Breakfast Quiche

So as I've mentioned before I'm on this horrible low carb diet. I spend day after day checking carbs, reading labels and doing lots of math to try and figure out what I can eat. Well one thing I can eat that makes for a good breakfast is crustless quiche. You really can make these any way you want to.

This time it is Turkey Bacon/Swiss/Green Onion and each one is only 2 carbs. Really you can use about any ingredients you want to though but it will change the carb (and other nutrition) values.

Base Recipe:

2 cups of eggs (I use Eggbeaters because I'm also watching cholesterol)
1/4 cup veggies (green pepper, green onion, onions, whatever you want)
3/4 cup shredded cheese (swiss, pepper jack, colby, cheddar... you get the idea)
1 cup of meat (cooked ham is real good in this but any precooked meat would work well)

Step 1
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray with oil or grease 12 muffin cups.

Step 2
Mix veggies, cheese and meat together in a bowl

Step 3
Pour into muffin cup the eggs. Spoon out the veggie mix and try to distribute evenly.

Step 4
Put eggs into oven after oven has been preheated. Cook for 18-20 minutes and then let cool.

These can be served right away or you can freeze them. If you freeze them then I suggest wrapping them in a paper towel and microwaving for 1 minute on one side and then flipping it and cooking 1 additional minute.

Busy Monday, February 24

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Get this Blog up!
• Menu
• Groceries
• Buy Fabric (kids have 4-H in a couple weeks but I have a coupon for this week off of fabric)
• Catch up on Laundry (it has ate the house!)
• Clean the Fish Tank
• Catch Up Dishes
• Make up crustless breakfast quiches for week
• Bake muffins for Peter

Menu

• Brats & Chips (Something other than chips for me I'll have to see if something jumps out at me at the store)
• Spaghetti & Chicken
• Hamburger Helper w/Green beans
• Pizza
• Chicken Nuggets/ Fish Sticks & French Fries/Tater Tots
• Turkey & Gravy w/Mashed Potatoes & Corn

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Brielle's Sock-Hop (School rescheduled it due to weather)
• Transplanting Workshop @ Extension Center
• Finish college application for Brielle & schedule Compass Test

Last Week

It is hard to believe last week was only one week as it seems like it should have been two weeks! 

Katherine had a hard day at school middle of last week which made a lot of stress at home as she let her emotions get the best of her. We had studied for her states test for nearly 3 weeks because of all the time out of school for snow but we had studied them the wrong way State - Capital which we found out on her pre-test will cause her to have them all marked wrong because it has to be Capital - State so she had a lot of studying to do the night before the test to try and switch around her thinking so the next day she had a meltdown when she forgot what the fun activity was she was suppose to go to for something called 'Sharpen the Saw' and the teacher told her that she didn't have time to help her figure out where she needed to be and just sit down and read. Poor girl started crying so hard she had to go to the office, got wrote up and a half day of school suspension! Not generally what folks blog about we always want our families to look so great but the reality is things don't always go as we planned. I'm praying that today she does well. We very much treat our children like little adults and take an active interest in what they have to say to us but sadly teachers at the school don't have that luxury so it always makes the switch from home to school very rough. Katherine admitted she did wrong by getting so upset and I can't ask much more from her other than to try harder not to get so upset. 

We got a rather big wind storm and the sirens went off once but most of the storm was located all around us but it avoided our town. As I like to say not even the weather wants to be in our town. We did get some gusty winds though. 

It blew around the old Big Lots greenhouse and killed it.  and I had balls all across the yard. There were some limbs down too. 

After work one day last week I said heck with it and went to Menards and bought a greenhouse. A nightmare greenhouse apparently because it was horrible to try and get together. I tried to have the girls level out the ground too but we were burning daylight so I'm going to have to try and relevel the area later. Saturday was our one nice day with being in the low 60's and then the temperature dropped again sharply. Sunday my husband and I were outside freezing trying to finish constructing the nightmare building.
I was trying to figure out shelving for the greenhouse because the shelving you can buy for it is really expensive and I don't know about anyone else but I'm not really made of money. It occurred to me to take apart the old greenhouse and use those shelves! Reuse what I have and save a ton of money!

