Here again

Once again the stress has gotten to me and kept me from my blogging duties. My last post included snow. It is now a beautiful (and unseasonable) August day. In the meantime, we've gone on a family vacation. We've started school. I started a new job at work. I started clipping coupons again (I got 3 packages of fresh salsa for 19 cents each!). We've started another child on piano lessons, and started a new fall sport. A viola is soon to enter our home (hopefully). We've been busy.

And I owe you all many, many stories, thoughts, pictures, observations, frustrations, accomplishments and worries. Believe me, they've been occurring. I just haven't had the time (or motivation) to put them in cyberspace.

They'll come (at least some of them) eventually.

Until then, here's a few pictures of the last 5 months, in no particular order. Enjoy a small snapshot into our lives:






(Can you find my kids in this picture? Get the scale of this beast?)


(I know some of you should recognize this car!)


You know me -- once the stress of not posting gets to me, I find my brain overflowing with all the elements that I should be blogging about, and I get so overwhelmed that I just put it on the back burner so I don't have to worry about it. So now, I've broken through the worry... put at least one blog out there... and hopefully I'll update more. Really. (Maybe.)

It snowed... and then it was spring

On the last few days of March, it snowed. It was the most snow we'd seen all winter. And it was spring. Our city officially got about 6 inches. It came with blizzard-like conditions. Freezing rain and sleet preceded it. Luckily we had nothing to do, but stay home and keep warm.


Once the sun came out, and before it could all be melted away, we took advantage of the soggy wet snow.





This was the kids' creation on Saturday:

Monday Morning:

Tuesday morning:

And then, on the first day of April, Brad brought these home for me, for no reason at all.

I think he knew I needed some springtime.
Lauryn picked out this beauty:

Once she found out it was Bri's favorite flower, she decided we should send it to her. She didn't fully comprehend the constraints of the postal service. So your flower sits on our kitchen table, Bri. Just know we're enjoying it for you!

Happy Spring everyone!

(Owen's knee has been checked out -- he's been cleared to return to normal activity. The brace came off yesterday, and he literally spent the rest of the afternoon and evening racing through the house. He ran through the doctor's parking lot to the car. He raced into piano lessons. He wasn't walking to the bathroom, he was running, turning on a dime, and practicing his defensive moves the whole time. Time for a bedtime snack? Running off to the kitchen, dodging the imaginary opposing team along the way. I think the last 2 and a half weeks have been the longest of his life!)

Chicken Noodle Casserole

It's a pretty basic recipe, and maybe you all have your own favorite Chicken Noodle Casserole recipes. If so, disregard this post. (No, actually, send me your recipe, I'd love to have it!) But its cheap, easy and goes over well, especially with the kids. So I'm sharing. Everyone should have a recipe so easy! Its from a family friend and is a recipe I remember feasting on often in my youth. (And a great use of all of the chicken broth and cooked chicken after buying split chicken breasts!)

The recipe:
10-16 oz. Egg Noodles (any small noodle/pasta will work. )
1/2 c. butter/margarine
1/3 c. flour
2 c. chicken broth
1 c. cream of mushroom soup
salt, pepper to taste
2 c. cooked chicken
Parmesan cheese

Start by melting your butter/margarine in a large skillet. Start a big pot of hot water to cook your noodles.

When the butter is melted, sprinkle the flour on top.

Using a whisk, stir together the butter and flour, making a paste-like substance.

Then slowly add your broth, a little bit at a time, whisking at the same time to break up the chunks of your butter/flour mixture. (If you pour it in all at once, its going to be harder to break up that mixture, and you will end up with clumps.)

When the butter, flour and broth is mixed together it should be smooth like this:

Add cream of mushroom soup and stir in. (You can also use cream of chicken or celery, but I think mushroom has the best taste.)

Stir in your shredded, cooked chicken and heat through, simmering. Salt and pepper to taste. This recipe is good with a generous amount of pepper.

Your noodles should be done by now -- add them in, stir through.

If you like a very saucy casserole, use only 10-8 oz. noodles, I use up to a pound of noodles, and it works just as well, there's just less sauce.

The recipe says to pop it in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes, although I rarely do. Then just top with grated/shredded Parmesan and enjoy!
I love this recipe because its easy, cheap and the whole family loves it. It freezes easily. When I make this recipe with a pound of pasta it will feed our family of 4 twice. I just pop half of it into a casserole dish, cover tightly and freeze for next time. Thaw it in the fridge a day or two ahead of time, and pop it into the oven for 20-30 min. (This is also my standard casserole to give to families with new babies, deaths in the family, etc.)

