Perhaps...

The the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
"What if Valentines doesn't come from the store?
What if love, perhaps, means a little bit more?"


Love waits without complaining. 
Love is always kind to others.
Love doesn't want other people's toys or money or clothes.
Love never brags about what it has or what it can do.
Love doesn't think it is better than other people.
Love uses its best manners, always and with everyone. 
Love says 'you first' instead of 'me first.'
Love doesn't throw fits.
Love doesn't tattle, nor does it laugh when others are sad.
Love always forgives.  
Love doesn't think it's fun or funny to break the rules. 
Love never, ever lies.  
Love always hopes in God. Love believes that God is good, no matter what happens.
Love is a true friend, no matter what happens. 
Love lasts forever and ever.


1 Corinthians 13:4-7.  Put simply.  


Paraphrase of 1 Corinthians borrowed from http://itsalmostnaptime.blogspot.com/.

In Defense of Valentines

It happens every year at this time.  The cards and hearts come out and usher in the bashing of Valentine's Day.

It's just another Hallmark holiday AKA Singles Awareness Day or if you actually loved someone, you would show it all the time.  

Whatever.  I actually like Valentines Day.  Especially the chocolate.  And yes, as with most things, I have my opinions about the bashing.

Obviously if you're single and not content to be so, this day is going to bug you.  But if your reason for being irritated has everything to do with your lack of companionship (and by that I mean, if you plan on enjoying this day when you have found someone special to share it with), then the issue might be you and not the actual day.  Take this as a challenge to celebrate your family and friends.  Especially me.  With some chocolate.  Or just celebrate you.  There's no rule that says you can't buy yourself a little treat.

Or if you're of the type that says its a Hallmark holiday...then avoid the Hallmark store.  Personally, I would propose that ALL holidays are Hallmark holidays, and nearly all of us tend to give in to the retail giants during "acceptable" celebrations.  Just remember though, when it comes to celebrating any holiday, no purchase is actually necessary.  But a scotchmallow from See's never hurt anybody.

Just saying.

And the biggest argument of them all:  if you love someone, you'll let them know all year long.  I absolutely agree.  I believe showing our loved ones we care about them is important and that doing so should be a regular, if not daily, occurrence.  I'd go even further and tell you it is so important that we shouldn't just stop there.  No, we ought to go all-out on occasion (I say a minimum one day a year) with at least a love note.  And maybe a lemon truffle.  Maybe.

Final thoughts:  honestly, we would never dream of missing the celebration of Mother's Day because that could be downright offensive.  I mean, it's your mother.  But somehow we justify away the festivities of Valentine's Day because, well, "I told him I loved him yesterday."  Isn't that enough?  No, no it isn't.

Unless you also shared some chocolate butter creams.

Woohoo!

I guess by this point it's pretty typical for me to go weeks without blogging.  But this time I come bearing an excuse.

You see, last week this happened:

Yes, that is my little sister getting proposed to by her awesome boyfriend.
At Disneyland.
In front of the castle.

How perfect is that, am I right??

So the past week has been spent shopping for things like this...

and these...

It's been a total blast.  

No really. 

Actually, I LOVE event planning.  Instead of doing laundry and vacuuming, I've been spending hours researching glitter and vases and I have the perfect excuse to do so!

That said, I apologize for my lack of blogging, but for you women readers, it should all make sense now.  As for my one male reader (aka my husband), just consider this an excuse to watch more Mythbusters.  =) 

Our Weekend

I don't have much to blog about right now because, for the first time since last year (hahaha.  yes, I still totally get a kick out of that), the one word that describes our weekend is "lazy."  And "awesome."  Err...."lazyawesome."

This past weekend, we had us some naps:

I made my best pot of beef stew to date:

And somehow my husband totally rocked it in the cookie department.  I'm not trying to imply that he can't bake a batch of cookies - he can - but he doesn't have a lot of baking experience to his name, so naturally I expected him to produce an average-tasting confectionery treat.  Especially when he had to make home-made brown sugar because we ran out (pretty sure my kids eat way more oatmeal in this house than is normal).

