4.28.2008

Monday Menus


*Hopefully* today we'll finish our kitchen reorganization....and then I am ready to cook up a storm. For a variety of reasons, I haven't done a lot of cooking from scratch lately, and we are all ready to remedy that! Here's the plan for the week:

* Little Cheddar Meatloaves, Cheesy Broccoli, and Red Potatoes
* Mock Lasagna, Bread Machine Bread, Salad, Green Beans
* Tuna Croquettes (at Billy's request :)), Veggies and dip, Loaded Mashed Potatoes
* Brisket, Macaroni Salad, Corn on the Cob
* Breakfast for Dinner--Bacon and Cheese Waffles and Eggs
* Enchiladas and Rice

Lunches:
* Turkey Wraps
* Cheesy Rice and Fruit
* Pizza Grilled Cheese
* Leftovers
* Frozen Pizza

Snacks/Desserts:

* Banana Bread
* Scones
* Applesauce
* Peanut Butter Bars

To see what others are cooking this week, visit Laura at I'm An Organizing Junkie.

Simple Woman's Daybook

Outside My Window... sunshine and singing birds.
I am thinking... about plans for the week ahead.
I am thankful for... springy weather, the promise of a quiet week, small steps toward making our house a haven.
From the kitchen... Little Cheddar Meatloaves, Cheesy Broccoli, and Red Potatoes for supper, Banana Bread for snacks today.
I am wearing... Billy's fuzzy Field and Stream pullover...it's cold here this morning!
I am creating... VBS projects, graduation invitations, school activities.
I am going... to stay home all day today, I hope!
I am reading... When All Hell Breaks Loose, by Steve Lawson
I am hoping... for a quiet, uneventful week this week!
I am hearing... a completely quiet house and the songbirds outside my window.
Around the house... there is still much work to be done, but I'm encouraged and inspired by the *pockets* of order and beauty that are appearing...my *new-to-the-kitchen* chair, new shelf paper, and a clutter free blue cabinet. :)
One of my favorite things... Ammah Grace running by and saying "Me Loves You, Mama!"
A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: Invitations finished, VBS craft samples started, VBS supplies organized, craft for Tuesday moms' Renew, school everyday, and continue working our way through the spring cleaning. :)
Here is picture thought I am sharing...
(Bayley with Great-Papa at the nursing home on Saturday. Hopefully I'll get the rest of the GA pictures uploaded today...I had almost finished a post with quite a few pictures and text on Saturday, and Blogger ate it. *rolling eyes* ;-))

For more about the Simple Woman's Daybook, visit Peggy at The Simple Woman.

4.26.2008

Flash

We had a transient visitor this week. *Flash* was a mostly well-behaved guest, although he did escape from his temporary home at least once. ;-) He developed a taste for strawberries while he was here, and inspired a certain 10 year old to do some in-depth independent research, which he then presented to the rest of us during school on Thursday. :-)

Flash has now gone back to his more permanent hedgy home, but we got a few good pictures before he was set free:

4.24.2008

Sweet Sleep

I love these pictures of Ammah Grace. She fell asleep waiting for everyone else to get ready for church Wednesday afternoon. :) Hard to imagine that just two days before she was creating total chaos by getting a fake jewel stuck in her nose!

Emlyn

A few quick pics of Emlyn...

Little lady...

Serious...
Silly...
Sassy....
Em has always loved kitties...I found these at the GKS sale and thought they were too perfect! :-)

Random Insomniac Thoughts

Ugh. Once again, my body clock has reset itself to awaken at 4 a.m. Hopefully this round will only last a few days, and not weeks. Meanwhile, I've been browsing around online trying to make myself sleepy again...which isn't, by the way, working. So, I thought I'd sneak in a blog post. :-) Given that it *is* 5 a.m., I hope you aren't expecting great words of wisdom or wonderful wit...I'm only up to a few random ramblings. :-D

1. First and foremost, "Happy Birthday" to my friend Tauna's gentle giant of a daddy, Mr. Woody. You can pop over to her blog to get to know him a bit (and see a wonderful picture :)), and send him birthday wishes. I wish I could give him a hug in person today. We have a special, if sometimes goofy, relationship, and I miss him and Mrs. Bettye, and Mary and her gang, and Matt-man terribly.

