Ouch!

What am I doing this very instant? I'm sitting on the couch with a bag of frozen mixed vegetables on my nose. Why, you ask? Miles just landed on it. My nose, not the mixed veggies. We were rough housing on the bed and he fell backwards and landed right on my nose. It immediately brought tears to my eyes, and blood to my nose. I wondered for a moment if it might be broken, but I don't think it is. Even if it was, there wouldn't be much that doctors could do for it. I looked in the mirror and it is swelling a little, and my eyes have circles under them. Hope this doesn't last, Miles and I are supposed to go to a new play group on Thursday!


Here is miles eating a pinch of pizza dough from the counter while I prepped the bowl for it to sit in while rising.

Meal Plan

Well, it's Monday again.
Let's see...I don't remember what we ate last week. I had the dijon chicken on the list last week again (second time) and again we didn't make it. Once again this is on the list, but I know it will be made this week. How do I know? It's in the crock pot right now! Yay! We are also planning on making shepherd's pie again. It went surprisingly well last time, and lasagna. I feel so overwhelmed.


The overwhelmed feeling may well be from the day we have had and not the meal plan, but I'm not sure...



And then there was all the climbing.

Yikes!

Knock, knock...Will you be my firend?

I can hardly believe what I just did. I'm not a painfully shy person, but I'm also not really outgoing. This summer I joined a playgroup that was set up for people in the neighborhood with kids. For a lot of reasons it didn't really get off the ground. When I went, I met a lady who lives down the street from me and has a little girl that is about six months older than Miles. At the time she was pregnant, but not very far along. We said that we would have to get the kids together to play, but never exchanged numbers. On the day before Thanksgiving we had both Jared's and my families over for a chili dinner because we wouldn't be doing a real Thanksgiving with Jared's parents. That evening we walked Jared's brother out to his car to get something and saw the lady from down the street with her husband and daughter going on a walk. She remembered me and we chatted for a while. I told her that I'd send her an email with some information about story time at our local library. I looked up her email address from the play group and figured out that she was either due within a week or was past due to have her baby. I sent the email but didn't hear back from her. Last week Jared told me that he had to go out of town for a week for work. I decided then that I needed to get back in touch with her. I wouldn't mind watching both of the older kids while she takes care of the baby, as long as I have another adult to talk to. Anyway, it was cold all week last week and I never went over there. I decided that today would be the day. I put a sweater on Miles, loaded him up in the stroller, and went over. A man answered the door, I don't think he was her husband, but he was holding the baby. I introduced myself and he said she was in the shower. I told why I was there and he offered to give me her number. I told him I had brought a note to leave incase no one was there and gave it to him.

I hope to hear from her. More than that I pray that everyone in her family is ok. Yesterday when Jared and I were leaving for church we saw an ambulance in front of her house. Again in the evening Jared was pulling his car around to the driveway and said he saw another ambulance there. I didn't say anything about having seen them to the man that answered the door and planned on not saying anything to her either. It would be too strange not really knowing her. I really hope and pray that everyone is ok. Also that if she needs someone to lean on, she'll call and I that I can provide what she needs.

Weight Loss Goal

Yikes!
I need help here. This will take much prayer and work. I'm about 15 lbs higher than pre-pregnancy, and 20lbs higher than I'd like to be. I have got to get rid of this and soon! I've been eating very poorly and not exercising enough. I've been using Miles as an excuse. NO MORE!

Ok...here goes:
*weekly weigh in
*NO FAST FOOD
*salad for lunch (when possible)
*snack smart (I have them around for Miles, need to be careful)
*eat an apple when Jared calls to say that he is on his way home.
I've read that the fiber in apples can help create a full feeling, so eating one 30 min before a meal will cause you to eat less.
*I also need to set up a work out plan. I'm not sure what to do because it's winter, but I already know what I'm doing this summer. I'll keep working on something for now.

Wish me luck! I'm already working on committing to the Bible study, I can use this to help me commit to prayer.

Meal Plan

I've been all out of sorts recently. I think (hope) I'm going to be doing better soon. For dinner tonight we had leftovers of Spagetti Squash Casserole tonight. I haven't been to the farmer's market or grocery store this week. I need to do both tomorrow. I didn't make the Dijon Chicken that was on the meal plan last week, and will be doing that this week. Also, we will be making deep dish pizza. I'm not sure that I've posted about it before, so I'll do that this week.

