2-20-12

9:30-10:45AM


I have been a busy little camper this morning. I got
laundry started. I usually do it on Sundays but the kids
don't have school today so decided to do it today instead
since we were busy yesterday.

I made up some pumpkin Belgian waffles for breakfast
and some for the freezer for the rest of the week.

Pumpkins are good for you! So by adding it
to recipes you are making them much healthier for you.
For each cup of pumpkin:

* Calories: 80
* Carbohydrates: 19 gram
* Cholesterol: 0
* Fat: less than 1 gram
* Potassium: 588 milligrams
* Protein: 2.4 grams
* Vitamin A: 310% of RDA
* Vitamin C: 20% of RDA


I am so loving my Oster Kitchen Center.
Here it is in use mixing together the
pumpkin waffle ingredients.


How to make Pumpkin Waffles-

-boxed butter cake mix
-1 can pumpkin
-1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Mix all together and drop by heaping tablespoons
onto waffle maker.




While waffles were cooking I cut up some
green bell peppers and mushrooms and got them
bagged up and ready for the freezer.

When I go down to the basement to change laundry
over I have a ton of things to put in the
basement freezer. Running out of room in
my refrigerator/freezer upstairs!
g
-zuchinni, onion, bell pepper & mushroom mix
-celery
-mushrooms
-green bell peppers
-stuffed pepper
-beef noodle tips with noodles
-stuffed pepper filling, meat & rice
-pork chop & stuffing
-sausage, pasta & veggies


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12:50pm

One load of laundry done, one in the dryer and one in the washer.

I browsed Craigslist some. I saw someone had 4 tall
bookshelves for $10 each. Wrote them to see if they
would offer a discount if I purchase all 4.
Awaiting an answer back. I'm trying to find cheap
bookshelves to one day make a better storage area
under the basement steps. Right now the sides of
the steps are enclosed and the backside is open.
It is such a pain in the rear trying to store
things that way. You have to take everything
out to get things out of the back. I was hoping
to make some kind of storage shelves out of
bookcases like the one below by tearing out the
drywall on the side, underneath the stairs.
I'd angle cut the tops where needed to fit
under the stairs, put wheels on each bookcase,
and add drawer pulls for handles to pull each one out.





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Tony has the on call pager this week. This ought to be fun.


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4:00pm

Last load of laundry is in washer. I'll have done
about 4 loads today. To make my life easier, when hanging
up clothes, I've been matching tops and pants and hanging
them all on one hanger for each person. Less closet space
and less hassle in the morning (or the night before) with everyone trying
to find something to wear.


My laundry room is the only room in the basement with
an unfinished wall with only the studs of the wall showing.
I would love to get some more boards and make small shelves
to possibly store pantry food on. The one black bar
going across the middle of the photo is my rolling laundry
rack that sits in front of my washer and dryer.
Anyway I think it would be a good idea to put
that wall to use by adding shelves to it.
My laundry room.


What I would like to do, build shelves between the studs
of the wall.




I know this laundry, furnace & hot water heater room is just a plain ole room.
I'm the one who visits this room frequently so I would
like to jazz it up some and not feel like I'm
doing laundry in a dungeon. What if I did some pretty
contact paper on the backs of the pantry shelves
I want to make? I thought I remembered seeing similar
contact paper at Big Lots like seen below for a buck
or two a roll.
When I saw it I kept thinking how pretty it was
and I wish I had a use for it, lol.

I haven't heard back from the one person I wrote
to earlier about the bookshelves.
Trying to get a game plan in place with what
I would like to do to the basement.


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9:25pm


I had a sweet tooth and decided to make up some
chocolate chip cookies. As they were baking
I got to thinking, man those would be even
better with some marshmallows on top, lol.
Anything ooey gooey, chocolatey...right up my alley.
So about 5 minutes before they were due to be done
I put two peppermint marshmallows on top of each cookie. These
marshmallows aren't shaped like your regular
marshmallows, they are more puck shaped.



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2-19-12

10:30am

What to have for breakfast this morning? I decided
to browse through the fridge and use up
any leftovers I could find and create a breakfast out
of it. Here's what I found-

-3 packages of leftover shredded cheese
-bologna
-eggs
-precooked bacon
-1/2 bag of shoestring fries
-and not in the fridge but a partial pouch of onion soup mix

I took the bologna and cut 4 snips into each
side and tucked them into a cupcake tin.
In each bologna cup I added one egg, salt & pepper.

Next I took the shoestring fries, 3 eggs, cheese
and onion soup mix and put them in the food processor
and mixed altogether. I put these in sprayed jumbo
muffin tins then topped with crumbled up bacon and
a little bit of shredded cheese.

I placed both in a 350 degree oven and baked til
they looked done.

