Check marks are good

I actually followed through on my one little thing. Of course, it was actually a finishing of 2 little things... But still!!
Tomorrow my little thing will be making a list of all the little things I want to do!
A list is a great place to start.

One little thing

Every bit of advice I read says the same thing - you have to do a whole whack of little things to accomplish any big thing.

You can't magically lose 30 pounds, deep clean the whole house, raise perfect children, or run a marathon overnight. These things take time. Baby steps. One little thing at a time to reach the end big thing.

So that's the goal. Do one little thing each day to end up with a cleaner, more organized home.

Today I took a couple Clorox wipes and cleaned the door knobs, light switches, and counter height plugs in the kitchen, laundry room, and dining room.

Yesterday I took my long handled puffy duster to the AC vents in the same rooms.

Tomorrow, I'll do both those things to the rest if the house, because I was a slacker.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Lookie... Cute Thing baby hat - I made this for a friend who's friend is having a baby.

I should have been writing drug cards.
(See aforementioned Rome.)

Fun with Fonts

I was playing around with my chore list in order to make it pretty enough to go into my Home Management Binder - and hopefully make me actually use it.
One hour later, I have not gotten any of the chores done... but my list is pretty!

I created it in Word using some of my favorite fonts, saved it as a .pdf and realized that Blogger doesn't let me upload a .pdf, or a .docx for that matter.

So... off to Paint I went, plopped it in and saved it that way.

I have no idea if this is usable by other people. Lemme know, K?


On tap for today: Church, Mom's, Supper, and cleaning up my Mess of a Craft Desk!!

Chicken (from N' Biscuits)... no biscuits though.

One of my families favorites is Chicken N Biscuits. I used to strictly use Melissa D'Arabian's recipe because I feared change and it is really, really good. However, I did some tweaking and came up with some changes.

3 strips bacon, diced (or... 3 finger widths from the side of a frozen hunk of bacon)
2 T veg oil
1 whole chicken, cut up (skin on)
1 T house seasoning
3 carrots, chopped
2 celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 - 3 potatoes, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 C Sherry
2 T Italian Seasoning
1 T flour
1 carton chicken stock
some water - usually about 2 cups

Add the bacon to a med-high pot, stir until the fat is rendered out. Set aside, leaving as much of the drippings as possible.


Sprinkle house seasoning on the chicken. Brown chicken 2 minutes on each side. Set aside.


Add oil to pot, lower heat to Medium. Add in vegetables, saute for 5 - 7 minutes. Stir in Italian seasoning.


Deglaze pan with sherry, scraping up as much of the browned bits from the bottom as possible. Sprinkle with flour and stir to combine. Yes - it'll look glumpy.


Add in the chicken stock slowly, stirring and mixing as you to to get some of the glumpy off.
Place the chicken on top of the veg in a single layer, nestling it in as best as you can.
Add in the chicken stock. Add water evenly around the outside of the pot, until the liquid comes up to almost the top of the chicken.


Lower heat to Low, cover, and simmer 30 minutes. Then uncover and simmer 15 more minutes.
Serve with your favorite biscuits.


This is really good as a soup the next day if you strip all the meat off the bone, add it into a leftover container with the remaining veg and broth. Mmm.

The hardest part

The hardest part of owning a pet is saying good-bye. Yesterday was that day for our 8 year old kitty Chewie. He'd been sick for a long time, turns out to be diabetes. In a cat. Who knew?

We decided on a short beach trip yesterday afternoon for a little distraction, and that worked well until we got home. It's very quiet, even the dog is kind of depressed.

Today will be filled with Church, cleaning, crocheting, and cooking. All Cs. Huh.

Can you say distracted?

Yeah.

Get to know the kids

I didn't know what Jakes favorite color was - that's what started it. Well, that and seeing this link on Pinterest: http://reavespartyofthree.blogspot.com/2011/06/morgan-3-years-20-questions.html?m=1.

I thought it was an awesome idea, so I made my own sheet and asked the questions. It was a great time getting to know the kids a little more!

After I was done, I hole-punched them and put them in my Home Management binder - forecast reference, and so I wouldn't lose them!!

Random, on a Saturday Morning

The aroma of garlic and onion cooking in browned butter is one of my favorites. It is the start of a thousand different recipes and is full of possibilities.

It has been a crazy hectic couple weeks of studying, working, cleaning, and commuting. I have instituted a chore schedule for the kiddos and it's been working. I also instituted a chore schedule for me and that has been more of a challenge.
Here is my list of accountability
• I have kept up with laundry
• I made dinner every night except last night*
• I had a fast food lunch only once.
• I got a 72 on my first exam - not passing.
• I gained 5.2 pounds in the Biggest Loser competition at work.
(*we went to a concert last night and I slept when I got home, so we went to Chili's.)

Not my best week. However, it is a new week (almost), and so far this morning I did most of a rep of exercise (push-ups, crunches, plank, lunges, wall sit, squats - from Pinterest - ooooowwww!), got out chicken for supper, swept the kitchen, started laundry, and now did a blog post. Not bad for 5 hours sleep.

Today I'm meeting a friend from nursing school to teach her how to knit. :)