Happy New Year!

I can’t believe tomorrow is the last day of 2011! Am I the only one who gets emotional at New Year’s? I always get teary.

Do you follow any sort of “good luck” thing on New Year’s? I started doing the cabbage and black eyed peas thing a couple of years ago. I had never heard of any sort of thing about eating certain things on New Year’s for luck in the year until my friend from Texas told me about cabbage and black eyed peas. So I decided what could it hurt right? For the past 3 years I have made cabbage(fried, mmm) and a black eyed pea dip every New Year’s. And since while we have a long way to go, the past few years have been the best years we’ve ever had financially(no, we don’t have money, but bills are paid and food is on the table with a little extra to actually buy other things once in a while…more than can be said for the rest of all the years we’ve been together). So while I’m not an uber superstitious person or anything like that, I’m willing to keep up this simple tradition.

I’m not a big pea/bean person but to eat the black eyed peas I found a recipe for a dip, I LOVE dips and this one is very tasty and very spicy! I make it up on New Year’s Eve and have it both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day….it makes a LOT, so unless you have lots of help eating it you will be eating for a few days, so you might want to cut the recipe in half.

I can’t remember where I saw the original recipe, but I had to make changes to it because some of the ingredients we don’t have here in Canada. I believe the original recipe had a can of Rotel instead of the diced tomatoes/chilies separate. Oh how I miss Rotel, sadly I’ve only seen it once in Calgary and that was in a little Mexican store that is no longer there, and it was pretty expensive(I remember with coupons in Texas I used to get it for soooo cheap). So if you’re in the US you can just use Rotel….and maybe send me a few or 12 cans .

Good Luck Black Eyed Pea Dip

• 2 (15 ounce) cans black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained
• 1 (4 ounce) can jalapenos
• 1 onion , diced
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (4 ounce) can chilies
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese(I usually use marble)

Mash the Black Eyed Peas with a fork, leave some of them whole. Add remaining ingredients and mix. Spread into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes at 300 degrees.

Eat with tortilla chips, crackers, and/or veggies.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year!!

Jolene

A Homemade Christmas!

Well, it’s over for another year . I’m so sad how fast Christmas comes and goes again. My body is probably ok with it though, I’ve had so much on the go the past couple of weeks(and that is so not the usual for me, I gave up the crazy busy life years ago now), I guess it has all caught up with me. Even after almost 7 hours sleep(a lot for me!) I’m absolutely exhausted today and my back right from head to tailbone is in so much pain I likely won’t leave my heating pad all day.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Hubby and I didn’t get each other anything, we just bought for the kids. We’ll see if we can afford to take advantage of after Christmas sales and get each other something.

I’ve already been sharing some of the recipes that I made and used for gifts this Christmas(I have plenty more!), well now it’s time to share the non-food stuff!

I only have one little niece, I have 2 older nieces who are grown and married now, but they are the kids of my brother who lives in Arizona so I’ve only ever actually seen them a handful of times. My only sister has the only girl that I get to actually see as she’s growing up. So needless to say not having a girl of my own I have this extreme urge to spoil her! This year I did well not to struggle with the ease of going overboard and instead made her something that I think will look absolutely adorable on her.

This was the first thing I ever sewed(besides just mending) other than an apron I made my youngest several years ago, but I had my mother in laws help with that one. This one I did on my own just from looking around the internet at some tutorials on making similar dresses. I’m so thrilled with how it turned out, it will have to be worn more like a tunic though because it’s not quite long enough for her(I just used pre-cut pieces of fabric from Walmart).

The dress/tunic for my 4 year old niece:

Next is a toolbelt I made for my 2 year old nephew. It’s my sister’s boy and he’s the last “baby” in the family since we are all done having kids. I made this out of a placemat and got him a set of Home Depot play tools to go with it, definitely happy with how it turned out too!

The toolbelt:

And the last thing we made 2 of(hubby helped and actually did almost all of this one for me ). These were Magnetic boards for my nephews, 10 and 6.

The magnetic board:

There you have it, my partially homemade Christmas! I gave each of them a non-homemade gift as well to go with it and tins of homemade fudge and cookies.

Even though I started planning these gifts early this year I want to plan even earlier for next year. I just don’t know what my family is planning on for gift giving. They tried to change it on me this year and I am still quite pissed off about it, I have no interest in changing how we give gifts. We buy for only the kids and my parents and I like it that way. So now I’m afraid if I start too early they will pull the same thing and try to change it again after I’ve already done most of my Christmas shopping.

Have you done some homemade Christmas gifts this year or in years past?

Jolene

Are You Excited?

Can you believe it’s almost Christmas!?! I say this every year, but it’s so true, where has the time gone? Crazy how fast a year goes by!

I finished my Christmas shopping a few weeks ago with the exception of stocking stuffers. Yesterday hubby and I went out to get some groceries and the stocking stuffers and ended up picking up one more gift for our youngest. Now we need to get one more for our oldest to keep it even. We spent like 3 or 4 hours searching for something for him and ended up with nothing! I can’t believe how hard boys are to buy for once they hit a certain age. I can think of all sorts of things for a 14 year old girl, but for a 14 year old boy the options seem so limited. I’ve searched for ideas online and all suggestions are electronics(what he doesn’t already have we have already bought for him), books(already bought), sports stuff(not overly into sports) or gift cards/cash(for my own kid I really don’t want to resort to that for Christmas). I thought about something to do with cooking because he likes to cook, but there’s really not much to choose from for him that I don’t already have in my kitchen for him to use and the couple of things that I could think of I couldn’t find anywhere.

Shopping for  him in about 3 years will be easier because he will be getting old enough that we can start helping him make sure he starts building up the things he will need when he moves out on his own(don’t even want to think of that yet!). I need to figure something out by tomorrow and I still have no clue what to get him. So, if you have any ideas for a 14 year old boy that are not what I already mentioned above please tell me! I need to spend around $25 to keep it even. It’s looking like it might end up having to be more books or a board game or something(which they have TONS of board games too).

What do you have planned for your Christmas menu? We are going to do Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve this year. My brother in law always comes over on Saturday nights for dinner, so we figured we would do Christmas Dinner then so we can have it with him. He’ll be having Christmas with his ex and his 5 kids on Christmas Day(who we’re not allowed to see…his ex is one of the most psycho people I’ve ever met). My inlaws won’t be here for Christmas(they’re trying to sell their house in Mexico), so at least this way we get to celebrate it with someone from his family.

My Christmas meal plan is:

Turkey of course! I can’t do Christmas without Turkey. I’ve been using Uncle Bill's Method for Cooking Turkey for a few years now and it results in an absolutely perfect moist turkey every time without fail! I highly recommend it!

Mashed Potatoes of course! Another thing that I can’t do a Christmas meal without! I don’t follow a recipe but I whip my potatoes with a hand mixer and add butter, milk, cream cheese, salt, pepper, onion powder and parsley flakes……absolutely delicious potatoes I tell ya!

Gravy, I don’t normally do gravy for potatoes, except when I make a full turkey meal. I make  Kittencals Easy No Fail Make Anytime Turkey Gravy, heavy on the pepper and it’s a quick and easy absolutely fantastic gravy!