2. I'm in a baking mood. Nothing especially extraordinary about that, except that I *haven't* been in a baking mood in a while, and now that I'm finally back there, (a) my kitchen is in the midst of reorganization and I'm barely able to make pb and j in there, and (b) I'm almost out of eggs. This is made even more frustrating by the fact that I *went* to the store last night at 8:30 and I *thought* about buying eggs, but for various reasons decided to wait until my *real* shopping trip tomorrow to do so. *Sigh* Now I have enough eggs to bake *one* recipe and by the time I make up my mind what that should be, I will probably be out of my baking mood. ;-)

3. We have a transient guest at our house right now..."Flash" the turtle. This came as quite a surprise to my friend Kathy last night when one of my children asked for prayer for "our new turtle" in children's choir. I'm not sure exactly what we were supposed to pray for for Flash, but news of his (or her, as the case might be) existence definitely started Kathy a bit. I forgot to mention that little tidbit in any of our several phone and IM conversations this week. I suppose that is an indicator of the state of my life these days...a resident turtle is pretty low on my list at the moment. :) Sorry Kathy! ;-)

I plan to take (and post) pictures later today. The kids have made him a pretty cool little habitat, and Peter has actually done some impressive independent research on turtles, which he did a great job of presenting during school yesterday. Unfortunately, Flash will have to be returned to his hedgy home soon, but in the meantime, he (or she) has been a source of great enjoyment and education. :)

4. I missed choir practice last night. Well, technically I didn't *totally* miss it. I sat down in my chair and pulled my music out of my packet just in time for Lyndel to say "Let's pray". ;-) What I had thought would be a very short conversation with Bro. Kent ended up being not-so-short. :-) I'm actually thankful for that...but somehow the week just isn't quite the same when I miss choir, and thanks to the stomach bug last week this is two weeks in a row I have missed. That hour is like an oasis in my week (even when Kathy and I are convinced at times that Lyndel is trying to kill us :-D) and when I miss, I *really* miss it.

5. I'm finally starting to get sleepy again. Of course, it is now 12 minutes until I have to get Billy up to get ready for work...so not much point in going back to bed now. Hopefully I'll be back with another post or two later today. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to wake myself up a bit until I get Billy up, and then I think I'll try to catch a quick nap while he is walking.

*Yawn*

4.19.2008

"Be careful what you pray for..."

Last year when my mom broke her arm, I remember walking down the hall at her house thinking that I was the tiredest I had ever been in my entire life. Tireder than when Ammah Grace was in NICU in Little Rock (which was the tiredest I had ever been to *that* point), tireder than I had been the last three months before Daddy died (which was tireder than I had been when Ammah Grace was in the hospital). But something about the days after my mom broke her arm made me even tireder than either of those times.

This year was not as physically demanding, but it was still extremely exhausting. I know that part of that was that just like last year (when we went into things worn out from Papa's fall and surgery), I started out this experience worn out. We had gone straight from the Growing Kids Sale into the test, and I had struggled with insomnia the two nights before Mother's fall.

Somehow last week I just never could seem to get my steam back...I kept trying, but it wasn't working. So I began to pray for rest...that we would somehow get rested from the exhaustion we were *all* experiencing.

Next time I will be more specific.

I really didn't *mean* I wanted the house to be invaded by the stomach virus. Nope..that wasn't at *all* what I had in mind. But rest we have...well, once we got through the night that Emlyn kept Billy and I up all night sick, and the night that Billy and I were up sick all night ourselves.

It completely knocked us off our feet. We have *all* laid around doing absolutely nothing but sleeping and occasionally watching parts of a movie in between catnaps. I woke up this morning and realized that I had been lying on the sofa for over 36 hours. And suddenly thought..."well, you prayed for rest..."

I'm still not feeling exactly refreshed. And I've got to hit the laundry and dishes (neither of which have been touched since late Thursday) pretty hard today. But hopefully we'll have an easy weekend (well, if Bayley doesn't come down with the bug today...she's the only one who hasn't had it), and we will all be ready to go by Monday.