Greek Turkey Burgers

So the meal plan is going really well. I've had to play shuffle with the schedule a couple of times due to our crazy schedules, but we're right on track.

I did have a small issue with my tomatoes (wherein one of them apparently caught the plague and was trying to give it to the others), but I salvaged them...save the instigator. The rest of the produce is doing awesome. I'm slated to chop up my peppers for freezing this week. FYI...I only recommend doing that on those peppers that you will be using in a cooked fashion...ie. those where crunch doesn't so much matter.

Our first meal on the meal plan was Greek Turkey Burgers. Not only are these pretty stinking easy to make, they're also pretty good for you, all things considered. The burgers themselves come in at just over 250 calories each. Plus they pack a whopping 30.2g of protein. This is one of the recipes that Collin & I used back when we were torturing ourselves with the Insanity workout. (As a side note, I could really stand to get back on that. Soon.) The original recipe came from SparkRecipes, but I've slightly modified it.

You can't tell me this doesn't look pretty good.

The first time I made these last year, I made the mistake of failing to PAY ATTENTION. I misread the recipe and dumped in 1 tablespoon of oregano instead of 1 teaspoon. Not horrible, but not the best idea ever. This time I got it right and they were awesome.

Here's what you'll need :

4 Hamburger Buns
1 large tomato (or 2 Roma tomatoes)
Leaf lettuce
1 lb. ground turkey (93% lean for the calories listed above)
1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 egg
1 tablespoon of fresh mint, chopped (or 1 teaspoon of dried mint)
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Cooking spray...don't forget this. It's critical. Trust me.

Mix the turkey, bread crumbs, feta, egg, mint, oregano and black pepper in a bowl. Divide the mixture into 4 even portions and shape into patties. Place patties in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

While the patties are setting, spray the grill rack with cooking spray. Failure to do this will result in turkey burger nuggets and a very dirty grill. Heat the grill to medium heat. Don't overheat the grill or you will have very quick charcoal briquettes.

Pull the patties out of the fridge and place a dimple in the center of each one with your thumb. This will keep from getting a big bubble in the center of the burger as it cooks.

You can still kind of see the dimple. I am sometimes slightly aggressive.

Cook the burgers for 5 minutes on each side. Don't flip more than once or you'll end up with a dry burger. Serve on toasted buns with lettuce, tomato and desired condiments.

Pretty easy right? I'm all about the easy in this meal plan. The meals that I have planned for the week nights (other than Friday) are all typically fairly straight forward. With the exception of the CrockPot meals, I tried to keep all of my working weekday meals to a maximum of 1 hour prep time. Because let's be honest...I don't want to be in the kitchen all night after work and if it doesn't get ready fairly quickly I'm just going to end up snacking on something else.

Just Not Feeling It...

I had a really nice Memorial Day weekend doing virtually nothing. It was nice to relax for once. But now I'm finding that it's a little tough to get back in the swing of things. I had big intentions today. Not only was I going to put up a "real" post, but I was going to prep a couple more for the rest of the week.

Instead, I spent my lunch hour making cookies so that the ricotta wouldn't go to waste and now I'm slugging around at my computer. I've decided that the biggest issue is really a lack of a laptop. I find the urge to write all the time, but by the time I drag myself upstairs and sit down at the desk, I just don't feel like it anymore. It's sad, but true.

I'm going to make an effort later this week, but for now I'm going to indulge myself and bail on the post I had planned. Instead, I'm going to go check out some Pinterest and then go read for a while before bed. Collin will be home from shift tomorrow and if I'm lucky he'll leave the laptop at home for me to use during the remaining part of the week.

I hope you all had as much of a relaxing weekend as I did!

Darian's BOTY: The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Darian has gotten himself ungrounded from the blog and is working to catch up on his book reviews. Since I have yet to be able to catch up on mine, I'm taking advantage and using his posts to plug some holes. I'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, here's another post by soon-to-be 10 year old Darian. As a reminder, all of the words from this point forward are his - I am merely his stenographer...

The Call of the Wild by Jack London is about a dog named Buck who is transformed when he becomes a sled dog in Alaska. Buck faces many hardships and tragedies, such as being kidnapped. This will bring you through the harsh coldness of Alaska and some of Buck's life.

The genre of this book is realistic fiction. I gave this book 5 stars because it was an awesome book. I liked everything about this book. What made this a really good book was how it was put together and put in order. It felt like it had really happened. Another reason why I really liked it was because it just drags you in and makes you feel like you're sad for Buck and at some times you felt happy for Buck.

This book was so good that there wasn't anything that I didn't like about it. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes survival stories.

This is my ninth book of the year. See you next post!

