Wordless Wednesday

Tackle It Tuesday

Here are pictures of our project. We replaced the floor in the laundry room and replaced the utility tub and faucet. I say we but Doug did most of the work but I was available for the entire project for motivation and emotional support :). We want to paint the laundry room and add a Bamboo curtain to cover the furnace/water heater area. We are going to paint the living room, dining room, kitchen and family room first though. I can't stand the colors there now!!

Menu Plan Monday

Here is the plan for the week in no particular order:

Chicken Nacho Bake and Corn

Salad with Chicken and Tortilla Strips

Omelets and Peaches

Carribbean Pork 'N Rice and Asparagus

Baked Chicken, Scallped Potatoes and Green Beans

Homemade Pizza

Here is the recipe for the Chicken Nacho Bake if you're interested.

Prep 10 min Total 40 min

4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1lb)

1/2 cup chunky salsa

1/4 cup sour cream

1/2 cup tortilla chips

1/2 cup mexican shredded four cheese

**I also use taco seasoning to sprinkle on chicken**

Preheat oven to 400 F. Place chicken on foil-covered baking sheet. Slice 3 cuts on top of each chicken breast with a sharp knife. Top each chicken breast with (taco seasoning**) salsa, sour cream and tortilla chips. Bake 20 min. Remove from oven; sprinkle with cheese. Bake an additional 10 min. or until chicken is cooked through(165 F). Makes 4 servings.

My Favorite Commercial

I just can't get enough of this commercial!!!

Heath Ledger

Another day another celebrity death....usually I'm not surprised but I have to say that I was to hear that Heath Ledger died. I REALLY liked him from 10 Things I Hate About You and Knight's Tale. Doug loves the movie Knight's Tale and he watches it everytime its on TV and I didn't mind since he was so cute, it was like a bonus. I know all the facts aren't out yet but I'm really hoping it wasn't a suicide. I really feel bad for these celebrities who struggle and search, if only they knew what we already know!

Wordless Wednesday

Animations provided by MySpaceAnimations.com

Tackle It Tuesday

I'm not only blogging, but I'm a day ahead. I can't wait to see how long this lasts. Anyway, I'm sitting here at the Young Chef's Academy where Robyn is taking a weekly cooking class and I have learned how to pirate internet connections with my laptop named Chip. I know I'm such a dork.

Our Tackle it Tuesday for the week will involve Home Depot. We were distracted by the holidays and birthdays but now we are going to start working on the house. We made up a list of things that we need for small projects so we are going to pick some of them up tomorrow. Here are some of the things we are going to do, hopefully, in the next month.

• Scrap off old tile on laundry room floor and put new flooring down
• Replace utility tub in laundry room
• Repair leaky toilet noise ( I don't know what this involves but luckily Doug does)
• Install new faucet in utility tub
• Replace some outlets that are not holding plugs well
• Paint almost every room in the house (I hate orange!!!!!!)
• Replace sink faucet in master bath

Wow after looking at this list I am being really optimistic. Okay maybe two months.

I'm Motivated!!

Its Sunday night and I'm preparing for another busy week. I was able to get ahead by grocery shopping on Saturday. On Saturday night I had a chance to visit with some friends and we had a great time. I spend most of today working while feeling extremely sleepy and sore from dancing. I didn't get to sleep until 2:30am and Doug had to work so I got up at 7:15am with the kids. I'm not what I used to be!!!

I've decided to get some help with organizing and cleaning my house since time is an issue now. Here's what I came up with, I figured its worth a try:

http://www.flylady.net/

I'm off to a good start:

Monday: Cheesy Chicken Bake with Carrots

Tuesday: Sloppy Joes and Corn

Wednesday: Veggie Casserole and Biscuits

Thursday: Honey BBQ Tenders and Asparagus Spears

Friday: Oriental Chicken and Noodles, Green Beans

Saturday: YUM, YUM Hamburger Helper (yes, I am sarcastic)

Sunday: City Chicken, Rice and Peaches

Normal??

After doing that weird meme the other day I was thinking about how strange I was. I could have keep going with my list and my family could have given TONS of input. Just when I thought I was the weirdest person I knew, I watched American Idol. After seeing that show it put things in perspective and I realized that if I was to stand in that room I would probably be the most normal, boring person there.

Happy 34th Birthday Doug!!!

Robyn is 8 today!!!

I can't believe it but my girl turned 8 today!!! We celebrated by having a family party on Saturday. Today she had two friends from her old school over and we went to the Painted Penguin at the mall to paint ceramics. She had a great weekend and I don't think there could possibly be any gift she wanted that she didn't get between Christmas and her birthday. We are looking forward to celebrating Doug's 34th birthday on Tuesday.

You Make Me Smile Award....

Thank you for the award Shaunda!!!
You Make Me SMILE: Bring Happiness to the world...
I'm passing this award on to Michelle, Rachel and Robyn!

7 Weird Things About Me Meme

I been tagged not once but TWICE thanks to KC and Tina. This is difficult, I don't really want everyone to know how weird I am. Here are 7 Weird things about me:

1. I hate for anyone, including Doug to touch my pillow. It kills me to sleep away from home without my pillow but I don't take mine anywhere because I don't want it to get dirty. If I had the time and energy I would put a new pillowcase on each day. I even have to flip my pillow each night before I sleep on it so I'm not sleeping on the same side each night. I know, really strange. Sometimes Doug will mess with me and flip it to confuse me and it drives me nuts. I started flipping his pillow in the morning when I make the bed and he doesn't know about it.

