Life. Family. Love.

10.22.2012

Mission: Organization - An Introduction

As women, we often wear many hats. Mama, wife, chef, psychologist, disciplinarian, taxi driver, maid, wiper of boogers, finder of lost socks, and kisser of boo-boos. As much as we try act like Super Woman, it can get a ~~little~~ lot bit overwhelming.

See, I have a little....well, problem. I'm an organization *ahem* freak - I like things neat, in its place, in the right order (preferably alphabetical, numerical or color coded)...but I just can't seem to get to exactly where I want to be. I'm never satisfied. This bothers me....a lot. Way more than it probably should. I actually lose sleep over it (ok, pretend I never said that). But I can't help but expect perfection from myself. In my perfect world, my house would never have clutter, I'd load every dish into the dishwasher as it was dirtied and wash the laundry the second the soiled clothes were taken off. But life is busy. VERY very busy. Kenzie's taking three different dance classes this year, and also participates in Girl Scouts and our church youth group activities. She's also signing up for basketball season soon, which is set to begin around November. This will add at least one practice per week and a game nearly every Saturday. Afternoons around here are chaotic, to say the least. So I've decided something's gotta give - I've got to think of an alternative to running around like a chicken with my head cut off 24/7. I figure a well-planned system of organization is the key to cutting out the chaos. With that said, I'm beginning an interactive (yes, YOU can participate!) new series called.......

I have set some goals for myself (and you, if you'd like) to complete in the coming months, but we'll start with the first one:

Mission: Monthly Menu Planning

Action Steps

Figure out a family budget. Start with looking back at exactly how much you spent on groceries last month. Is it reasonable for your income level? Come up with a set amount you are able to spend each month, and then make a vow that no matter what, you will STICK TO IT. Planning is the key to a successful budget!
Develop a menu system that works for your family's specific needs: Don't make this step more complicated than it is just jot down the days you have extra-curricular and have less time to cook you may want to have leftovers, maybe having a bigger meal for Sunday supper, how many times you will eat out per month (if that's in your budget), etc.
Plan a month worth of dinner ideas.

Here's a sample of one of my monthly dinner menus. It's also downloadable and printable! Fancy, huh?

I tried to keep it simple by always doing leftovers on Mondays (Kenzie has two dance classes that day, so it's hectic), Mexican food on Tuesdays, and a bigger meal for Sunday Supper.

To participate in this week's mission:

1) Complete the mission (and blog about your experience, if you'd like - I'd love to hear how it works for you). I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!
2) Grab a Button (below) post into your blog post by copying the code below it, or simply inlude a link back to my blog in your post..
3) Link up your mission so others an see your progress and participate, too!

10.20.2012

My 28th Year - Part Two

Sunday was my 28th birthday. I got to sleep in until 9:30, a much needed and very welcome treat. As I wiped my sleepy eyes and stumbled out of the bedroom, I saw Kenzie and Dusty sitting on the couch, eagerly waiting for me to come into the room. I locked eyes with Kenzie and she immediately burst out into a "Happy Birthday" serenade. As I sat down on the couch, I was proudly presented with homemade wild berry muffins she'd made all by herself, complete with a candle. She even added nuts and crushed up Lorna Doone cookies on top for a little added touch. It's nice to feel appreciated.

Once we were up and around for the day, we thought it might be fun to explore Patterson Farm, a nearby working farm which offers seasonal fun for the whole family. After all of the commotion from Saturday, I was really looking forward to enjoying a day of relaxing family fun - lizard free, of course. We invited our great friends Jared and Alicia to come with us as well as their too-cute-for-words baby girl, A.

Kenzie is absolutely smitten with her, and they formed a special bond from the beginning. When baby A is around, Kenzie's motherly instincts kick in and she spends the whole time loving on her and making sure she's taken care of. Even if that means setting her up with a pair of headphones so they can enjoy a movie together in the car.

The farm was exactly what I needed for my birthday - time.

We all need it. Time with family. Time with great friends. Time in the great outdoors. To enjoy life's natural beauty, with no outside distractions to interfere. Time to relax, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life - to appreciate the smiles on our children's faces, and how magical the simplicity of life can really be.

Time to laugh. To act silly. To be kids again. Time to explore the hay mazes and the corn pits. To watch the pig races...and celebrate when your chosen pig wins - or loses. To shoot a tomato slingshot, roll down the hill and get so dizzy you can't stand.

To get your face painted. To let your child pick out a 25.5 lb. pumpkin, even though they're sold by the pound. To love on your friends' kids, and to watch them love on yours.