So there you have it, a breakfast of cheesy, onion, hash browns
and bologna cup with eggs. I'd make Paula Deen proud y'all, lol.




I need to do more breakfasts like these ones in muffin
cups and pop out and put into freezer bags.
Pop out for a breakfast and microwave. Easy peasy
for weekday mornings.

Everyone loved it!




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2:15pm


We spent the last couple of hours getting three security
cameras installed. It is freakin cold out there with
the wind blowing! BRRRR!
Anyways we got three cameras installed. Not sure
where to put the fourth one so we didn't put it up
at the moment.
Drilling the hole from the inside of the house
to the outside wasn't hard. We did find out that
our home has blown in insulation so that's good.


Here's Tony putting the one camera above our front room
window pointed at the front door. Now we can see who's
at the door first before opening it or peaking out the
windows.


I just took some pillow stuffing and filled
the hole in where we ran the wires into the house.


And here's the cameras all set up.
I can now see around the house and even keep
an eye on the kids while they are outside
in the yard.


So much for all my hard work of sweeping and mopping
the floors yesterday. The yard is muddy and we had
to run in and out of the house while setting
up the cameras.



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7:15pm


Wouldn't it be nice if kids would listen to what they were
told? The yard has been muddy and we told them to take their
shoes off outside on the stoop because of mud on the bottoms. Then
we said when you return back outside, put your shoes back on,
and the mud should have hardened
and you should be able to scrape them off in the yard, driveway or
street. Oh no, what do they do instead? Go into the bathroom
and scrape the mud off shoes into the bathroom sink!
Mud + sink drain = clog!
Tony had to pull everything out from underneath the sink,
take the drain apart and snake the pipe out.
Good thing he's a maintenance man to have the right
equipment on hand. What a mess. That was our form of
entertainment for the evening.




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2-18-12

9:35pm

Me and Tony spent half the day cleaning house.
Then we took a trip over to Kroger. The Bud Shootout
for NASCAR is on tonight and Tony had company coming
over to watch it with him. We also stopped by his work's
maintenance shop to pick up a few tools needed to
run the security cameras tomorrow. We needed extended
drill bits to drill a hole in the side of the house
for the camera wires. While there chatting with a couple
other maintenance guys the boys went DDn and found these
items-
Pro Tennis Racket with lots of tennis balls.
Worth about $75



And a 12 pack of Gatorade


I made up some snacks
like bowls of chips, peanut butter cookie cups
with marshmallow and a hershey kiss in the middle
along with some mini pizzas made from pressing
biscuits out flat to make the crusts and topping
them with tomato sauce jazzed up with splenda
garlic & onion powder & Italian seasoning,
pepperoni, sliced fresh mushrooms, mozarella
and parmesan cheeses.

2-17-12

8:05am

Keeping one child home from school again today.
Still feels a little warm, complaining of a
sore throat and body aches. No more throwing up though.


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4:30pm

the grandma of the child I pick up and drop off
from the bus stop was telling me he is sick.
Had to get picked up early from school today.
Throwing up and all that jazz.
Don't ya just love when crap starts going around
the schools this time of year.

2-16-12

7:25am


Oh what a beautiful morning. It's raining outside
and I have one child complaining he doesn't feel well
and threw up once already this morning.
Had to call the one child's grandma that I pick up
in the morning to take to the bus stop to let
her know. I kept telling her I'd still take him
since it was last minute's notice
but she would have to pick him up in the afternoon.
She said she would go ahead and take him this morning.
Hubby woke up complaining of back and groin pain
and wasn't walking too swift groaning the whole time
after getting out of bed.
Some days are better for him than others.
I can't win or get ahead around here!


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4:25pm

Got supper started about 3:45pm.
I'm making Beef (Deer) Stew.

I had about 3 pieces of deer tenderloin (free) left in the
fridge that needed used up. I took two pieces and
cut them down into smaller cubes and put them
in a crock pot with 2 cups water, beef seasoning packet (.10 cents)
and a can of beef gravy. (.25 cents)
Here in a bit I cut up a pound of carrots ($1.00)
and peel and cut up potatoes ($1.00) and boil
them up in a big pot. Once everything is done I'll
add them all in the crock pot and coat with gravy
before serving.

TOTAL COST TO MAKE: $2.35


The other tenderloin (free)I cut up into 9 pieces for deer jerky.

I pounded out them each out with a meat mallet between sheets of
waxed paper, rubbed BBQ sauce (about 1/3 bottle .13 cents)
all over fronts and backs and placed them on the
dehydrator trays then sprinkled with about a half
packet of a steak seasoning packet (.05 cents).