Girls tilling

This past Saturday the whole family got ready early and we went down to the public library. Brielle stuck with me and Peter and Katherine found something to go read. I went down there for the unveiling of the Plant Library which is very cool to say the least. We first sat through an hour long lecture given by a lady from the Extension Office about gardening and then we went down stairs where they unveiled an old card catalog cabinet (remember those?) and inside were packets of seeds! You were allowed to take 5 free of charge! Later they will be switching the seeds out for the new crops and there is a possibility of a person getting up to 60 free packets of heirloom seeds per year! There is an article in the newspaper about it today so I'm actually going to go out and buy the paper!

While we were in the lecture I had received a phone call (thank goodness I had my phone on silent) and it was the jewelry shop where I dropped off my rings and Peter's all to be repaired it was my late Valentine's gift. They had our rings ready! I was told it was going to be a couple weeks but they got them done much sooner than that!

 I haven't been able to really wear my rings without a great deal of vaseline since I have had Brielle (over 13 years ago!) and the price was so great to have them brought up 2 sizes that I never thought I was going to be able to get them fixed but we have a local jeweler in town  whose prices beat those chain places in the mall hands down! Peter broke his ring a couple months ago and has felt naked without it, so he is happy to have his back too.


The girls had STEM club last week and the club is going to start building a robot from legos (yes they make those kits but they are expensive!) and the plan is once we get an idea that later this year when the new challenge comes they will enter it. Have you ever heard of FLL? It's First Lego League and yes it is a real thing across the country where teams of kids build robots out of legos and then compete against other teams! They build the whole thing and then they even have to program it!

Peter took Brielle to the Community Campus informational meeting and they found out a little more about it. Brielle and I finished her application for Community Campus but I'm still working on the application for the community college. I'm thinking I may just have to go down there because essentially what we are doing is signing Brielle up for college courses and paying for them (though at a greatly reduced cost).  Next week is the scheduling fair at the High School (yes we are already having to figure out Brielle's high school courses for next year!) so I really need to get on the ball but they did say at the informational meeting that if she had not completed everything yet for getting into the program they would still schedule her like she had. So I probably don't need to push this through as fast as I'd like to but I just want to get it off our plate and be something we don't have to worry about.

Pretty much that was last week. I went to my doctors appointment, the kids had President's Day off so they went shopping with me and found out the joys of the damaged food aisle and discount meats. Heck on our pork night I rolled their meat is cajun seasoning because they requested it and they loved it, it has been their new favorite seasoning on top of I got a discount pork tenderloin it was their first time having tenderloin and needless to say it was a hit though they will be disappointed to know that won't happen often we just got lucky.

Have a good week folks! 

Busy Monday, February 17

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Groceries
• Kids out of School so keep them studying
• Help Katherine study for her state capitals and latin/greek terms
• Doctor's Appt for myself
• Get Brielle started on Studying for ACT
• Order Seeds for Garden

Menu

• Pork Chops, mashed potatoes w/gravy, peas
• Pizza
• Meatloaf, mashed potatoes w/gravy, corn
• Spaghetti 
• Royal Round Steak
• Chicken & Pasta, peas or corn for Kat & Pete - Steamed Cauliflower for Brielle & myself

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• 4-H STEM
• Community Campus
• Seed Library
• I'm not sure what the 'Seed Library' is but last year I started up a Facebook gardening group for local people so we could talk about gardening or sell our produce. So far this Spring it has exploded with new members and a few of them are pretty well connected. One is hosting a 'Seed Library' at the local library. There will be some talk about growing food from table scraps (Family Fun and Family Circle have articles on this that the library is also showing though I subscribe to those so I've read them) and also they will be giving away free seeds.

Last Week

So you may notice Community Campus is back on my schedule and yup it overlaps with STEM AGAIN. What really happened is last week I had it down and I sent Pete and Brie over to it only to find out I had put it down in my calendar for the wrong week! Oh I felt awful about that because I had pulled the girls out of STEM early and now will have to do it again! Too many plates spinning. 