Sometimes I Just Have to Get Irritated to Get it Done

We've lived in this house for six years. For all of those six years our house has been a "no shoes" house. This means (very simply) that we don't wear our shoes when we're inside. Yes...we ask our guests to remove their shoes as well (though some apparently think they are above the need to follow our request). We do this to try and keep the carpet nicer and keep from tracking dirt, mud and who knows what else all over the house.

We're happy with this. The boys never think anything different. It's comfortable and we're good with it. Except for one thing...

For the ENTIRE six years that we've lived here, our shoe situation has driven me crazy. We have a closet in the utility next to the washing machine. It's where Darian's laundry chute comes through. It's fairly good sized and we weren't using the bottom for anything else. To keep the shoes we wear most often close to the door we use most often, it seemed pretty logical just to use the closet for them. And that's what we've done. And it's been a mess. And I'm pretty sure I've complained about it nearly every day for six years. 

Over and over again I kept saying that I was going to fix it. We tried limiting everyone to one pair of shoes. If you wanted something different you could either rotate what you kept in the closet or just go to your room and get them. That didn't work. Even I didn't do it. I think that plan fell apart in about three days.

So we've been living with a tangled mess of shoes. We each have about 4 pairs stored there. It's a disaster area. It's always fun when you're in a hurry. It can be a little dark in the closet if you don't open it wide enough and I have managed to run out of the house with one black shoe and one brown shoe before. Not really the best system.

Last week, my rage just couldn't be contained. I'd had it. So I made a little trip to Lowe's, picked up a little Closetmaid organizer and a couple of baskets. Twenty minutes later I had a nice clean closet. Six years of griping for something that took twenty minutes to fix. Silly. Just plain Silly.

But I love the way it looks now. I've divided it so that I have the top two shelves, Collin has the middle two shelves and Darian has the lower shelf. For now this works because Darian's shoes will fit in each box as a pair. Collin and I are limited to one shoe per box, except for in the case of my flip flops.

I put the two baskets on top to hopefully help solve some of the clothing issues we face during the year. I can't tell you how many hats and gloves we've lost. I still can't find my nice black suede gloves that went missing fall.

So from now on, things that are being worn frequently will go in the baskets. I also figured that if we got too full in the bins it would also allow for expansion. My flip flops can easily be relocated to a basket and free up more space.

Now...if only the rest of the closets in this house were this organized...

Darian's BOTY : Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis is about Caspian, whose uncle is an evil king. Caspian runs away from the kingdom one night and runs into a tree. Two dwarves take them to their house. After Caspian tells the dwarves that he is supposed to be a prince, all of the talking animals join Caspian to help battle his uncle.

On the other side of Narnia, the Pensives have to get to Caspian to help him with the battle.

I gave this book three stars. I gave it that because it would leave off at every good part. The story would be really good and then it would leave off and be super boring. It would then be boring, but eventually got better and better. The only reason I even gave it three stars was because there was some good parts, but most of them were ended too soon.

I liked how they were always on the move and how there was so much suspense. I kind of like that because you get all scared and "what's going to happen?". Another thing that I liked about it was how it wasn't just a whole bunch of small battles, it was one person would attack, the other person would attack and then they got in a big war. I like that because I don't like small battles. Usually small battles don't have a whole lot of detail. I also liked how much sneakiness there was.

I would recommend this book to people who like fantasy and mystery. In the series they talk about what happens in this book in one or two other books. You don't have to read it to understand the series, but to me it makes more sense.

This is my eighth book of the year. I hope to post again soon.

Summary Monday: Because I'm Just That Lazy Edition

So I haven't blogged for a few days. You're thinking, "Wow...she must be really busy." Ya...not so much. I'm really just uber lazy and flat out haven't felt like it. It was quite nice really. I took a couple of naps, finished a book...lovely.

The meal plan is plodding along successfully. I made a couple of recipes earlier than intended simply because my berries were getting "iffy", but they are safely refrigerated and ready to go for their days this week. I've also managed to freeze some leftovers from one meal, thus adding another day at the end. We'll just keep going...

The good news is that I'm piling up with recipes to give you. The bad news is that my food photography needs a little work. I think this is a good reason to now need a macro lens. I guess I'll have to put it on my wish list. My birthday is in four months...maybe I'll get lucky. Perhaps something like this...

Nikon 105mm 2.8 VR
Source

Any who...

What did I do last week?

Posts I Posted : Well the big post of the week was the 4-Month Meal Plan. It took off a little for a while on Pinterest, which is pretty cool. I'm kind of hoping that things start moving along even better as I start to post the recipes. Oh...and shameless plug here, if you like the blog please follow it on Facebook or via Google Reader. Also...I totally don't mind if you tell your friends. Hint, hint. Okay...plug over.

Last week, Darian also made a return to the blog. He chatted with you about his experience on a two-day field trip. It was a pretty neat adventure for him. He was especially psyched to get a comment from his teacher.

And, finally...I gave you a tour of our food storage in order to show you what it takes to keep a 4-month meal plan on hand.