TOTAL COST TO MAKE 9 LARGE DEER JERKY- .18 cents for all

I got all the meat on the trays and the trays stacked
together and ready to go. I flipped the switch and
the motor of the dehydrator was making a loud noise.
So I take everything off and then took the lower part
apart to figure out the problem. For people who have dehydrators
I suggest everyone once in awhile doing this and cleaning
out around the motor area where food and juices can accumulate.
Dried food or whatever it was had gotten down around
the motor area where there was a plastic wheel that
turned. When the plastic wheel moved it rubbed against
the food particles causing the squeaking sound.
I cleaned it all up and now it runs quiet again, woo hoo!




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7:00pm




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9:00pm

I decided to finally color my hair tonight. I've
been so behind with wanting to get it done.
I think it was before Thanksgiving and
before I started going downhill with sickies was the last
time I colored it. It's long overdue considering
I have way too many gray highlights showing up!
Here's the before pic. I still have about 15 minutes
to go then have to wash, condition and dry.



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10:15pm

Here I am after coloring my hair. I look a little refreshed.




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2-15-12

9:55am

Kids don't have any school today nor Monday.


Sitting here trying to come up with a recipe with
things I have on hand to maybe make some ravioli with.
Alrighty then, here is what I found to make my
ravioli filling-

-about 6 ounces softened cream cheese
-1 pkg imitation crab meat, cut up with kitchen shears
-1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
-1 egg
-1.5 tablepoons dry onion soup mix
-1 tsp worcestershire sauce
-1 tsp. lemon juice
-6 slices precooked bacon chopped up

I mixed everything above with mixer til combined.

I ended up doing everything the old fashioned way
with making ravioli.
Pasta
-1 cup flour
-1 egg
-dash of salt
Mix everything together and add a little water if needed.




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Supper turned out pretty good.
I boiled up the ravioli and drained. Then before
returning them back to the pot I added a couple
tablespoons butter, a can of cream of chicken soup,
an empty can or three of milk, then I stirred
in any extra remaining ravioli filling that I didn't use.
Heat til warmed through. Then carefully add in
the ravioli and stir gently til coated.



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Here is an update on the celery bottoms I put into
a partial glass of water to see if they would grow.
3 days later and yes, they have started to sprout
from the middle. I change the water every couple of
days. I might trim off a few pieces of
outer celery pieces that have turned brown.

2-14-12

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

9:00am

Started picking up the neighbor kid this morning when
going to the bus stop. It went really well.
That bus was on time but the elementary bus
was like 15 or so minutes late, BRRRR!

Got some meat in the crock pot going for supper.
I cut up a couple deer tenderloins into
chunks to put on some shiskabobs and added
a packet of dry onion soup mix and 2 cups
water to the crock. Later on this afternoon
I'll skewer the veggies and meat together
and put it back in the crock. I don't want
the veggies too mushy is why I'm not doing it now.
I also put in a small tenderloin for the kids
since I know they wouldn't be fond on shishkebobs.


TOTAL COST TO MAKE SHISHKEBOBS- .45 cents,
the cost of one packet of onion soup mix!

I have about 3 more tenderloins from the package
of deer meat I got from moms. One of those
I plan to cut up and pound out for some deer jerky.
The other two I don't know what I will make out
of them, maybe some deer stew. Need to pick up
some carrots at the store though as I don't have any.


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11:55am

Oh my gosh you would think Fed Ex would do a better job
at delivering things. For starters they didn't knock on the
door to see if anyone would answer to take the package.
Instead they left package outside on the step in front of the door
NOT inside the screen door area or trying to hide the package somewhat.
On the friggin step for all the world and thieves to see!!
It wasn't like it was in brown packaging and discreet as
to what it was. If you drove by my house this is what
you would have seen sitting on my stoop!!
Just flat out ridiculous!



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1:50pm


I got the shishkabobs put together and in the crock pot.
There was some leftover veggies, zucchini/onions/mushrooms/bell pepper.

Got those all cut up and put into a freezer bag.
Will use those at another time for a soup/casserole.




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4:30pm

Figured out the security camera system. Wasn't easy at
first trying to follow the directions but somehow
I got it all to work. You can hook it up to computers,
internet, email and cell phones if you want and
at the moment I don't need all that so didn't hook it up.
I guess now all we have to do is figure out how and where
to run the wires and install the cameras on the outside
of the house. That will probably make hooking everything
up look like the easy part. Maybe I could put them in the
windows til we get to that part because it probably won't
happen today.
I used an LCD flat computer screen from a desk top computer
we don't currently have hooked up. Works perfect for
what we need it to do.



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Here's supper for tonight-
I also baked a couple stuffed portabella mushrooms.
The shishkabobs I served with a little teriyaki marinade on top.


My honey got me a key to his heart necklace
for Valentine's Day along with a box of chocolates.
He's so sweet!