Stuffing. I don’t stuff the turkey, but I do make stuffing on the side. I haven’t found or come up with a stuffing recipe that I absolutely love yet. My Mom makes a really good stuffing so I should really get her recipe one of these days. I did make this Crock Pot Stuffing recipe for Thanksgiving and it was really good, even my husband who doesn’t like stuffing enjoyed it. I skipped the apple and celery in the recipe and used French bread, this time I’m going to use Sourdough bread.

Corn. Simple, hubby doesn’t eat much veggies so I have to put out what he will eat.

Broccoli Salad. My sister usually makes a Broccoli Salad when we have family meals, and I LOVE it! I’ve never made one myself but I couldn’t get enough of it last weekend during our Christmas dinner and I need more! There are so many recipes for Broccoli Salad, all just very slightly different. I’ll probably use parts from several recipes.

Watergate Salad. I first made this about 5 or 6 years ago. My youngest was born on St. Patrick’s Day and I made everything green for his Birthday. He fell in love with it and since we don’t do parties for him anymore I make it for occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving. It’s more like a dessert but is considered a salad. It’s awesome, just awesome! I think most recipes for this are pretty much the same, I use the Kraft recipe, Watergate Salad. I skip the nuts and double the recipe.

Buns, homemade dinner buns. The recipe I use for so many types of buns is Bread Maker Hamburger Buns. It’s a great base recipe that you can use for dinner rolls, hamburger buns, hot dog buns, I even use it to make cheese buns and cinnamon rolls.

Carrot Cake. For dessert I’ll be making the Carrot Cake recipe that I posted the other day. It’s so good we just have to have it again!

I might make another salad or veggie dish of some sort, sort of craving Brussel Sprouts lately, might have to satisfy that craving. I like to make a lot because we then get so many yummy leftovers for the next couple of days and I don’t have to cook .

How’s your Christmas planning coming? Done shopping, or going to be out there Saturday finishing up? What’s your Christmas meal like? For us a Christmas meal is about the same as Thanksgiving and Easter….and every once in a while I’ll make it just because it’s such a big delicious meal.

 

Jolene

What I’m Wearing

I’ve always had a thing for the look of shawls, I don’t know why but I love them! I’ve never owned one though, until now! And this one is even better than a regular shawl, it’s a “cardishawl” and it is so incredibly comfortable! It made this whole outfit perfect for a day of shopping and running errands. I felt great, felt like I looked good(which is always a bonus! LOL), and loved how comfortable the whole outfit was. I know I should add some more color to my wardrobe, I wear an awful lot of black, but I love it and think I usually manage to wear it well, or at least fooling myself enough into thinking sticking with black is a good thing for me lol.

Shawl: Addition-Elle, $15ish(2011)

Top: Reitmans, $10ish(2010)

Jeans: Forever 21+, $15(2011)

Belt: City Chic, $12(2011)

Boots: Sears, $40(2011)

Necklace: Addition-Elle, $10(2011)

Earrings: Avon, gift from my Mom

Am I alone in my love for black and shawls?

Jolene

MUST Try Carrot Cake

Think you don’t like Carrot Cake? Think again!

My husband hates Carrot Cake so I haven’t had it in years. I decided I wanted to make some as part of my desserts for my family Christmas on the weekend. As I was making it on Friday I asked hubby why exactly he doesn’t like Carrot Cake. The reason I asked is because there are many things that he doesn’t like, but a lot of those things he doesn’t like because either his Mom made them or bought them often when he was a kid. So his answer for why he doesn’t like Carrot Cake? His Mom used to buy it when he was a kid. I said then he hasn’t had GOOD Carrot Cake, he’s had store-bought overly sweetened and dry Carrot Cake.

As with most things he said if I make it he will try it. Yes, my hubby absolutely loves my cooking and baking and there’s more than a few things that he wouldn’t touch before that he will now, as long as I make it LOL. So I found a great recipe for Carrot Cake, made my own little tweaks to it as usual. As soon as I had it iced I took a bite and I think I swooned just a bit at the awesomeness. I took him a bite, gave it to him and told him I had 3 extra pieces that wouldn’t fit in the container I was putting it in. After his bite his response was, “I’ll have them!”. He had another piece at dinner Saturday night, then another 2 pieces late Saturday night/Sunday morning before we went to bed. Then another 2 pieces last night. There’s no more Carrot Cake. We’re all very sad. We want more, the kids want more.

Not only did he “hate” Carrot Cake, but he hates Pineapples and this cake has crushed pineapples in it. Sometimes all it takes to make someone love something they thought they hated is to make it right! LOL! You just can’t compare store-bought to homemade. Yeah, store-bought is good if you’re in a pinch, but this cake didn’t take much more time than it would have to bundle up, warm up the car, drive to the store, pick out a cake, stand in line to pay for the cake, get back to the car, drive back home……all for something that might make do, but will not be absolutely fantastic like homemade!

I think I will be finding myself in the kitchen making Carrot Cake again for our Christmas Dinner that I’m going to do Saturday. If you need a fantastic dessert recipe for Christmas dinner and want something different than traditional Pumpkin recipes or Cheesecakes, this is the one!! It is so incredibly moist and not overly sweet. I reduced the sugar from the original recipe and used Applesauce instead of Oil, so it’s better for you too .

 

Carrot Cake

Inspired by Carrot Cake by Lennie

2 cups All Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons Baking Soda

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Salt

2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon

1 cup Brown Sugar

1 cup Apple Sauce

3 eggs

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

2 cups Shredded Carrots

1 8oz Can Crushed Pineapple, drained

Frosting

1 8oz Package Cream Cheese, softened

¼ cup Butter, softened

1 to 1 ½ cups Icing Sugar

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Sift together and mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Make a well in the center and add sugar, apple sauce, eggs and vanilla extract. Mix with a wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in carrots and pineapple. Pour into a well greased 9x13 pan. Bake for about 45 minutes at 350 F.

For frosting cream together cream cheese, butter and vanilla extract, Sift and add icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy. Frost cake.

Jolene

What I’m Wearing

I absolutely love what I wore to my family Christmas yesterday! I’ve had this dress for a while, it was supposed to be a goal dress when I lost a bit of weight last year. Strange thing is that I actually gained back the weight that I had lost, but it fits me anyway. Not sure how that makes sense, but I’m glad it fits because I love the way it looked!

I wish we lived somewhere that I could dress like this more often. It was a gorgeous day yesterday so I was able to wear something nice. Unfortunately during Winter here I usually have to wear something warm because it’s freezing and shoes that have grip so I don’t fall on my ass on the ice and snow(which anything with a heel obviously does not!). It’s so hard to dress nice in that kind of weather and here we get many months of it. But occasionally we get what are called Chinooks and the weather can change dramatically for a day or two. Yesterday was one of those days.

Please excuse the mess on the floor, that is “snow” from my husband’s Christmas Village that blows onto the floor every time someone walks by LOL.

Dress: Walmart, $14(2010)

Blazer: City Chic, $26(2011)

Belt: City Chic, $12(2011)

Boots: Payless, $40(2011, leftover style from 2010)

Necklace: Addition-Elle, $10(2011)

Jolene

Pumpkin Loaf

Today we celebrated Christmas with my side of the family. To say I’m exhausted would be an understatement. I spent all week doing cooking and baking for my Mom and Dad’s Christmas gift as well as tins of cookies and fudge to go with my niece and nephews gifts, plus I did dessert for our Christmas. I’m not one to do things small when it comes to cooking or baking. In fact when I make a Christmas meal just for the 4 of us I make more than what there was today for 17 people. I like variety for everyone and I like to have lots of leftovers(with boys in the house they don’t last long!). I baked 6 different things for dessert alone. So my busy week has sort of caught up with me, add to that one of my headaches which hit tonight, probably related to weather change and being in a house full of people didn’t help.

