I must admit that I'm a bit jealous!

That is of people experiencing Spring weather!  There isn't a crocus or daffodil in sight yet and those are always the first signs of Spring here.  We actually had a bit of snow last night and they are calling for some random flurries tonight and tomorrow.  I think I'm looking more forward to Spring than usual since illness has been so prevalent this winter.  Currently I can't swallow anything.   Great diet but a quick way to become dehydrated.  I'm beyond ready to play in the garden and not be sick! 

Princess Bear (PB) had a Spring dance at school today.  She was all excited because her friend Terek asked her to go and dance with him.  He's a sweet kid.  Bless their little hearts though.  He needs a walker to get around some I'm not sure how the actual dancing went but they had fun!  In her usual attempt to make me even more gray she asked "can I use some of your lipstick since you're sick and won't use it and I have a dance?"  Ugh!!!  We went through what my rules for make up are.  Is it Halloween?   Nope.  Is it a recital or performance of some kind?   Nope.  No such luck PB!!!  I guess I have to give her points for trying!  She's growing up way too quickly for my taste though! 

My nephews love Duck Dynasty!

I spent tonight babysitting my nephews.  I usually try to show up with some things that aren't quite the norm for them.  Tonight it was Duck Dynasty beards and a pad that was the shape of monsters with lots of eyes, mouths, tusks and other things to design your own monster pictures.  Both were a big hit all the way around.  Here are the boys rockin' their Duck Dynasty beards.  Too cute!




For whatever reason Tyler decided he needed to grab his dad's glasses for this pic.  Maybe I should have bought him the gray Uncle Si beard?  It cracks me up to listen to these 2 tell me about their favorite episodes of Duck Dynasty.

It was a nice way to spend the evening.  I have another sinus infection so I was a bit worried about keeping up with the two of them but no worries.  The monster sticker thing was a huge success as well.  Stickers generally are!  I am completely and totally worn out though and have no idea how I'm going to wake my sorry a$$ up for church in the morning.  Ugh!   Off to bed for me! 

Another day another project

I was cruising around Pinterest last week.  You know that wonderfully dangerously addictive playground?  Yeah, that one!  I love the ideas I get from Pinterest- when the work!  At last check though I had close to 19,000 pins.  That is a WHOLE lotta crafting, cooking or other projects that are never gonna happen!  I digress though.  I was looking at some Project Life pins and trying to decide if I wanted to try that for a year (and I think I am but I'm going to take a few months to set things up and then start January 2015).  There was a pin for a 5 year filofax journal that caught my eye.  You can find the blog post HERE.  Journaling, like blogging, is very therapeutic and way cheaper than therapy.  It can just seem a bit daunting to keep with it.  The 5 year blog journal has a list of questions and you answer the same question on that day for 5 years and see how things have changed (or stayed the same). 

This got me to thinking about the 1 good thing a day jar I had tried to start.  Another Pinterest deal.  You right down one memorable thing each day and then at the end of the year look over and remind yourself how blessed you are.  I started thinking that I could do 2 five year journals.  One would be dedicated to the questions linked to above.  The second one would be a combination of 1 good thing, daily gratitude and just a quick blurb on Princess Bear. 

Putting these journals together has been quite the undertaking.  I decided not to go with a filofax just because of the cost.  I found a couple of cute 400 page bound faux leather journals at Walmart and went with that.  I then used return address labels to make labels for the day and then the years.  I decided I wanted to cute things up with the labels I was using for the Month pages.  Here are what a few of them look like.

Cute, huh?  Now I'm working on dividing each page into 5 sections.  It's taking FOREVER! 

I'm hoping that when I have this all set up it will be easy enough to stick with.  I'm also toying with the idea of putting one together for Mason's daughter.  She's a freshman in high school.  She's moving and switching schools so it's even busier than a "normal" freshman year.  I think it might be neat for her to look back and see where she was 5 years ago. 

My daughter is determinded to turn me gray!

