Sunday, February 28, 2010

Monthly Menu

The last day of February!!  That means March starts tomorrow and then my birthday is in one week!  I noticed looking at my fridge today that it also means I need to make a new menu.  For the first few years that Sean and I were married, I used a four week rotating menu; every Monday I'd pull out the next one and make my grocery list based on those meals.  I've gotten off that specific plan, but I'll still make a menu for the week every Monday, and look at the last few weeks to make sure I'm not repeating too many meals.  In February, because I was tired of making a menu every week, I sat down and made one for the whole month.  It's been nice to have that chore looked after; maybe I'll just re-use it for this next month...

Here is a copy of my menu for the month (click on it to enlarge); I hope some of you out there find this is helpful or maybe get some new meal ideas.  Of course, since I've scanned this instead of writing it out for you, you'll see that this is including all our nights out, too, and you'll notice that I made more and more switches as the month went on.  It's harder to project what things come up in a week when you're four weeks ahead.  When making my menus, I have to take in to consideration that I don't always get my groceries on Monday, so something I've already got on hand is safest.  Then Tuesdays, because of piano lessons (and often Wednesdays because of staff meetings), I have to plan something that doesn't need to bake for an hour.  These will be the quicker meals or the crock pot meals. 

Have a great last few hours of February!!  (And GO CANADA GO for one more Gold!)

Monday, February 22, 2010

Layouts

I forgot to post these last week!  

 

On this one I made a screen shot of a post which you can read here,
and then printed it out to use as my journalling.



And this one came from a little picture I had printed out of a on-the-road shot.  I noticed that we were all wearing colors that matched our eyes, and it made them all stand out.  I've had it around for a while, but got playing with my latte glimmer mist and some big Heidi Swapp ghost letters that I used as masks and found a home for the shot.  I stamped 'dressed to match' and outlined the letters in green / blue / brown using artist markers I got for Christmas over a year ago and haven't started playing with yet.  They worked for this!

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And on another note, I came across this site a couple of days ago called The One-Minute Writer.  I forget where I saw it - probably a button on someone else's blog...  I just purged a bunch of stuff out of the house and have a new-again (half gone) notebook on the shelf, so I decided to jump in.  Today's writing prompt was this: "What is the biggest question in your life that you'd like to have answered?"

This is what I wrote:

The biggest question in my life is "Do you love me?"  I already know the answer; I am confident in the answer.  But I still like to hear the answer over and over .  Without the question even being asked. 

(Wow.  Two lines.  In my notebook it was 5 1/2.)
Have a great night!!

something to try

There are lots of blogs out there that have a narrower focus on scrapbooking or recipes or crafty stuff, but I've chosen to make mine an extension of who I am, and so you'll find stories here from our lives, funny stuff that M says (like this morning when I woke her up: "Is it Saturday yet?"), my scrapbooking layouts, spiritual stuff, and creative stuff.

That said, I like to try to keep this worth reading, so I was browsing on StumbleUpon yesterday to find something cool to post for you, and found this:



I made one and didn't show M, but sent it out the door with her to play with on the bus...  A fun start to both our days.  The longest part is drawing it out on the paper and cutting - the taping is simple, and in just a few minutes you've got this fun crazy paper thing that you made yourself!  (Let me know if you make one, too!)

PS - Jess and Dave got home safely from Israel - I'm looking forward to hearing all about their trip.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

A New Favorite Cookie!

Wow.  My friend Christine made these cookies (I think she said she got the recipe from Jennifer...)  I was there Tuesday and sampled one, got the recipe, and made them that night.

The rush was partly because M needed a dozen goodies for a thing at school the next day and 2 dozen things for Guides the next night, and partly because I just wanted to eat more of them!

Crispies Cookies

1c butter
1c brown sugar
1c sugar
2 eggs
1t vanilla
1 3/4 c flour
1t baking powder
1t baking soda
2c oatmeal
1c coconut
2c Rice Krispies
chocolate chips (optional)

350* 10-12 min
makes 3 doz large

I made 4 doz med sized cookies with the choc chips.  SO GOOD!!!  Enjoy!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Self - Punishment

The night before last, Sean and I woke up at 1:30 AM to an alarm - I go in to Madeline's room to turn off her alarm, since it wasn't either of ours, and of course can't do that in the dark, so I pull the plug.  The wrong one, then the right one, and the alarm is still going off.  
"It's her watch," Sean calls.  