I have so much to share, recipes, outfits, and pics of the gifts I made for my niece and nephews. This week should be calmer so hopefully I will get to lots of posting! For now here is a recipe for Pumpkin Loaf. I made one for my Mom and Dad and one for us. I’ve been using this recipe for a couple of years now and it is absolutely delicious! I like it even better than Banana Bread! Most recipes I change a bit from the original I find, this one I didn’t change, it’s fantastic as is.

Pumpkin Spice Bread by jmelyn

2 cups Canned Pumpkin

3 cups Sugar

1 cup Water

1 cup Vegetable Oil(I use Canola, much better for you)

4 Eggs

3 1/3 cup All Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons Baking Soda

2 teaspoons Cinnamon

1 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg

3/4 teaspoon Ground Cloves

Heat oven to 350.

In a large mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, sugar, water, vegetable oil and eggs. Beat until well mixed.

Measure the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, nutmeg and cloves into a separate bowl and stir until combined.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture, beating until smooth.

Grease two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans and dust with flour. Evenly divide the batter between the two pans. Bake for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10-15 minutes, then remove from pans by inverting onto a rack and tapping the bottoms. Slice and serve plain, buttered, or with cream cheese.

Jolene

A Tale of Two Lasagnas

I really should be sleeping but I’m feeling guilty over lack of posts and I have so many recipes to share that I thought I would squeeze in a post before I nap for a bit. I still have some laundry to put away, cookies to put in the freezer after they’re done cooling and raisin bread to bake after they rise. Hubby isn’t off work for another 3 hours though so I think I’ll give my tired body a nap before I finish up for the night.

As I said in my last post, I’m making food for my Mom and Dad for Christmas. Since I have stuff to make for that, cookies for tins for my niece and nephews, and dessert for my family Christmas on Saturday, I’ve divided up everything I have to make throughout the week so I make 2 or 3 things each day. Yesterday I made Lasagnas for my Mom and Dad. If they taste even half as good as they smell they are going to be amazing!

My Mom is a diabetic, my Dad doesn’t eat any meat except poultry, neither of them eat spicy foods, my Dad won’t go anywhere near anything with garlic in it. All that makes most of the dishes I usually make for us no good for my Mom and Dad since we eat a lot of beef and pork, and we also love foods with a kick. So I made them a Chicken Lasagna and an Eggplant Lasagna. Both which I think they will love, especially the Chicken Lasagna, it was serious torture making that and not eating any! I didn’t actually bake them, but I put them together in little aluminum pans to freeze them, they are a perfect size so each pan is enough for one meal if they add some salad or something to go with it.

My pictures are even worse than usual because I forgot to take pics yesterday before I froze the lasagnas, so had to pull them out today frozen to get pics. I really need to get better at this picture taking stuff. I can take pics just fine of scenery, but food pics I’m no good at. Because they aren’t baked, they’re just put together to be frozen and baked later, they don’t look as good as they would look baked.

Chicken Lasagna

Inspired by White Cheese Chicken Lasagna by HDMac

½ cup Butter

1 Onion , chopped

½ cup All-Purpose Flour

1 teaspoon Salt

2 cups Chicken Broth

1 ½ cups Milk

4 cups Shredded Mozzarella Cheese , divided

1 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese , divided

1 teaspoon Dried Basil

1 teaspoon Dried Oregano

½ teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

9 Lasagna Noodles (I used about 12 for 3 small aluminum pans)

2 cups Cottage Cheese(or Ricotta)

2 cups Cubed Cooked Chicken Meat

2 (10 ounce) packages Frozen Chopped Spinach , thawed and drained

2 cups Mushrooms, sliced and cooked until water is released

1 tablespoon Chopped Fresh Parsley

¼ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese , for topping

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat, and saute the onion until tender. Stir in the flour and salt, and simmer until bubbly. Mix in the broth and milk, and boil, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Stir in 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese and 1/2 the Parmesan cheese. Season with the basil, oregano, and ground black pepper. Remove from heat and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350F/175C.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add lasagna noodles. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until al dente, and drain.

Spread 1/3 of the sauce mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Cover with 1/3 of the noodles, cottage cheese, and chicken. Layer with 1/3 of the noodles, 1/3 of the sauce mixture, spinach, mushrooms and the remaining mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. Top with remaining noodles and sauce mixture, and sprinkle with parsley and Parmesan cheese.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes.

 

Eggplant Lasagna

Inspired by I Lost My Noodles! Low Carb/South Beach Eggplant Lasagna by PattiCakeB

2 large Eggplants, peeled, sliced lengthwise into ¼ inch like “noodles”

Cooking Spray

Salt and Pepper

Meat Sauce

1 ½ lbs Ground Chicken

2 tbsp Olive Oil

2 Onions, chopped

1 16oz package Sliced Mushrooms

2 tablespoons Italian Seasoning

Salt and Pepper

1 10oz Package Frozen Chopped Spinach

1 28oz can Tomato Sauce

1 15oz can Diced Tomatoes(or 3 chopped Roma tomatoes)

Cheese Mixture

2 cups Cottage Cheese(or Ricotta)

2 Eggs

3 Green Onions, chopped

3 cups Shredded Mozzarella

½ cup Parmesan

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray cookie sheet, arrange eggplant slices and season with salt and pepper. Cook eggplant slices 5 minutes on each side.

Lower oven temp to 375.

Brown meat and onion in olive oil for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, and cook 5 minutes. Add spinach, tomatoes and spices and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

Blend ricotta, egg and onion together in separate bowl.

Spread 1/3 of meat sauce in bottom of 9” x 13” glass pan. Layer ½ eggplant slices, ½ ricotta, 1/3 mozzarella and parmesan.

Repeat.

Add last layer of sauce, then mozzarella and parmesan on top. Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour. Remove foil and bake or broil another 5-10 minutes until cheese is browned.

 

So that was part 1 of my parents gift, enough for  6 meals for the two of them.

 

Jolene

A Lame Post

Ever feel guilty about a purchase as soon as you’ve done it? I did that yesterday . I already have some stuff on the way from City Chic from their big Black Friday sale and then yesterday I just couldn’t help myself and ordered some stuff from Addition-Elle and Pennington’s. I got a great deal on everything, it was all 50% off the sale price and then I also had a coupon code they sent me for 30% of my total order…..I don’t think I have EVER got such a good deal from them! It’s a bad time to be spending the money though. I’m trying so hard to track our spending and find a way to pay down the credit card, it got built up a few years ago when hubby was out of work(was the only way to pay for groceries unfortunately, wasn’t frivolous spending) and even though he was only out of work for about 6 months living off just one income it has been impossible to get it paid down. And of course being Christmas there’s so much extra being spent anyway, and being winter bills are so much higher.