Yesterday was a first here.  Not one of those firsts that I really wanted but I suppose it was bound to happen.  Princess Bear (PB) lied to me yesterday.  Not one of her finest moments.  I knew she was lying and told her what the punishment was to be.  I asked her what really happened.  You know when you look at your child and you can tell that they are weighing their options?  She stayed with the lie.  I pointed out to her that she was going to be punished regardless.  The thing she had to decide was how long she was going to be punished.   Fess up and the time is less.  Stay with the lie and the time increases.  She then told me the truth.  I explained why she was still being punished (because lying to me is NEVER gonna fly) but that instead of losing TV, music, and anything with a screen for a week it would only be 2 days.  Also for those 2 days she had to write sentences as a punishment.  This was the first time that punishment was ever set out for her.  She didn't like it one little bit.  I'm ok with that.  Perhaps next time she thinks about lying she'll remember having to write "I will not lie" 100 times. 

Happy Monday

No really!  It was!  Ok....so it was a bit rough at the start of the day.  Princess Bear (PB) thought that waking up at 5:30am and turning on a bunch of lights, her music and getting down with her bad self was a great idea.  Yeah...I'm not a morning person so I will admit it was the not the best start to my day but it got much better.  PB returned to school today and did very well.  I was a bit worried because she was up late, didn't sleep very well (still coughing a lot) and then woke up at the butt crack of dawn!  After depositing her at school I came home made breakfast and attempted to watch an episode of Bones.  Ya know what?  You really shouldn't eat while watching that show!  I then dragged my self into a shower and got ready to run some errands before babysitting my youngest nephew. 

I got 3 of the 4 errands done that I wanted.  I didn't quite have enough time to make it to Walmart before my sisters so that was postponed until afterwards.  I made the mistake of entering Ulta (don't tell Mason! lol).  I am a junkie in need of a 12 step program.  I grabbed a couple of  the (relatively) new Urban Decay Naked lip glosses.  AWESOME!!!  The Too Faced Pink Chocolate lipstick, 2 OPI Brazil Earth Shades and a new Butter London nail polish happened to follow me home as well.  I just don't know how that happened!!!! 

I then spend an incredible couple of hours with Luke.  The family got to visit their new puppy at the breeders over the weekend (don't say anything.  I wish they would have adopted but my opinion doesn't count).  Lukie was all kinds of excited to tell me about the puppies.  The kid is a riot.  After lunch I was washing the dishes and he asked if I wanted to see Darth Maul.  I had brought some Star Wars stickers for him and though that was what he was talking about.  I should have registered the fact that he had just come out of the bathroom.  So I said sure and turned around.  There stood my nephew in his Darth Maul undies shaking his butt!  Good thing the kid is cute! 

St. Patricks Day is pretty much just another day for us.  Not a drop of Irish in this household so no real festivities taking place.  A lot of the time my mom will make corned beef and cabbage just to be sociable.  She makes incredible corned beef and cabbage!  Since she still isn't feeling well and we still had food left over from their deli run in Chicago the other day we had corned beef just not the type usually served on St. Paddy's!  At the deli they gave my mom several stickers that said "Knish me!  I'm OY-rish!"  LOVE IT! 

So that is the story here.  Hope you had a good one! 

Apparently I'm a mean Mom! :)

My facebook status today was something to the effect of "How do I get Princess Bear (PB) to try chopped liver?  Threaten to withhold the Malnati's pizza that is the fridge slated for dinner".  Apparently it's awful that I made her try this.  Now please understand that I'm actually sitting her chuckling as I write this.  I'm not too worried that a few of my friends think this is horrible.  I'm pretty sure they are more offended by WHAT I insisted she try than the fact that I made her try it.  Now I'll be the first to admit that chopped liver spread is an acquired taste.  I just wanted her to actually taste it before pooh-poohing it.  I'll also admit while I actually like eating it I don't like looking at it.  It's one of those things that my mom obviously has me eating before I really knew what I was eating and then once I figured it out I just didn't want to see it.  That's where some really good seeded rye bread comes into play. 

My whole thing with making PB try it is that tastes change.  I'm certainly not shoving it down her throat but I am saying "Hey take a bite and see what you think".  I remember at one point when PB was seeing a feeding therapist they mentioned that the same food had to be offered and rejected 15 times before a parent should really fell like it was a food to be truly rejected.  Well chopped liver spread has a short shelf life and we don't get to a decent deli (aka someplace in Chicago) often enough that this is a theory I'm going to try. I just don't want to have one of those kids who looks at something and says "yuck!" without trying it.  You try it and don't like it go on your merry little way.  If I hadn't made her try knish at some point she wouldn't have been chowing down on that and corned beef last night like she hadn't been fed in days! 