To make new memories...and to look forward to building more in the future.

10.19.2012

Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti

I initially found this recipe for Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti through Pinterest and couldn't wait to try it. I doctored it up to my family's taste just a little bit, adding mushrooms and cooking the onions and peppers in with the ground beef instead of microwaving them. It definitely didn't disappoint! In fact, I believe my exact words after the first bite were, "I will never eat 'regular' spaghetti again." You have to try it to believe it. It's just that good.

source/original recipe

What You'll Need:
1 lb. ground beef
8 oz. spaghetti, cooked to al dente, drained and set aside
1 (26.5 oz) jar spaghetti sauce (I used Ragu Garden Veggie)
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 small can mushrooms, drained
1 (8 oz.) block cream cheese, softened
2 TBS. milk
Fresh grated Parmesan cheese
1 small can French Fried Onions

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a skillet, brown ground beef with salt and pepper (to taste), onion and peppers. Add spaghetti sauce and warm through. Set aside. In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese and milk. Add mushrooms. Spray an 8" x 12" baking dish with cooking spray and assemble dish beginning with a thin layer of spaghetti sauce, followed by cooked spaghetti noodles. Spread cream cheese mixture on top of noodles.Top with remaining spaghetti sauce and Parmesan cheese (to taste). Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. Add French Fried onions and bake 5 more minutes.

10.17.2012

My 28th Year - Part One

Happy Hump Day! I hope your week has been great so far. We had a busy weekend full of lots of fun - the kind of fun that causes you to drag your exhausted body through the front door in the evening, throw on your pajamas and cozily drift right to sleep with a smile still on your face because you've had such an amazing day. The kind of exhausted that I live for.

Sunday was my 28th birthday. We celebrated most of the weekend, first with an afternoon family get together on Saturday. It was a perfect day - not too hot, not too cold, a little breeze. My dad cooked brisket and my mom made me an amazing mint chocolate chip birthday cake. The icing tasted just like Blue Bell's Mint Chocolate Chip flavor (my childhood favorite), and the chocolate cake was melt in your mouth good.

Everything was going along swimmingly. We were relaxed, having fun, enjoying great food and even better company. I guess I should have known better, but I actually caught myself thinking, "wow, this day has really gone off without a hitch." Now, in my family, you just don't say stuff like that...because in my family, nothing ever goes off without a hitch. Something always happens - we're just too darn dysfunctional. And as the day was winding down, the jinx from my earlier thought popped up and slapped me right in the face...

Let me start by mentioning that over the years, I have become increasingly terrified of creepy crawlies (and birds..but we'll save that topic for another day). Particularly wasps, bees, spiders, and anything unidentifiable. I know, I'm a big wimp. I also have a huge place in my heart for anything with a heartbeat, so I'm torn. In an "OMG, there's a bug, there's a bug!! Kill it, Dusty! NO, don't kill it, just get it! Okay, it's on me, KILL IT!" *whack!* "Aww, why'd you have to kill it?" kind of way. I'm scared of them, yet...I care about them. I'm a strange bird (wait, I'm afraid of birds...okay, I'm just strange).

Anyway, back to my story. After cake, we were all sitting around the patio when I spotted the cutest little lizard on the umbrella. I started in on all my, "aww, it's so cute!" comments. My mom couldn't believe what she was hearing and started snapping pictures (probably for evidence) of me admiring the little cutie, and things just got worse from there. I decided I wanted to hold the lizard. I know, I know...but I was on sugar overload from cake (and a few *ahem* adult beverages) and wasn't thinking clearly. I reached up and took the lizard in my hands, prying his little legs from around the umbrella stand (poor little guy).

And then it happened. He started to squirm a little in my hand and I just....freaked out. I let go and started eek-ing and oh-my-goshing and he wriggled all the way up my right arm, giving me the worst case of heebie jeebies I've ever felt in my life! I quickly grabbed him and decided that I would let him go. So I'm holding him, freaking out, screaming like a little girl who'd just seen Freddy Krueger, and trying to find a place to put him down all at once. Everyone is hollering different things at me and I'm just all frazzled not knowing where I should let the little bugger go. So I did something monumentally stupid. I bent over and set the lizard down on the patio. As I started to watch him scamper off towards the corner of the retaining wall and a potted plant, I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye, a big blur of black and white raced past me and before I knew what was happening it was over. It was Tuffy, my parent's cockapoo. He'd snatched the lizard up in his mouth and run up the hill to enjoy him as an afternoon snack.