Books I Read : I finally finished East of Denver. It wasn't an easy task. I'll be reviewing it soon. I always feel bad when I get a book for free and then it turns out that I don't think it's all that great. The down side of reviewing. They can't all be winners. I am now reading The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve. I am loving it. She may very well become a favorite.

Projects I Finished : After five years of griping I finally did something about our disastrous utility shoe closet. It's all nice and pretty now. I'll be sharing it's renovation soon.

Recipes I Tried : Oh it was a busy week for new recipes. We had Greek Turkey Burgers, Crockpot Chicken Caesar Sandwiches, Ranch Chicken Salad, Toasted Sesame Ginger Chicken, Chicken Rollatini w/ Spinach and Grilled Flank Stead with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce. Don't worry...I took pictures. I'll be sharing it all with you.

And that's about it...phew... And just a little gem to leave you with...

Photo Failure. So Now You Get to Hear More About Food.

Well...tonight's post was supposed to be on a recipe I found/altered/bastardized last week. But...I failed in the photo department. I had the best of intentions, I swear. I took the before photos and thought I had taken some afters. Turns out...not so much. Apparently the whirlwind of Darian's week o' field trips caught up with me and I had photograph amnesia. So...I will be making it/them again soon. And no...I won't tell you. I'm not wrecking the marvelous (I think it's marvelous anyway) surprise.

So...instead...I'm going to explain to you why I said in my 4 Month Meal Plan post that you should not attempt this without multiple frozen/refrigerated storage areas. Or rather...I'm going to show you. You get to take a little tour...

In order to not completely bore you with pictures, I've just taken a few. I think you'll get the point rather quickly.

I'm going to make a disclaimer here that we did have some things already purchased. Our cupboards and fridge/freezer were not bare. That's how I made it out of the store without a single pound of hamburger or any butter. So...maybe you could do this with a full sized fridge and a full sized deep freeze. But I so wouldn't want to try.

Just a little sample here... This is the top shelf of our indoor refrigerator.

Yup. Stacking them sky high. And yes, I know that tomatoes supposedly store better at room temperature, but I don't like them on my counter. Fridge. And they taste fine and last just as long if not longer. I've never had an issue with a mealy tomato. So yes...top shelf. Why not the produce drawer, you ask? Wait for it. There's a reason.

This is why the grape tomatoes are on the top shelf...

Oh...and this...

Right? The first picture is of the produce drawers of my indoor side by side. Tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, carrots, salad, green onions, green peppers, red peppers...and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. The bottom picture is the produce drawer of our garage side by side. Totally saved my bacon. Or in this case, my lettuce and cabbage. This baby barely shuts.

I didn't get you a full shot of my indoor fridge. For a couple of reasons. (1) You get to see what needed to go in overflow. (2) There were too many leftovers in there. It was almost embarrassing.

So, this is our garage fridge in full view. Ignore the snow cone syrup and maraschino cherries in the side door. They are irrelevant. Delicious, but irrelevant. The rest? Totally relevant.

Top shelf? That blue container is the salmon that we will be having tomorrow night. There are also three jugs of milk. I'm kind of dumbfounded how we fit all three up there if you want to know the truth.

Second shelf? Behold. Tortilla heaven. Though I will say, I totally kicked myself in the butt when I realized that the tortillas at Costco are not only still local (my typical criteria for the brands I will purchase), but freakin' cheaper! Drat. Alright. Costco for tortillas next time. They share their space with my ricotta...which will be gone in a week or two.

This fridge is pretty much cheese heaven. Other than the produce drawer you've already seen and that pretty obvious bag o' lemons, the rest is all cheese...delicious, delicious cheese. Could you fit all that cheese in your fridge and have room for the rest of your stuff? I think not. Unless you live off of milk, lettuce and cheese, in which case this might actually be a picture of your fridge. Oh wait, nope...snow cone syrup. Yup, it's mine.

On to the glory that is the deep freeze. We don't need to talk about the side by side garage freezer because it currently only contains ice cream, pureed pumpkin and some wayward loaves of zucchini bread.

I've already shown you the deep freeze before. It's not much different now as far as how packed it is. The contents have changed. Much less pizza, the top shelf is full of ground beef and the bottom shelf is full of chicken, shrimp and some barbecue meats.

But I had to show you this. This is the part of my freezer that I love right now. Behold, the meat drawer...

Why do I love it? It's organized. You don't think so? Look again. Left side: Pork. Right side: Beef and deer. For those of you freaking out...deer is yummy. The "not for sale" packages are deer roast and deer burger. I'm looking forward to them. The other nice part about this drawer? My Ziplock bags. I love that they are all pretty and labeled. Ignore the NY Steak at the top right. I promise it's not freezer burnt. I had just stuck it in the freezer when I took this picture. It's fine now.

