You say goodbye and I say hello.

I was listening to The Beatles on my way to work this morning. Such a great way to start the day. The song Hello Goodbye (one of my favorites) came on. Which made me automatically think about the fact that today is the last day of 2013 even though the song isn't about that. That led to rememberance of the many Facebook statuses I've already seen on the subject. Most are a variance of "new year, new me", "2013 can kiss my ass", "2014 is going to be the BEST EVER!!!!"... yeah, the same ones all of you have seen and possibly posted. The very same ones that I saw last year. And the year before that. And the year before that. And the year before that...

This is how my 2013 felt. Bright and shiny.

It just seems like everyone is so ready to say Goodbye to 2013 and Hello to 2014. I'm afraid to post a status on Facebook about it because I see a huge backlash coming from it as in I think I'm perfect and better than everyone else. Not that a fear of backlash would stop me from posting it. If I want to I will. I just think it's sad that I have a valid reason to think a happy post would make some people cringe. Well, start cringing because this is why I'm saying Goodbye to 2013 with no hopes of things having to get better, just that they stay the way they are because I'm happy. Happy! People, did ya hear that? Some people in the world are happy! There have been times I haven't been but I am now. And I don't want to feel bad for that.

I'm not perfect. My life is not perfect. I don't want it to sound that way. My husband and I both work very hard for what we have. I'm a great friend. I'm honest. I'm there if you need me. I try to be the best mom I can. I yell. I get angry. I try to be as good of a wife to my husband as he is a husband to me. But even with all the faults I am still happy because I make the best out of it and spend as much time with my family as possible because that is what keeps me going. There are things people can't control but you can control whether or not to be happy with what you have and at the very least make a conscious decision to TRY to make the best of it. I wish you the best of luck on this from the bottom of my heart because everyone deserves to be happy.

This is how my 2013 went. A lot of it in pictures. It started off busy as always after the holidays and the kids being out of school. We started paperwork on selling our house. It took FOREVER. It was also bittersweet. I mean, we were ready for something bigger but still... it was our 1st house.

This was taken while we were buying it.
Goodbye house. :'(

We went to the circus.

I made my 1st cake for Easter.

I felt like this a lot.

Ate some sushi.

I felt like this ALL the time.

Got my hair to do something I wanted it to one time.

Took the hubs out for Father's Day.

I felt like I should since this happens.

Even though that happens I feel this way about him every day.

I made these faces WAY too much.

My baby girl turned 4.

I said things I probably shouldn't.

Got Bacon off to her 1st day of school EVER
 & B to 3rd grade.

Enjoyed our new backyard.

Went and saw some animals.

B joined Cub Scouts.

We went to a fair.

My husband made these faces. A lot.

Took both the kids on a Cub Scout
camping trip.

Dressed up for Halloween.

And had an awesome Christmas with all of our family.

I honestly cannot complain. 2013 was good to me and I hope somewhere out there it was good to some other people too. I can't imagine it being any better. I will say that I hope we find more time for things like camping and traveling. We've come to realize we all enjoy those things, and even more so when we get to do them together. So Hello 2014! I hope you treat me as well as 2013. And Goodbye 2013. You were great to me. I will truly miss you.

Happy New Year!

Baked Chicken and Rice

Last night I got home and the hubs had my new dining room table put together (WOOHOO) and most of the chairs. We took a "short" trip to IKEA Sunday (by short I mean due to issues and traffic we left at 10:20am and got home after 7pm) to pick up the couch and bed for the kids Christmas bedroom redo. We wound up getting a table that is extendable up to 10 people and 4 chairs. We're still looking for 2 end chairs because he wants a "captain's chair" as he calls it. Boys... *sigh* Anyway, he was getting the table together and then taking B to Cub Scouts. I make my menu around the Cub Scout schedule every week and had found a recipe a while back for this chicken. It said you could cook from 1 1/2 - 3 hours depending on temperature so I thought it would be perfect timing for when they got home from the meeting. And since my baby girl was asleep in her room because she wasn't feeling too great this recipe wound up being perfect. I was able to pop it in the oven and hang out with her while it cooked.