I was devastated. Everyone was joking around saying, "See, if you hadn't picked him up he would have lived!", but I honestly felt like my heart was breaking because I had caused this. If I hadn't picked up the lizard in the first place, this never would have happened, and now the poor little guy's last memory would be of a monster scooping him up and feeding him to a fluffy, yet ravenous dog. It was my fault. I was a murderer.

I begged my husband to make sure Tuffy had indeed killed it and it wasn't just suffering a horrifying death, so Dusty plodded up the hill to give it a look. After some bribery, (brisket sometimes works wonders) he pulled the lizard out of Tuffy's mouth, and low and behold the only damage was to his tail, which had been gnawed off about halfway up. He was ALIVE! I wasn't a murderer after all! I celebrated. I danced. I jumped up and down. I got crazy looks from all of my family members. Dusty took him into the woods and let him go, and as he took off (probably as far away from me as he could get), I thought about how lucky he was to have made it through. So now he has a name, Lucky. And I hope that wherever Lucky may be, he knows I didn't mean to put him through all that. I just get a little overexcited at times and overestimate my abilities to handle creepy crawlies and small wriggly reptiles. Lucky, I hope you can find it in your little lizard heart to forgive me.

Despite all of the, um, drama, I still managed to have a pretty darn good birthday celebration. The birthday wishes were made, the candles were blown out, the presents were opened, the cake was cut and Lucky was alive.

We hit the sack early, looking forward to a jam packed day of birthday ~~chaos~~ fun the next day. More to come on that in My 28th Year - Part Two (coming soon).

10.12.2012

10.11.2012

Slow Cooker Cheesy Chicken 'n Rice

We tried out a new Crock Pot recipe last night, and boy was it good! It's creamy, cheesy, stick-to-your-ribs, melt-in-your-mouth comfort food - the perfect end to a cool fall day. I put it in the Crock Pot around noon then ran out to do some errands for a bit. When I walked in the door an hour later it smelled absolutely heavenly. All of the juices from the chicken and the flavor of the onions had merged with the cream of chicken soup and I spent the rest of the day impatiently waiting for supper to roll around so I could dig in. When it was time to put the finishing touches on the dish, the chicken literally felt apart as I broke it up with a fork. It was tender, juicy and just all around amazing. It took me less hands-on time than most of my simplest, quickest recipes, has only six ingredients (can you say cheap!?), it made a TON of food (at least 6 servings) and cleanup was a breeze. Needless to say, this dish will be a new regular in our household.
Original recipe here.

What you'll need:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 small box Zatarain's Yellow Rice, prepared according to box directions
1 (12 oz.) bag frozen sweet corn
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preparation:
Place chicken in bottom of slow cooker. Season with pepper (the soup and rice should add enough salt on its own). Scatter chopped onion over top. Spoon cream of chicken soup over top of that. Cover and cook on low 7-8 hours or on high 3-4 hours. A few minutes before serving, break up your chicken with a fork - it should just fall right apart. Add in cooked rice, frozen corn, and cheese. Stir to combine, heating throughout, about 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Have you tried this recipe? I'd love to hear how you liked it in the comment section!

Autumn Inspiration

Autumn is here! The air is crisp, the leaves are falling and the spirit of all things fall surrounds us. The warmth of my thick, cozy sweater, the scent of the leaves as they crunch beneath my boots...it's nostalgic for me in many ways. As a child growing up in Texas, fall was the first sign that yes, finally there was a glimmer of hope that relief from the thick humidity and the sweltering heat was in the near future. As a teenager living in Vermont, it meant winter was on it's way - the air was brisk, the leaves were absolutely breathtaking, and we sat by the fireplace sipping hot apple cider and munching on spiced cider donuts, wondering if the first snowfall would hold off until after Halloween. As an adult living in North Carolina, I can't wait for my first sip of a Pumpkin Spice Latte (from Starbucks!), for that first trip to the pumpkin patch with the family where Mackenzie will pick out the perfect little pumpkin family to represent us, that first bonfire in the back yard, raking leaves up in the yard with the family and coming in at the end of a long day with our cheeks rosy, our noses cold and fresh apple bread right for the oven waiting for us...and memories of meeting my husband -how the first time our eyes met, there was a connection like I can't describe...and we spent all night talking, dancing, laughing...how I had to tell him to take me on our first date because he was too shy to ask me out, and how I haven't gone a day without him by my side since. And then of course, there's the decorations... the ones that kick off the season and inspire me to begin all of these wonderful traditions - and reminisce of memories from the past, enjoy the ones of the present and look forward to many in the future. I would like to share with you some of the pumpkin decor that inspired me this season...I hope you enjoy.