I’m not usually a big shopper, but reading all these blogs and seeing everyone’s great outfits has made me a little jealous and desperate for nice clothes and wanting to feel good. I’ve bought more clothes for myself in the past year than I probably have in the past 15 years combined LOL. No, that’s not saying I’ve spent THAT much on clothes this year, that’s saying I spent next to nothing on myself for the past 15 years! LOL. I have to put myself on a spending ban now, only essential items. I’m usually so good….not called a cheapskate for nothing lol. But I seem to have got the spending bug this year! Time to squash it. If I could get these boys of mine to behave a little better and be more responsible so I could focus on trying to do some work from home for extra money things would be a little different. Trying to focus on anything with these 2 seems impossible still though lol.

I’m feeling a little bad that it has been a week since I posted. Lots of posting ideas swirling around, but it seems the only time I have time to sit and put those ideas down are when I’m struck with one of my headaches. And well, once the headaches hit there’s no way putting thoughts together is going to work out all that well LOL.

I have just a week and a half until my family is getting together for our Christmas so I’ve been busy finishing the homemade gifts for my nephews and niece. Now I’m planning out my cooking and baking for next week and having problems focusing. I need it planned out so Friday I can do the grocery shopping for everything I need. I’m doing dessert for our Christmas(and I can’t possibly do only one thing, can I?), plus I’m adding tins of baked goodies to my nephews and nieces gifts.

I also have to do my Mom and Dad’s gift. It’s always hard to figure out what to get them. They don’t need “stuff”, they have no room for “stuff” and I don’t want to contribute to an already big problem at their place. I’m tired of doing gift cards, it’s a great back-up, but I really didn’t want to have to resort to that. So instead this year they are getting baking and cooking from me! I’m going to make and freeze some meals for them, plus some baked stuff that can be frozen and give them some of my Apple Butter I canned a couple of months ago.

So if I don’t get to blogging much for the next couple of weeks it’s probably because I’m baking up a storm!

Jolene

Perfect Doesn’t Exist

I saw this posted on Thick Threads Facebook Page today and it is something everyone needs to see. We all know that photos are airbrushed to death these days. Photos that young kids see as they grow up and believe is how people really look, how they should look. Photos that even us grownups see and while we know different we can’t help but think “I wish I could look like that”, knowing full well that most of what we’re looking at is not what these people really look like.

Most of the time these pictures are of celebrities, people we never actually see up close to know exactly how they look. We see them in pictures and we see them on camera where there may not be airbrushing, but where numerous make-up tricks are used to make them appear “perfect”. We don’t see them face to face to see the lines, wrinkles, pimples, cellulite etc., so our minds trick us into thinking that this is really how they look. Then what happens? We look at ourselves in the mirror and start picking out all the little flaws we see.

Go check out this website, click on the “toggle” button to see the before and after for each row. Look closely at each little change on each picture. It’s shocking. Even though we know they do it, to see each and every little detail they change is a real eye opener.

Jolene

What I’m Wearing

Holy smokes! Where has the time gone? I can’t believe we’re at the end of November already! I managed to pretty much finish my Christmas shopping this weekend, I only had a couple of things for my kids left to buy and sales were great this weekend and made it easy to accomplish. I just have to get stocking stuffers and finish making a couple of homemade gifts. Hubby and I decided we’re not going to buy each other anything before Christmas, we’ll try to come up with something to buy together after Christmas instead. We’ll just get each other something small so we each have a gift to open on Christmas morning. Definitely happy to be done shopping early again, I’ve managed to be pretty much done by the beginning of December the past few years and I love it! It makes Christmas so much less stressful and more enjoyable….and with the family issues that are pissing me off anything less stressful is a good thing!

We had another windy day Friday when we went out shopping, so I had to do a ponytail again. Little did I know that the windy days we had last week would be nothing compared to what was to come Sunday! Crazy I tell ya! The whole house was shaking, and not just a little! All of downtown was shut down because windows were being blown out of highrises, not only was it too dangerous for anyone to be down there with the threat of getting hit by something, but the roads were so filled with debris that some of them weren’t reopened until Monday afternoon. There were trees down all over the city, HUGE trees! Shingles blown off and even some homes had part of their roof blown off. South of the city it was even worse a lot of major damage to homes and businesses and then on top of that some pretty bad fires started threatening homes. It was just an absolutely crazy day here in Southern Alberta!

Here is my wind and shopping ready outfit from Friday, hair secured up, no skirt to worry about blowing up and comfy flats for lots of walking.

Jeans: Penningtons, $50(2011)

Top & Belt: Dealzone, $10(2011)

Cardigan: Penningtons, $30(2011)

Shoes: Forever 21, $18ish?(2011)

Cuff: Forever 21, $5ish(2011)

Necklace and Earrings: Avon, gift from my Mom

Jolene

What I’m Wearing

First off I would like to wish my American friends a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you’re enjoying the day with loved ones and eating lots of yummy food!

I managed to get a pic of what I wore yesterday. I apologize for the bad backdrop, I’m not brave enough to pose for pics outside(plus it’s a little cold to pose without a jacket now) and my house is a disaster right now. Why is my house a disaster? Well, on top of the usual slobbishness of my 2 boys, I asked slob1 to bring up all the Christmas decorations and stack them nicely together somewhere so we can start putting them up. Slob 1’s translation of this was to bring up all the Christmas decorations and spread them all over the entire main floor and start yanking stuff out of the boxes, so my house now has boxes, rubbermaids, garland, lights etc etc spread all over the place. Needless to say a good place to take a picture does not currently exist in my house.

I actually wore my hair in a ponytail yesterday! I don’t wear my hair up often, especially not in ponytails. I just don’t think I look good with a ponytail(my super fine hair makes a pretty pathetic ponytail LOL). The winds were insane yesterday though, not quite as bad as the town about an hour from us that had the roof ripped off the High School from the wind, crazy huh? But they were bad enough. So instead of my hair whipping around in the wind and getting all knotted up I decided to put it up. Thank goodness my headache wasn’t as bad as I usually get when we get a Chinook and these kinds of winds and I was able to get out of the house for a few hours and go for lunch with hubby. As you can tell from my last post, I NEEDED it! It wasn’t a cure-all, but it helped give me a bit of a mental break from stuff.

I went without tights because I thought it was warmer feeling out than it was and I didn’t want to overheat. Turns out I should have because I froze my legs every time we walked from the car to store and back to car again. I loved what I was wearing except that the skirt kept creeping up while I walked, I’m not big on skirts any shorter than what this was so it was quite annoying LOL.  I usually like to wear this top with my black jeans, but I just felt like wearing a skirt yesterday.

Top: Addition-Elle, $15ish(2010)

Skirt: hand-me-down from years ago

Boots: Payless, $40(2011, leftover style from 2010)

Necklace: Forever 21, $6.80(2011)

Earrings: Avon, gift from my Mom

Jolene

 

Ten on Tuesday

I have lots of recipes I can post, I think I have one or two outfits I can post, I have lots of other posts I’ve been wanting to do. But this week I’m just blah and can’t focus on posting anything good. The weather is really changing and my body is feeling it bad right now. It has been really windy off and on and I get headaches whenever it gets windy. We got some snow yesterday too. Just the whole weather change in general is hitting me hard right now. My head hurts, my body just aches everywhere and my head is so fuzzy…I hate that fuzzy feeling, especially when it lasts for days. I’ve been like this for about a week now and I’m so ready for it to end! My list of things to do is growing and I’m making no progress on any of it. I’m hoping since the winter weather is likely here to stay that I will get used to it soon and get back into the great groove I had started lately. I’m upping my vitamins and going to pick up another supplement I’ve heard good things about…..hopefully those will help too.