And I get to laugh every time I see a commercial or article in a magazine to "feed your family of 4 for less than $10!" When I use my homemade chicken broth and cooked chicken (from this post) this casserole costs about $3 to make (and we stretch it into 2 meals, so $1.50. ) That's per MEAL, not per person. In the plate above the veggies and fruit are the most expensive part of the meal. On this night, I figured out our entire meal cost about 75 cents each.
So go forth, eat, prosper, get full, and save your cash for a night at the movies!

Split Chicken Tutorial

I hate those commercials that say "these days, you're all trying to stretch your dollar" or "we cannot afford to waste money right now." Are there people out there who can afford to waste money at any time?? Or people who don't always try to stretch the dollar as far as they can? Obviously, they're not Mennonites!

Yes, the economy is rough these days, and people are doing what they can to cut back. We've tried to as well. But we've always been pretty frugal people -- especially when it comes to our food. We buy mostly generic, cut coupons for those few brands we are loyal to, look for sales, stock up, store & freeze, when possible. (Unfortunately, that means we don't often buy organic or locally grown. Its simply not available, or way out of our price range, especially when we aren't in farmer's market season. If this is absolutely essential to your cooking -- this blog may not affect you much. Sorry.)

I almost always buy split chicken breasts (with the ribs still on), and de-bone them myself, because they're about half the price of raw fresh boneless, skinless breasts. (If you are well versed in this process, skip this blog. But if you've always picked up the boneless, skinless because its just easier... keep reading, the process really is not that hard!)

This week, split chicken breasts were on sale for $1/pound. I remember that it used to be my rule that I wouldn't pay more than that -- I'd just do without until the sale came around. But in recent years, the price has never gotten that low. So this week I stocked up. I think I bought about 12 pounds.


(Not my photo -- but this is what the chicken will look like, when you buy it.)

So I had a lot of chicken to deal with. I de-boned. Basically, that just means cutting/ripping off the skin, and cutting out the obvious breast portion of the meat. Then I try to cut the tenderloins, or other pieces off of the bone -- as much as I can. Its okay to leave some meat on the bone.

In this installment, I think I was working with about 6-7 pounds of meat. I got probably 9 large pieces of breast meat, 9 tenderloin pieces, and a chunk of small pieces.

I packaged them up for the freezer in small plastic bags I could use. Some were individual breasts, pieces soaked in soy sauce for stir fry, some in jerk chicken marinade, and another couple of freezer-friendly meals. (Check out "Don't Panic! Dinner's in the Freezer" for all sorts of freezer friendly meals. Many include putting all of the raw ingredients together, freezing, then you just pop out the bag and put the ingredients in the crockpot, the day of. Its a well-used gift from my sister.)

You're left with all those rib pieces/bones with bits of raw chicken stuck to them. Get a big stockpot boiling with water, and throw in all of those bones. I throw in some seasonings -- garlic, onion, a few celery stalks if you have them, salt, pepper, basil, bay leaf, etc. Then, let it simmer. (I actually got my stock pot simmering, then I assembled all my chicken for recipes/freezer, while I waited for the chicken to cook down.)

Let your chicken simmer a long time. Mine went about 90 minutes. Keep the lid on, stirring occasionally. (I left my lid off too much, and my stock simmered down too much.) You can also do this in a big crockpot, turn it on low and let it simmer all day.

You're left with a big pot of chicken broth and a pile of chicken and bones. (Again, you should probably have more broth than this photo shows.) Let it sit until its cool enough for you to work with it.

Your breast pieces will look like this: chicken half-way hanging on to the pieces of bone.

Then you just separate. The stuff that looks like yummy chicken, you keep. The stuff that looks like bone, gristle, skin, you toss. Here was the final product:

I got about 3 cups worth of cooked, seasoned chicken. I put them in plastic bags, a cup at a time, and then I can quickly get them out when a recipe asks for cooked chicken.

Remember, you've also got several cups worth of good broth too. I pour mine (straining, to make sure little pieces of gunk aren't getting in the broth) into empty cottage cheese containers, or peanut butter jars, and freeze.

When your next recipe calls for broth or cooked chicken -- just thaw it in the microwave and go!

So want to talk about frugal? Out of my 7 pounds of chicken (for $7) I had 9 breasts, 2 bags of tenderloins, 2 bags of cut up chicken pieces, and 3 cups of cooked chicken. In my family of four -- we could stretch that into probably 12-15 meals, provided the meat is not a full entree (i.e. casseroles, stir fry, etc.) It will probably be closer to 8-10 meals, when we choose to grill the breasts, or make some variance of baked chicken. Even if your household is more meat-eating than ours... its still a great deal compared to $4.99 a pound for boneless, skinless chicken breasts!