"Where the heck is it?" I ask, blind in the dark.

"Try by my hair stuff," Madeline says, awakened by the alarm or me, I'm not sure which.  I find it, and by now it has stopped, but I take it down two floors in case it goes off again.

Back to bed, and Sean says, "It took me SO long to fall asleep..."  Oops - somebody's going to be in big trouble.  He's off to work before she comes down in the mornings, so he was going to deal with it at supper.  He goes easy on her, just saying that she can have her watch back ONLY IF SHE DOESN'T TOUCH ANY BUTTONS.

So this morning I go in to wake up Madeline, and see that her clock is wrong.  "I'd better change that," I say, "so you're not late for breakfast."

"What time is it?" she asks, and when she finds out that it's actually 7:20, not 7:40 like her clock says, she does the math incredibly fast and realizes that she was in bed with the lights out 20 minutes before she had to be last night.

That's pretty funny, I think.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Snow Fort Making

 



We've got a huge pile of snow at the church from the parking lots being cleared, and Darren and Byron had the great idea to have a snow fort making day today since it was family day - there were over a dozen families there, and we stayed for 3 hours!  The whether was perfect; -10 with no wind.  Warm enough to not get chased inside, but cold enough that you didn't overheat when you were going hard at it with the shovels.  There were lots of caves built, one three part tunnel, and some snow block forts, too.  What a great day.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

news.

Sad news - Dick Francis died.  One of my favorite authors.

Happy news - My first cousin once removed (we pride ourselves in running an accurate blog here) had a baby boy today.  Congrats Sherri and Anson and welcome baby Darian!

Informative news - thanks to Megan Fox and body double rumors surrounding her Superbowl ad, I now know that my short stubby thumb is called Brachydactyly type D (BDD).  I still prefer "Grandma Brown Thumb."  My great grandmother had thumbs like that, two of my aunts also did, and one cousin and I each got one.  I admit, I used to hide it in junior high, but in junior high doesn't everyone want to be completely normal?  And think that everyone else notices everything about you? 

Valentine news - We dropped Madeline off at KBK for winter camp on Friday night, (and when we got back to town we checked out the new Walmart Supercenter and stocked up on munchies for Saturday.)  Saturday we drove to Manitoba to go snowboarding at Asessippi for the day.  It was a very good day.  We stopped at the farm and had supper with Sean's parents on the way back, which was also good.  This morning church was good (because church is what you bring to it, not what you get out of it, right?), and now Sean is off golfing.  I'm sitting here writing and enjoying the sun and in about 5 minutes will head off to pick up Madeline.  Then we'll all head out to have dessert with our small group.  A good weekend all around so far, and because tomorrow is the Family Day holiday here, there is lots more good to come, I'm sure!

Please leave a comment with some happy, sad, informative, Valentine or random news of your own.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

20/15

This was our day today:

Breakfast (me)
Treadmill (45 minutes walking and reading)
Breakfast (Madeline)
Out for groceries
Back home to make sandwiches
Out to Sean's work to take him a sandwich (we found better things to do last night than me getting lunch food)
Then to the Bible bookstore to put something from work on the bulletin board
Then to the Girl Guides store to get M a new uniform because she outgrew the old one
Then to the Legislative building to check out the gift shop (to see my wares up for sale and to check out their purses) - but we didn't go in because there was no parking and a demonstration in progress on the front steps.  We'll try again later.
Then to Fabricland
Then to the hospital to visit the Grandma
Then to the car wash
Then to the library (you can only take magazines out for one week now!)
Then to the eye doctors for M's appointment.  She has 20/15 vision, which is better than perfect.
And now we're home.

If I knew when I made her appointment that she had no school today, I wouldn't have made it for 3:45 and made us stay out all day.  Half of those things would have gotten cut! 
Supper is in the oven and I'm crashing relaxing.
She's done piano and is packing her overnight bag to stay at Grandpa's while we go out for dessert with our friends.  And next she'll do the dishes.

