Archive for the ‘home’ Category

Dinner time is supposed to be a relaxing meal shared with your family – or at least that’s what we strive for in this house despite the chaos of every day life. It helps that we have two cooks in the house as my husband and I both share a passion for it and are able to work side by side to get a meal prepared fast and easy. But not everyone has that option so what I am proposing are some 7 simple tips / tricks to help you make a meal not only quick and easy… but delicious as well!

Tip #1

Be organized. Sounds easy right? Well all moms know it’s not. You’ve got kids and all of their crazy schedules – basketball, soccer, tuba lessons, dance recitals. Who on earth has time to be organized about dinner!? Well now you do. Keep a note pad handy and jot down dinner ideas for the week in it a little bit each day. By the end of the week, you’ll have managed to plan out the meals for the rest of the week!

If you have a plan in mind, there will be no last minute “what on earth am I going to feed these kids!?” moments (I’m all for saving a little sanity where I can).

Tip #2

Stock up on cans of soup. Not only are they fairly cheap, but they can add a great depth of flavor to your cooking and cut your cooking time by half!

I like to buy creamy soups – Cream of Chicken / Mushroom / Celery / whatever else that they’ve got. It goes fantastic with chicken, beef or pork dishes. You can even use the soup as a base for gravy. It cheap. It’s quick. It’s absolutely delicious. Plus it can stretch a buck and if you buy the low sodium versions you can really pay attention to the amount of salt you’re putting in your body.

Tip #3

Assign jobs to your kids! One of the more stressful parts to making dinner is that you have kids running around the house getting into trouble while you’re trying to cook a meal. Get them involved. Let your daughter dig her hands into that meatloaf and mix the ingredients or allow your son measure out some ingredients for you. Sure, it might take a little longer but it’s fun and food tastes so much better with a little love in it!

Tip #4

Never underestimate the power of Rachael Ray’s 30 minute meals (or less in some cases!). Not only are they really that fast, but they are really good. I find most of her recipes are affordable and easy enough for people without much cooking skill to make. So check out the Food Network website and pick out some meals you would like to try.

Tip #5

Do all of your grocery shopping ahead of time. If you do the shopping once a week and buy everything you’ll need, you won’t have to stress out about picking up something for dinner. This means you have everything available at home and ready to go when it’s time to start dinner.

Tip #6

Wash all of your produce when you get home from grocery shopping and store it in proper containers. If you wash everything ahead of time, you won’t need to when it’s time to cook!

Tip #7

My favorite tip. Chop up onion, carrot, celery and green bell pepper in small dices. Mix them well in a bowl and transfer them to an air tight container of some kind (tupperware will do but if you have containers that air can be sucked out of, it’s even better). Store them in the freezer. They freeze well and when you need those ingredients to start a dish, you just take it out of the freezer and break off a piece.

Hope these tips are useful to my readers. We practice these in our own home and they work out great!

This blog is happily written in hopes of winning a French Door Refridgerator thanks to TwitterMoms.com and Samsung Appliances. For more information on how you too can enter, please check out this link.

What a fun day it’s been. The past twelve hours have been hilarious. I can say without a doubt that Patches fits in well around here. She’s already holding her own, making herself comfortable and getting along very well with Cinders and even Flora.

It took about the first 9 or 10 hours for Patches to allow Flora near her but now Flora is a-okay with her. I think it’s because Flora will lay down with her and lick her and snuggle. Patches still hisses at Flora if she is too rough or hyper with her, but otherwise, I’m seeing a lot of this…

Isn’t that just the cutest damn thing!?

I love Patches’ personality thus far. She’s very cuddly. In fact, I tweeted earlier about her trying to sleep on my face. It was really funny and sweeter than it sounds. She’s desperate to be close to me. It’s so fun having a pet in the baby stage. There is still so much for them to explore and learn.

Cinders knows not to jump on counters or furniture like my desk. But Patches used my computer chair to climb, digging her claws into it and pulling herself up until she got in my lap – and then my desk. It’s something she’ll have to be taught not to do, but it sure was cute seeing a little kitty walk across my keyboard happily.

Right now, Patches is laying on my left foot, nuzzling against it. No complaints here… my foot is cold. haha

What a crazy morning it’s been. Wow is it only 11am!?

Patches is inside and fitting in all too well. She’s positively in love with Cinders and has been chasing him around the house since she came in about 2 hours ago. I’m talking all out sprinting around the house, batting at one another, jumping on and off of furniture and meowing like crazy. They are having a rip-roaring good time.