I'm not doing too well with the goals recently. I've bitten my nails to pieces, I left my camera in my mom's car after not using it in several days, and I had fast food near the end of last week. I did do a lot of catching up on my Bible reading plan this weekend. Now I need to catch up a TON of work!

Spaghetti Squash Casserole

I had intended to make spaghetti squash casserole from here this week. I had some meat in the freezer, and I bought a spaghetti squash so I thought I was good. I started making the recipe and realized that my squash was 2x lager than it should have been (by weight). I decided to only cook half of the squash. While that was cooking and cooling, I thawed my ground beef. The further this process went, the worse the meat looked. While the meat was thawing, I was busy chopping. We don't use canned tomatoes, so I was cutting fresh tomatoes and onions and garlic. By the time the beef was thawed, I decided that it was bad, but I had already cooked half of the squash and cut all the veggies. Time to reevaluate the situation! I quickly thawed two chicken breasts, chopped up some spinach, then diced the raw chicken. I threw that in the skillet I had already prepped for the beef and cooked it. Once that was cooked, I threw in the onion, garlic and after a bit the tomatoes and spinach. I put this in a baking dish with the squash and tossed the whole business with about a half a cup of cheddar. I put it in the oven for 20 min, then added a little of both mozzarella and parmigiana. After about 5 more minutes everything was melty and yummy! If I were to make it again, I'd have used the whole squash.

I didn't take any pics of the process because I wasn't expecting much and I was scrambling most of the time, but I did take a pic of the leftovers. I'll post later!

Have a great night!

Meal Plan

Last week my menu plan was:

Acorn Squash and Feta Casserole & Salad
Manicotti & Salad
Sole, couscous, and sauteed vegetables

We made the casserole on Sunday when some friends came over, and had plenty of leftovers. We had sole on Monday. Tuesday we had baked potatoes. Wednesday we had a late lunch and didn't end up eating dinner. Thurdsay (new year's day) I asked Jared's mother to come help me make Jalapeno jam. She gladly agreed, Jared's dad decided to come over too so they could brew beer. I invited my parents too and we made a bit of a party out of it. We decided to smoke some ribs that we had in the freezer and have them bring sides. Friday we finally made the manicotti but didn't eat it until we had my parents over after riding the lake Saturday morning. We had leftovers of that and the ribs throughout the weekend.

This week will bring us:
Spaghetti Squash Casserole

Crockpot Maple Dijon Chicken

And Jared wants a bean soup, so I think I'll make 15 bean soup too.

Want more ideas? Go visit Laura @ I'm an Organizing Junkie

My New Year's Day & Making Jam

On New Year's Eve, Jared and I were in bed by 10:30. We had a lovely evening, but needed a little more sleep than we would have gotten by staying up till midnight. The night before I had some printing for work that I needed to complete, and the printer self distructed! We stayed up until past midnight trying unsuccessfully to fix it and as soon as we turned off the light to go to sleep, Miles started crying. Grr. So we didn't stay up to ring in the new year.


When she was over, Jared's mother had suggested taking my plethora of peppers left over from this summer's plants and making Jalapeno Pepper Jam with them and she was going to help! We decided that we would do that on New Year's Day and while the girls were in the kitchen, the boys had plans to be busy in the garage brewing beer (it's a stinky process and not done in the house). So, the morning of new year's day we got busy working. I really meant to take pics of the process yesterday, but forgot. It wasn't too hard at all, but I would recommend working with a friend. It probably takes more than 2 hands. It started off very slowly. I had forgotten to get cider vinegar until Jared's mom was already over. We quickly ran out to the store to grab some. We had to core and chop the peppers when we got back. This took longer than it might have because mine were dried. It wasn't until after we were almost finished with this that I realized that I had the wrong pectin. I had gotten the powder not even realizing that it came in liquid. So, Jared's mom went to the store to grab the liquid, and I got the cooking part started. At some point my mother took over the stirring (has to be constant because of the sugar content) and I went back to chopping for the second batch. When we got the liquid pectin back to the house we added that and started filling the jars. It was fun and like I said not terribly hard, but easier and more fun with friends.

2008 in Review

Here are some pictures to review our year. We hope to have another year as fabulous as the most recent. Also, hoping that yours will be at least as nice as the past.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December