I have a glass of red wine in hand, if we are being honest, it's the second. ;)

I am enjoying a few minutes of relative silence right now and taking a few minutes to just reflect on the day. Nothing extraordinary..... just simply normal and that is how I am liking it these days. I said I am trying to slow down and appreciate all the little things and I find that when I am not stressing so much about "getting it all done" I am happier. Yes, I still have a long list of things to do, but I will get to them eventually.

We have been trying new recipes (and when I say we, I really mean the hubby ). He cooks them and I eat them! :)

We recently renewed our library card and rediscovered some nearby parks. We have planted more plants and been making trips to the local farmer's market. I feel like we are slowing down the pace of our lives and I enjoy it so much more than I thought I would.

I used to love to go go go and get a million things done. I only felt truly accomplished if I could list off ten things I had done that day and if I was exhausted by the time I came in the door.  These days I feel accomplished if I actually get the laundry put away and we have made a trip to the park. It feels good because I know in just a few short months Jaxson will be starting preschool and I can't believe it! Yes, it is just a few hours, a few days but it just cements in my mind that he is growing up so fast and it won't be long that we won't have all of this time.

I guess in a way I have been simplifying my life before I even realized that that is what I needed and wanted. 

Tough choices, dissapointments and simplifying

I am not entirely sure where this post is headed because my mind is in about a million different places right now. There are things I want to say but not sure I should and there are things I am going to say and be glad that I did!

I feel like right now in my life, more so than ever, I have been faced with difficult and uncomfortable situations. Sometimes, being an adult just plain sucks! I know we can all attest to that.

All around me I feel like tragedy is touching people's lives..... lives of people I know well, and some not so well.

It hurts my heart so much to know that people I love are struggling and there is not much I can do about it. I hate the feeling of feeling helpless.

I have been thinking a lot about life in general lately, and have come to some realizations.  Amidst all of this tragedy my resolve has kicked in. Maybe I can't help everyone or take the pain away but there are things I can do, even if  they are little things. There are things I can do to improve my own life too  I feel as if I have put too much emphasis on certain things when it comes to me, personally, and I feel like it is time to simplify things a bit.

By simplifying I mean every aspect of my life. I want to spend more time at home, scale back on eating out and try cooking more from scratch. I need to refocus on getting back into better shape and start tackling some of those projects that have been put off. Most importantly, though, I want to work on strengthening all of the relationships in my life (marriage, friendships, family). I feel like my wants are far outweighing my needs and that should change. We want to cut out our debt and build up our savings more. That means I need to start saying no to things that I really want to do, but know in my heart that I shouldn't.

My life is far from perfect ( no one has  a perfect life) but I am constantly trying to remember how blessed I really am when I start to feel down about things. I need to remember that although I can't do it all, I can do a little.

Confessions...........

I confess........we have had our kitchen aid mixer since our wedding (five years ago) and I still don't know how to use it.  I have to ask Brandon for help.

I confess.......I am so terrible at saving money. I can somehow justify to myself that I can spend money on anything! Terrible, terrible habit.

I confess..... I am so horribly insecure. So insecure that if someone doesn't return my texts or phone calls in a timely manner I am convinced they are mad at me and not speaking to me.

I confess...... I never thought I would be a stay at home mom, now I couldn't imagine it any other way.

I confess...... I really want a third child but, sadly, it is not in the cards for us.

I confess...... I think mixing cottage cheese with fruit is really disgusting. :)

I confess...... every time I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom I pull back the shower curtain for fear of someone hiding behind it! Ha! I have seen one too many scary movies.

I confess...... I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, mostly under control now. :) (another post on that come at some other time)

I confess......  I avoid watching the news and in turn I feel very uniformed, but honestly it upsets me more than anything.

I confess..... my kids eat sandwiches almost every single day for lunch! It is all they want and they are easy.

Mexican Casserole

This is my mother's recipes and it is one my "go-tos" . I generally always have all the ingredients on hand and it is an easy, tasty meal.

Ingredients:

- 8 corn tortillas
- 1 lb. hamburger
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 8 oz shredded cheese
- 1 can Mexican style stewed tomatoes
- 2 cans kidney beans (drained)
- 1 can cream of chicken soup
- taco seasoning
- one can of corn
- a little bit of chopped garlic

Directions:

-Brown your hamburger with onions, garlic and taco seasoning.

- Place into a large mixing bowl and add in stewed tomatoes, kidney beans(drained), corn (drained) and cream of chicken soup.

- Mix everything together really well

- Line the bottom of a 9x13 glass pan with corn tortillas cut into wedges.

 - Place a layer of meat mixture on top

- Put another layer of tortillas and cheese on top of that

- Bake @ 325 for 45mins - 1 hour

 

All that is left to do is eat it and enjoy! I like to top mine with sour cream.