I've always looked at life and it's situations in a way that was try it twice because you might have been wrong the first time.  So I guess if I'm an awful Mom for this reason- so be it!

Also because someone will ask what the deal with Malnati's pizza is I'll explain it.  It is quite simply hands down, no bars held the BEST FREAKING CHICAGO DEEP DISH PIZZA ON THIS G-D'S EARTH.  Don't talk to me about any other pizzeria that is well know in Chicago because I promise you that Malnati's is better.  If you are a Chicago style deep dish pizza fan you can actually order it and have it delivered anywhere in the lower 48.  Call 1-800-Lou-To-Go  or you can check out there website HERE. 

For my dad's 60th birthday some of his cousins couldn't make it down here for the party.  Guess what showed up on our doorstep?  You've got it!  Lou's to Go pizza! 

A first & I'm soooo excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I canned for the first time today!!!!!!  I'm soooooo excited!!!!!!!!!!  My folks went to Chicago for the day to visit my Aunt.  Princess Bear (PB) and I were just rolling with whatever felt ok.  We're still hacking up a lung (or so it seems) with great regularity so the general idea was to lay low. 

Somehow a trip to the grocery store seemed to fall into play.  PB really wanted some Tortellini Greek Salad.  We had everything BUT the tortellini.  So off to HyVee we went.  As were were grabbing some other things in produce that looked good I remembered seeing a recipe over at Food In Jars for Meyer Lemon Syrup.  Since I'm trying once a freaking again to kick my soda habit I thought that the Meyer Lemon Syrup in soda water would be a good alternative.  The season for Meyer lemons is rapidly coming to an end though so I wasn't sure if we'd be able to score any.  Woot Woot!!!  It was my lucky day!  They still had TONS of Meyer Lemons.  I grabbed 3 pounds and we were outta there. 

A bit of back story.  I've had my water bath canner since 2012.  I bought in late summer that year.  My family was convinced that I would do something wrong in the canning process and poison/kill all of us.  So they tried banning canning in the house.  Somehow with the Meyer Lemon syrup recipe looking good and finding them it just seemed like the right time to try canning. 

I can't check the seals until tomorrow but I already heard a few pop.  Color me excited!!!  I did wind up with WAY more than the 4 half pints that the recipe said I would have.  Like an extra 1.5 PINTS!  So that is sitting in the fridge & I'll probably give it a try tomorrow.  All in all the canning was a success.  Warm but it was gorgeous here & I had all the doors open.  I'm hoping this is my first step in a long successful canning future.  It would be nice to be able to not make all the freezer jams and jellies.  I always worry about the electricity going out and losing it.  Also with the farming future in California looking so spotty right now and that be the big source for the nations produce I'd like to be able to can what I can a) grow at home or b) buy at the Farmers Market. 

So, go me!  I'm excited!  It seemed to go well and I can't wait to try it again.  Yes, I'm fully aware that I sound very geeky for being so excited about this but this is something that I've really wanted to try and had no one to really teach me.  So considering that nothing caught on fire or broke or any other horrible thing that might have happened I'll take it as a win! 

5 Acres & a Dream Book giveaway!!!!

OK- do not collect $200.  Do not pass go!  Just head over to Leigh's blog 5 Acres and a Dream to check out the book giveaway she has going on!  Leigh is a super sweet blogger who is on the adventure of a lifetime and she's shared it in her book.  You can find the book giveaway HERE.

Just a side note.  Leigh has accomplished something big with this book.  First of all please understand that Leigh self published this book.  In a short amount of time (3 months) the book has sold more than 500 copies.  That is something HUGE!  Most self published books don't reach that goal EVER.  As in never ever EVER!  So congrats to Leigh!  Also if you're a blog reader please consider adding 5 Acres and a Dream to your blog roll.  It's well worth your time!

So again here is the LINK to find the book giveaway Leigh at 5 Acres and a Dream has going on.  Stop by and see what Leigh has going on!

