Wednesday, July 26, 2006

What's cooking?!!

I have often thought how cool it would be to have a little item on the right sidebar called, "What's cooking?!" And there I would just post what we had for dinner. I haven't really looked into doing that, time being what it is, so I thought I'd just post for now.

I am not especially gifted in the area of cooking. Oh, I TRY, but even the recipes I have tried seem to rarely succeed! So when I (or more likely, my wonderful hubby) find something that works, I like to make a note of it. I am also constantly wondering what others are making for dinner, because I am constantly looking for new things to try. :)

Tonight Steve made Pierogies, fried with kielbasa and shallots. We accompanied this with a yummy cheddar cheese sauce (I CAN make a nice cheese sauce!) and peas. It was a hit!! YUMMMM! Kudos to my dear hubby for coming up with this combo. I would've been happy to eat the Pierogies plain with sour cream, but that's not exactly a balanced meal.

So, what did YOU have for dinner?! :)

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Marking Time

Believe it or not, I'm in the middle of a long, involved blog about our potty training adventure... Heh! But being a perfectionist, I need to kind of fine tune it. So I thought I would just share a great idea I was reading about the other day in our paper. The lady in the story was being deployed to Iraq. Her 6 year old son asked her, "How long is a year?" So she made him a paper chain, with a link for each day, and each week is color coded. Every day her son can rip one of the links off to tick off the days.

I thought it was especially great, because Steve will be taking a trip to Peru next month for about 9 days. (Yeah, nine days alone with a toddler!! Anyone want to grab some coffee with me?! :) The last time Steve went to Peru, I made a little calendar for Ian and he got to put stickers on it every day Daddy was gone. But I like the chain idea, especially because I started thinking about putting prayer requests on each link, so we could pray for something specific to that day. But what a great way to mark the passing of time in general!!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Three hours one Thursday

Today, I departed from my usual "frenzied" morning schedule, which if I was to disclose it would probably not seem very frenzied to you at all, so I'm not going to describe my normal activities. :) But today it was raining and last night I had gotten frustrated with the state of our home, so I decided that this morning would be dedicated to staying at home and trying to create order out of the CHAOS! (Flylady describes this as Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome, which I think is sheer genious!)

And so rather than run errands or take the Little Man to the park, Little Man and I stayed home. For three hours I tidied up the kitchen, the dining area, did laundry and tidied up the living room and when it was over I thought... "Why doesn't it look like I did anything?" In the old days, when I was a professional housecleaner, I could clean a 3 or 4 bedroom house in 3 hours!! Shazam!! Today, I barely made a dent in 2 rooms. Very discouraging. But then I have a 2 1/2 year old boy in the house! And he must be kept well occupied in productive, constructive activities! Plus, ya need to take the occasional tickle or snack break, don't ya?!

So if you walked in to my house this afternoon, 5 minutes after Little Man went down for his nap, you'd be pretty unimpressed with my progress. I'm fairly sure, my new role model's house never looks this way. And yes, I was disheartened, but then I spent another half hour or so picking up toys and putting up a border of plates in my kitchen and things were looking up! :) What a difference a toddler-free 30 minutes can make! And as I reasoned to myself, I still got 3 hours of housework in that I would've had to do at another time, so it was worth it.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

My Imaginary Closet

Some privileged few who know me THAT WELL know all about my imaginary closet. I'm not so much a purchaser as I am a browser. Some people purchase on impulse. I am one of those that will argue myself out of the things I really want, writing them off as unpractical, not really ME or just too expensive to justify.

Don't feel sorry for me, though, because I will take that "thing" along with me in my imagination as I leave the store.... technically not really shoplifting! :) I will hang that item up in my imaginary closet and enjoy it there for weeks, months and years to come and never once regret not buying it. It's a gift!! I base this on the law of diminishing marginal returns which states (basically) that at some point, the more you have of something, the less you appreciate that thing.

Well, my imaginary closet works for me!! But my beloved mother-in-law, who was a shopper and purchaser to the core, could never understand this. She loved me in spite of it, but when we went shopping together, I made her crazy... which in reality only increased the pleasure of the item in my imaginary closet. Ahhh! The memories!!

"If you like it, why didn't you buy it?!", she'd say with exasperation.
"I don't need it.", I'd reply with a smile.
"Ah, GUFFF!!", she'd exclaim. (This favorite saying of hers was the combined sounds of frustration and disappointment, and always made me smile.)

Anyway, I say all this only by way of explanation....Can you make this jump?.... I have caught myself recently making mental notes on places that would be fun to visit without a child... you know, on a date!! Yes, yes, it's true. I am starting to take imaginary dates.
The most recent place I happened upon through and ad in the paper. It's called "The Whistling Kettle". Just checking out their website sent me on an imaginary date. :) So much fun!! I mean, just look at their menu! Yummy! Makes me feel like I'm back in Scotland. I really do need to get out more.