of something, I ignore the phone.
I have voice mail. Next time I walk by the phone, I can look and see who called. Bonus is that I don;t have to talk to anyone I don't want to. So. if you call me and I don't answer, it may be that I am home and have chosen to ignore call in an effort to de-clutter my life. haha! Just kidding. I will call you back. Promi...

Tip number Two:
Make a menu. I make a very loose menu. There are seven days in the week and I make seven dinner plans and make sure I have all the ingredients on hand. This way, when it comes to dinner time, I can look at my list and make whichever meal sounds good that day. I make sure to include several "lazy" meals to use on those days that things are nutso in my house. I post this menu on my fridge and every morning I look at it and decide what meal would fit best for today. I write that meal on my dry erase board so I don't forget it. My memory is worse than my typing. Here's a peek into this weeks menu. They are all weight watchers menus and come either from client websites or from the cookbook Flex and Core.

Apple Crusted pork with sweet potatoes
Cheesy Mushroom Burgers with steamed broccoli
Chicken picada with green peas
Summer Corn, bacon, and Potato chowder with salad
Dijon Beef Stroganoff with artichokes
Chicken Souvlaki with rice and yogurt sauce
Tex-mex turkey Meatloaf with coucous and green beans


PS, I added a sweet early morning picture to cheer you up. And freak my sister out- because freaking her out cheers ME up!!!!! happy Monday y'all!!!!!

What does my fridge say about me?

After reading a post on THIS BLOG THAT YOU MUST GO VISIT BECAUSE I REALLY REALLY LOVE HER HOUSE AND WANT TO MOVE IN WITH HER!!!! I got to thinking about what my fridge might reveal about me.




It says I love simplicity.

















It says I am persistent. I have been working on this for months. I used every single letter block I had, and let me tell you it was hard. I had very few vowels- and NO A's! Look closely, I used an upside down V for an A. Some would say that this reveals that I am a cheater. It say that it says I am creative.












It says I am organized and that I care about the character of my children.











Haha. This is the side. I am pretty sure that this says I am a fraud. Just a hodge podge mess of a person. The front is a front. haha. Did you catch that?

A tiny Organized Paradise in the Middle of a World of Chaos

My house is so beyond repair it is unbelievable. The entire contents of the living room and dining room have spilled over into the entire first floor. The entire house is bearing the consequences of days of painting, redecorating, and no time for cleaning. Ugh. It's just ugh.
But here are two tiny oasis in the middle of the filth and destruction.
Our school table. It is simple, it is functional. It doesn't look like it should grace the cover of a magazine, but it works oh so very well. A small shelf to cubby our math manipulatives into, a holder for pencils, pens, dry erase markers, and even Marcus' glasses fit in there.
A pencil box to hold sharpened pencils, erasers (because my children eat the ones on top of their pencils), and a sharpener.
Two more stacking pencil boxes, one for crayons, one for colored pencils.
A dry erase board for spelling words.
Everything gets used everyday and put away everyday. It's simple and it makes my eyes happy.
By the way, you can use this part of my blog post for a homeschooling exercise. Have your children count the number of sentence fragments. Horrifying!

And this little spot of delight is new. As if we didn't have enough craziness on our weekend to-do list, we decided that a family control center was a MUST. I got the idea from This post from a parenting board I frequent You don't have to be a member to view the post. What a great idea! I had to implement it immediately. I bought all the supplies at Home Depot.
The entire thing cost about 50.00 and was very very worth it. I plan to use some hot glue and some ribbon to pretty it up, but I have a million other things to do first (like find my hot glue gun). Ha! Like having things to do ever stopped me from a project...
No. Seriously. I have to get this stuff done, the craziness is making me...well...crazy.


As an update on the carpet situation. We exchanged the crapet (this was misspelled on accident. I promise), and for only 160.00 more, we no longer have pink carpet. This second carpet is lighter, thicker, and definitely no pink. Dustan said I am not allowed to change my mind again and so, for my sanity I refuse to post a picture. I will show you when it's already in and too late to change. Speaking of in- WEDNESDAY! Just three days and I won't have to look at that disgusting brown carpet (or crapet), ever again!

sneak peek

UPDATE#2: I have exchanged the carpet (see above post) and because I didn;t want to clog this post with fifty hundred carpet pictures- I removed several of them. I have no idea which ones are left. Apparently some pictures made the carpet look fine- others brought out the pink. Thank you all very very much for all the advice and for pointing out the pinkyness.
UPDATE: I was told the carpet was PINK! Pink?!?!?! Okay, so I have rushed to some better light so that my camera could take better pictures. If it still looks pink, I will make haste to Crazy Becky's Carpet Outlet and see if I can change the carpet! So look hard. See any pink?