And finally...I've shown it to you before, along with the convertible pantry that houses our spices and baking supplies, but this is what our pantry looks like as of this weekend.

The old house had a bigger pantry, so I feel a little squashed in here, but it works.

Top shelf is the cereal. Rule #1 in our house: Eat the cereal in the order it's lined up or you will be taken out to the yard and shot. Rule #2: Don't pay more than $2 for cereal. Ever. (I typically pay $1.88 or less.)

Next is the baking and breakfast followed by pastas (which you can't quite see), rices and currently in use cereals. Then shelf potatoes and rice mixes (again hidden by the wall), my premade (or what I call "quickfire") meals for when I don't feel much like cooking, nuts, vegetables and canned fruits.

Fourth shelf: pasta sauces, condiments, soups. We have a crapload of condiments. This includes our salsas, salad dressings and barbecue sauce. Bottom shelf is...well...let's face it...junk and snack foods (crackers, popcorn, etc.), canned meats, broth and beans. Canned meats, you say? Yes. Canned meats. Chicken, anchovies, tuna fish and the all important SPAM. We like it at our house.

And finally, the floor. Juices are against the wall, then chips, tomatoes and the random Ramen box. I blame that on Collin. He has a weird affinity for Cup O' Noodles.

See? I asked him...he said I could use this. There is a backstory.

Someday maybe I will tell you the story. For now, you get this much. This picture was taken in 2009 at a cabin in Island Park and references an event from 2008 in the very same cabin. Owen & Patti were witness to both of these years and Patti thinks it's hysterical that I'm using this photo on the blog. (Me too, Patti. Me too.) Ah, good times...

See? Told you. You need to be a master at Tetris and have multiple locations to store your food. This would so not have flown in my old house or in my old apartment. Oh, boy. I shudder at the thought. Pretty sure I would've been having to use that Cup O' Noodles box as a footrest or have it stored on a bookshelf.

Guest Post: Darian's 2 Day Field Trip

This is Darian :

Darian is 9 years old and in the 4th grade. You may remember that he was posting here on his book reviews. However, Darian chose to be obnoxious this year and not do his homework. So he was punished and banned from the blog. I'm feeling nice today. So Darian has been ungrounded...for now...we'll see what he does. (He says to tell you that he is now getting Honor Roll. I think he might be sucking up.) As with his book posts, Darian will be the one "writing" this post. I will simply be typing it for him. If you enjoy this post, check down the right hand side for posts with the label "Darian's Posts". With any luck, he will be back soon with more book reviews. He's doing quite well on his goal for the year. With that...I'm turning it over to Darian...

********************************************************************

Hi. My name is Darian. This is my eighth post. The reason I haven't posted in so long is because I have been grounded from the blog and I have been wanting to get it back. I was grounded because I wasn't doing my homework when I was supposed to. Now I have fixed the problem and am getting Honor Roll. I have been missing the blog. I have a lot of books to review. I'm planning to do those reviews pretty soon. Today I'm blogging about my two day field trip on May 10th and 11th. I am going to write this sort of like a journal.

May 10th, 2012

Very early this morning, around 6:45a.m, we went to go pick up the other school's kids and start our two day field trip. The reason we get a two day field trip is because my teacher's dad used to do it with his 4th grade students and she wanted to do it too. No one in my school has ever done it before. It was made possible by the help from parents, chaperons, and my teachers.

Today we went to Bruneau Sand Dunes, Three Island Crossing, Malad Park, Hagerman Fossil Beds and Hatchery, and Shoshone Falls. Really late this night we went to the Herrett Museum and their observatory and saw a lot of things. We saw Saturn, satellites, and constellations.

Malad Gorge at Malad Park

My favorite part of the first day was the Herrett Museum and the Hagerman Fossil Beds. The reason those were my favorites is because I am interested in astronomy and paleontology.

The Hagerman Horse

The Hagerman Horse is a ancient zebra/horse. It lived around Hagerman and is known worldwide. This was the first Hagerman Horse ever found.

May 11, 2012

Over night we slept at a church and for breakfast it was yogurt, cereal, donuts, etc. (Interjection: Yes, he really said "etcetera".) I didn't get very much sleep last night because I stayed at the observatory until midnight.

We went back to the Herrett Museum and I found out that on May 20th there is going to be a partial solar eclipse in Idaho and a transit of Venus on June 5th.

Mainly what we did today is traveled on our fancy bus. (Interjection: He just whispered "Yay! That was really fun!") We went to Craters of the Moon and Thousand Springs Hot Springs.

Thousand Springs Hot Springs is in the Shoshone Falls area. At Craters of the Moon we went through a cave and went on a hike.

We didn't get home until around 11 p.m. I was very tired and I lost my voice because I was talking a lot and my throat was dry.

The two day field trip was very fun, but very tiring for me. I am glad to be back blogging. (That just took him four tries to say.) See you next blog!