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My sister and her husband left today for Israel.  I hope they have an AMAZING trip.

Monday, February 08, 2010

you can tell it's Monday...

...by the spoons in the drainboard.

My usual Monday to Friday routine includes doing the dishes in the morning while Madeline is practicing piano before school.  I let them air dry and put them away later while I cook supper.  Tonight as I was putting them away, I grabbed the silverware and thought, "I can tell it's Monday!"  I can tell that because there was one fork, a few knives, and the rest were spoons.  We use spoons for our breakfast cereal and Sunday lunch after church is always soup and bagels; usually on the weekends we're out for Saturday brunch or visiting somewhere or have finger food meals like pizza or chicken fingers and fries... and Monday's dishes show predominantly more spoons than any other day of the week. 

Sunday, February 07, 2010

layouts and a new 'do


M wanted a cut - this will be easier for her to look after, being quite a bit shorter and thinned out.  She still managed to have it in a ponytail for church today, though. Another view:

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I don't think I've done any 'real' scrapbooking - one page, rather than a whole project - since the retreat in October.  But that's what I took Tuesday to hang out with the girls (and found out another one is booked for this year's October retreat!  I think that makes three times the number of us that went last year - good times!)

I started a couple of pages there, and finished them last night.  I've been having a good time down in my studio lately, rearranging and getting inspired again.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

RETAIL !

One bad and one good for today:

The bad is that M's Grandma McCall took a spill yesterday and broke her collarbone.  She's in the hospital for a while, until a spot is available in an extendicare facility.  This is a sad day, but one we all knew was coming eventually.  We're just glad that it was just a collarbone and not something more serious.

The good is that my magic bags are going to be sold in the gift shops at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum and the Saskatchewan Legislative Building!  Very exciting!  When I got a bulk order before Christmas from a girl who wanted to sell them in her massage studio, I started thinking about retail.  Carla does the books for the Museum and she suggested I try there, since they are all about Saskatchewan made stuff.  So this morning I went down with a letter and a sample for the lady that runs both those shops and she said absolutely.  She's taking half a dozen for each shop now and will double that for the tourist season later in the spring.  I'm going to have to get sewing!  And start thinking 'tourists' in my fabric choices.  (Oh, and I named them 'Perfect Heat' since magic bag is a registered name already.  Don't want to break any copyright laws, you know!)

And speaking of sewing, Kadence got her birthday apron in the mail today.  I forgot to take pictures before I sent it, but they'll send me some of her in it and I'll post them for you.  She's so cute you may not notice the apron, though...

Please leave me a comment with what kind of magic bag you have and your favorite use for it.  :)  Mine has been living in Madeline's bed lately.

Comments??

I was just informed by my mom that she has been commenting and they haven't been showing up.  Help me test this and see if I can't get it sorted...  leave me a comment with something in the last day or so that made you smile.

I'll go first -

Monday, February 01, 2010

ABIDE

My word for the year this year is ABIDE.  I was reminded of that pretty strongly this morning after a week of being out of routine: We were snowed in Monday and M had Friday off school, so the middle three days I drove her to school, went to work then picked her up.  I didn't have one day last week that was normal in the sense that I saw Sean off to work and M off to school and then had me time to sit by the window with my Bible, to just be quiet and pray.  Honestly, some days the Bible doesn't even get opened; some days I even just fall asleep.  But that little bit of quiet, and the sense that I am taking time to relax with God is like vegetables.  I need it to be healthy.  It's also like chocolate - so sweet and something I enjoy.  Hm... chocolate vegetables.  Not sure about that.  The best of both worlds, maybe.

Anyway, I was pretty low and this morning just sat wrapped up in the warm blanket by the one sunny window in the back of the house.  I wrote in my journal, thought about someone other than me, read my Bible, and remembered that the reason I chose abide to be my word was because I need it.  I need the time to just BE with God.  My TNIV translates it "remain in me."  I also chose it because of the lack of doing - it's not something to add to a to do list, it's not a task; it's simply to be aware of God, to talk to him, to be with him.  To remember that he is right there and to be aware of that.  To be more aware of him.

John 15:1-5 - "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful... Remain in me as I also remain in you.   No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches.  If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."