Ingredients:
4 - chicken breasts
1 - can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 - can Cream of Celery Soup
1 - can water
2 - cups uncooked MINUTE rice (I would not use regular rice. I don't think it would cook well.)
1 - pkg onion soup mix
Aluminum Foil

Prep Time: 3 minutes
Cook Time: 1.5 hours

Directions:
1. Mix both soups, water, and rice in a bowl.
2. Pour into a greased casserole dish. I used an 11X13 but a 9X13 would probably work too.
3. Lay completely thawed chicken on top of rice mixture.
4. Sprinkle onion soup mix over the top of the entire dish. (If you have picky eaters you could hide this in with the rice mix to still get the flavor.)
5. Cover with aluminum foil. (DON"T forget this step or your rice will burn.)
6. Cook on 250 for about 3 hours or 350 for 1 1/2 hours. Times vary by oven. (I actually cooked mine at 300 for 2 hours.)
7. Remove and enjoy!

This is the next day when I brought some of what was left for lunch.

*This is not the healthiest recipe with the processed soups, but there are lots of homemade recipes for these soups as well as the low-sodium versions in the grocery store if you're trying to cut back.
**Better pictures to come next time I make this. I always forget. :/

This was honestly delicious. TJ kept eating the rice right out of the dish. He even claimed it was the best rice he'd ever had. The chicken was a little more dry than I'd like, not terrible, just not juicy, so next time I will probably find a mild marinade (maybe garlic...) and let it soak overnight in the fridge. You could serve a salad and cornbread with this if you wanted more but for us just the dish was good.

I was told to definitely leave this as a good recipe in the box since when we aren't fond of something we just toss the recipe so we don't use it again. We had some Halloween candy for dessert then hung out with the kids and furbabies in front of the first fire we've made in our new house.

I am in LOVE with this fireplace. 

Roscoe just kept staring at it like it was going to get him. He's a big ol' fraidy cat.

Hope everyone enjoyed their night as much as I did and that you enjoy this recipe as much as we did if you try it.

Cheesy Chicken Quesadillas

I have FINALLY found a recipe that everyone in the family loves equally. I actually want to make it again already even though it's not on my menu planner. It wasn't hard to make even though it was my first time making pan fried chicken. I could do it again in 20 minutes even though the first time took closer to an hour because I hadn't done it before. Trial and error, right?

List of ingredients I used:

4 chicken breasts

10 flour tortillas

Shredded Nacho Cheese (the mixed kind)

1 pkg Taco Seasoning

Sour Cream

10 tbsp Butter

1 tbsp Olive Oil

More Ingredients I would've used if my kids weren't so picky:

Chopped Onions

Chopped Peppers

Chopped Tomatoes

Pico de Gallo

Salsa

That list of ingredients looks scary, but it's not I promise. These are still really quick. Next time I make some I'll take pictures. 

Instructions (Read all the way down if you're adding ingredients):

1. Get all your ingredients you want in your tortillas out and accessible.

2. Put a teaspoon of olive oil into skillet on high heat. Let it sizzle then turn heat to med-high depending on thickness of chicken.

3. Add chicken to pan. Sprinkle with light taco seasoning for flavor. Let it cook on one side about 4 minutes depending on thickness, then flip and cook 4 minutes on the other side. I cut mine through the middle to see if it was done.

4. Remove chicken and dice or shred. I diced because it was quicker. Set aside.

5. If you're adding ingredients you need to saute your onions, peppers, and whatever else you want now so they'll be ready. Just put one more tbsp of olive oil in the pan you already used and cook until they brown a little.

6. After Step 5 is done, in a different skillet heat one tbsp of butter until it is sizzling. I set mine on 9 on my electric stove which goes to 11.

7. Lay one tortilla onto the sizzling butter. Watch it because this is when you'll start moving quickly.

8. Sprinkle cheese onto the tortilla then add chicken. Layer other ingredients as you wish, add more cheese on top, then lay another tortilla over it. 

9. It's time to flip if the bottom tortilla has browned. This s the tricky part. I used the widest spatula I had. Pick up the tortilla, use your other hand to put another tbsp of butter in the pan, let it sizzle for a second, then flip and drop the tortilla into the skillet. It's easier than it sounds because the cheese melts and kind of holds everything together.

10. Let the 2nd side brown, remove, and serve.

***If you're adding ingredients other than the basic ones I used, between Step 4 and 5 you need to saute your onions, peppers, and whatever else you want so they'll be ready.

