Sunday, April 21, 2013
Amish Cinnamon Bread, Day 10
Today is the day I'm supposed to bake this bread. Of course I'm working today and don't know if I'll have time when I get home. Think it will be okay for one more day?
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Amish Cinnamon Bread, Day 4
I am on day 4 of making 10 day Amish Cinnamon Bread. I just added a cup of flour, a cup of sugar, and a cup of milk to the bag which is just to sit on the counter until day 10. Did you hear me? I just put milk in a bag to leave on the counter for 6 more days. I'm having issues with this.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Cheddar Broccoli Rice Cups
(found recipe on FaceBook)
2 cups cooked rice 1 10-oz. box frozen, chopped broccoli, thawed and excess water squeezed out3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided1/4 cup Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing 2 eggs, lightly beaten1/2 teaspoon saltPepper to taste
Place cooked rice in a large bowl and let cool slightly. Add the remaining ingredients, using only 1/2 cup of the cheddar cheese, and stir until combined. Transfer mixture to eight well-greased muffin cups and top with remaining 1/4 cup cheese. Bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees or until tops are lightly browned and edges are starting to get crispy.
I tried this last night. All of the adults liked it. Stephanie would rather eat just broccoli because she loves it. Hayden and Meredith would rather eat plain broccoli even though they hate it. Phil refused to vote because he hates broccoli and this. I thought it was really good though and since I do most of the cooking, we'll probably have it again!
2 cups cooked rice 1 10-oz. box frozen, chopped broccoli, thawed and excess water squeezed out3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided1/4 cup Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing 2 eggs, lightly beaten1/2 teaspoon saltPepper to taste
Place cooked rice in a large bowl and let cool slightly. Add the remaining ingredients, using only 1/2 cup of the cheddar cheese, and stir until combined. Transfer mixture to eight well-greased muffin cups and top with remaining 1/4 cup cheese. Bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees or until tops are lightly browned and edges are starting to get crispy.
I tried this last night. All of the adults liked it. Stephanie would rather eat just broccoli because she loves it. Hayden and Meredith would rather eat plain broccoli even though they hate it. Phil refused to vote because he hates broccoli and this. I thought it was really good though and since I do most of the cooking, we'll probably have it again!
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
A Confession
...I hate e-mail.
Not as much as I hate voice mail but enough that I never EVER want to open my e-mail.
There's always so much ... CRAP ... in there.
Stuff I don't remember signing up for. Or stuff I had to give my e-mail to in order to get the ONE thing I wanted even though I've never gone to that website again. Or even stuff that I really would like to read and educate myself about if only I had an extra 14 hours in a day.
Today I am at work and it is slow so it was the perfect day to go into my e-mail and clean it out. There were over 600 e-mails in there! So I just went as fast as I could. I put everything in alphabetical order by sender, clicked on the first e-mail of each sender that I did not want to ever see again and scrolled down to "unsubscribe here." I did not read the e-mails and as soon as I unsubscribed from the first one, I deleted all the other e-mails from that sender. I also moved the old work-related and bill-payment-related e-mails to their respective "Save" folders. And I got rid of over 400 e-mails that way. YAY!
Of the not quite 200 that are left, a lot of those are from family/friends (like my MOM) and most are old or have a conversation thread several e-mails long. So next, I will go through all of those to make sure there is no pertinent information (like new cell numbers) and I will either delete or move them to their save folders. I imagine most of them will be deleted ~ not sure why I still have e-mails discussing last Thanksgiving's get-together, but, whatever, we'll be taking care of those shortly!
After that, hopefully, my e-mail will not be so crowded and I will not mind going through my new e-mails so much. I will probably have to do the unsubscribe thing again in a week or so to catch any I missed this time. Other than that, if this doesn't work, I'll be starting over fresh with a new account for friends and family only!
UPDATE:
I now have only 70 e-mails. Still too many but over half are for the kids' 4H and I will have to actually read those. And I'm done for the day so they can wait!
Not as much as I hate voice mail but enough that I never EVER want to open my e-mail.
There's always so much ... CRAP ... in there.
Stuff I don't remember signing up for. Or stuff I had to give my e-mail to in order to get the ONE thing I wanted even though I've never gone to that website again. Or even stuff that I really would like to read and educate myself about if only I had an extra 14 hours in a day.
