RazNoggle

If anyone wonders why Myles has oatmeal on his BACK, it’s because he had his shirt on backwards for breakfast and later fixed it.

There is a perfect little greasy hand impression in the carpet from when Ella had her adventure in petroleum jelly.

I spent a large part of the morning, cutting up, seasoning, portioning and freezing a bunch of steak that I found on sale at Safeway this week. If you know my “issues” with raw meat, you realize that this was quite an undertaking. It’s done though, and I have quite a few meals ready to unthaw and fix up in the future. I have steak for Stroganoff (which is also simmering away in the crock-pot as I write, I can’t wait for dinner!!) thin cut steak, seasoned with spicy rub for fajitas, and a host of other packages, ready for stew or stir-fry or just tossing in the slow cooker to see what happens. It makes me feel good to have meat in the freezer. One of my goals for Feb is to only buy milk and perishable items for groceries. I’ll be “shopping” in our pantry and freezer for the rest! I got 9 different meat meal portions out of my $30 something purchase of meat, and several of those will likely do for more than one meal. Seems good to me!

The boys have a bunk bed in their room now. Thanks to my MIL and craigslist! It was a great find. They love it!! I had a bit of a hard time taking out their little toddler beds though. These little ones are growing too fast! I’m happy that they have bigger beds though, and their room looks better than ever!

I showed Ella her reflection on the back of a spoon, and it was hilarious to watch her making faces at herself on the little spoon! Ha ha ha!! That girl just cracks me up!

Ella has added the dining room table to her mountaineering skills. But she’s not content to sit on top, she has to stand and walk around. This is not good!

Can’t stand lies! I called a company recently about why it took so long to get a package that I had paid 2 day shipping on. Their response was that Fed-ex did try to deliver the package 2 times. HOWEVER, I happen to know that I was at home on both of those “supposed” delivery attempt days, and never heard or saw a fed-ex truck neither did I get a “failed delivery” notice. That irks me to no end!

Qade can whistle now. Have I mentioned that before? He’s very pleased with this new talent, and I’m pretty proud of him for figuring it all out at the age of 4! I’ve never been a good whistler, and I’m pretty sure I was older than 4 before I ever figured it out. However, this amazingness has it’s downside, as he likes to “practice” whistling all the time. Whistling in the house or in cars and such drives me crazy because it kills my ears! So we’ve come to an understanding that he can whistle outside as much as he likes, but shouldn’t in the house. I still have to remind him, but he’s usually good about it.

I’m trying not to think of the ick factor of the boys choosing the dog house as a place to relax while they eat their snacks outside. Ugh, ugh, ugh! It’s not working!!

This is what happens when I’m not on Facebook. I write all of my would be status messages in one long blog post. Oh well, I can’t say it isn’t better off this way. The only thing is that these posts tend to get pretty long, especially when I have to wait to publish them. We’ve been on internet rations for most of January since we blew through a lot of our bandwidth early on in the month. Silly electronics! So it’s been easier to keep off of FB like I’m supposed to, but I have missed posting to my blog. I have several post that I’ve been writing over my “exile” that I will schedule to publish over the next few days. Enjoy!

My boys request bed time songs each night. I’m just wondering how to make “Jingle Bells” sound like a lullaby!

I find it interesting that in this small town of 1500-ish people and about 7 churches, the only ones who have made their way out to ‘visit’ our house have been Jehovah’s Witnesses. They have braved the muddy road twice actually. Hmmmm…

Ella conquered the couch and the overstuffed chair yesterday! She’s been trying to scramble up them since the day she started cruising on them. Yesterday she was just as pleased as punch and you could totally tell that she was very proud of herself for getting up all on her own! The boys now have no safe space.

I accidentally misread the recipe and added a tablespoon of garlic instead of a teaspoon. I guess we’ll all be safe from vampires tonight! Hopefully it’s still swallowable!

Happiness is finding the very last piece of dark chocolate in the freezer, just when you need it the most!

I have always associated bananas and spiders in my mind. So I guess it’s not surprising that I jumped back in alarm when I was reaching for a banana and “thought” I saw a black thing scuttle away. There was actually nothing there, yay! See, what happened was that when I was in K5 at a little Christian school in Colorado, we were all sitting round the lunch table when one kid said something about spiders “hiding” in the end of bananas. I’m not sure what he was referring to or where he got his information, but from that day I could never eat the very tippy end of a banana. Ya know, the last part at the end of the peel, I always break the banana off right before that last bite. I know NOW that there are no spiders hiding in the ends of bananas, but the damage has been done, and I think it’s irreversible. I shall always be a last bite banana waster, and anything that even remotely looks like a spider, imaginary or not, around my bananas will be met with the same reaction.

While I was shopping for steak, that was on sale, at our “local” Safeway, someone approached me and asked if I wanted to buy his food stamps. I’m somewhat curious what he wanted to buy with the cash that he’d get for his food stamps, and sad at the same time that people put more stock in whatever else instead of food for their family.

I’m doing pretty good on my facebook fast. Especially since we’ve pretty much burned through our allotment of internet bandwidth for the month. It always helps when you simply “cant” do the thing you’re not supposed to be doing. Ha! I do miss it though, but I’m finding it surprisingly easier than I expected.

If you’re trying to cut dairy out of your diet, you probably shouldn’t plan meals that are chock full of butter and cheese. Just sayin’.

Almond milk is not so yummy in my coffee. I’m going to try to doctor it up with some honey and vanilla, but on it’s own it’s not very inspiring.

I’ve been having the dizzies for a couple of days. I really hate it when this happens because I feel so limited in what I can do. Ya know, if you can’t walk straight and keep running into walls, it makes it difficult to get through chores. I’m going to take some Sudafed after breakfast. That often helps since it’s generally a congestion thing with me. Although I’ve had a migraine kind of “lurking” in the wings too. Think I’ll take it a little easy today.

I designed some appointment cards for a couple of OB offices to use. They have a photo of a newborn that I took on one side with all of the office information and appointment time/date stuff on the back. They arrived from the printer this week and they look so awesome that I just want to keep them all! Ha ha! Hopefully this will generate some more Newborn bookings for us though since every preggo lady will be getting “next appointment” cards when they go.

I’m making yogurt today for the first time in quite awhile. Stu has asked for yo-cheese a few times, and the lads would like to have some I know. Just because I’m on a dairy fast doesn’t mean everyone else hast to be, right?

After 10 minutes (or maybe more!) of very vigorous stirring with the aid of a large spoon and a butter knife, and several slimy fingers later, I finally have my no-stir almond butter ready to spread and serve. Kind of ironic, no?

Tomorrow is my carb-day. If I wake up and weigh less than I did today I’ll probably be moderate. If I’m not, I’ll likely go hog-wild, ha ha! Either way I’d like pancakes to make up SOME part of my day.

So I lost 2 pounds this week. Which is typical for me on this diet. I feel like I should lose more considering how much “work” it is to go carbless. BUT I only did the Kettle Bell twice, so I should be happy I lost at all, ha ha! And I can deal with a 2 lb a week loss, it’s more likely to keep off that way.

Toodle-oo