Poor Flora. She really is the red-headed step child of the family. Patches wants nothing to do with her just yet – even hissed at Flora a little. I think Flora is just too hyper for anyone’s liking. And yet, she’s so desperate to play with Patches. She wants to have fun too sooooo bad. Trying to give Flora some extra lovings today.

See how sad Flora looks? She’s watching the kitties play and she wants to have fun too!

Patches is absolutely in love with this little cat hotel we have. Cinders hasn’t used it in ages and he’s a bit too big for it now [although Cinders did get jealous and tried to fit his fat ass in it earlier to spite Patches haha].

Both Cinders and Flora have gotten in trouble already today. I set out food for Patches because she didn’t eat well last night due to the rain. Cinders tried to eat it. I chased him off and went after Patches to bring her back to the bowl and by the time I returned no more than 30 seconds later, Flora had scarfed up 90% of the cat food in the bowl. Oh boy was I pissed. It’s like 54 cents per can for that stuff and Flora has her own food.

I’ve shown Patches the litter box a few times and Charlie took her once as well. She just looks around and looks at you like “Why am I in this box and why does it smell like pee?” and she jumps out. Hopefully since she’s bonding so well with Cinders, he’ll show her how to use it.

I have to go out today and leave the animals all home to themselves for a little while so I can drop off my prescription stuff. This should be interesting. I hope the 3 Pupcateers behave while I’m gone!

Yet another story about Patches, our “outside cat”…

I’ve been dancing around Charlie trying to figure out how he felt about keeping Patches. I didn’t know if he wanted her or if he was just keeping her around because I’ve become so attached to her [and her to myself]. But he told me today that he’d like to keep her.

That’s great and it’s the answer I was hoping for. But it’s not the happy, perfect scene you’d imagine. While Charlie would like to keep her, he wants her to remain outdoors for now in hopes that “in a few months” we’ll be able to afford to spend the money on her shots. I’m not at all happy with that. I don’t agree with that at all.

I’m stubborn and I’m a very now or never sort of woman. I believe in seizing opportunities because I know if we don’t do what we want now, the chance for it won’t come around when we finally decide to act. I know this because it always seems to happen that way to me. Beyond my stubbornness is that voice in the back of my head screaming to me “That’s not fair.” – to Patches that is.

I keep thinking about our own Flora and Cinders being inside and not having to run under the house when it rains. I remember just a few months ago how really upset Charlie was [more like completely devastated] when Cinders took a trip under the house and we couldn’t get him to come out. I remember it raining and I remember what a stressful and upsetting day it was for all of us – Cinders included. So how fair is it for him to say that Patches is just fine living under our house?

Oh wait… it’s not.

I want to keep Patches. I’d very much love to give her a home. I’d like very much to have a new kitty to love on and take care of [And at this point in the year after all I have been through, I think in a lot of ways, I need Patches]. But I can’t just force her to live outside for the next few months because I only hope my financial situation will change and I’ll be able to more readily spend the money on the things she needs in order to be an indoor cat.

I told Charlie that before his vacation is over, we need to make a decision. Either we take Patches to get her shots at the SPCA and bring her into our home, or we take her to the SPCA where they will take care of her and find her a good home. If we really love that darn kitty as much as I think we do, than that’s our only options.

Since my diagnosis on Wednesday, I have been trying to take it easy and trying to pay closer attention to my body and what sets it off. Let’s just say that yesterday’s constant roof banging was not what the doctor ordered.

Most of yesterday was spent trying to keep my cool and trying to keep my heart rate down. I totally didn’t succeed… not even close. I was tired from my heart beating so rapidly. I was anxious and far too overstimulated from all of the loud banging and the heavy thuds that caused pieces of my ceiling spackle to fall to the floor [damnit, I mopped all of the hardwood floors the day before too].

The banging started at 7:30am and stopped only twice that day for about 30 minutes each time. By about 4:30pm, I’d grown completely overwhelmed and I somehow managed to crawl into Charlie’s bed and fall asleep. Charlie says they left around 5:30 or so. So for 9 hours yesterday, there was banging going on here. I woke up around 8pm and I felt a little better, but I was feeling the after effects of the day for sure.

A lot about yesterday reminded me of my ex husband’s snoring and how the noise of it affected me. I realize now that while the noise itself was incredibly annoying, that was really but a fraction of the problem for me. I’ve had this heart problem likely for years now [I can't remember a time when I didn't have the dizzy spells anyway]. I remember the tightening of my chest and the anxious feeling that made me feel so sick. I just didn’t realize that there was more to it and it was only yesterday that I put 2 and 2 together.

I can’t wait until the 15th so I can find out what is going on. I’m so scared and I keep thinking about what will happen to Hailey if something should happen to me – which only gets me more upset and feeling like crap.