Ranch for Breakfast

This morning as I opened the fridge to get N's usual breakfast goods (grapes, strawberries, PB, toast, etc.) I found my breakfast prejudices challenged.  N, who was in my arms at the time, reached for the Ranch.   Now, normally I try and distract him from his love of Ranch by grabbing a strawberry and putting it in his mouth, but today I had to ask myself, "Why not?".   I normally serve carrots with ranch and to add an extra carbs I put some bread on him plate.  I don't know why but it screams lunch to me but at the same time I don't mind him having it for breakfast.  Weird.

 

Wagon

Amazon

N, a friend and I all went to the zoo last Thursday.  It was a lot of fun.  We saw pigs, deer, big birds, bears and whatever else was at the front of the zoo.  We didn't get very far for a couple of reasons, the major reason being herding two toddlers in one direction is nearly impossible!  I would some day to journey to the back of the zoo and see the lions, elephants, and other large interesting animals and I think the best way of doing that would be with a wagon. 

Amazon

I just can't decide which one....

Muesli Vs Granola

About two or three weeks ago I made a breakfast staple called muesli in hopes of replacing some of our cereal.  No one touched it (including myself).  It's not that it was gross, instead it was a type of oatmeal combination and after the long winter oatmeal just doesn't hit the spot like it did at the beginning of fall. 

It wasn't until N and I went on a run and ended stopping for a quick snack that I was inspired.  Our snack of choice? Chewy granola with fruit and nuts AND oatmeal! With the addition of butter, vanilla, brown sugar and honey my muesli suddenly transformed into chewy heaven!  I made the granola Friday and by Sunday there was nothing left!!

I was planning on sharing the recipe but I lost both my granola recipe and muesli.  Once, I find them I'll post them. :)

N @ snack time today.

Day Dreaming

Doesn't this just make you want to buy odd ball chairs and paint them different colors?

Love the Globe and the general colors of this picture.

Yes, I dream of a picnic table as my dinning room table...

The triangle canopies are a design I'm hoping to mimic in the not too distant future.

$10 & A Dream Come True

In the past year or so I have started to broaden my cooking and baking horizon, and it has been great! Even though I've fallen in love with my own cooking (I'm not high and mighty I would just rather eat my food than buy someone else's that doesn't taste as good...that's all), there has been a tool that I see even in the recipes I am trying to follow.  "Pulse ten times to incorporate the butter" or "Pulse until smooth and ingredient are all one color."  Yes, this "Pulsing" is only one tool and one tool only, a food processor.

Even on cooking shows do they use the multipurpose tool for everything; slicing, dicing, kneading, paste making, and some much more!!!  Because I didn't have a FP I made due with some of the other tools I had.  The Bullet for making butters and pastes, the kitchen aid for pie dough, the handy dandy grader for cheeses, and ole faithful the knife for everything else.  It wasn't a bad life but I longed, dreamed if you will for a life of ease; a life of fresh pesto, pie dough, and more than a half cup of almond butter, but at a whopping $120 (on the cheap side) I knew I had to wait.
Until....
Craiglist is a godsend! Saturday I found a gently used FP for $10!!! Yeck yeah I'll buy it!  Now, behold the food processor!

Random pictures of Nolan

N with a friend. They are constantly making each other laugh.

This pic, for a laugh, they crumbled their crackers and threw them on the floor.

N helping me bake.

What are ya doin'!

Outing Day

Good morning! I hope that you had a wonderfully relaxing weekend.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect to spend the weekend outside.  I think it got really close to 90 here...  Awe those are the days that I wish I had a clothes line.  You know how fast clothes dry in 90 degree weather?!

Well, this weekend as you can guess I did not get a clothes line but N and I did have an outing.  Early Saturday morning N and I took a walk up the street to see some of our neighbors.  These neighbors were special they own goats!

When N first saw the goats he kept calling them "Da" for dog.

N feeding a baby goat.  By the end of our trip these two were tight.

