Thursday - featured site of the week

Well I have been a day behind all week because of Internet problems. It was down for two days at work and then I come home tonight and it was down here. We have several machines that actually control our network at home so it took me a while to figure out where the problem was. I am about it'ed out this week. Honestly I would just like something to work. I am unable to put my site of the week up today because honestly I wanted to explore a few sites before I chose one. Snce I have had internet issues I did not get to do that. But the point of this blog was for me to take a few moments to myself each day. So I am here on time today. I will say I have chosen the site and believe it or not it is google....why? That you will have to find out tomorrow. Google is not the same as as it used to be..I can't wait to share it with you tomorrow!

Wednesday - Whatever Wednesday

Personal photo, please do not lift

Kids do say the darndest things. They repeat just about everything they hear. They will make statements that they have no indication of what it means. Tolerance is such a hard thing to teach in this age and time. A lot of the blogs I read each day are written from a Christian perspective. I am not really a religious person, but that does not mean that I do not try and live my life by the golden rule. I teach my children to treat others as you would like to be treated. I teach them that being kind to others even when they are not kind to you is one of the ways you can make a difference in their life. By just offering kindness to someone who isn't being kind to you might turn their day around. I am not perfect in practice of this theory, we all have our bad days. All men were created equal, with certain unalienable rights. The founding words of our country. I do not care if you are white, black, Asian, gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, Jewish or disabled. Each person has a right to live their life in a way that makes them happy. If their lifestyle does not impede on my ability to live my daily life then why should I pass judgement on them. There are good people and there are bad people who belong to EVERY sector of the population. Just because someone belongs to a group because of skin color or orientation does not make them good or bad. Each individual should be "judged"(and I hate to use that word, but you do form an opinion about people you meet, let's face it we are human)on their on merits as an individual. You cannot lump people together, for true tolerance everyone has to be accepted on their on merit, you can't really say, hey this group is ok, but then stereotype another segment. For our world to truly change with each generation we need to teach our children about tolerance across the board. To take every human being and look at the individual and not decide how we feel about them based on any "group" they may belong to. We can change the prejudices in this world a little bit at a time through each generation.

Tuesday - Gratitude

The last two days I have been very frustrated.  We had a really bad storm and it knocked out our internet at work.  I waited for the repairman for five hours and he never showed up.  It burned me up like you wouldn't believe.  I was stuck at work, unable to work because our server was configured to go down with the internet.....UGH, so I couldn't reach my files to do anything.  Well I have a secret weapon.  I have a wonderful brother who, no matter what he is doing, finds a little time to solve my IT problems.  He has set up our network, he has reconfigured everything so we could work in an emergency, and he does it all from two hours away.   I was so frustrated that I can't even put it in to words.  I hate when I make myself that way.  I stress myself out more than I should in some situations.  He was very calm (as was my husband by day two).  We just delt with the cards we were delt and rolled with it.  Well they did, I didn't.  Finally at 2pm today it was fixed.  I felt great relief, but then I felt bad because I stressed myself out so much about it.  I am thankful that those around me are sometimes calm and cool.  Usually that is me, but not the past two days.  Thanks to my brother, everything is now back to normal :)

Monday - Menu Plan Monday

First of all I have to review some of the new recipes I made last week:
Pepperoni Pizza Pot Pie - It was so easy and they all loved it.  Next time I will make it with Ham and Pineapple and make another one with Chicken and Alfredo.  It was a big hit!

French Fried Onion Chicken - Kids loved it, hubby thought it was ok.  I used too many bread crumbs (I increased the recipe by 1/2 but the bread crumbs by 1, whoops), everyone loved the Shoepeg Corn.  It was gone in seconds.

Here is the plan for this week:

Breakfast:
French Toast Sticks
Hot or Cold Cereal
Muffins/Smoothies
Waffles with Fresh Fruit


Monday: Lasagna, Salad and Texas Toast

Tuesday: Impossibly Easy BTL Pie

Wednesday: Crock Pot Beef and Peppers (You can purchase this from Mega Menu-Mailer Recipe 5 — Assembly GuidelinesVolume 1 at savingdinner.com)

Thursday: Paprika Chicken with Sour Cream Sauce

Friday:  Emerilized Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Gravy and Roast Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Saturday:  Easy Slow Cooker Chicken Dinner

Sunday:  Tuna Noodle Casserole

Saturday - Family Fun

We had planned to try and go to Six Flags this weekend with my niece, but weather put a damper on that one.  There are some severe storms in our area so we kind of stayed homebound.

Now I decided to go out shopping....grocery shopping.  I also had to stand in line for about an hour to exchange a game system for one of the kids.  I hate to go shopping on Saturday because everyone else goes shopping on Saturday.  My son decided to tell me that I should just go ahead and do it today while I am out instead of wasting my time duirng the week, boy was he off.  Magicallly when I showed back up with the game system he disappeared.....

My time at the grocery store was much better.  It is normally covered up but I guess the rain kept everyone at home.  I did my shopping and returned home (only to return a few mintues later to get something we didn't know we needed).  We decided to make homemade wings.  It was great.  We were all in the same room talking, having fun while making our dinner.  Because everyone goes in different directions we seldomly get to do that.  It was very nice.  We had a great time and made some wonderful food.

Family fun can be just spending time together.  I am thankful I get to spend time with the wonderful people I call my family.

Friday - Taking time for myself

This Friday my husband and I decided to take the day off.  Well we didn't.  We worked part of the morning and into the afternoon, but I did so in my pjs.  It was a nice change of pace. 

You can't always take a day off from work to make yourself feel better, but taking a bit of time each day for yourself can go along way.

Thursday - Site of the Week

Last week I shared my favorite site. It is the one that started this ADHD mom on the road to clutter recovery. I will let you know when I am cured....lol
This week I want to share a relatively new find that has really helped me. Flylady has always talked about menu planning, she has partnered with LeAnn Ely from Saving Dinner and they have been trying to help us plan. I bought a couple of books and had tons of recipes books but I just want to jazzed up about some of these receipes. For my birthday I got an ipad. (It is mostly for work but it helps me in so many ways I can't even tell you). I discovered pod casts. Oh my! There is so much information out there you can just go on overload. I was trying to plan meals for my family and I came across a podcast called Meal Makeover Moms. I find if I can't sleep I can listen to a podcast and just kind of drift off. This episode caught my attention and I couldn't just fall asleep. It was episode 99, and it featured Laura from Orgjunkie.com. She had Meal Plan Monday. But what I thought was so great about her Meal Plan Monday was that she let you link to all of these other blogs with their menu plan. Each week over 200 people post their menu plans for the week. Well I was in heaven, I was seeing what other families would plan. The biggest hurdle I have always had was getting side items to go with my meals. I loved how everyone shared. It made my menu planning so much easier.

Her site is not just about meal planning. And I have to say it is one of my favorite blogs. She gives great tips and she has a new book out. I have downloaded the preview on my kindle but I haven't had time to read the entire book so I haven't downloaded the rest. She has products that she sells that are all aimed at helping you get your life organized. She just revamped her site and it looks great. If you need some organizational help, please go visit her.