I came across one of those question thingies and thought this is at least something I should be able to do without too much thought…..so here is my “Ten on Tuesday”

Ten on Tuesday at Roots and Rings

1. What are your pantry staples?
Flour, Sugar, Oats, Honey, Peanut Butter, baking supplies(the usual baking soda, baking powder etc.), Tomato Paste, Diced Tomatoes, Tomato Sauce, Tea

2. What are your refrigerator staples?
Milk, yogurt(homemade),eggs, marble cheese, margarine, ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, ranch dressing, Miracle Whip, cream(for coffee), pickles, Parmesan

3. You already look like Heidi Klum (or your favorite supermodel). Now, what are the top three non-physical things you would change about yourself?
My nervousness, my constant worrying, my shyness

4. What’s holding you back from your dream job? (If you already have your dream job, how did you get there?)
Other than being a Mom I never really had a dream job, as I said in a previous post I always thought I would be a model but never went further with that….too old and fat to do that now LOL! But I am a stay at home Mom like I wanted to be, I imagined having more as one though and not struggling financially(ok, we’re not exactly struggling anymore, to some it is, but compared to what we’ve been through I can’t call this struggling). My kids are getting older and I know I have to think about what I’m going to do as they start building their own lives, ideally I would love to start my own business but what kind I don’t know yet, I know I really don’t want to go back to working for someone else. My husband and I have this dream of owning a very large chunk of land and having a Paintball field, Paintball arena, Laser tag…..all sorts of fun stuff like that on it and then maybe a small diner or cafe and live on the land as well….yeah, big dreams for people with no money LOL…..that’s the thing about dreams, you can make them as big as you want .

5. You have $500 to spend but it has to be on one item only. Go.
There are so many things that $500 could buy that we need, this is a hard one. It would probably be a piece of furniture. Either a real bed for hubby and I….in the 16 or so years we’ve lived together we’ve only had a real bed(frame, headboard etc) for maybe a quarter of those years at the most, last time was about 7 or 8 years ago. OR a new Dining set…..hubby is building me a table(very slowwwwly lol) and I need chairs too, so $500 could buy me some nice chairs. OR a China Cabinet….I’ve never had one and I have stuff I’ve accumulated from my Grandma’s that I can’t put out anywhere, and I just got another box full of stuff from my Grandma’s house that my Mom and Dad brought from a trip out there…..I would love to be able to put everything out on display instead of having it packed away.

6. What is something that you are embarrassed to admit you buy on a regular basis?
hmm, been racking my brain on this one and I can’t come up with a single answer! Yeah, every once in a while we buy chips or junk of some sort out of weakness, but we definitely don’t buy anything like that on a regular basis…..and not exactly something I think we should be embarrassed to buy…maybe if we were buying it a lot, but we certainly don’t. So I would have to say nothing.

7. What’s in/on your bed every night?
Two pillows, fitted sheet, hubby’s down comforter for him and my soft blanket for me, my heating pad….and at night nobody since we don’t sleep at night lol….but during “our night” which is morning for everyone else….hubby and I

8. What is a non-necessity item that, no matter how expensive it gets or how tight your budget if, you will always find room for it?
Make-up! I can’t live without my make-up, I’ll use the cheap stuff if I have to(and I usually do anyway). As for food it would have to be eating out once in a while. I love to cook but often when we eat out it’s just as much for sanity as it is for the food. Hubby will take me out sometimes because I’m home alone with the kids so much, I had no problems handling it when they were little, but at this age omg, I need a couple hours every once in a while.

9. What is the weirdest sandwich you’ve ever made?
Margarine and Pickle! It’s good! Kids were hungry and I had no meat or peanut butter or anything so I told them to use pickles…..they named it the “Freak Sandwich” and ever since we have it every once in a while even if we do have meat because it’s just simple and pretty darn good. My youngest tricked my oldest into adding Jam to the Sandwich once, saying he tried it and it was really good, which he had not hehe.

10. Would you rather: Be banned from Pinterest forever, but gain a million captive Twitter followers; or, never get on Facebook again but gain five thousand blog readers?
How about neither? LOL. If I had to pick I guess I would say the latter. I’ve been on Facebook for so long now that I’m actually growing a little bored and tired of it lately and I don’t care as much about Twitter. I love Pinterest and I would love more blog readers….so definitely the latter.

Jolene

Potato Soup

I grew up with my Dad often making Potato Soup and it was one of my favorite meals. I never thought I could have a Potato Soup as good as that. I tried for years to make it and get mine to taste exactly how my Dad’s did. While I don’t think I ever got it tasting exactly like my Dad’s did, I got mine tasting pretty darn good.

I wasn’t looking for a new Potato Soup recipe, but I love looking at recipes online to get ideas, every once in a while I find one that looks good enough to try almost exactly as it’s written. I came across this recipe for Potato Soup that is apparently a  copycat recipe for the Potato Soup served at Panera. I’ve heard of Panera before, but we don’t have them up here, so I have no clue what their soup is like. This recipe looked so good though that I had to try it….as for whether or not it tastes like the soup from Panera I have no idea!

I like to make soup in the Winter for my husband to take to work for his supper. He works in a cold warehouse all night, so I like to send him with something that will warm him up. Last Winter I decided to give this soup recipe a try. It was so fricken good that it is now a regular on my soup list for his work suppers. I mean, amazing good! It tastes like a creamy loaded baked potato, and who doesn’t love loaded baked potatoes!?! I sure do!

I went a little crazy with the chicken stock when I made it last week(yes, because I don’t measure LOL), so the soup in the picture is not as thick as I usually prefer it, the taste was not affected though, it was still just as good.  I always make a double recipe so I have enough for at least 3 or 4 nights of hubby’s supper and a little extra so I get some too .

Cream Cheese Potato Soup

Inspired by Panera's Cream Cheese Potato Soup by Shawn H

4 cups Chicken, Turkey or Veggie Broth*

4 cups peeled and cubed Potatoes

1/4 cup minced Onion

1/2 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Pepper

1/4 tsp Ground Red Pepper

1 pkg(8oz) Cream Cheese

Saute onions in large pot in a little bit of oil. Add broth, potatoes, salt and peppers. Boil on medium until potatoes are cooked. Mash potatoes, but not all of them, keep it a little chunky(unless you really don’t like chunky, then by all means, mash it all up!). Mashing some of the potatoes will release the starch and thicken the soup.

Remove some of the soup into a blender, add the cream cheese and blend well. Pour back into the pot and simmer until it has reached the thickness you like and the cream cheese is nicely melted and blended in with the rest of the soup.

Dish out and top each bowl with some shredded cheese, crumbled bacon and green onion.

*I’ve made it with all 3 and they are all good.

Jolene

Planning for Adulthood and Quesadillas

(Scroll to the end of the post for a recipe for Quesadillas if you don’t want to read my other ramblings )

My almost 14 year old has taken an interest in cooking over the past several years. He has been able to do some simple things like making soup from a can, making Kraft Dinner and making frozen stuff you stick into the oven for several years. He started doing stuff that requires a little bit of actual “cooking” like making eggs a few years ago. He hasn’t really gone beyond that though. Yeah he helps me in the kitchen sometimes, but breakfast stuff like eggs or waffles(no, not frozen lol) is probably the only cooked from scratch meals he’s done on his own.