They aren't elegant like a horse but they are really pretty.

BONUS! The same neighbors have a peacock! How cool is that?!

Of all the exotic animals on the farm the cat was by far one of N favorites. A boy after my own heart. 

 

Freezer Day and Other Important Days of The Week

Geninne's Art Blog

So, I'm not very good about organizing my time.  I'm what they call a creative thinker, I move and flow with how I feel.  I'm rational too; if something NEEDS to get done I'll do it even though I really don't feel like it but there are ways around feelings like watching a video on cooking when I really didn't feel like cooking or browsing through a decorating blog when I didn't feel like cleaning.  These tactics work for the most part but I also find that my move and flow schedule has panic attacks every other day in which I wasn't as prepared as I think I should have been. 

On one particular panic-y day I was feed up with my schedule by feelings and decided to make something a little more...scheduled.

Prior to making this schedule I had to keep in mind my tendencies and the end result...to have fun and less panic attacks. 

So, that meant I still needed a flexible schedule that would leave room for change but also make sure that I had days to prepare for life in general; and this is what I came up with:

Freezer Day: This day is for cooking or baking all the meals or element of meals that can be frozen (i.e. pizza dough, pie dough, rolls).  I think this is a perfect rainy day day, but it really stinks when the weather is beautiful.


Laundry Day & Money Day: This is to change the sheets and catch up on the piles of dirty clothes, NOT to completely get them done.  Since, N wears cloth diapers I do two or three loads of diapers a week so I normally end up doing another load right after. Yeah, Money Day is more budget upkeep than anything.


Errands Day: Groceries, library visits, etc. This is a great day for a picnic if the weather is nice and N gets a kick out of any park we might visit.


Gardening Day: I have a garden at home and a friend and I are working on a community garden.  This day is of course to work on the garden but also to work on it's produce.


Outing Day: This falls in the fun category.  Zoo outings, trail outings, even Odessa outings! This day sounds like soo much fun!

Upkeep Day: I was going to call this Cleaning Day but it is more than that.  For Steve it's Mowing day (he won't let me touch the law mower anymore...no complaints).  So, really it is a lot of cleaning or whatever jobs that need to be done on at least an every other week basis.  Regular cleaning I normally done through out the week (i.e. sanitize bathrooms, sweep the floors, dust, etc.).    


Rest Day: Just a day to decompress for the weekly to do.


That's seven days...now that a plan is in place let's see how well it works...

Busy Body

Have you ever heard the description of "Busy Body" used to describe someone?  It is normally a person who is constantly "doing" something; it's almost as if they can't relax...yeah, I'm thinking that sums me up.

To start off sorry for the delay in posts but after Japan's happenings life got crazy.  On Sunday April 3rd Portico Cafe hosted a fund raising event within the coffee community.  KC Rossettas for Relief was to be a three fold event in which there would be latte art competition, brewing competition, and a silent auction which included the drinks being made.  It went really well, and even the news showed!  I'm telling you about this because I was the admin for the event. 

Along with my boss and a great PR company we pulled the pieces of the event together and ended raising around $1500 for Japan!!  It was amazing and very overwhelming.

Now, it is day four after the event and all it's prep and I'm just starting to wrap my head around my never ending to do list and hobby list again (which is sometimes hard to tell apart).   In fact as i sat down to a "relaxing" evening read i couldn't help but giggle (and of course take a picture) of my projects/ hobbies that lay on my lap.  Just incase you can't read all the titles this is what is laying on my bed:

-April's budget (with Steve's new job comes a different budgeting strategy)

-Grow Great Grub (I have really bad spring fever!!!)

-Mr. Meyer's Clean Home (yes I grabbed this to check up on spring cleaning stuff)

-How to Store Your Garden Produce (it's in the name)

-The Art of Eating In (a fun read about a girl who decided not to eat out in new york city...loving it!!!)

-then just a note pad for the odd ball to do or idea that i could forget if i didn't write it down. :)

How do you relax? And do you try to put time aside to relax?