Recipe and menu for the week

I am happy to report that we stuck to our menu plan for all but one dinner last week! The only reason that we didn't stick to Saturday's is that we decided to have a date night and that is so much better, isn't it?!


Here is what is on the menu for this week (I know, it's already Wednesday!).

Monday:
Grilled ham and cheese with tomato soup. (yummy)

Tuesday:
Dijon breaded rosemary porkchops with green beans and spinach and feta salad
(scroll down for recipe)

Wednesday:
Mexican Casserole (recipe tomorrow) and cornbread

Thursday:
Leftovers as I am going out of town with some friends for a few days!!

Friday:
Turkey and cheese pesto paninis

Saturday:
Crockpot Turkey Chili (recipe here)

Sunday:
Grilled Asian Sesame Chicken



Breaded Dijon Rosemary PorkChops

Ingredients:

Pork chops (of course)
Dijon Mustard
Rosmary, leaves only, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
about 1/2 cup bread crumbs (more or less depending on your taste)
Olive oil for browning the pork chops


Directions:

-Preheat oven to 400
-Slather the dijon mustard over the porkchops. I am quite liberal when it comes to this
-Sprinkle with rosemary, salt and pepper.

- Coat your chops on both sides with breadcrumbs. I like to press more rosemary onto the chops at this point. 


- Heat a skillet on medium high heat. Place a drizzle of olive oil into skillet. Brown the chops for a few minutes on each side to seal in the moisture. I browned mine a little too long. Oops!

- Place chops in oven and cook for 30 mins. My porkchops were really thick so we ended up cooking them for almost double the time.  I just aim for them to reach a minimum internal temp of 160.


That is it! Serve and enjoy! I didn't get a picture of them all done because I gobbled them right up! Seriously, I was so hungry!



 

Randomness

Hello everyone! I have been making an effort to step away from the computer on the weekends so I can really focus on family and fun!


Friday night we laid low and were in bed pretty early. I woke up Saturday morning and on a whim I thought it would be fun to head out and hit some garage sales. I called up my mom and we were off!

The sun was shining and I actually was very happy with my haul.

I got a brand new outdoor light fixture, a folding princess chair, 8 books, 3 pairs of jammies, one sweatshirt, four tank tops, one t-shirt, one pair of pants and two capris all for ten dollars!My kind of deals and all were things that I was truly looking for.

The sun was shining when I came home and Jaxson and I got to working on some fun projects.

We worked on soaking up the last of the sun (it's back to rain again) and made sidewalk chalk paint for the first time! That was very easy and lots of fun.

We played with food coloring in the water table too.

Saturday evening the hubby and I headed out for a quick dinner date. We went to a new local taco/tequila bar that we had kept hearing good things about. We were not disappointed. After much debate I ordered a cucumber margarita. I was a bit hesitant because while I like cucumbers and I like margaritas I wasn't sure I would like them together. Glad I ordered it because it was very good, super refreshing and under 100 calories! The food was really tasty and the tacos were only $2.00 during happy hour. Score!

Sunday morning I met a good friend for an early showing of What To Expect When You're Expecting. I thought the movie was really good, but once again they tried to cram too many story lines into one movie that it felt you couldn't get really invested in any one story line too much. However, there were moments when I teared up and moments I was laughing really hard. It's worth seeing. :)

Sunday afternoon we had birthday party to go to for one of Jaxson and Kendra's little friends.

Kendra kept shoving her whole face in the cupcake, but sadly I did not catch that on camera. It was pretty darn cute, though. What was not cute was when Jaxson went into full on toddler meltdown and after multiple attempts to get him to listen we had to leave. :( I didn't want to but it was the right thing to do. He needs to learn that that behavior won't go unnoticed or unpunished.

I finished off Sunday night with a few glasses of red wine at a friend's new house. She moved right down the block! It literally takes three minutes to walk there, at the most. I am so excited for this! Scary movie marathons here we come.

How was everyone elses' weekends?!

Getting Organized- My spice cupboard

I figured it was time for another post updating some of the organizing I have been doing.

I have very limited cupboard space in my kitchen and one of the largest cupboards I have is a bit awkward because it consists of a big lazy susan. It doesn't just hold my ,it holds a lot of boxed things and baking goods too. I feel like no matter how many times I organize it it just gets chaotic again. Here's hoping that this time it actually sticks. I also reorganized my very small pantry (which is actually just two large side by side cupboards) but failed to take before photos. :(

As you can see it wasn't pretty! It is also so hard for me to get into because I am vertically challenged so I have to drag over a chair and teeter precariously on the counter.

Well, it looks as good as it is going to get! I tried to somewhat arrange it by like items and I went through the spices and seasonings and combined some of the duplicates and tossed out the expired items. I also picked a few containers from the dollar store to hold all my taco, chili and gravy packets.