I distinctly heard some angels hollering when I bit into one.  They were crazy-good...sent directly to us from cookie paradise.  Mmm-mmm.

Menu Planning

Of all my budget categories, there is one that continuously taunts me.  Almost like fourth graders on a playground, but not quite because I'm not exactly in the fourth grade and it's my budget - not a fourth grader - doing the taunting.  So I guess not really anything like a fourth grader.  Nevertheless, it taunts.

I'm referring to my grocery budget.

When it comes to cooking, I waffle between being incredibly lazy (cereal anyone?) to unlocking my inner Cat Cora.  But most of my success at dinnertime has nearly everything to do with how prepared my kitchen is to accept the cooking challenge, and that same preparation (i.e. menu planning) also helps me save money.

I started menu planning last March after my husband and I paid off our debt.  I kept reading about how menu planning saves money, but it didn't make sense until I tried it out.  Ironically, when you're not running to the store 4 times a week, you don't spend money at the store 4 times a week.  I'm still not perfect, but I am much, much better.

My basic formula is this:

1. I open allrecipes.com, foodnetwork.com, and marthastewart.com.  I search for recipes that use overlapping ingredients.  Well, and that sound yummy.  I add the dinner menu to my list, then print out the appropriate recipes.

2. I create a shopping list based on the ingredients I don't have.  Instead of writing "potatoes", I'm very specific.  I write "3 red potatoes" if that's how many my recipe calls for.  The only thing I buy in non-specific portions are the various fruits my kids eat because they ALWAYS get consumed before the fruit goes bad.  I also stay away from buying items simply because "they're on sale."  For instance, I don't purchase dressing that is on sale simply because it's on sale.  If we don't need it in the next week, I don't buy it (there are some exceptions to this rule, especially regarding certain meat).

3. I grab my reusable bags and go shopping (Sprouts and Target both knock off 5 cents per reusable bag).  I visit Sprouts for my produce and meat, Costco for bulk items (chicken stock, organic eggs), Target for pantry items, and Trader Joe's for the specialty stuff (frozen fruit for smoothies, buttermilk, etc).

4. When I get home, I start putting the food away, one shelf at a time.  I first clear the shelf, wipe it down, then put the food away.  That way I am reminded exactly what I have in my fridge and where it went.

My husband is a big fan of leftovers (yay!) so he often eats those for lunch.  I also make sure to have sandwich fixings or something quick (see: pizza) to throw in the oven on those super busy days.  

One of these days I'll be more organized and have a folder of past (successful) recipes to pull from, but for now I still just think of something that I feel like making and start my search from there.  

Other budget tips:

-We actually NEVER buy juice.  Other than water, the only beverage my kids really drink are smoothies, and that usually makes up half their meal. 

-If I have leftover produce from the week before, I try to find recipes that incorporate them.  For instance, I know we won't make it through the container of tomatoes this week, so next week will most likely include spaghetti.  =)

-Buy in bulk - but only if you'll use it!  It is WAY more cost-effective for me to purchase flour, chicken stock, butter and eggs at Costco.  However, our family can't make it through their huge bag of asparagus or cucumbers in time for it to be a worthwhile purchase.  

If you haven't tried menu planning before, I really encourage you to give it a try.  It really makes dinner-making WAY more doable.  If you need recipe ideas or any help, please feel free to email me.  There are also tons of websites dedicated to menu planning.  And for the simplest start for the non-cook, check out e-mealz.com.  It costs about $5 a month, but definitely worth it if you're clueless in the kitchen!  =)

Thimble List 2012

My blog is one year old.  Happy birthday blog, happy birthday to you.

To celebrate, I've compiled my thimble list for 2012.  And if there is anything I've learned in this past year, it's to not write down quite so many goals, because apparently I'm not as motivated to complete them as I thought I would be.

I mean seriously - I put down the goal to read 24 books last year.  How many did I finish?  23.  23!  Ridiculous.