The BIG Haul: Shopping for a 4 Month Meal Plan

That's right...for once I've was productive on a weekend. I worked most of the afternoon Thursday and Friday and prepped the grocery list and coupon binder for this quarter's BIG shopping trip. And oh boy was it big! Like 3 shopping carts big!!

Okay...so kind of like this, but with one extra cart. Plus...groceries, not just pumpkins. Yes...these are the pumpkins from last year's Pumpkin Massacre. I forgot to take a picture at the store. Give me a break. Use your imagination people.

Last time we did a big plan like this I hoped to be able to provide for meals for about two months. Well...that was on January 29th. We ended up making it 3 1/2 months instead! I lost two tomatoes, a cucumber and a green pepper due to spoilage, the rest made it through. So I wasted about $2. Not too shabby. We also restocked on the dairy and a few produce items during that time. Subtracting out what I spent on a cereal restock trip, we spent an additional $100 on food items during that time. (I got some really good deals that cereal and paid about $1 per box. I couldn't resist the extra trip, but I'm not counting it since we didn't eat it.) This put our overall per meal cost at $1.25. And in case anyone is wondering, we are still WalMart free.

I figured that, since I planned for 2 months and got 3 1/2, I would go ahead and plan for 4 months based on what I had learned. It's a bit of a risky journey, but I'm kind of excited to see how things turn out. I'm going to try a few new things along the way (preparing meals ahead of time for freezing as well as freezing any large batch leftovers when possible for duplicated meals) and I'm trying a boatload of new recipes.

Just a little disclaimer here...a reminder to everyone that we have more space than most for our food items. We have an indoor side-by-side refrigerator/freezer as well as a full sized deep freeze and side-by-side in the garage. Don't attempt this with one fridge/freezer or even a fridge and deep freeze. Trust me. We're packed to the gills around here.

I did things a little differently this time and I'm hoping that it will turn out well. I have been marking recipes using Pinterest and I also gather recipes from Sparkrecipes. I grabbed a bunch of those as well as some home standards and put together the list of recipes I wanted to make.

Once I had my list, I went through each recipe and figured out what ingredients I would need. I just typed them into Word as I went. Once I finished, I sorted them A-Z and paired everything together to get a tally of what I needed.

After that it was off to my favorite part (this is laden with sarcasm)...inventory. I have combined my inventory/coupon binder lists to make things easier. But...again...I did things differently. I took my A-Z list and went item by item, checking things off. Surprisingly, I already had a good majority of the items...minus meat, dairy and produce. I do still have a pile of hamburger left from the November run so that helped out a bit, but it was counteracted by the fact that we blew through all of the chicken that I had. We needed 40 lbs!

With my reduced list in hand, I marked up the coupon binder, highlighting the items we needed. This trip was highly different from my previous runs when I have tailored my recipe plan to the items that I had on hand plus those that were on sale. Luckily, the chicken was on sale, but for the most part I had reasonable prices on everything else. There were a few things we picked up where I paid more than I wanted to and a couple of items were priced so horribly that they were left for later.

This one is from my original series on meal planning and doesn't show the combined inventory/coupon binder, but you get the idea.

It was a crazy haul. It took us over two hours to finish up the list and we ended up with two overflowing carts. Once we processed through checkout we ended up with three fairly full carts. We also ended up with: a GOB of produce, 4 gallons of milk, 6 lbs. of shrimp, 4 lbs. of flank steak, 10 lbs. of pork chops, 10 lbs. of NY steak, and our whopping 40 lb. of chicken. The total was higher than I had planned, but I also hadn't originally planned on that much freaking poultry.

Cart #1 - The meat & cheese cart. Anyone need some chicken?

After we got home, I separated the meats and bagged them. They are stored nicely in the freezer (which by the way is packed).

I don't know...I think we might need more...

I took my list and highlighted each recipe based on how soon the produce would become a problem. Pink for use ASAP, yellow for moderate risk of spoilage, green for mild risk and blue for no fresh produce needed.

I then arranged all of the recipes on the calendar, allowing one "leftovers" day each week as well as blocking out the days where we will be on vacation.

Turns out that I over-calculated. It works out okay since I arranged the calendar based on the expiration of the produce and dairy that I have already purchased. But...instead of getting 4 months that would get us by until around mid-September, my meal plan has us making it until October 15th before we'll need to shop again! This doesn't account for any remnants that I can make into additional meals or the frozen leftovers that I gather along the way.

All in all, we ended up with $700 in food to cover 127 different dishes, not including breakfasts and lunches. Without accounting for any of the frozen leftovers or the remnant meals, this works out to under $2 per meal! That means that our weekly food budget will remain around $40.