Today I am at work and it is slow so it was the perfect day to go into my e-mail and clean it out. There were over 600 e-mails in there! So I just went as fast as I could. I put everything in alphabetical order by sender, clicked on the first e-mail of each sender that I did not want to ever see again and scrolled down to "unsubscribe here." I did not read the e-mails and as soon as I unsubscribed from the first one, I deleted all the other e-mails from that sender. I also moved the old work-related and bill-payment-related e-mails to their respective "Save" folders. And I got rid of over 400 e-mails that way. YAY!
Of the not quite 200 that are left, a lot of those are from family/friends (like my MOM) and most are old or have a conversation thread several e-mails long. So next, I will go through all of those to make sure there is no pertinent information (like new cell numbers) and I will either delete or move them to their save folders. I imagine most of them will be deleted ~ not sure why I still have e-mails discussing last Thanksgiving's get-together, but, whatever, we'll be taking care of those shortly!
After that, hopefully, my e-mail will not be so crowded and I will not mind going through my new e-mails so much. I will probably have to do the unsubscribe thing again in a week or so to catch any I missed this time. Other than that, if this doesn't work, I'll be starting over fresh with a new account for friends and family only!
UPDATE:
I now have only 70 e-mails. Still too many but over half are for the kids' 4H and I will have to actually read those. And I'm done for the day so they can wait!
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Time to Clean
Today I had this uncontrollable urge to go thru the basket of magazines. I have a large basket on the piano to stash my magazines in. The plan was to have them in one place so I could read them when I got the urge. The truth is I hardly ever get the urge to read a magazine at home. So they've been stacking up. There were probably close to 100 in there. And I don't subscribe to many magazines so they've been there awhile.
I kept the "Country" magazines and the "Taste of Home" but got rid of all the others older than this year. Except for the "National Geographics." I thought maybe if I put them on the bookshelf, the kids would read them. Then I thought again and decided they really would not ever read them but I couldn't just throw them away so I put them in the donate box instead. Hopefully, someone will enjoy them.
I kept the "Country" magazines and the "Taste of Home" but got rid of all the others older than this year. Except for the "National Geographics." I thought maybe if I put them on the bookshelf, the kids would read them. Then I thought again and decided they really would not ever read them but I couldn't just throw them away so I put them in the donate box instead. Hopefully, someone will enjoy them.
Monday, March 4, 2013
I Give Up
I give up. I quit. I admit defeat. I cry "Uncle!" already.
Ugh. None of my children will use the top sheet on their beds. I wash sheets and always put the top one on and make the bed all nice and pretty and the top sheet always ends up on the floor or squashed between the bed and the wall. My Type A personality is completely offended by this.
However, upon further review, I have decided this battle is not worth fighting. So, today, after I washed the sheets, I put the bottom sheets on the beds, and just folded the top sheets and put them away.
Another plus is now when I wash the kids' sheets, I will save an hour since I will only have to do one load instead of two. Yay!
Ugh. None of my children will use the top sheet on their beds. I wash sheets and always put the top one on and make the bed all nice and pretty and the top sheet always ends up on the floor or squashed between the bed and the wall. My Type A personality is completely offended by this.
However, upon further review, I have decided this battle is not worth fighting. So, today, after I washed the sheets, I put the bottom sheets on the beds, and just folded the top sheets and put them away.
Another plus is now when I wash the kids' sheets, I will save an hour since I will only have to do one load instead of two. Yay!
Sunday, February 10, 2013
A Quick Update
I don't know why my kids are so sickly this year. Last week I had a kid home nearly every day. The little guy is still running a temperature off and on. I've already advised the children they are all going to school tomorrow and they are staying there all day!
I feel like I haven't gotten anything done except care for sick kids, laundry, and dishes. I tried to vacuum one day but the vacuum wasn't working vey well and I didn't have time to tear it apart and clean it off and put it back together again (stupid pet hair and fur!) It may need a new belt which I have but, like I said, haven't had time to tear it apart.
Despite the feeling of not getting anything done, things did get accomplished. The real problem is I'm just fitting things in and not going in any particular order. I guess that's what happens when EVERYTHING needs to be done, like, last year! I built a bookshelf for the girls' room to fit between their closets. It helps but they still need more storage. I didn't even bother to make it pretty ~ it's just plain MDF. We'll probably paint it later but for now, function is outweighing beauty. Also, my mother-in-law's closet rod collapsed under the weight of her clothes. So I've got shelves cut for the side and I need to get those up and the rod and shelf above that sometime this week. I'm hoping there are studs in the closet walls ~ it sounds stupid to say that but the guy who built her apartment is well known for cutting corners so we'll see. I also cleaned up a little downstairs in the old store area ~ got all the empty boxes off the floor and on a shelf (we're hoping to move soon so I'm hoarding boxes right now!)