I took the girls to Project Club with the 4-H this last week too. I was very impressed to see one of the boys trying to sew also instead of automatically going over to the woodburning table for those that didn't want to sew. 

The girls made corded laundry bags. There were lots of hiccups along the way but they are getting better.

So I hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day. I said heck with it all and fell off the wagon by a whole 21g of carbs but how could I not eat chocolate. The girls and I made our very own peanut butter cups and the recipe I found for the peanut butter filling I think was excellent. Though the recipe was for LARGE ones not our small ones so it makes respectfully around 50! 

Other things we did this week is went to a kids birthday party our friends' daughter turned 3. 

I got a giant stack of coupons which I haven't gotten organized yet. I never did get around to organizing the other coupons last week either. 

Friday the kids were let out of school an hour early - Okay Rant time -
Possibility of snow we were told a few inches possible! So they hold school anyways and then let the school out an hour early. Now the only reason I found out is because I was being a bum at work and decided to check my facebook and saw another friend post about it! No phone calls went out to the parents at work, there were no phone messages at home so I'm assuming they didn't go out there either. Other than being on the local news and word of mouth it was the only way anyone was finding out about the early school closure! Needless to say this had me irrate! So I called up the School District Office and made a formal complaint! *huffs and puffs*

Otherwise hmm... Katherine had a very bad week at school for things like forgetting to raise her hand and such but after being out of school so long I don't blame her. She finished out the week strong and with all the practicing we did on things like division she flew through her test instead of being one of the last ones like normal. I was very proud of her.

A lady I know raises chickens and she sent some farm fresh eggs into town for me. Aren't they gorgeous! 

I was trying to think if there was anything else last week but not really. I've been rather sleepy and not very motivated this past week. Work has had me busy as heck too.
I did make this jar though last week.
Can you tell I still have the spring itch? 

That's about all. Let's hope this is a good week. Warm weather is suppose to be on its way and I'm excited for it. 

Busy Monday, February 10

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Groceries
• Help Katherine study for her state capitals and division test
• Keep Brie on task for her report due Friday 
• Clean up around the house some.  
• Remind Peter of his Doctors appointment today - It's the first time he's had a general check up since he entered the military 18 years ago! 

Menu

• Pizza
• Hamburger Helper w/Green Beans
• Lasagna
• Chicken Pot Pie
• Steak w/Potatoes & Cauliflower w/cheese
• Pulled Pork 
• Chicken & Rice (Oh goodness! Which why does Rice-A-Roni have less carbs and a larger serving size (by twice!) than Minute Rice?) 

I have let the girls come up with the menu this week. I think 'moderation' is going to be the name of the game for me this week. I don't think they realize how many carbs are in their requests. 

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• STEM Club
• Community Campus - For Brielle 
• What is Community Campus? Well in our area it is linked up with the Community College. There is Life Science and Engineering and Brielle wants to go into Engineering. Community Campus will allow her to take Engineering classes while in High School for college credit. 
• I need to set up Brielle's application on Community Campus which means being able to contact the school but with school out of session there is no one I can call at the moment to get the application information. 
• I need to set up with the Community College for Brielle to take the Compass test so we can get her scoring information. This is the same test College applicants take for class placement. 
• Organize Coupons - They've gotten a little out of hand so I can't find what I need when I need it. I need to fix this so that we can save more money.   
• 4-H Project Club
• Katherine's After School Valentine's Day Party
• Brielle's Sock Hop after School

Last Week

So all of last week the kids were out of school. Monday the weather wasn't bad but we were having bad weather move in on us. I think all of the schools got a bit scared after seeing what happened in Atlanta. It has been a little difficult keeping the kids on task and we are all out of the swing of school time stuff. This last week I had the experiment of having my 13 year old watching my 9 year old at home while I was at work. I'm generally only gone for 6 hours a day because I'm blessed to be able to only need a part-time job. I still kept my cellphone near me and spent the whole time worried but the kids did well. I don't think they ever left their computers but the house didn't burn down so I think it was a successful trial. 