I have printed the menu plan calendars and have hung them in the kitchen. I'm hoping to stick to things as closely as possible. I will be taking pictures of our meals daily. I'll be sharing our weekly meals during each Summary Sunday as well as posting the recipes to the blog. (Tonight's meal was Greek Turkey Burgers. They were quite yummy.) Hopefully it will be a good time for everyone. Just don't give me too hard of a time if this doesn't go as planned.

I plan on watching the ads during this period as well. Based on what I learned this time, I'm going to keep my eyes out for the really good deals on nonperishable or freezable things we use a lot of (like chicken...which I got at the lowest price of the year - yay!). If I see something that I know is a low price that doesn't come along very often, then I'll be stocking up as I go in order to plan for next time.

Fingers crossed people! The meal plan started...today!

Summary Sunday: Prepping Edition

BIG post coming tomorrow. The big shopping trip has been completed and I'm going to share all of the details with you. Because I'm saving all the info for tomorrow, today's post will be somewhat short. (And by short I apparently mean kind of normal sized. Geez.)

This week was hectic as usual, with Collin working weird hours and Darian having three days of field trips. (I'm going to let him do a post about his trips next week, but I haven't told him that yet.) I spent the majority of the week prepping for the shopping trip as well as the shopping trip aftermath. This evening I also managed to repair our dryer and located the problem with our washer...which I'm hoping will be a cheap fix.

Now on with the other stuff I did...

Posts I Posted: With all my time being used up, it was a quiet week on the blog. But...I did share a review of the best book ever by the woman who has become my girl crush. I also finally got around to showing another week of Project Life...a project which is haunting me from the corner of the scrapbook room. The guilt of being behind is killing me.

Books I Read: I finished reading The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty and will be reviewing it soon. I have to say, it surprised me. I am now reading East of Denver by Gregory Hill. Both of these books were Goodreads wins.

Recipes I Tried: I did some crazy work with croissants this week that I'll be sharing in a few days. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier!

Projects I Finished: I fixed the flipping dryer people! It has been getting worse and worse, taking more and more cycles to get our clothes dry. Collin and I pulled it apart once before to try and repair it, but my hand couldn't reach far enough in the vent to pull out what we assumed was a lint blockage. Carole sent us a brush kit a couple of months ago and I kept asking Collin to help me...but he's rarely home. Tonight Darian informed me that he had NO pants for school tomorrow. Apparently half of his jeans are missing. What the crap?!? I knew I didn't have time to deal with our crap dryer so I pulled it out, took it apart from both inside and outside and cleaned the vent from both directions. Voila! I just pulled out a dry load of jeans after ONE cycle. I'm pretty proud of myself right now.

And that's it. That's all you get. Well...that and this...

I saw these yesterday while Darian and I were at Target. I was sorely tempted to buy them. Now normally I'm pretty boring and conservative about my clothes - nothing too flashy. But these spoke to me. I tried them on with my jeans. So much fun. I think they just might be on my wishlist.

Project Life Week 3: This Year Needs to Stop Going By So Fast

I have been in a serious funk lately. Scrapbooking has totally not been my thing. I've been avoiding Project Life for weeks. The only thing I have done is I've kept up on my Project Life Planner. Thank goodness.

So we're going to take a little trip down (recent) memory lane. Yup. That's right. Moving right along, here comes week 3 of Project Life 2012. I am seriously rolling my eyes at this right now. Just pathetic. January? Really? Embarrassing.

Anyway...

It was a dry, dry winter around here. The temperatures were really warm and we weren't getting any snow. In fact, our first snow of the season fell in the 3rd week of January. It was strange.

And...of course it snowed while Collin was out of town at the mine, leaving me with the little 2WD Ranger. I had to move the heavy sandbags into the back of the truck to try and get some weight for traction. It doesn't do so hot on icy roads.

On the upside, I got some pictures of the snow before it quickly melted the next day. And that was it...our brief glimpse of winter. Not much snow after that.

We celebrated Miss K's second birthday and I took the pictures at the party so that Patti could actually enjoy herself. Collin was his usual goofy self, wearing the Minnie ears like a good sport.It was really fun. K is so cute with her little friends.  It's been really fun watching her grow up. She's getting to be such a big girl. She calls me Auntie now...asking Patti if it's me on the phone when I send her a text. So cute. I love it.

My fancy recumbent bike showed up and Collin put it together for me. The rheumatologist told me to get one and suggested that I bike at least 10 minutes (preferably 15-20) per day five days a week. She says that it will get the neurotransmitters flowing and may help me get more energy and feel less pain. I honestly thought it was bunk...but guess what? It really does work. I can tell that I do better when I bike. Less fatigue, less pain. It's kind of nice.

I've taken to going downstairs with my iPhone or latest book and reading or playing games for 10-15 minutes while I bike (I do occasionally do 20 minutes). I need to be better about it though...I typically only get it accomplished around three times a week. It's a work in progress. Maybe it can help me get out of this funk. I need to be productive again. All of these partially finished projects floating around are driving me crazy!