I cut ours into 4 pieces each and served with Spanish rice and sour cream to dip them in. (We're sour cream junkies.) One quesadilla filled us up, including the hubby who is a bottomless pit. Both kids devoured them and B asked if we could have them again the next night. Since he is the pickiest kid ever that makes it a huge kitchen victory for me. If you try them I hope you emjoy them as much as we did.

Camping Like a Pro

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post. Things have been CRAZY at my house with traveling, festivals, moving, and everyday life. This weekend will be another busy one as well. We are going on my sons annual family Cub Scout camping trip.

My little Cub Scout trying on his uniform. He's 8 but he's so tiny. Still, isn't he adorable?

Ready for his 1st pack meeting in full gear. He really loves it.

I am really looking forward to it, just not the preparing for it. I decided to make myself a checklist for camping supplies. I'll admit I basically can't function without a list. I feel so frazzled, like I'm forgetting 110% of the things I should be taking with me. Anyway, this post is short and sweet. My checklist is here. Maybe if you need a good camping checklist split into categories it'll work for you. I already feel better about going home and getting all of it together.

Tension Rod Bakeware Storage

One day I PROMISE I will stop taking pictures with my phone and use a better camera. When I get it unpacked. 

I know I am not the only person who pulls out half of their pans to get to the one they need on the bottom. This is so frustrating. I have honestly decided not to cook certain things because the dishes were too much of a pain to get to. This is what I'm working with.

Left side of my bakeware cabinet.

Right side of my bakeware cabinet.

 I do have a few things that won't fit in here, but these are the main ones I use so I keep the others in a different cabinet. Isn't that a disgusting mess? Ugh. Since we're in the process of setting up the kitchen right now, I decided I would get this under control before we even got moved in. I just couldn't stand looking at it. I had seen an idea on Pinterest where someone (sorry I don't know who!) had used tension rods to separate their pots and pans. Since this makes it adjustable I decided it would be the best route for me to go. I found the best fit for me for the best price at Lowe's. I bought 10 to start off with. I will need more, but not for this particular cabinet and since we're unpacking I didn't want to have to store extras. We'll be making lots of trips to Lowe's soon so it's not a big deal. I set them up one at at time with specific widths for specific items. The original idea I saw used 2 rods per separation but one worked fine for me and cut my price in half. All I had to go was push them into place.


After I got my rods set up, I put my dishes back in. It looks SO much better and is much more manageable. Even my husband who is very helpful but doesn't care a thing about the kitchen was happy with it. I made sure to put my shorter things on one side so that I would have a little room in the front for a couple of extra dishes that didn't fit anywhere else.

Pulling things out without having to pull everything out is a win.

This project was a total success and will be repeated in other cabinets soon. It took me about an hour to completely finish this cabinet. It cost me less than $20 which was much cheaper than the expensive dividers I had originally been looking at.

Supplies:
8  - 18in-28in tension rods  - $2.27 each

Dinner is about to get easier.

I'm done! I'm finally done! Okay, I know that sounds like some dreadful task is over but it's not the "I'm done!" of relief, it's the "I'm done!" of excitement. Seriously. I know I'm a little sad for looking at my new menu planner and being super excited, more so than any other time in the past month almost, but oh well. It's awesome and I'm happy. I won't drag it out. Here's how it went down...

I saw the original post on Pinterest. I thought that it was an exceptional idea from The Thinking Closet. Hers looked so good, but I needed to make it my own because hers didn't match my style. I talked to the hubs and we decided the idea would probably work for us, so I started on a menu list. Nothing spectacular, just jotting down meals we like (and that I'm capable of cooking since I'm a novice) on a piece of paper when we happened to think of something. I've got almost 40 items on it so far and I'm still adding to it. Then we bought this stuff.

Magnetic whiteboard. I liked the sharp corners. Made for very clean lines on the finished product.

Card stock, medium clothespins, larger and smaller wooden letters that were paintable, acrylic paints, and some cheap paintbrushes. We also bought black fabric, patterned fabric, 3/4 inch ribbon, spray adhesive, and index card holders since all of our stuff is packed up for now.

After we bought that stuff, I sat on my bed and painted each one of these different colors. The OP had all the letters nice and uniform and a patterned background. My background is solid so I went with bright letters and decorations. 

I was a little disappointed when I realized that all the bigger letters weren't uniform in size even though they came from the same pack, but in the end they looked fine. Also, my smaller pack only had 1 "T". I had to make the other from different letters. Hopefully you can't tell which.

