Candy Crack...

UGH! This is not a feel good post. Just a warning, people.

Let's start at the beginning. Wednesday started out pretty much like any other Wednesday. Racing to get ready, going to playgroup, hanging out with friends...you know, just normal every day stuff.

Then my friend Laura decided to bring out a little recipe she'd decided to try...Saltine Cracker Candy. We were all hooked. The stuff is to die for. I mean, really, super good. The kind of candy you can't just stop eating at one, two or even three pieces. The kids loved it. The moms loved it. You get the point. Let's forget the fact that it wasn't exactly the best thing to be eating if you're trying to lose weight..yeah, let's forget that point entirely...because I have something more important I want you to focus on.

So, we go home, have an average day. Dinner comes around and Reagan eats all her dinner...GOOD JOB REAGAN! This RARELY happens. I have to BEG her to eat vegetables and meat. So I decide to be a good mom and wife and make...you got it...Saltine Cracker Candy!

Fast forward to later that evening and I could not get the stuff out of the pan...ok, we got a little out..but not much. The next day my friend Monica came over and brought her girls. We hacked away at the pan together, chipping pieces off, damaging my poor Pampered Chef spatula and despairing that I would EVER get my pan back. Later that evening I decided I had had enough and some stupid candy was NOT going to get the best of me. So I attacked it...like a crazy woman..pounding it out of the pan...right. on. top. of. my. ceramic. topped. stove.

Do you see where this is going?

As I'm cooking dinner I notice a huge crack and tons of little chips IN THE CERAMIC. Josh comes home and notices that there is not only ONE crack, but a GIGANTIC "X" crack in the middle of my ceramic stove.

UGH...I could KICK myself, I'm so angry! I didn't even THINK about the fact that the top was ceramic. UGH! UGH! UGH!!!!!!

Welcome to the Company Girls!

I found an amazing blog called Home Sanctuary that I just love! Really, go check it out! Anyway, I linked up to their Company Girl page today and I wanted to say hello to any girls stopping by who adore Rachel Anne as much as I do!

Another Yummy Recipe!

Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes-Reagan's Favorite!

This is another of those mix up and use what you have recipes with no real measurements!

Pancake mix, made according to directions (or use your homemade pancake recipe!)
Peanut butter, creamy
Bananas, chopped
Semi-sweet chocolate chips (a handful?)

Mix it all together and cook on griddle or in pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray!

Cheap Fun for the Little Ones!

Note: I shamelessly stole this idea from High Five by Highlights!

Materials:
Cardboard tube (paper towel size)
aluminum foil
stickers

Have your child wrap the cardboard tube in aluminum foil and then decorate with stickers. Have your child hold it up to your chest and she can hear your heartbeat! Run around and then have her listen again and talk about the difference between your resting heartbeat and your heartbeat while exercising!

NOTE: Small children may not understand what they're hearing...my daughter says she couldn't hear my heartbeat, but I could hear hers just fine and she has MUCH better hearing that I do....they've been told it sounds like thump-thump and that isn't always the case!

I'm the new proud owner of......

A NordicTrack ASR1000 Elliptical!!

I'm so excited! I LOVE the ellipticals at the gym, but I never seem to make it there, so we end up paying over $500 a year for something we never use! THIS, THIS beautiful baby I can use first thing in the morning. I love it...I want to marry it I swear!

The only thing I'm not enthused about it is the game settings..what??? I thought exercise machines were just to work out on!? I'm certainly not coordinated enough to play a game AND work out at the same time..heck, I burn most of my calories trying to stay ON the machine! It also has an IPod doc and all other sorts of things I'm not interested in (I may be the only 30 something on the planet that doesn't have an IPod or something similiar!) But she's rock solid and I can't wait to hook her up and use her! WOOHOOOOO!

Two Yummy Recipes!

I was in a MAJOR cooking mood on New Year's Day, I knew that I needed to use up some things before they went bad, and I really needed to prep some foodstuffs for the Eat from the Pantry Challenge. So, I threw together several batches of Sausage Potato Bake and Sweet Potato Casserole. Both of these recipes are DELICIOUS! My husband can't stop eating the Sausage Bake and everyone I know that's tried the Sweet Potato Casserole loves it (it's from a friend of mine that is a great cook!).