Sick strikes again

Seriously I think the house needs to be fumigated!  We've had nice weather so we've had the doors & windows open for a few hours every day in an attempt to air things out.  Apparently it was too little too late.  Princess Bear (PB) & I both have bronchitis.  I did manage to 86 the ear infection!  So PB & I are doing some serious vegging out.  I did pick up some school work for her to work on and her tutor dropped off a few things as well.  I've been on a Bones watching marathon.  Don't ask why.  Mainly because TNT shows several episodes a day.  It's not a show that I've ever watched with regularity and only in syndication.  I will say that it makes for some very strange dreams.  Not necessarily nice ones.  I also have been getting my fill of Hoda and Kathy Lee.  I find them amusing in doses.  They shared this video the other day.  Funny enough and cute enough to share (if I'm wrong on this account chalk it up to prescription cough meds.  Things are a bit hazy).  This reminds me off PB and my nephews.  Actually kids in general think life is one big episode of "Let's Make a Deal".  What is that about?   So here is the video.  Oh, the reason the child keeps on calling his mom by her given name is that they heard of a child who was lost in a store and didn't know their mothers given name so the mother couldn't be paged.  Kind of the theory my sister and I worked on when making sure our kids knew our names, their grandparents names and their aunt (and uncles) names.  Heaven help them if they use it though! 

Crafting gone wrong

My sisters birthday is this weekend and we're going over for dinner to celebrate.  Gift giving isn't a big deal because she basically has what she wants or the means to get it.  She also has a tendency to get pissy.  Last year for Mother's Day Princess Bear (PB) gave her a tray of sweet pea starts for her garden.  She got upset because she didn't want to have to plant them or worry about where to put them.  Made me want to throttle her 30 different ways!  So basically we just do a gesture gift and hope it doesn't create drama.  My sister is a neurotic hand washing germaphobe.  So PB and I decided to make her homemade hand soap.  I have tons of Dr. Bronners bars of soap around.  Easy peasy right?  NO!  As I was funneling it into the milk jug we were going to give her I jokingly looked at PB and said "Happy Birthday Aunt Kate!  We made you snot!".  It really looked like snot.  The recipe I used said to use 1 gallon of distilled water and 2 grated bars of Dr. Bronners soap.  Okey dokey.  You heat the water to almost boiling and then stir in the grated soap.  Mix until the soap has melted and let sit for 12-24 hours (stirring occasionally).  Then you can add in whatever essential oils you'd like.  At first it was SUPER watery and I thought it was never going to thicken.  Fast forward about 6 hours and we had snot.  I bottled up the snot and was hoping for the best.  Well, I checked it this morning and it's gelled up even more.  Color me so unhappy.  So I went to that playground called pinterest and checked out DIY hand soap recipes on there.  Most of them call for 1 gallon of water to 1 bar of soap.  I'm wondering if I should try to get the gelled soap out of the milk jug and add it to a warm gallon of distilled water or just start all over again.  UGH!  I absolutely hate it when you try things that you've found online and they don't work well.  Couldn't you update your blog post???? (The recipe I used was from a blog).  Guess it's back to the drawing board! 

It feels longer

It feels longer since I last blogged.  It could be because my time online has been a bare minimum lately.  I went to the Dr. again on Friday and he diagnosed me with yet ANOTHER sinus infection, ANOTHER upper respiratory infection and an ear infection.  I am also having big problems with the carpal tunnel, cubital tunnel and "trigger thumbs" in both arms.  Basically my right side (the one I've already had surgery on) is so bad that I can't use it and I'm popping Tramadol like they're candy.  The surgeon doesn't want to go back and try to relieve the pressure again.  I'm a not a happy camper at the moment.  I keep on dropping things and have no real grip strength at all.  Also, while carpal tunnel is relatively easy to recover from the elbow aspect and thumb are not.  It's getting close to gardening season and I really don't want to be laid up. 

I'm still fighting with the school board.  This week is ISAT testing.  The teachers solution to not being able to test all the kids at once is to stick them in front of a movie.  I've got calls into the coordinator and Special Education Director.  If they did the same today I'm keeping PB home from school tomorrow.  We're supposed to get a few more inches of snow and I see no reason to get up early and hope the roads are ok just so my child is parked in front of a TV all day. 

Speaking of snow, here in Peoria, we've broken the record for most snowfall.  So far this year we've had 53.4" of snow.  As I said we're scheduled for a few more inches today and I don't think we're done for the season.  Since it's been so cold here virtually none of the snow as melted.  Therefore you visit parking lots and see huge mountains of snow that was plowed out of the way.  Some streets are getting dangerous because the snow wasn't pushed back enough and has frozen into a big mess.  It makes me wonder how people in Alaska do it. 

So that's the story here.  I know a bit of Debbie Downer today.  Sorry.