By the way, I don't know if I've ever mentioned but my hubs is top notch. No doubt. He helps me with anything I need help with. You'll see pics of him often. Here he is helping hot glue the fabric I got to the magnetic whiteboard. I didn't do like the OP and spray adhesive all over. I thought one day I may not want the menu planner anymore (doubtful but you never know) but the calendar would still be useful. 

Look at him go! He said "Don't post pictures of me doing this. I like my man card." haha... oops.

Here it is with its nice tucked in corners and tight sides.

I think we make a great team.

Then we added a border. We went with a solid color since our letters were different colors and we didn't want it to be too busy. We weaved it over and under for a nice pattern. There is hot glue under the 4 ends that are on the bottom of the weave so it can't be seen and around the back where the ribbon attaches to the whiteboard.

After that we hot glued our 4 larger letters to spell out M-E-N-U and one of each of the smaller painted letter to 7 clothespins for our days of the week. Here we are putting magnets on the back of our clothespins after we hot glued the letters to them. I know it looks like I'm not doing a thing but I promise I am! =] We bought a roll of adhesive magnets and cut our magnets to size so that they would fit on the clothespins without being seen.

The magnets cut down really easily. I cut them with a pair of my kids school scissors.

This was the result after all that.

Our next to last step was to put boxes on our board. I bought 3 index card holders and cut off the flaps that close them (I was going to make boxes from cardboard and have a layout if anyone would rather do that but these were easier and perfect size for my board), then cut my fabric to fit. I left about an inch hanging out all the way around the top and enough on the sides so I could fold the sides like I was wrapping a present. I sprayed adhesive all over the outside and stuck my fabric down. Once it was glued down I cut lines down the edges of the extra fabric at the top, sprayed the fabric with adhesive, then pushed it inside so that it covered the boxes completely. Then I stuck magnets to the backs instead of gluing the boxes down so I could take them down since anything open winds up getting dirty inside. At least I can shake them out this way. Or change fabric if I ever want to. I wanted 3 boxes so I could have one just for desserts. I like to make one or two a week. The 2 other than the dessert box are for menu cards. One for new recipes and one for recipes we've used. When the "new" box gets empty we just take the cards out of the "old" box and start our rotation over. As it looks right now we won't be eating the same thing for about 6 weeks unless we just want to. This was my almost finished result.

Then the time came for the menu cards. These were my least favorite part of the whole project. They weren't fun. Just typing. OP had already made a layout in Microsoft Word which I downloaded from her original post so I didn't have to worry with that. I just had to fill in the names of meals and ingredients. I covered them with packing tape and cut to size after I had them all printed.

Maybe one day I can add better quality pictures when i get my good camera unpacked. :/
The names of the recipes are on the front and the ingredients are on the back. Make sure you know how your printer prints and do left to right on the front, but right to left on the back so that they line up correctly.

I will eventually redo all of these cards because I plan on making my own recipe binder. Once I get that made, I'll reprint all the cards with a page number on them so I can easily find it. I don't have recipe books. All mine are from family, friends, or Pinterest. Now all I have to do for my weekly grocery shopping trip is pick out 7 cards, flip them over, and add my list of ingredients to my Weekly Menu Planner List which is printable and fillable in Word. I can choose sides to go with the entrees and get it all written down together. I also made a printable shopping list to go with it because I think the sectioned list works best for me while I'm actually in the store. So my end result turned out like this. Also, my menu cards are color coded. I have a different color for Easy, Red Meat, Chicken, Pork, Seafood, and Soups so far.

I'm 110% happy with it. If anyone decides to make one, send me pictures. I love different ideas. My supply list is below in case anyone was wondering. The whole project cost about $35 but could have been much less. Since we're moving all my craft stuff is packed up so I had to buy everything new. I also bought a more expensive whiteboard because I liked the bigger size and square edges. You can find them for around $9 all the time.

Supplies:
1 - 16X20 magnetic whiteboard
hot glue gun and glue
1 - yard black fabric
1 - 18in X 21in piece of patterned fabric
80 inches of 3/4 in grosgrain ribbon
wooden letters (large and small)
7 - medium clothespins
3 - plastic index card holders
spray adhesive
cardstock in different colors
packing tape

Good luck making your own!

-jFree <3

**UPDATE: I got my menu planner hung up in the new house and I love it.**

This thing is great!