2012 BOTY : Let's Pretend This Never Happened (a Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson

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Okay. I am literally giddy right now. It's ridiculous. Have I mentioned that I LOVE Jenny Lawson? Umm...because I do. It's a mostly healthy obsession. I promise. There isn't any stalking involved.

I bought this book as a preorder. Why, you ask? Well...because: (1) Why wouldn't you?, (2) Any book with a stuffed mouse on the cover should automatically go in the shopping card immediately, (3) I wanted not only the book, but...this...

Yup. That's right. Jenny's signature. And much like Elmyra I will hug it and squeeze it and love it forever (raise your hand if you get that reference).

Before I even read the book, I was already protective. It has become My Precious. When friends asked if they could borrow it after I read it, my response was "you must treat it like a newborn baby. No food, liquid or small children within a 10 foot radius." 

I'm not kidding people. There might be a shrine erected. 

In fact, in light of now considering the lending it out...I'm gonna go with...you come to the book. It's a win-win really. You get a break from your kids and hang out in my library reading my fabulous book and my book stays safely within the cocoon of my house. Yup. Seems like a good plan.

So now you're asking, ya...but what's it about? Is it even any good? Fine. I guess I'll do the review.

If you haven't been over to Jenny's blog, go. Do it. Now. Seriously, I'm not kidding. I'll wait. That's right. Awesome. This is the woman who brought you Copernicus the Homicidal Monkey and Beyonce the Giant Metal Chicken. She pretty much rules.

In the book, Jenny talks about being raised by a professional taxidermist father and a woman who I can only assume is a patron saint in a town the size of a postage stamp. Her stories are hysterical. I laughed out loud repeatedly. She is creative and witty and just plain fun. I've told Collin that we need to move to Texas. I might need her to be my best friend. (I still love you Patti, but...well...you know.) If you are easily offended by rough language, well...you're gonna have to get over it because you need to read this. Seriously. My arms are crossed and I'm staring you down.

I'm not sure what else to say that wouldn't either (a) ruin some of the fun that is this book or (b) just really put doubt on the whole "healthy obsession" comment. Basically...I loved this book. I am in love with this book. I could potentially read it again immediately and then again next week. Remember how I loved Betty White and Mindy Kaling? Okay...multiply that by about 1,000. That's how much I love her. Crap. I'm really not doing well at keeping this to a non-hysterical level. 

If you think this book gets anything less than five stars...well, then you clearly haven't been paying attention. It's 5 out of 5 stars people.

Now...to end this thing like a true Reading Rainbow book review...run, don't walk, to your local bookstore and buy this book. You won't have a cool signed bookplate like me, but you'll have the book. It's worth it. But you don't have to take my word for it. (Ba da ba.) 

Summary Monday: Couch Edition

I've been super lazy today. I'm not going to lie. It was a fun weekend, but I woke up this morning not feeling so hot. Thank goodness I didn't have to work today. I had a pile of plans for things I was going to accomplish. Instead, I got the dishwasher emptied and completed one load of laundry. *sigh*

At least I wasn't the only lazy one...

But I had to get a post finished. It's going to be a busy week and I have at least three other posts planned for the next couple of days.

Darian has a week full of field trips, so it's going to be fun for him, but busy for me. He'll be doing the regular zoo/museum field trip on Wednesday followed by their special two day field trip on Thursday/Friday. Not only does this mean getting things together in order to pack him up for an overnight stay, I have two sack lunches and a sack dinner to prepare. I'm going to have to get creative...especially since...it's time to go shopping again.

Remember that big shopping run I did back at the end of January? Well, it has lasted until now...a full five weeks longer than the original plan. Some of this was due to eating out and some due to using leftovers, but a lot of it had to do with simply using my stash more creatively. Including that trip, groceries for the last three and a half months have ended up costing us about $600 (after adding up the produce, dairy and extra cereal stocking up I did during that time). It works out to about $175 per month or $40/week. But all good things must come to an end. So...I'll be spending a good chunk of time this week prepping for my next run. I'm not sure when I'm going to hit the store, since I'm working Friday. I have a bad feeling that it will have to be Saturday, since Collin will be working on Friday night. I will definitely need two people for cart wrangling.

I'm getting nervous about it now. Let's not talk about it any more. Instead, here's what happened last week:

Posts I Posted: I started off a lot stronger than the week before, but quickly petered into nothingness as Collin's mom came into town and we spent a lot of time hanging out together, celebrating her birthday and preemptively celebrating Mothers' Day. Before I disappeared, I posted a crazy, rambling post from my phone about my badly behaving dogs, as well as two book reviews. I warned you about the drudgery of Girls in White Dresses. Don't be suckered in by the cute cover. Remember how that worked out with Lift? I also played compromise with my rating of the clever, but complicated Ella Minnow Pea.