Sausage Potato Bake
(This recipe is adapted from a recipe that my mother in law makes, as well as several recipes I looked at in cookbooks. I didn't give measurements because I was using up a lot of odds and ends. Mix it up til it looks and tastes good to you. Also, I used from-scratch ingredients, but you can always use short-cut items from your grocery store!)

white potatoes
shredded cheese (I used a mix of Colby and Cheddar)
eggs
onions
sausage
red peppers
Italian seasonings, garlic, pepper, salt

Wash and peel potatoes and thin slice them (I used my food processor for this step). Chop onion. Brown sausage and add seasonings to taste (I do this because we buy our sausage in bulk and it's not flavored or seasoned..if you're using Italian sausage from the grocery store you can skip the seasonings step). Mix potatoes, sausage, eggs, cheese, onion and pepper together in large bowl. Pour into a greased casserole dish and bake at 350 for approximately 30-45 minutes til eggs are set and cooked all the way through.

Healthy Sweet Potato Casserole
3 large sweet potatoes, peel removed and cooked til soft (do this however you like to--boil, bake, microwave)
1/4 cup margarine or butter, melted
6 Tbs. sugar
20 oz crushed pineapple
1/4 tsp each, cinnamon and nutmeg (I love cinnamon so I used a full teaspoon and half a teaspoon of nutmeg!)

Mash or puree sweet potatoes. Mix with the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl and pour into a greased 9*13 pan. Bake for 30 minutes at 375. Butternut squash may be substituted for the sweet potatoes.

Menu Plan Monday: Pantry Challenge Edition

This Monday begins the first week of the January pantry challenge hosted by Money Saving Mom and Life As A Mom. You can read my first post here. Menu Plan Monday is hosted by orgjunkie.com!

Since I wrote that post I realized I would be hosting Reagan's birthday party in January which means I will have to spend some extra money at the store for items I don't normally keep in storage. HOWEVER, I plan to use as many storage items as possible. I'm thinking a from scratch cake, homemade pizza (I have most of those ingredients) and punch as opposed to soft drinks, which will leave leftover juice for the rest of the month as well.

As I'm starting out my menu, I'm realizing that we were already out of some things I would have considered needs. I'm going to have to get through without them, as I've committed to a $100 total grocery budget for the month (with the exception of the birthday party foods) and I TRULY want to meet this goal. However, eventually I'm going to have to use part of that budget for cat litter and perhaps cat food!

At any rate, here is the plan for this week, all from the pantry, with the exception of a run to the grocery for milk (already made!) and some fresh fruits and veggies, per my rules for our family for the month.

Breakfasts (pick and choose):
Sausage-Potato Bake (I spent New Years Day cooking six pans of this AND a bunch of other items!)
Fruit
Pancakes
Cream of Wheat
Cereal
Bacon

Lunches:
Leftovers
Tuna salad on homemade bread
Tomato Soup with cheese toast
Vegetable Soup with biscuits

Dinners:
Roast with sweet potato casserole and a green vegetable
Chicken pot pie with a vegetable (freezer)
Chili with corn muffins
Pizza-homemade
Various Leftovers

Snacks (these are available for picking and choosing):
Raisins
Homemade Graham Crackers
Cuties (oranges)
Apple slices
Nuts
Homemade cookies

Drinks:
Tea
Water
Milk
Juice
Coffee

Ah, children...

The other day Reagan was making a picture for me. She said it was going to be a "special" picture. I explained to her that every picure she made for me was special because SHE made it. So then she said "Mommy, do you know why I'm making you this picture?" Getting a warm cuddly feeling inside, I turned around, smiled that warm mother smile and said "Yes, honey, I imagine it's because you love me." She smiled back and said (wait for it........)

"Nope, it's because I like making pictures!"

Happy feeling gone! (If you're a Nemo fan you'll get that!) KIDS!

Ramblings...

Have you heard of Fresh Sugar Lemon? It's a fragrance that Philosophy sells and it retails for around $65. A little out of my budget at the moment I'm afraid. And not that I would spend $65 on a fragrance without at least smelling it in person...although it's name alone is hard to resist. Did I mention I'm addicted to lemon?

Perhaps it's my southern blood, but I think there is nothing quite as divine as the smell of lemon. It's heady scent is fresh, clean and embodies all the things I love about the south and home. Growing up my absolutely favorite thing to eat was Granny's Lemon Pie. Later on as I had my own space to live in, lemon brought to mind cleaning and a fresh glass of iced sweet tea (and shouldn't all tea be sweet?), and then memories of my favorite cousin, Kathy, dipping a slice in her Diet Coke. And even later when I really needed a touch of "home" to the wild and crazy life I had in my late teens and early twenties, it brings back memories of one of my closest friends, Karen, and her Lemon Meringue Pie that she could seemingly whip up out of nothing in her very homey kitchen. I loved afternoons there. Whether she knew it or not, it was a balm to my soul during those years.

At any rate, lately I've been wishing for more "lemon" in my life. Perhaps it's all that decluttering and nesting I've been wanting to do. So, when Josh and Reagan and I were out shopping at Marshalls and I ran across a body scrub so bright yellow you couldn't help but smile, and with the name "Lemon Lust", well, I had to buy some.