Other things that were done last week:

I made two magazine holders for Katherine so she could organize her Ranger Rick magazines and her Comic Books.

Zebra Magazine Holder

Friday I stayed home with Katherine as I had to take her down to the doctor and found out she had a ruptured eardrum and a double ear infection. 

We spent the day pretty lazily around the house and watched birds through the window. 

Even today the girls are watching the birds especially since I hung up a new Valentine's Day Bird Seed Heart, here is the blog from last year about this. 

Diggy the Mealworm is now a beetle so I pulled out an old Betta fish container I had stashed away and we gave Diggy a new home to fit his larger lifestyle. 

 I sat down with the girls and we finished up their infinity scarves they started at 4-H. There were some hiccups along the way and I had to sit down to seam rip apart of one, a sewing needle got snapped and I got my iron too hot and melted the fabric on part of Katherine's!!

Some definite hiccups but we got them done and the girls really like them.

 I would have to say the worst part about these scarves was how you join the two ends together. I have to think there was a better way than the way we were instructed to by the lady at 4-H.

Pretty poor videos on my part I was trying to take them with my phone. Please forgive me! I need to learn to stop doing that and pull out my actual camera for video.

The girls made some stuff. Brielle put together (after me having to describe the difference between a bolt and a screw to her) a little motorized brush. Really it just vibrates really loudly and spins around in places but hey maybe this is the start of her learning how to make me a roomba.

Katherine made a solar powered car. There's no battery on it so she chased it around with a lamp that had a 60 watt light bulb to make it work. I'm sure she will have a lot more luck with it outside when we discover what the sun is again.

I also did a cleaning project. That second shelf there is where my towels go! I don't think they are going there right now. My medicine cabinet kind of exploded!

Folks got into this bad habit of just randomly tossing things in. and then we'd have to go digging through it. Plus nothing was ever being gotten rid of.

It is still pretty full but it's more organized plus I fit 5 bottles of lotion that was crowding up under the bathroom sink into this shelf. I call that a success.


I think that pretty much sums things up. I guess I better get back to being the mean mommy and making them study for when school finally does go back in session!

Zebra Magazine Holder

So you know me and cardboard by now and upcycling when I can. Well this is another upcycle project of a cereal box like I did for my cooking books. This one is for Katherine though. 

I had to actually pull out the cereal from this box because I was being stubborn when I found out Ranger Rick magazines are wider than normal magazines. Don't worry I labeled and dated the bag of cereal. :)

So I took a ruler and I measured out my cut lines all around the box, this isn't an exact science you do what you think would look best. 

I probably should have taken more pictures through this process. OOPS! I'm planning to make another one to hold Katherine's Comic books so when I do I'll try to put a few more pictures in. (**Edit: Added a few pictures to try and show the process a little better. It's pretty straight forward.)

After I cut out my box I wrapped it in duct tape (you could try to glue craft paper on it or other techniques too I just don't suggest painting directly on it because these boxes have a waxy outer coating the paint won't want to stick around).

I then pulled out some chalkboard vinyl I had left from the picture frame project the other year. They also make dry erase vinyl but for something like this I prefer the chalkboard. If you do pick some of this stuff up use the bistro chalk pens not hard old fashioned chalk because the hard chalk won't write well and will scratch it up. 

Our Friday

So our Friday has not been as planned. School was canceled again because the ice just won't melt and we are in due for more snow on top of all this. Katherine woke up at 1am crying about her ear so I put a warm press on it an got her back to sleep. I'm not feeling up to par either. So I took Katherine to the doctor today and have been treating my own earache.

Katherine came out of the doctors office prescribed some medicine with the diagnosis of a double ear infection and one of her ear drums ruptured.

The poor girl knows her mommy and daddy have to go to work so she's been going through all this and barely a mention of it. I really wish I had known earlier that she was in that much pain.

So I've spent the day home nursing myself and her while my oldest works on a school project due next week.

We've spent the day watching Swiss Family Robinson and Katherine has really enjoyed it.