Books I Read: I finished reading Philippa Gregory's The Lady of the Rivers, her third book in her Cousins' War series. I really enjoyed it. Its review will be one of this week's posts. I think I might also have to update the bracket with that post. But before I get to that, I will be reviewing (drum roll please) Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend this Never Happened. I am still giddy about this one. I am currently reading The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty.

Recipes I Tried: I made Crockpot Pineapple Chicken. Not too shabby. The best part? It took me all of 5 minutes to throw in the pot. Very little prep required. I also revisited Peanut Sesame Noodles and Cheap Korean Beef. Total prep time for both of those recipes done together: about 20 minutes. Yay for easy. I made some pretty darned good chocolate/butterscotch pancakes, but forgot to take pictures. So...I guess I'll be making those again. I'm sure Darian will have a good cry over that one. They were delicious. I paired them with some crack bacon. Not the healthiest dinner we've ever eaten.

There. I have done my duty for the day. I'm going to go see if I can get my second load of laundry in the dryer. After that I think it might be some iPhone gaming and a little more reading before bed.

2012 BOTY: Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

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Ella Minnow Pea lives on a small island called Nollop, just off the coast of the eastern United States. The island is it's own nation, having been founded by Nevin Nollop, the gentleman credited for coming up with the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." (For those of you a few years out of grammar school, this sentence is used frequently as an illustration of a sentence containing all 26 letters of the alphabet.)

The trouble begins when a local child discovers the tile of the letter "Z" broken beneath the statue of the founder and his famous sentence. She takes it to the council. They decide that this is Mr. Nollop's way of telling them from beyond the grave that the letter "Z" is no longer needed. They ban it from use. A mistaken use will earn you a warning. Your second will earn you your choice of either a whipping or some time in the stockade. Another oversight and you're banished.

Within the next few days, "Q" and "J" also fall. The council holds firm and bans these letters as well. Troubles begin to mount.

The book is written in a series of letters, primarily between Ella and her cousin. Creatively, the author eliminates the fallen letters from their dialect as the story progresses. His use of the English language is quite amazing. I'm pretty sure I would've given myself an aneurysm trying to figure out other ways to go about saying what I wanted to say.

I liked this book. I thought it was cute. It was certainly an improvement after reading Girls in White Dresses. I have to admit though, it was a little difficult to read. I really had to be awake and paying attention as there were some interesting vocabulary choices. There were a few words that I had literally never heard before. The people on this island are certainly well educated when it comes to language.

The difficulty in reading was the primary thing that kept this book from getting five stars. The story is a little quirky and certainly somewhat gimmicky, but it was entertaining. That was nice. I had a hard time deciding how to rate it - in fact, I nearly changed my rating while writing this review. Overall, I would give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. This rating is not available on Goodreads, so it winds up with a downgraded 3 out of 5 stars.

Because We All Need a Little Drama...I Just Seem to Get it All of the Time

I forgot to mention a cute little fact about the crap in my week during the last Summary Sunday. So I'm going to put a short little post about it here. (Warning: it doesn't turn out short.)

I had planned to finish up a post for my Week 3 of Project Life, but between the two hours of sleep I got last night and the crap that was today...SO not happening. Instead you get a lazy post from my phone. I'm grumpy and I'm venting.

Last week I took Piper with me to run an errand on Wednesday evening. We went and came back...all within about 10 minutes. I unloaded her from the truck and let her into the backyard. Sadie growled at her. I told her to knock it off and went back in the house (she growls all the time...she can kind of be a jerk).

However, by the time I made it to the kitchen, WWF was on in full force in the backyard. (No, I don't mean the organization with the cute panda logo and I refuse to refer to it as WWE.)

After throwing a crapload of water on them, breaking our water bucket, and screaming myself hoarse, I finally got them apart. Luckily, their injuries were minor and no one needed a vet visit.

We have been keeping them apart ever since. The musical crates/kennel is getting very annoying. Plus...even better, we had a reprise two days later.

I was getting ready for work and had Harley and Piper in the kennel while Sadie was in the yard eating. I asked Darian to go bring Sadie in and crate her. He doesn't listen. Instead, he opened the door to the kennel and it was on like Donkey Kong.

I was dressed for work, with a patient in 20 minutes, watching my dogs attack each other. Blood spattered all over the garage. I thought for sure they were both going to be going to the vet with serious injuries.

I pried them apart with the handle of a shovel and Piper went running into her crate. I shoved Sadie into hers, called Collin (who was on his way back from pulling shift), and told him to check them when he got home. Such a fun morning.

I don't know how lucky we can get, but once again neither dog needed to see the vet. In fact, Piper didn't have a scratch on her. Unfortunately, we now get to play keep away for the next couple of weeks. When you bite your sister, you get a time out.

Just a little more excitement in our apparently boring lives...