A List

So have you seen this posting on the  blogosphere : Project Organize Your Entire Life.  It is one thing to bitch about your life, and another to actually do something about your life.

These are the things I would like to change:
1. finance
2. weight/look
3. organization

Finance
I am getting better with making more money.  I recently traded one of the bills that I paid, grocery's, with my husband's bill of my car payment. It is very had to get a handle on grocery's and I think my husband is now realizing why we ate a lot of mundane, crappy food when I was feeling the wallet pinch. The car payment is $306 a month which is a large payment, but it is what it is for now. I plan on starting a dental hygiene program in the fall of 2014. I would like to make sure by that point, our bills can be paid by mainly my husband because the program only recommends working 15 hours a week. It will most likely be a low paying job because I found it hard to find a good paying job to begin with when I needed to at the time.  I will still need to put the kids in daycare I think, depending on my school hours and how much my daughter has matured by that point.

Weight/Look
I have been working on running in the half-marathon. A running book I read says that most women who start running programs, just maintain their weight the first year.  For a few weeks I have been being good, but then I slip back in to eating out and drinking pop. Did I mention that cans of soda are only 25 cents at my job? How tempting is that? I think I need to take this one meal at a time and find a group of rotating breakfast or lunches, that are low in calories which would free up more calories for dinner. It did seem that when I kept track of what I ate, I snacked a lot of calories so that would be my next step.  I think I also need to schedule in a cheat day, and reschedule it as needed. I tried to tell myself that I would only have pop on the weekends but I really need to go cold turkey with that. I wonder if those people who don't drink pop don't get value meals when they eat out? I might need to start ordering off the value menu.  Once I get my food on track, I hope that it will help clear up my skin since I have been having mad break outs lately. I also think I need my hormones checked. Becoming thirty has been hard!

Organization
I organized a lot when I was out of work, but the house still needs work.  I haven't gotten a handle on my schedule yet as far as cleaning. I think I need to come up with plan A, B and C. Plan A: daily cleaning schedule. Plan B: cleaning bare minimum. Plan C: Weekend or just a few days of the week to clean.  I also need to figure out the best chores for the kids to do and when they need to get them done. I did pick up a organizer with a handle and a colorful spray bottle for the kids to use when they clean the bathrooms.

I think my biggest downfall is my lack of keeping a plan. I don't know weather to tackles each one of these task one by one, or work on each one each week. I think I will mull this over and get back to myself by Monday.

Look What I Found!

So yesterday was quite a day, and here I am up at 3am with my knee hurting today. (I didn't wake up due to my knee, but due to a husband who goes to work un-Godly early.)  Yesterday, I crawled out of bed and took the kids to school, then a trip to Walmart and Costco.  I want to start a price book, but it seems really intimidating to do, I'm not sure why.  I started with Costco since they don't have too big of selection, and a lot of good deals.  It took me about 2.5 hours to write down everything I would buy from that store, and I'm sure I got some looks with my empty cart and piece of paper.  I was starving when done even with my two free samples, but I spent a lot of money at Walmart and $40 at Costco (not hard to do).  So I raced home since I wanted to see what I could do to start dinner.  I wanted to use my Mom's bread maker, but it didn't want me to apparently because it wouldn't start mixing.  After picking up the kids I went to buy store bought cinnamon rolls since I wasn't able to make dough in the bread maker, and I found the above dead spider in my bread pan.  I'm not sure when was the last time I used this pan but apparently where I store it is a nice spot for little creatures.

I also wanted to post about breakfast and I know this picture below doesn't look appetizing, which it really wasn't, but here is the story:

I've been trying to eat more fiber because it is good for you, and I found a generic brand of fiber full cereal at Hy-Vee with no sugar.  My daughter is learning about nutrition in class, so I'm trying to show her what I know about label and nutrition too.  So the other day we both tried this cereal, and she couldn't eat more than a spoonful.  I had to resist the urge to put sugar on mine.  So this is the solution I came up with so it is more edible and it's not going to waste.  I combined it with my Cheerios, and it was better, not the best, but better.

Lesson Learned

My plan on Tuesday night was to make stuffed corn tortillas.  It calls for Masa harina, which says it is a yellow corn flour mix.  At the store it cost almost $5 for this bag, which was 4-5 lbs, but I didn't think I really needed one that big.  In the same section was the above pictured Quaker Corn meal, which says it is for baking and  breading, so I'm thinking same thing, cheaper price (cost $1.79 for 24 oz.).  Boy was I wrong.  Apparently they are made in two different ways, so you can not substitute one for the other (see this chowhound.com post for more info).  The mixture above would not form a dough or ball or any kind, so I tried making corn meal mush, a recipe found on the back.  I'm sorry to say that it wasn't very good even when I mixed in butter and syrup as suggested.  I ended up just throwing it out.  All I can say is "Now I know."

In addition to my fail in cooking yesterday, my husband and I put in a new bathroom faucet.  This cute little thing was only $28 at the Home Depot.  I wanted a bronze one but they start out at $88, so I settled for this one.  We really need to replace the old one since it had been dripping and a new aerator didn't do the trick.  Our water bill was up $10 from the previous month, which I attribute to this lovely drip, so this was a need.  The bad part was my husband couldn't fit under the sink so I had to help him.  I definitively recommend wearing goggles with this project, because when you are installing tiny debris falls on your face.  It should have been quick and easy but once I fit myself under the sink and got the faucet hooked up, my husband discovered the P-trap didn't fit to this new fixture.  Thankfully it only took one trip to the store to remedy the situation.  Now I will breath a sigh of relief: "AHHHHH"

I'm linking this up to Tackle It Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Freezer Cooking

I found this great tip on a comment from this blog: http://erinkristine.blogspot.com/2010/01/freezer-meals.html

Take your favorite slow-cooker recipe (no potatoes, though, they don't freeze well). Prepare the ingredients up to the point when you would throw them in the slow cooker. Then throw them (minus water) in a gallon freezer bag instead and freeze.


To use the frozen-slow-cooker-contents method requires a little bit more planning on the day you're going to serve -- you have to defrost the bag, overnight in the fridge or in the microwave, and then put it in the slow cooker in the morning before you want to eat it, adding any water right then. But a big advantage is that the food is only "cooked" once, rather than cooked/thawed/reheated, and so it retains its texture a bit better. Just write on the bag how many hours, whether it needs to be on HI or LO, and how much water to add.


If the meat doesn't need to be browned, so much the better -- you can then toss frozen raw meat right into the bag with vegetables and such.


Another trick I like to use is to brown a whole lot of ground beef with onion and freeze the browned mixture in bags -- ready to be defrosted, seasoned, and made into no-fuss chili, tacos, sloppy joes, etc.