There's probably more and I hope I have time to do a real post this week with pictures and stuff!
I feel like I haven't gotten anything done except care for sick kids, laundry, and dishes. I tried to vacuum one day but the vacuum wasn't working vey well and I didn't have time to tear it apart and clean it off and put it back together again (stupid pet hair and fur!) It may need a new belt which I have but, like I said, haven't had time to tear it apart.
Despite the feeling of not getting anything done, things did get accomplished. The real problem is I'm just fitting things in and not going in any particular order. I guess that's what happens when EVERYTHING needs to be done, like, last year! I built a bookshelf for the girls' room to fit between their closets. It helps but they still need more storage. I didn't even bother to make it pretty ~ it's just plain MDF. We'll probably paint it later but for now, function is outweighing beauty. Also, my mother-in-law's closet rod collapsed under the weight of her clothes. So I've got shelves cut for the side and I need to get those up and the rod and shelf above that sometime this week. I'm hoping there are studs in the closet walls ~ it sounds stupid to say that but the guy who built her apartment is well known for cutting corners so we'll see. I also cleaned up a little downstairs in the old store area ~ got all the empty boxes off the floor and on a shelf (we're hoping to move soon so I'm hoarding boxes right now!)
There's probably more and I hope I have time to do a real post this week with pictures and stuff!
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Book Report
It has not been a great month for reading. I guess there is too much else going on right now.
I did try to read "The Kitchen Counter Cooking School" by Kathleen Flinn. It wasn't what I was looking for. It turned out to be more of a story than a how-to book. That's what I was looking for so I've decided not to read this right now.
I did, however, read an ebook, "Dave Ramsey's Guide to Budgeting". That was very good. It made me actually want to start budgeting. We're small business owners so we never know how much money we are going to have coming in (or going out) but he had suggestions for that also. I don't see us doing the envelope system but if we start with the budgeting, maybe that will make more sense down the road.
I did try to read "The Kitchen Counter Cooking School" by Kathleen Flinn. It wasn't what I was looking for. It turned out to be more of a story than a how-to book. That's what I was looking for so I've decided not to read this right now.
I did, however, read an ebook, "Dave Ramsey's Guide to Budgeting". That was very good. It made me actually want to start budgeting. We're small business owners so we never know how much money we are going to have coming in (or going out) but he had suggestions for that also. I don't see us doing the envelope system but if we start with the budgeting, maybe that will make more sense down the road.
The Flu, Skiing, and Cleaning
Told ya this month was going to be hectic...
Two weeks ago about half the family (the boys) had the flu. The younger girl got it a little bit but the older one and I did not. Yay!
Everyone was better in time to go on our vacation though. We went skiing last week.
This week has been a blur of trying to get everyone caught up on homework that was missed due to illness and/or vacation. I think just the little guy is left. We did quite a bit last night but then he just was fed up with it so, hopefully, we'll get it finished tonight. Or maybe not since I'm working. Maybe this weekend then.
Next week my husband and I are going out of town again for a business conference and the Grandmas will be running the place. So I need to get to the store this weekend and stock up for them.
The good news is: We got home late last Friday from skiing and I got everything out of the suitcases and in laundry piles or in the kids' baskets to be put away on Saturday. I did not get the laundry all done as I still had to go get the dog from boarding and take the older girl to her basketball game. Then Sunday I had to work. I did get the laundry done on Monday but just getting everything unpacked and the bags put away the next day counts as a SUCCESS for me!
Also, my mother-in-law's tv quit working on her. The only reason this is good is that meant we brought the one up from downstairs (which really hadn't been used for months) and that left the entertainment center down there free for us to bring to our living room. So Monday I also transferred all our electronic components from our old, crappy entertainment stand to the nicer, bigger one! Apparently, I even got all the speakers hooked up correctly! What a pain in the tushy, that was. All total, it took me a couple of hours. That includes vacuuming and revacuuming and dusting and moving. Then I even went thru all our dvd's and rearranged those and dusted the shelves and vacuumed under those shelves. It looks nice now though. Except I have a small pile of dvd's that we've replaced with BluRays just sitting on the top of one of the shelves. I don't like to just get rid of those without my husband's ok since he is the dvd person.