So, here are my goals this year:

-Continue blog.  Make it wildly successful.
-Read 25 books.  (Actually my goal is 24, but if I say 25, then perhaps it means I'll finish 24.)
-Take 2 classes.
-Walk 2x a week.
-Read Bible regularly.
-FINISH HOME STUDY AND DOSSIER FOR ADOPTION.
-And most importantly, love my family and make new memories with them!

Judgement day.

Err...week...

One of my biggest pet peeves is premature judgement.  Not that I haven't been found guilty because I would readily admit that one of my biggest weaknesses is judging others.  Not you, of course.  Just others.

=P

Needless to say, I have felt the sting of being judged more times than seems normal this past week and I don't know if it really is me or if it's something in the water.

Example #1:
On Thursday I needed a newspaper.  Conveniently there is a newspaper stand right in front of our local post office, which is less than a mile away.  So I went and pulled up in front of the newspaper dispenser, stuck on my hazards, and grabbed my change.  As I did that, a car pulled in behind me, apparently thinking I was moving forward...?  Not sure her thoughts, but she wasn't too pleased that I was stopped and getting out of my car in front of the newspaper dispenser so she sped her car around mine and yelled at me:  "THAT'S NOT A PARKING SPOT!!!"  I looked around to be sure it was me she was yelling at.  Apparently it was.  So she whipped her car in front of mine, stopped it and got out to drop mail in the mailbox.  Well, you know me, I'm just so sweet so I let her know, "that's not a parking spot."

"I'M JUST MAILING SOME PACKAGES"  


"Well, I'm just buying a newspaper."   So there.  And ironically we took the same amount of time, including me getting more change from my car because - FYI folks - newspapers cost a $1.  Of course, as fate would have it, I had to follow her the mile back to my house because she happened to be going the exact same direction as myself.  Awkward.

Example #2:
I had to go to the store today.  Fine. Great  Wonderful.  Fantastic.  I also had to take all three of my kids with me.  Fine. Great  Wonderful.  Fantastic.  And it's a Saturday in December.  Yeah...not so fine, great, wonderful OR fantastic.  Parking is ridiculous, friends, ridiculous.  So I grabbed a spot over yonder and trekked it towards the store.  With all three kids.  On a Saturday in December.  Oy.  Shopping was actually fine, except for one child spilling a water bottle all over the floor and another peeing their pants a stone's throw away from the bathroom, for which I had to tear off a jacket from another child to clean it up.  Fine, great, wonderful...really guys, just fantastic.  Not anything a super mom can't handle.  Although I do give myself props for thinking of the jacket-turned-towel.  Brilliant.

But then came the time to load the car with the groceries.  Fine.  And get the children in their seats and settled.  Great.  I was then stuck with a cart, and don't you forget that we parked "over yonder" so my options on what to do with the cart were limited.  Wonnnnderful.  I could park it behind the car next to me or jump it onto a nearby curb.  I sweetly (because that's how I do things) put it up on the curb and out of the way of traffic.  Fantastic.

Wouldn't you know that at that exact time the Honorable Judge was destined to walk past.  With a disgusted look on his face he blurted out  "Reeeally??"  Again, I did the look around to be sure it was me he was accusing.  Yep, definitely me.  This time I was exhausted and just let it go.  Of course he couldn't have seen me load three kids into my car.  And he definitely wasn't a mom, so he couldn't understand my fear of walking away from my car with such precious cargo inside, especially on a Saturday in December.  But to make his point even more brutally clear, he grabbed my cart and stared me down as he took it to its rightful place.  Umm, thank you?

I just sunk into my car seat and drove home feeling defeated and tried to encourage myself that I had done nothing wrong.  It's been a rough week.

What's the point of this particular blog?  I guess it's this:
-If you're being prematurely judged, consider the reality that they don't know your whole story and, in their minds, they think they're right.
-If you're prematurely judging, consider the reality that you don't know the whole story and you may very well be wrong.
-Don't give your child a water bottle in the grocery store.
-Visit the bathroom frequently.