Enjoy!

(Great chicken noodle casserole recipe -- to use that cooked chicken and broth -- coming in the next blog! Stay tuned!)

My vampire days are almost over!

Its official. The announcement has been made at work. I got the promotion! (Although before you start lumping me into some "executive-at-AIG-type-business-suit-person," I should explain that its not so much a promotion as it is added stress, responsibility and hours for... well, lets just say a modest bump in pay. "Promotion" sounds so grown up and real. Like "mortgage" or "investment portfolio." Is it weird that I sometimes still think of myself as 15 years old?) Really, I'm not complaining. Job security is something I am thankful for, now more than ever. Seriously. I'm happy for the job. I knew it was happening for quite some time now, we just had to work out exactly how and when. My replacement starts next week, and after a couple of weeks of training, I'll be on a normal daytime schedule.

I am excited, but still it comes with mixed feelings. As I think most of you know, I work in TV news, and have spent the last 4 years producing our morning show. I love the crew. I love the show. I love the freedom. I love the fun. I love that I am by myself for most of the night (working midnight to 8 am) and have nobody there to bother me. I love that I can run stories by Jeanne Moos, (check out her official bio here, although she looks way too serious in that picture), or leave my anchors cracking up after running a story about the karaoke cab (totally worth a watch), or the dog that ate $400 that left its owners searching for, um, deposits. I've loved having fun with my show.

But changes are coming to my workplace. People are shifting, moving, leaving, being promoted. And after more than a year of discussion, it was time for me to move into a new job as well. I will no longer produce a daily show, and instead take on a lower/middle management job, helping to keep the newsroom on task,working with the staff to producing the best stuff we can everyday. I look forward to the challenge.

I originally moved to the morning show (from an often-10-hour daytime shift) to spend more time with the kids. I can work all night, sleep from 8-3/4, and spend the afternoon and evening with the family. It has been wonderful. Although not always "easy." A lot of things happen in the middle of the day, and unfortunately, won't wait until I wake up to take part. Dr. appointments, school programs, phone calls -- there has been a constant stream of "something" that got me up in the middle of my "night." Brad has been wonderful about taking care of the kids during the day, or working his schedules around mine. We've been thankful to keep Lauryn out of daycare (she starts Kindergarten in the fall). But in the end, you just can't work the night shift forever. I know some people do, but it it was long enough for me. Having both kids in full-time school next year will make the change a little more bearable. (My doctor is also glad for the switch. There is plenty of research out there that says sleeping on an opposite shift is simply not natural, and not good for the body. I know I have gotten sick more in the past 4 years than I have in the 15 before it. It takes a toll on the body, of that, I am sure. I'm sure I'll drop 10 pounds immediately upon sleeping at night....)

So changes are coming. And it will mean changes at home too -- I've been making up food for the freezer, since I will likely be coming home at 6 or later each night. I'll be called-in more often to deal with issues. I'll have to always have a cell phone on me. (That means I'm actually going to have to enter the 21st century and GET a cell phone. ) I'll be working all day and night, when the BIG stories happen. We've been warning the kids they're going to have to pick up more chores around the house. (Its mostly my fault that they don't anyway. I've been guilty of shooing them out of the kitchen, saying "go play, so I can clean up," instead of teaching them to help, and dealing with their methods. Control Freak? Me? What?!?) Brad, once again is willing to make his life work around my work schedule. He will be in charge of even more kid stuff, and I thank him tremendously for that. My husband has been an amazing support to me and my career since day one (including the college years.) I would NOT be where I am today, if it were not for him. He is a true knight in shining armour. I am so lucky to have found him.

It will be nice to go to bed with my husband each night. When a child wakes up with a fever or throwing up in the middle of the night, I will be there. (It broke my heart each time I got a call at 4 a.m., Brad saying "Lauryn doesn't feel good." Of course he could handle it, but I wanted to be there too. ) It will be nice to be able to leave at noon to go see an awards assembly at school, or eat lunch with the kids in the cafeteria. It will be nice that I don't feel like a zombie on the weekends, when I try to switch my schedule around. I will enjoy the sunshine again. And professionally, it will feel good to expand my horizons, push myself, take on new challenges and plan for the future.

Now, for the biggest stress: the cell phone. I know nothing. Any suggestions? I'm looking for a family plan (2 lines) possibly making my line a smart phone. (Is it necessary? Will I really use it? Or will I get addicted to it?) No, I'm not getting the iphone, its too expensive. Blackberry? What do I need to look for in a phone? Any horror stories? What the heck does "3G network mean?" Are all brands of phone the same? Why Blackberry over Samsung or Palm? I'll probably go with Altell/Verizon, since that's what so many of my friends and family have (thus making calls free.) But other than that, I'm lost. Seriously. The last cell phone salesman I talked to, looked at me like I was from the dark ages. I think I am. Do cell phones come with rotary dials?? Help!!