Let me tell you. It's heavenly. When you first open it, I have to admit, it smells a little like Lemon Pledge, but by the time you get it on the loofah and start lathering up, it smells JUST LIKE you're scrubbing up with a package of lemon drops. Remember those? I do. In fact, every morning I get in the shower my thoughts run back to a particular package of lemon drops....isn't it amazing what a certain smell, a certain sound or something that catches your eye can bring back to your memory?

Lemon drops always remind me of a boy I knew named Jim Butler. Yep, I still remember his name although it was about 20 years ago. He was 12 and I was 10. He and his Dad moved into the apartment complex that my parents and brother and I lived in. I was a tomboy in those days. I don't think I spent more than a few minutes indoors. I certainly don't remember eating lunch or taking baths or doing anything inside other than collapsing into a deep sleep late at night after all the stars had come out. I spent those long summer days racing around on my bike, collecting clips from the water meter, fighting ninjas, building ships and houses out of pine straw, teasing rolly pollies and fighting right along side He-Man as we defended the Universe from the evils that sought to destroy it.

When Jim moved in, all those boy-girl feelings started coming to the surface and I was about as confused as a 10 year old tomboy-girl could be. I distinctly remember him trying to kiss me (which would have been my first kiss!) but I used an evasion tactic and hit him with my purse! (This should have been a warning for all my future boyfriends!) I'm still not even sure why I had a purse in the first place...after all, I was a (say it with me) TOMBOY.

But shortly after Jim arrived, I was spending all my time playing with him, writing about him in a teeny tiny little diary covered in purple hearts and showing off to him my extensive stuffed animal collection--a collection which no doubt a 12 year old boy could have cared less about, but he was kind enough to humor me.

And how does this tie into the lemon you might ask? One of my favorite memories is of sitting on the steps, just sharing a package of lemon drops with him. And even though it was 20 years ago, the smell of lemon drops can bring back so many memories that should have been buried under so many others. The shock of dark brown hair falling over his eye, the old white bronco that his dad drove, the diary of purple hearts.

Oh I know it's not the lemon drops that burned these memories into my mind. It was more his situation...his parents divorcing, his mom all but abandoning him---pieces of him that stood out to me and at that time, little did I know, in two years they would become my own reality. Maybe that's why his memory is so indelibly inscribed in my mind.

And when I think of him, I begin to wonder about other people whose lives have touched mine for a brief moment. Fragments of ribbons twining briefly around me and then vanishing...which might be why I hate change so much. (I did label this post ramblings didn't I?)

Did I ever mention that about myself? I detest change. I simply cannot handle it. It makes me want to cry. In fact, it wasn't until shortly after Reagan was born that I realized this about myself. I was watching reruns of the Nanny and Will & Grace and realized I couldn't handle the end of the show's run that was coming up. It simply made me sick to realize that that was the end...finale...done. And sure it was just a tv show, but it was mimicking life much too closely for me to handle.

Now keep in mind at this point I was extremely depressed, had just been diagnosed with Post Partum Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which had in turn caused me to develop Obsessive Compulsive Disorder..oh yes, you didn't know I was crazy? I'm kidding. I assure you I'm not crazy anymore than you are. I have, however, lived through a very difficult and amazing pregnancy and birth (and almost death of myself and our child) which made me a little more ill at ease with the whole notion of life and how easily it can be taken away. So having these psycho moments due to a tv show, was, at the time, actually pretty understandable. But I digress.

I always wonder what happened to those people whom my life entwined with so briefly..and wonder if their brevity in my life and all the changes my life has undergone didn't help but cause a little bit of my freak out when my daughter was born......and now.....she, too, hates change. And I hate that for her..because, while change can be very bad, it can also be very good.

Getting a new job, buying a new house, making a new friend, getting married, having a baby...those are all good things. And I want her to appreciate the good things that change can bring. And even if change sometimes does bring bad tidings, you can still appreciate the good in what happened BEFORE the change (does that make sense?)..you know, your own 'lemon drop' moments, the Jim Butlers in your life.

How do I help her appreciate those moments and deal with change as best as it can be dealt with? These are questions I ponder and don't understand the answer to, but perhaps many of those answers lie in uncovering whether I'm completely over the changes that have occurred in my own life. Have I dealt with them the way they've needed to be dealt with, or have I simply pushed them away, where they feel free to come out and taunt me at a later date?

Yes, heavy questions. New Year. Should be interesting to see how it unfolds..but no matter what happens, I hope I can carry a little "lemon" with me into 2010.

Happy New Year!!!

May everyone enjoy this fresh start to the year ahead!!!!!