We’re trying to get him to think a little more about what he wants to do, he’s at that age where it’s time to sort out the ideas of what he wants to be that have been lingering through childhood and think about which ones he’s serious about. We don’t expect him to make a definite decision at this age of course, but getting an idea and setting some goals to work towards is something we want him to work on as he gets closer to High School. It’s something I don’t really remember my parents doing, I know my Mom wanted me to go towards Hair Dressing and I started taking it at the beginning of High School because my friends were, but quickly realized it really wasn’t for me. I didn’t have any other ideas to fall back on.

As a child I had done dancing, singing, a little bit of acting classes and modeling. I think in my earlier years I always thought I would be a model, but moving to a different city ended what I had began when I was little and when I tried to re-enter the world of modeling as a young teenager I was stopped short by knee problems preventing me from doing the "walk”. I guess I figured I couldn’t do modeling because of that, and as far as I remember that was the reason I didn’t go back. My knee problems weren’t fixed until I was in my late teens(if you can call it fixed lol) and by then I was busy being a teen and really didn’t even know how to get back into it or if I should.  Now as I look back and know more about the world of modeling I’m sort of glad in some ways I didn’t continue, I’ve seen some horrible things about that lifestyle and I probably wouldn’t have lasted long in that life….and considering my body completely changed as soon as I got pregnant the first time even if I had gone into the life it would have been over after that LOL.

With no other plans for my future to fall back on and part of a family that couldn’t afford to put one of us through a post-secondary education, never mind all of us, I finished High School without a plan for my future. I knew I wanted to get married and have kids, that was it. So what did I do? Yes, I got married and had kids, but I worked nothing more than retail and customer service type jobs. All of which were low pay. The best job I ever had was managing a baby store, I loved my job….only job I ever had that I loved. Problem was I worked my ass off running a store for a boss who took advantage of me and made it extremely difficult for me to do my job, plus lied to me constantly about a variety of things….all for $9 an hour.

I want more than that for my kids, but unless we were to win the lottery we could never afford to pay for a post-secondary education for our boys. Grandma has offered to pay for Culinary school for my oldest, so if he’s serious about his interest in cooking it is something that he will have a chance to get the proper training in. So in the meantime while I’m far from a professional cook I’ll do what I can to teach him what I can in the kitchen.

To give me a break from worrying about dinner one night a week and to get some practice making a variety of things I have decided that Sunday nights will be his night to make dinner. He gets to pick the dish he is going to make, as long as he lets me know by Thursdays when I make up my shopping list and gets my approval as far as ingredients go(groceries are expensive here, some things we just can’t afford so my meals are always planned around foods we can afford of course). Oh, and it has to be something he has to actually cook, not just something to throw into the oven.

He has made dinner the past 2 Sundays so far. The first Sunday he made Bolognese, this past Sunday he made Quesadillas. I usually go the lazy way and instead of typing out how I make something I look for a recipe that’s close to how I make it and print it off and just change the parts that I do differently. I couldn’t find a single recipe even close to how I make my Quesadillas though. The recipe is incredibly simple, but for someone who doesn’t follow exact amounts of much of anything when cooking it’s hard to write out a recipe! LOL!  So these are totally just estimates for amounts, it’s what my son followed and it tasted the way they do when I make them, so I guess they must be close enough LOL!

So I apologize for my very amateurish recipe writing, but trust me, the resulting product is VERY good!

Chicken Quesadillas

4 Large Flour Tortillas

2 cups Tomatoes, diced

3 to 4 Chicken Breasts

2 Tbsp Taco Seasoning

Water

2 cups Shredded Cheese

Sour Cream

Dice Chicken Breast, cook in pan over Medium heat until browned and no longer pink in the middle. Add enough water to just cover bottom of the pan, then add taco seasoning. Keep cooking over low-medium heat until water is evaporated and chicken is seasoned evenly to your taste.

Lay out tortilla and top one half with chicken, tomatoes then shredded cheese. Fold other half of tortilla over the half with the toppings and press together. Heat a tbsp or two of olive oil in frying pan on medium. Gently place Quesadilla into pan and heat until browned and slightly crunchy, gently flip the Quesadilla over and do the same on the other side. Remove from pan, cut in half. Repeat the process with the remaining tortillas. Serve with sour cream.

Jolene

What I’m Wearing and 20 Years!!

20 years ago today my husband and I started dating! I was 16, he was 17. We have been through so much in 20 years. Not a lot of people can say they’ve been with the same person for 20 years, even less can say they have been through the things we have and still be together. But here we are!

This is us back in 1992 heading to Alex’s High School Graduation, we had been dating about 7 or 8 months at that point. He was 18 here and I was just about to turn 17.  Yes, he had a mullet LOL, it was 1992, everyone was blind and thought they looked good back then, most of the guys had at least some resemblance of one LOL.

Life isn’t always perfect, life is hard. We’ve had a lot of hard times, or one continuous hard time, depends how you look at it lol. I hear people complain when their perfect life has one little hiccup, I laugh and think if they only knew what a truly stressful and hard life really is. We do, it could have been worse and I’m grateful it wasn’t. I don’t credit anyone else for it not being worse, we worked too hard ourselves to improve our lives to give anyone else credit for what we did. We did have a bit of help in a couple of ways from our parents, and we’re grateful for that as it was the only kind of help we got. We were lucky enough to always be healthy, I’m grateful we never had to endure that part of a hard life(and hope we never will). Even those closest to us(ok, don’t think I really have anyone that “close”) don’t know the extent of it, they think they do, but they don’t. We never blamed anyone else for our hard times, while there wasn’t a whole lot we could have done to prevent them(6 layoffs in 12 years, how could it be anything but just bad luck?) I still don’t blame anyone(ok, there may be a few specific employers who’s bad business management cause the layoffs that I would love to give a nice swift kick in the ass). But we made it through. Life still isn’t easy, but compared to the past it’s like a bed of roses!

I wish we had more at this point in our lives, but we have what we need and that’s all that matters. We haven’t owned our own home in years and since unless you want to live in a small box you can forget about getting anything decent under about $350,000(even most apartments are over $200,000), owning a home here is probably never going to happen. But we rent a house I love in a community I love, and fortunately we don’t have to see our landlords very often(I believe landlords come from another planet, they all surely must because they are all the same lol).

I wish my kids were more responsible, better behaved and took more interest in doing what they should instead of just what they want. But they are kids, one a teenager. They behave just like you expect kids their age to behave. They are the most polite kids to other people, they only have bad behavior toward Mom and Dad. I expect a lot, but only because I know they’re capable. They still want to be with us all the time, my 11 year old calls and complains we’re gone too long if we’ve gone out for more than an hour, he misses us already. His favorite place to be is still cuddling with us on the couch. I wish they could be more mature in a lot of ways, but they aren’t trying to grow up too fast in most ways and I’m ok with that(I just won’t let them know, shhhh).