I am making a quick post an run so I can get some familial opinions. The goal is to lighten this room, but I am nervous about the carpet being too creamy and the paint being too dull. Hopefully Mom can put my mind at ease...

Graffitti

It's hard work again here today with no relief in sight. Four more walls to be painted and the dining room whit walls must be redone due to cruddy paint. Don't buy Behr. If you do, don't say I didn't warn you. Three coats later and it's still blotchy.

I am tired, and verging on cranky. So I lightened the mood. The kids are convinced it's satying this way and they are BEGIING me to erase both the Emi (she is our neighbor) reference and the dog present. They have informed me that the wall looks really nice except for those two things. They are worried that Grandma might not like it, but she especially won't if it has doggie doo on it.

We will tell them sometime in about...oh...1 hour, that it's just primer.
We have the lovliest shade of grecian green going up. I can't wait. It brighter and lighter than what is up at the moment. And.


And...
Count down to new carpet starts TODAY. Wahoo! Measuring Man (that's a new super hero, in case you were wondering) came out today.

I am posting from a pretty place

New couch covers. Gone is the ugly jungly green. I still have some illows to make and the arm cushions to cover, but all in all- it turned out well. We had some snags along the way but once we (by we, I mean my awesome friend, Gwen) figured it out, it was smooth sailing. Ahem. well, actually...there is that one back cushion that is significantly smaller than the others. that single pillow sent me to my room in tears and kept me awake all night last night. personally, I plan to purge the memory of that pillow from my mind.

And as if my house wasn't enough of a big gigantic undone project... We have decided to paint the dining room before we lay down the new floor. As soon as we finish painting we have to move all the furniture that is now piled in the living room, into the freshly painted dining room, so that we can, then, paint the living room in preparation for its new flooring. I leave you with a picture of my hunk, and a peek at the new paint color.



Good bye for now. The rest of the day will be spent running errands, painting, and moving furniture. Tonight will be spent downing as many tylonols as legally possible. My muscles already hate me and I am no where near done.

A rug for Esther's room

I hadn't posted this yet because I thought everyone was tired of seeing Esther's room. But since Carrie kept nagging...here it is. I used some heavy decorator fabric that I found on sale, backed it with that hot pink from her curtains (I still have a ton of that left as I was required to buy three full yards), and sandwiched in some heavy waffle weave knit for batting. I am one of those use what you have people and didn't want to make an extra run to the store for batting.
After calling around and getting advice on how to quilt the rug I finally decided on the easiest way: I threaded some floss, puled it through and tied it in little knots. I am sure there is some kind of technical term for this, but since I no squat about quilting I will leave it to the experts to point us to the just-right terminology.

Anyhow, It was simple to do and eventually I hope to fill the whole rug with little knotties...but I am saving that chore for one of Esther's winter sick days. I will open up her curtains, let the sun shine in and sit on her floor, quilting her rug while she lies in bed coughing and moaning. This plan may have to be implemented sooner than expected as they already have their first change-of-weather sickness. It's allergy season here.
It's no surprise though since the yard is covered in gigantic mushrooms and the mushrooms are covered in a fine green and white hairy film. I told Dustan that our fungus was growing mold and sent him to the pharmacy to gather some meds to make the kids comfy enough to sleep. Last night we were med free. We were also sleep free.

Morning

Routine seems to be a dirty word at my house. No sooner do I decide to institute one than it is destroyed by circumstance, by child, by the previous nights insomnia, and mostly by myself.
I seem to be one of the few people in the world who does not function well under a routine. I bore easily I guess.
I am also, always stressed.
And I have at least one child who NEEDS a structured routine.
So...here is my one hundred and forthieth million gazzillion effort at a (loose) routine.
Wake up.
Wake up kids.
Everyone get dressed.
Every one straighten rooms and gather up dirty laundry.
Go downstairs. Take laundry basket with me.
Take dog out.
Make and eat breakfast.
Put in a load of laundry.
Start kids on school.
Clean kitchen, blog, read email, and do Bible study while they do Independent work.

I already hate it.