Weekend's Almost Over... boo hoo....

This was a cooking weekend! Yummy! On Friday night, I made my famous pizza! My bread machine is one of my most useful (and time-saving) tools in the kitchen. For all of you Atkins (Adkins... whatever!) fans out there, WE LOVE CARBS! As long as we (I) eat them in moderation, I will be ok! I usually top it off with some fancified Prego, some mozzarella cheese, and other toppings.

Pizza dough:
1 c warm water
3 T olive oil (or vegetable oil)
1 1/2 T granulated sugar
1 t salt
3 c bread flour
1 1/2 t active dry yeast

Put it all in the bread machine (in the order stated above) and set to "dough" cycle. Voila! In approximately 50-75 minutes, you will have pizza dough... ready to roll!

Trust me! It is absolutely fabulous, and inexpensive to make, too! Try it... You'll like it!

And Saturday morning, I made pancakes, both traditional and banana, with bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and orange juice. Heck no! I did not squeeze the oranges myself! Frozen concentrate works just fine for me... However, the banana pancakes were not IHOP style... the bananas were actually mashed with a fork and added to the batter, prior to griddle-baking. I would like to thank my wonderful workers who helped with breakfast - all three of the older girls helped, Renee, Stacy & Rey-Rey! Congrats ladies!!! You did a great job.

Saturday night, we had... (drumroll please!)... fettucine alfredo with grilled lemon-marinated chicken breast, broccoli on the side, and two types of bread (love that bread machine!)- rosemary-olive oil french rolls, and soft butter-top rolls. The kids (and Juan, too!) absolutely loved it all. Marissa ate her "own" food... but the rest of us filled our tummies. I know this is a totally fatty dish, but once again... in moderation, all should be ok...

This afternoon, we had chicken and dumplings (one of my all-time favorites for comfort food). It was totally delish! Easy enough for me to make, some people find it daunting. It was good, and we all enjoyed it. I pretty much only like dumplings "strip" style. I really don't like globules of uncooked dough that comes in the center of "drop" dumplings. Yuck! Anyway, we all liked it, except Marissa, who once again, ate her own food.

I've never had a picky eater. This is absolutely remarkable to me. I am astounded that Marissa could "not like" some of the things we eat. Way back when, I used to think picky eaters were developed from parents not giving their children a variety of foods. However, due to recent circumstances, my thoughts and opinions have changed dramatically. Marissa loved and ate everything as an infant. New foods that were introduced were not a problem... However, now they are! Yikes... what to do!

Tomorrow is MLK's birthday, so the kids have the day off... well, sort of. Stacy still has practice in the morning, so the rest of us will spend time at a friend's house scrapbooking and/or crafting for 3 hours, then come back home to complete some more decluttering.

Yahoo! Everything I listed on Freecycle is GONE! EVERYTHING! Now I can start on another little pile...

OK... enough rambling! It's almost 4am here, and I'm kinda tired... don't even realize what I'm saying or what I've already said... Did I forget to mention those yummy Krispy Kremes that Juan brought home Friday night? Uh... that's probably because there aren't any left! Those dang kids! lol! Yeah right... I didn't eat a single one, did I? Hmmmm........ Yummmm....... 'Night, 'night... Toodles for now! lisa

De-Cluttering Me Finding Freebies

Today I am finishing up the laundry (oh fun!), and other miscellaneous items that I've been neglecting...

One thing I really like is http://www.freecycle.org/. This is a wonderful site where you can get rid of (or find) items that you don't want to through away, but don't want to pile up for a yard sale, either in hopes that someone else may be able to use it. It is a great way to help someone else help you. I was "piling up" items to "freecycle" items and finally realized... I need to get rid of it, not just store it, so... I finally posted things that have been sitting here, just waiting for me to do just that. Hmm... maybe next week I'll finally get to taking pictures and listing stuff on e-bay or another site... One thing crossed off my list!

Another... today is the 27-fling paper clutter boogie! (Check out the link of the FlyLady to the right...) And so, I boogied 2 sets of 27 items, some of them being magazines! Yay me! I checked out one of the magazines, though... I just got it this week. It is called Successful Living. Very interesting, had some quick tips and thought to get yourself organized, had some easy recipes and a little bit about a lot. If you would like a FREE charter subscription to this magazine, subscribe to it online: www.tslc.com/magazine. It is pretty good for free...

Also, on the inside cover of this magazine was an ad for Coleman Natural Foods. If you go to their website, and fill out a quick survey, you get a booklet of coupons and a FREE apron: http://www.colemannatural.com/. The survey only took one minute of my time, and for those of you who like it really organic, they are the brand for you!

And those scraps of paper that I had written phone numbers, addresses, and e-mails are NO MORE! Typed them into the computer and waa-la! Gone is the little clutter of little papers... By the way... send me your phone number, address (e-mails, too!), and birthday, if you don't think I have it. Technology makes it so much easier to keep in touch, free of charge!

Love those freebies! I'll keep going... Toodles for now! lisa

Tacos, Turtles and Rainbows

Sunday night, I went to pick up Stacy & Rey. So... with most of our family there (Jolene, Ariel, Josh, Vic, Jake, Mom & John, and me with my kids), we had a "taco night." Yummy! It was wonderful and we all over-indulged ourselves, which is not hard to do when the food is great and there's plenty of it.

Marissa got to play with Jake a lot, which she's been really bugging me to do... They get along pretty well, for the most part, but they each have their moments when one doesn't want to do what the other does and it's a little comedy at that point.

Monday, I spent a large portion of time cleaning the "turtle tank." We have a female red-eared slider. She is semi-aquatic, loves to swim, loved snails, goldfish, crickets, grasshoppers, pothos, dandelions, and other free types of food. So... she is relatively inexpensive to take care of. It is just a lot of work once a month, when we clean her tank...

**But, Ms. Marissa really enjoyed it this day, as we were rinsing stuff out, and she wanted to go "under the rainbow" (run through the water). It was really quite cute and fun to watch her enjoy this timeless activity that we all used to enjoy (and some still do!). We played a while, then had to change her clothes. (Heaven forbid if the kid is "wet!")

**Then we watched our turtle, Bubbles, for a while. She really is interesting. She chases goldfish throughout her tank, hunting for them. They scramble to stay out of her jaws. They hide behind the large rocks in her tank and stay out of her sight for days at a time. There are currently 4 fish (two gold-colored and two grayish) still in the tank. Two are from a couple of weeks ago (the grey, as they are hard to see) and two are from just the other day. When the chase is on, it is funny and fascinating! (Snail-eating is cool to watch, too!) It provides entertainment and responsibility for us.

**By the way, she was free to us. We got the turtle, tank, stand, light, aquarium necessities and some food for free. How did we do this? There is a wonderful website called Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/)! This is a great way to get rid of items you don't want or to get items someone else doesn't want. You can find your area and become a member and receive randomly posted items, or post yourself. Through a couple of weeks, I received all of the items needed for our turtle through postings when people offered. It is a great thing! Check it out.

**So far, today is much of the same as any other day. We're (Marissa and I) are coloring mostly and watching "Lady and the Tramp" for the umpteenth time today. I'm also working on dinner... Yummo! (a little Rachel is always a good thing!) Toodles for now! lisa

** FYI - the website is doing something really funky and isn't putting returns where they should go... therefore, until I figure it out, I will separate the paragraphs by two asterisks (**). Have a great day!