(Oh my lord, that was a long post without pictures. If you've made it this far, you must really love me!)

What we did on spring break

The kids have returned to school after a week of spring break. They were ready. This past Friday, Lauryn asked "Mom, when do I get to go back to school?" I'm so glad she loves school. This was the first break in probably 4 years that they haven't been shipped off to grandma's for most/part of the break, so Brad and I could tackle a home-improvement project. I couldn't get any time off of work, so we just stayed at home.

We kicked off the break with Owen's first soccer game of the season (on a very chilly morning.) Then it was off to the grandparents for the weekend where they got to spend time with my sister.

Brad and I got to celebrate a friend's 35th birthday party. We had a good time. We saw people we hadn't seen in more than a year, and made new friends. We stayed out late. We went out for coffee the next morning. We hung out at the book store for a couple hours. We felt like grown-ups.

On Monday, I was released from jury duty, without ever having to show up. I was relieved. I did NOT want to do my civic duty that week.

On Tuesday, Owen strained/sprained his knee playing soccer (or really, more just screwing around) with Brad in the back yard. After 90 minutes at the doctor, we came home with a knee brace, got out the ice and ibuprofen, and plopped Owen down on the couch. We were told to keep him off his knee for a few days, then after that, no running, jumping, horsing around. Walking is okay. But don't stress it. Needless to say, it sort of put a kink our spring break plans. No trips to the zoo, the children's museum. No long walks along the river, or bike rides on the trails. Our spring break ended up more electronic than we hoped it would be.

But we had good times. We read books, played video games, watched movies, swung on the backyard swing, played in the sandbox, ate ice cream, painted, drew, slept in late, stayed up late, went to the store at 8:30 p.m. just because we could, kept our pajamas on until noon. It was a relaxing break, even if I still had to do that pesky thing called work. It was nice to not have to worry about all the rest of the schedules.

Among the other things we learned the past week:
Owen and Lauryn love grapefruit (who knew!?)
Despite beautiful weather, the mornings are still perfect for wearing pajamas and sitting on the heater (the one day this week we actually turned it on.)

Cleaning isn't so bad when its done as a team:

Balling a melon is surprisingly easy, and fun!

Making lattes at home (something I rarely splurge on) is a ton of fun. I bought an "aerolatte" to froth my milk. The kids have had fun with "gourmet hot chocolate." (Should I tell them, its pretty much the same thing, with foam and sprinkled cinnamon on top??)

Oh yeah, and the first morning that you have to get up at 7 can be difficult:

Back to school, everyone!

Laundry mat

First off, thanks for all the reading suggestions. I will admit that I feel like I have cheated in the "Western" department. I shunned all of your suggestions and went for one of the shortest western novels I found in my neighborhood library -- thinking, if it was terrible, at least it was short. Well, it was short. I predicted the ending on page 7. I was correct. But I had to wade through the rest of the anti-Native American sentiment of the rest of the book before I could find that out. Oh well. Western. Check. Moving on. Thoroughly enjoying a biography on Rosa Parks right now. More on my reading in another post.

Meanwhile, our house seems to be falling apart at the seams. Washing machine's spin cycle stopped working. Shower stopped working. Ancient dishwasher really isn't washing dishes much anymore. Faucet still leaks.

So Saturday, we spent an afternoon at the laundry mat.

I used this entire row of washers. I only lost about $2.50 in machines that didn't work. Mostly I just carted wet laundry home (the dryer still works) because why pay for something you can do at home? I was surrounded by laundry basket of wet clothes all day. But at least they were clean.


We were reminded of Corduroy. Lauryn loved the colors, the action, the giant machines. She was happy to take part in the adventure.

Owen was happy to sit in a corner with his DS or favorite book.

I'll admit I had an "am I really this old" moment, when I was entirely disgusted by the couple (woman in her early 20s, man probably in his 30s) who felt it necessary to display their intense love to the rest of the laundry mat patrons. Nothing graphic, just hugging, kissing, cuddling, never getting more than 2 inches away from each other, even as they emptied their washing machines. I should have thought it was sweet. Instead I thought it was disgusting. My teenage self would think I am SO old and square right now.

So while we contemplate our repair options (pay for a service call, not knowing the price, or pay for the extended warranty that may be a waste of funds?) we at least have a house full of clean clothes (still stacked in laundry baskets), a bath that still works (who needs showers?) and a kitchen sink that will wash dishes, just fine.

I'm thankful for all we have.