2. I dance every morning while I'm doing dishes and making lunches. Garrett is always entertained and dances along but Robyn just gets embarrassed and thinks I'm a dork. How can you be embarrassed when its just family??

3. I absolutely have to snack on popcorn at night and when I have to work I just stick my face in the bowl and use my tongue to get the popcorn out so I don't get my laptop greasy. I'm lucky Doug hasn't taken a video of this yet.

4. I have to wear shoes or slippers around the house at all times. My floor never seems clean enough for me and I don't want my socks or feet to get dirty. I can't bear to stand on a crumb. This is really bad when you see it in writing. I am getting more neat freakish as I get older. Hopefully working will change this. I did try to walk around in my socks today but it only lasted 10 minutes.

5. Sometimes I have a 10pm spaz out. I get really hyper and start picking on Doug and jumping around. It drives him crazy because we usually go to sleep at 10pm. I've been better since I cut back on candy and caffeine but it still happens sometimes for no reason.

6. I like to hide things from the kids and Doug and watch them look for it. I don't know why I mess with everyone but it really makes me giggle.

7. Every New Year's Day I go around to everyone in the family pointing out what they haven't done since last year like bathing or brushing their hair or teeth. I also like to announce that everything they do is the first time they are doing it in the new year. By the end of the day I'm even annoyed with myself but its fun while it lasts and I'm creating memories, right?

Wow after seeing this list typed out I feel so exposed! I'm thinking OCD may be a problem. I'm happy though so it doesn't matter.

Healthy Plan for 2008

I'm hoping by putting this writing that I can get back on track. I've learned that sitting still for an extra 40 hours a week can be detrimental to your buttocks! Here are tricks I've used in the past that have worked.

1. No stretchy pants allowed. I feel a lot more guilty eating Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby and Cool Ranch Doritos in tight jeans.

2. Exercise for 30 minutes a day. I do this first thing in the morning otherwise I make excuses and it doesn't get done. I plan for 7 days a weeks so that if something comes up its not a big deal.
3. I'm going to eat 3 meals a day and 3 snacks! This helps to keep my metabolism up and if I schedule the snacks in there just right I'm not always hungry. For breakfast I'll have Special K with strawberries, oatmeal or fruit smoothies. I'm going to try and have soup, tuna fish and turkey sandwiches with celery or carrots on the side for lunches. For snacks I'll have the special K chocolate drizzle bars (because its chocolate!), pretzels, light Breyers Yogurt (I love Key Lime Pie), Club crackers or fruit smoothie. I'll have the normal family dinners because I'm lazy and won't cook two separate meals. I'm going to look up some low-fat meals that I can introduce to the family. My kids complain about dinner anyway so it doesn't make a difference. I always have smart balance microwave popcorn for a snack before bed. This kind helps to keep my cholesterol down and its low in calories.

4. I'm giving up pop, again. I've learned that for me, even drinking diet pop makes me crave more salty snacks. Diet pop=big butt

5. Drink water the entire time I work and throughout the day. I already do this and I feel much better.

6.This sounds kind of silly for weight loss and weight management but shower each day and do your hair and makeup. I know this takes a lot of time but it helps you to feel better about yourself during the day. I struggle with this now since I work at home and only leave the house for grocery shopping and church. Boy, I need to get out!

7. If you are craving something just have a reasonable portion of it. Denying yourself will lead to snacking on everything in the house.

8. If you don't want to eat it don't buy it. The rest of the family LOVES this one.

Trust me there is no other way to lose weight besides diet and exercise. There are only 8 tips that I can think of now so if you are trying to make some healthy changes just try a few at a time and add to it.I used these tricks and I went from a size 14 (after each of the kids were born) to a size 4 and have been able to maintain it. I'm still studying for my personal trainer certification so if I see some good tips I will post them too.

Check out my Slide Show!

New Year Resolutions

After reading Rachel's blog it got me thinking about things that I wanted to change for 2008. That was the first time I stopped to think about it. Here's what I came up with (no specific order):

1. Organize and stay on top of paperwork. Paperwork drives me crazy and it multiplies at such a rapid pace!!

2. LISTEN to my children more.

3. Get back to exercising and maintain my weight. I'll post my tricks on my next post.

4. Get closer to God by getting involved in church and bible study.

5. Get better at balancing work and family.

Update on Andy

Cindy sent an email letting us know how he is doing:
Just an update to let you know that we are finally home from the hospital.
Andy did have another seizure Thursday night, but then Friday morning he started drinking Coca Cola and was able to keep that and 4 bits of Vanilla pudding down. Sat, Sun & Mon he as able to keep real food and milk and water down and all of his medicines.
He is still having blood pressure issues and is on medicine for that and 2 seizure med. He is being weaned off of 1 and onto the other 1 over the next 8 days.
The good thing is we are home now and he is getting stronger and able to play.
Praise God.
WE have to continue blood draw checkups to monitor his liver function (due to the medicine) and his kidneys to make sure the inflammation clears out of them and they continue to function ok.
The Drs. said hopefully in 3 months he will be fine and everything will be cleared out and he will get to go off all of his medicine and be back to normal. He is also on a very LOW sodium diet. That is fun because everything he is used to eating has salt in it, so we are changing that too.
So now I am a part time nurse too :) :)
Thanks for all of your prayers and support during this rough time we have went though.
Cindy

Wordless Wednesday