Life isn’t perfect, but life is good. It’s hard to live off a single income, it’s not a large single income, but it’s the highest one we’ve ever had. I know people who live off twice as much and can’t make ends meet, but when you’ve lived off far less your entire life you just know how to make a dollar go farther and know what is important and what isn’t. We don’t HAVE to live off a single income, but life was actually harder when we had 2 incomes. Our 2 incomes at that time combined were far less than the single one coming in now. I’m where I’m meant to be, home to take care of my family. Not out of laziness, but because while we’re not religious people, we have very strong family values, I guess we’re a little old fashioned in some ways.

I’m hopeful that the hard days are behind us. Life will always throw difficult things into the mix, but the constant daily struggle we had for years has finally left us to enjoy life. My husband has a great job, maybe even a chance for a great new position in the New Year, we’ll see, but even if he doesn’t get that, the job is still great, and the company he works for is great. I’m finally a lot less depressed than I was for so many years, I like me and I don’t think I’ve ever truly felt that way before. The kids still have a lot of raising and growing up left to do, but with one already in his teens and the other not too far away we are finally able to focus on not just being parents, but being a couple too. I’m looking forward to the next 20 years and beyond and I honestly believe we have our best years ahead of us!

And here we are today! We took this picture just before heading out to eat today . The skinny bodies turned to fat, his mullet replaced by no hair(not because he’s balding LOL, he has such a thick head of hair It’s disgusting, he just likes the clean feeling of a shaved head and I think it suits him), a few gray hairs….ok actually a lot, but all on his head! Not a word of a lie I haven’t had a single gray yet(and not because of coloring LOL, I have plenty of dark roots between coloring)! And a few wrinkles here and there LOL.

We don’t usually go out on a day that hubby works, but he didn’t have to go in until later tonight so he and I went out for nice lunch/dinner together….we went for Vietnamese, our favorite! So that means I actually got to get dressed up nice to leave the house!

Jeans: Forever 21+, $15(2011)

Cardigan: Addition-Elle, $10ish(2009)

Layered top: 121Avenue(eBay store), $11(2011)

Lace trimmed tank: Warehouse One, $10 (2011)

Boots: Payless Shoes, $40 (2011)

Cuff(you can see it better in pic above with hubby): F21, $5(2011)

Necklace(see better in above pic): Warehouse One, $10ish (2011)

Earrings(sorry, can’t really see them ): Avon, don’t recall price (2009)

A kiss to hubby hehe!

Jolene

Chili

It’s that time of year for foods that warm up your insides! We are expecting our first bit of snow sometime between tonight and tomorrow morning. Sounds like not a lot, but any snow is too much! Yeah, not a fan of Winter, can you tell? I like the “cool” but hate the cold. I like looking at beautiful pictures with snow. I love looking just West of us and seeing the beautiful Rocky Mountains with their snowcaps, it’s a stunning site and I’m lucky to live close enough to see it whenever I want. I hate actually being in the snow though, I hate the slippery roads and sidewalks, I hate the deep snow you have to walk through to get anywhere and then the messy slush you have to deal with when it starts to melt. I hate having to bundle up before you can leave the house.

I love Winter cooking though! Soups and stews, using the oven and not worrying about making the house too hot, instead welcoming the added heat….well, ok sometimes, I get hot even in Winter lol.

Last weekend I made Chili for the first time since Spring. I don’t make Chili in the Summer. Even though I make it in my Slow Cooker so it wouldn’t heat up the house anyway, Chili is just too much of a warming food for warm days. Perfect though for the days that are now upon us! The high tomorrow is –8 C….our first day of the season below zero…boooo!

My family isn’t a fan of beans, so if you like beans feel free to add them, but we don’t. We like our Chili nice and thick and meaty. I usually make it with Ground Beef, but I have made it with Ground Pork before too because when I had a Costco card the pork was usually cheaper. There is very little difference in taste, I have replaces Ground Beef with Pork in many recipes and if anything I almost think the pork absorbs the flavors of everything in the dish better. Of course you could also use Ground Chicken or Turkey….both are insanely expensive where I live(so is the beef for that matter LOL!), so I have never used either of them. If you can afford them of course you will end up with a leaner Chili.

A note on the tomato items I put in as well. These are the items I buy to put in if I’m out of canned tomato products and buying some specifically for Chili, but if I’m just cooking from what I have on hand I have used many different combinations of tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and stewed tomatoes. The only one I remain consistent with is the tomato paste. I put the same total amount of tomato items in though, it doesn’t seem to affect the Chili by changing the combination of products.

Chili

(makes a big Slow Cooker full, for my family of 4 with 2 boys who are HUGE eaters we get 2 meals plus enough for lunch for one or two of us out of this recipe)

1 giant bulk pack lean ground beef

2 large onions

4 cloves garlic

2x 398ml cans of tomato sauce

2x 156ml cans of tomato paste

796ml can of whole tomatoes

398ml can of diced tomatoes

2 1/2 tsp cumin

2 1/2 tsp paprika

1 1/2 to 2 tbsp Chili Powder

2 1/2 tsp Oregano

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp pepper

3 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Saute meat, onions and garlic. Add to slow cooker when done.

Add all remaining ingredients, give it a good stir, cook on low for 8 hours. If you don’t have a Slow Cooker you can cook on the stove simmering for about 2 hours.

Jolene

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!

Now with this Halloween over we are down to one more Halloween to trick or treat. Next year will be the last one for our youngest. We believe that Trick or Treating is for kids and not teenagers, so after 13 there’s no more Trick or Treating. My oldest is 13 so this was his first Halloween not Trick or Treating, he just wore a mask and walked along with us to take my youngest. My youngest is 11, so one more now and he’s done.

My husband LOVES Halloween, for me I like taking the kids out, so next year will be sad for me being the last!

We were out for about an hour and a half tonight and my boy got 2 bags FULL of candy….which of course he will share with his big brother(and Mommy hehe). It was a little cold and windy, so we were more than ready to come home and warm up by the time his bags were full.

Here’s my Zombie(he had to play the part of pictures! LOL)….didn’t my husband do a great job of the make-up? Almost every house complimented him on his make-up!

Jolene

“Only Fat People”?, No! “Everybody is Beautiful”!

I’m bad with Twitter. I have 2 accounts and I’ve never been good with tweeting much on either, I like to read everyone else’s tweets but rarely send out my own. I think part of it is I have a really hard time saying things in so few words, if you haven’t noticed I tend to be a bit of a rambler. In person I’m shy and quiet usually until I get to know someone, even online in direct conversations I struggle to find words, but when it comes to typing out my thoughts I can go on and on. I type fast too(thank you to typing class in High School, I did retain something I learned in HS at least LOL), so often I feel my fingers fly across the keys faster than I even realize what or how much I’ve typed. So Twitter and Facebook restrictions on how many characters you can type are very hard for me.

I was on one of my Twitter accounts yesterday following the Nascar race because it wasn’t on a channel I get. I glanced over at the trending topics and felt sick and disturbed to see what one of them was. “Only Fat People” was one of the top trending topics on Twitter. I wanted to click and see what people were saying to make it trend, but I was scared to. I’ve been a little depressed and frustrated lately and I was scared that what I saw might not help my current emotional state.

After it staring me in the face for a while I decided to click on it and see. I am a very nervous person and I have to say I was incredibly nervous clicking on it, worrying I was about to make what was already not a great day worse.