Tuesday I finished vacuuming the rest of the place. Which wouldn't be newsworthy except I had to change the bag in the middle of doing that and while I was changing the bag, something came up that I had to go take care of right away. When I went back to the vacuum I just turned it on and ~POOF~ all the dust shot out at me because I had forgotten to put another bag on first so I got to vacuum that area again. That was lovely. The dog just sat and looked at me like I was a moron.
Wednesday, I worked in my downstairs office all day. I cleared off the desk, scanned just a few things, uploaded a couple of cd's onto the computer. But the main thing I did was set up a mail center. I'll tell you more about that tomorrow. I'm very proud. It's not pretty but I'm HOPING it works. I despise mail and I need this to work!
Two weeks ago about half the family (the boys) had the flu. The younger girl got it a little bit but the older one and I did not. Yay!
Everyone was better in time to go on our vacation though. We went skiing last week.
This week has been a blur of trying to get everyone caught up on homework that was missed due to illness and/or vacation. I think just the little guy is left. We did quite a bit last night but then he just was fed up with it so, hopefully, we'll get it finished tonight. Or maybe not since I'm working. Maybe this weekend then.
Next week my husband and I are going out of town again for a business conference and the Grandmas will be running the place. So I need to get to the store this weekend and stock up for them.
The good news is: We got home late last Friday from skiing and I got everything out of the suitcases and in laundry piles or in the kids' baskets to be put away on Saturday. I did not get the laundry all done as I still had to go get the dog from boarding and take the older girl to her basketball game. Then Sunday I had to work. I did get the laundry done on Monday but just getting everything unpacked and the bags put away the next day counts as a SUCCESS for me!
Also, my mother-in-law's tv quit working on her. The only reason this is good is that meant we brought the one up from downstairs (which really hadn't been used for months) and that left the entertainment center down there free for us to bring to our living room. So Monday I also transferred all our electronic components from our old, crappy entertainment stand to the nicer, bigger one! Apparently, I even got all the speakers hooked up correctly! What a pain in the tushy, that was. All total, it took me a couple of hours. That includes vacuuming and revacuuming and dusting and moving. Then I even went thru all our dvd's and rearranged those and dusted the shelves and vacuumed under those shelves. It looks nice now though. Except I have a small pile of dvd's that we've replaced with BluRays just sitting on the top of one of the shelves. I don't like to just get rid of those without my husband's ok since he is the dvd person.
Tuesday I finished vacuuming the rest of the place. Which wouldn't be newsworthy except I had to change the bag in the middle of doing that and while I was changing the bag, something came up that I had to go take care of right away. When I went back to the vacuum I just turned it on and ~POOF~ all the dust shot out at me because I had forgotten to put another bag on first so I got to vacuum that area again. That was lovely. The dog just sat and looked at me like I was a moron.
Wednesday, I worked in my downstairs office all day. I cleared off the desk, scanned just a few things, uploaded a couple of cd's onto the computer. But the main thing I did was set up a mail center. I'll tell you more about that tomorrow. I'm very proud. It's not pretty but I'm HOPING it works. I despise mail and I need this to work!
Monday, January 7, 2013
Check the Dates!
Last night I made grilled cheese sandwiches. I was going to have tomato soup (out of a can ~ sorry!) for one of the kids and me and chicken noodle soup for the others. Unfortunately, when I opened the can of tomato soup and poured it into the bowl, the soup was a brownish color. Yuck! Not at all what I was hoping for.
So I looked at the date stamped on the can - "2008!" What! I knew we didn't eat canned soup all that often, but I swear I've cleaned out the pantry many, many times! I just don't think I thought to look at the dates on the soup cans. Normally, I'm just organizing what I have.
So cleaning out the pantry just got moved up to a higher priority! I'm also going to inventory everything and do a freezer/pantry challenge to get things eaten up. You know ~ BEFORE they go bad.
So I looked at the date stamped on the can - "2008!" What! I knew we didn't eat canned soup all that often, but I swear I've cleaned out the pantry many, many times! I just don't think I thought to look at the dates on the soup cans. Normally, I'm just organizing what I have.
So cleaning out the pantry just got moved up to a higher priority! I'm also going to inventory everything and do a freezer/pantry challenge to get things eaten up. You know ~ BEFORE they go bad.
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