As I scanned over the first 100 or so tweets I took a big sigh of relief and felt pride that while there are some absolutely disgusting people out there(likely the ones who started the trend), there are still people who refuse to accept that kind of behavior. Of the 100 or so tweets that I read(what was the most recent 100 at that time), only ONE was negative toward “fat” people! The rest were people absolutely disgusted that such a thing would be trending. There were people of every walk of life, every age, both sexes, every ethnicity, every SIZE….just everyone….tweeting how disgusting it was.

I felt so much relief to see that while this trend likely started because of some incredibly disturbed people, it became such a big trending topic because of those who were speaking up of how wrong it was. And before long a new topic was trending, it quickly became more of a trend than “Only Fat People”, before long “Only Fat People” was no longer even showing in the top trending. Instead “Everybody is Beautiful” had begun to shine and taken it’s place….and what a beautiful sight it was!

Everybody is beautiful! And if you don’t feel beautiful, then do something to make yourself feel it, everyone is beautiful and everyone can feel beautiful if you will just allow yourself to feel it, and everyone deserves to have that feeling. Once you’ve felt it and feel how wonderful it is to feel that way, you will strive to make yourself feel that way as much as you can. Beauty isn’t limited to those who are thin, those who are young, those who have money….beauty is in us all, if you haven’t found that feeling for yourself you owe it to yourself to do so. We all have our days where we feel blah and ugly, but once you let yourself feel beautiful those ugly days become few and far between and become so much easier to overcome because you know that’s not how you should be feeling and that’s not how you want to feel.

Have you let yourself feel beautiful today?

Jolene

French Loaf Pizza, Pizza Sauce and mmm, Bacon

I’m trying really hard to use up stuff I have in my freezer so have been using that to get back into menu planning. I’ve found sometimes in the past when I planned out my menu in advance I actually ended up spending more in groceries than when I didn’t, weird I know because it should be the other way around(and no, eating out wasn’t where it made the difference, we rarely eat out more than once a week unless I’m not feeling well and need hubby to pick stuff up…which is usually that crappy TOM LOL). My freezers have been so crammed full of stuff that I really need to empty them out a bit, I had one hell of a time trying to fit my turkey stock from my Thanksgiving turkey in there.

I bought a couple of French Loaves a few weeks ago because they were on sale for 89 cents, I figured we would easily use them because I make garlic bread a lot, but we just haven’t had a meal that goes with garlic bread since I bought them and 2 loaves take up quite a bit of space in the freezer. So, how can you make a French Loaf the main part of a meal instead of just the bread on the side? Use it as a pizza crust!

First start off with your Pizza Sauce, yes you can buy it and I sometimes do(if I buy it I buy a Garlic and Basil sauce, the plain ones are blah). But why buy it when you can make it even better and it takes very little time and tastes so much better! Even making a single recipe I didn’t even use half the sauce, so there’s plenty to refrigerate or freeze until next time.

Onions, Italian Season and Oregano…the smell of it cooking is amazing, my kids were asking me why I was trying to torture them.

Who needs store bought Pizza Sauce when in a short time you can have this!

Pizza Sauce

recipe adapted from Kittencal’s Pizza Sauce on Food.com

3 tbsp Oil*

1 Medium Onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp Minced Garlic (or 1tsp Garlic Powder)

4 tsp Italian Seasoning

4 tsp Oregano

1 6oz can Tomato Paste

1 28oz can Tomato Sauce

1tsp Salt

1 tsp Pepper

1-2 tsp Sugar**

Saute the onion, Italian Seasoning and Oregano in the oil until onion is translucent. Add garlic and saute for another minute. Mix in tomato paste, tomato sauce, salt, and pepper. Simmer on low for 45 minutes to an hour. Add sugar at the end if you would like.

*I just used some bacon fat because I had it and I’m running low on oil, but use Canola or Olive or whatever you have.

**I actually forgot to put any sugar in and didn’t notice.

I’m a horribly photographer, but doesn’t that look delish?

French Loaf Pizza

1 French Loaf

Pizza Sauce

Shredded Cheese*

Onion, sliced thin

Meat of your choice**

Preheat oven to 400 F. Cut French Loaf in half and then each half horizontally in half so you have 4 quadrants of loaf, place on baking sheets. Smooth pizza sauce on each piece, I put it on a little heavy because it is a thick loaf and will soak in a bit. Add a little bit of cheese, I find putting a bit of cheese on the bottom and then a bit more on the top helps to “sandwich” the toppings and help them stay put better. Add onion slices, and meats of your choice….load it up as much or as little as you want. Top with more cheese….a generous amount .  Once you have it loaded up as you like put in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, until cheese is melted and bread has crisped up a bit. Let cool a few minutes then slice each quadrant into 3. Enjoy!

Ingredients are vague because like all pizza you can really just add whatever you want….this is how I made it this time, but how I make it in the future will depend on whatever I happen to have on hand.

*I use Marble Cheese for almost everything, it’s our favorite, but use whatever cheese you like.

**I used ground pork sausage and bacon, it’s what I had in the freezer.

mmmm, Bacon!

Hate cooking bacon? Hate that greasy splattered mess all over your kitchen and that nice top that is ruined from playing catch with grease splatters? Have no fear! There is a solution!

I’m not a big fan of regular bacon, I do enjoy it on stuff but if I’m having bacon and eggs or a BLT or something I prefer the taste of Turkey Bacon, regular is just too greasy tasting for me. I do like regular bacon on some things though, and my guys love it. I got away with not having to cook it for a very long time, but hubby is on a bacon kick lately, so I’ve been doing a lot of cooking bacon.

I cook turkey bacon in the microwave, it is quick and easy and always comes out the perfect crispiness without making any mess. I’ve tried the microwave for regular bacon, it sucks! A frying pan for regular bacon leaves the stove, the counters, the cupboards, the floor and me covered in grease. For a while I started using my big pot to cook bacon and it was MUCH better, because of the high sides it drastically reduced how much splattered out. Biggest problem was that I could only do 4 pieces of bacon at a time that way, and with 3 males in the house, 2 of them growing boys with huge appetites, I need to a cook the whole package of bacon and it just took too long.

There has got to be a better way of cooking lots of bacon at once with little mess I thought, surely it can be baked? Bakin’ bacon…yep, you betcha! You can do the whole package at one time, clean up is easy, and it really doesn’t take that long. Here is how to do an entire package of bacon at one time:

First cover 2 baking sheets with foil(make sure you use baking sheets that fit side by side in your oven). Lay bacon out on the foil in a single layer. It’s better if it’s a little more spaced out than I have it here, but this package had more slices than they usually do so really filled up the trays even more than usual.

Place sheets of bacon in a 400 F oven for about 15 to 25 minutes, depending on how crispy you like it. And then you will have this:

mmm, yummy crispy bacon! We like it super crispy, can you tell? I take the bacon off the trays and put it on some paper towel to help soak up the extra grease. I pour the bacon grease from the trays into a bowl to use in other cooking…..I don’t normally use anything that fatty as an oil in my cooking(I’m a Canola Oil or Olive Oil girl!), but some things taste great with the extra flavor the bacon fat adds. Certainly not something I would use for cooking on a regular basis though.

Let me know if you use any of the recipes or tips that I post! I would love to hear opinions and comments on them!

Jolene