While Katherine and I were talking this morning we were watching the birds through the window and she asked me to take a picture of a pretty boy cardinal who seemed to just beg for attention.

A Wintery Week

Well that wasn't a joke when the Groundhog said 6 more weeks of winter. Monday school was called out because of the weather moving in later that day (it started around 2pm). I can't even remember how the days went any more. I stayed home with the kids on Monday my normal day off. That's right there was snow somewhere in there like 4" of it!
Tuesday the Freezing rain moved in and since then the roads have just been too bad for school to be in session.

That is correct! There has been no school all week!
I've had my oldest who is 13 1/2 watching my youngest. It makes me very nervous and I make sure they have a phone near by and every day we talk about the hazards of fire, 911, etc. I admit it, I hover over my children a lot! They have done well though and have been working on studying for tests and doing the few chores I write down for them.
I really wonder if we will at least have school tomorrow.

As for now though it is bitter cold with flurries of snow drifting around in the air but never really seeming to land.

I'm ready for Spring!!

I assure you the tree is not normally in the gutter.

Well birds won't be getting anything to eat out of there anytime soon.

It amazes me this fence gate gets a lot of sun and yet there is still a good layer of ice.

Busy Monday, February 3

I am sorry folks I've been so scarce and my blog these days seems to be just catch ups and not helping anyone with anything. Things have been busy with lots of doctors appointments for everyone in the family but at least I can say none of them were for being ill. A lot of weird work stuff going on too heck even I've been slammed and will continue to be so for probably the rest of this year we've had some big projects hit (sometimes it doesn't pay to be the only Drafter in a chemical plant). 
Excuses aside though I tried to do a little updating this week to catch folks up for now.
Hope everyone has a wonderful day. 

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Groceries
• Help Katherine study for her state capitals and division test
• Keep Brie on task for her report due Friday (This one and the one above it may be harder than they sound I just had to go in there and threaten to take away electronic devices. Ah snow days.)
• Clean up around the house some.  

Menu

Can I just put down 'food' and call it good? I know I'm slacking here but ever since being put on this low carb diet while the rest of my family isn't so I have to watch my portions mainly but I also am trying to fix things that I can more easily do that with. You know I'd KILL for a fruit right about now but you wouldn't believe how many carbs are in those! So I'm playing it by ear for right now. 

• Sloppy Joes and Chips (I get pork rinds at least this time I will have something with a crunch)
• Spaghetti W/Meatballs (I need to decide if I'm going to eat zucchini instead of noodles again it cut down my carbs quite a bit but it tasted like I had pickles in my sauce)
• Hamburger Helper with Corn (I probably shouldn't have so much beef in my diet my LDL is off due to this low carb diet but part of me also wants to use food that is already in the house and I just haven't been replacing it)
• Chicken with rice and stir fry (this may end up being my cheat night I've kept under my carb goal for the last few weeks but we also have not had rice in a few weeks. Bread is ehh bad on carbs but not horrific, Potatoes the same thing a large baked potato is about 70 carbs, rice on the other hand OMG the carbs!) 
• Pizza (Amazingly I can get away with this just again moderation. I eat 2 slices instead of half of a pizza and then have some sugar-free jello)
• Breakfast for Dinner (we haven't done this one in a long time and I'm out of ideas. I can eat breakfast pretty well too eggs and the meat generally low to no carbs (depends on if meat is sugar cured) so it works out well for me)
• I'm thinking of a grocery store rotisserie chicken I was going to do that this past week but we didn't. Do that with some steamed cauliflower and some other side I'm not sure what yet.  

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Make an appointment with the dietitian 
• Work
• Find time to dance around in a little circle singing, "Ice, Rain go away go some place fun like Georgia" which needs some work it doesn't go well with 'Rain, Rain Go Away'
• Friday pick up Katherine's friend - Probably go to the Y
• Saturday there is the Valentine's Day event at the Botanical Garden again

Last Week

Okay well remember the STEM club meeting I mentioned last month? Yeah I wrote it down for Thursday it was on Wednesday so we missed it. I kicked myself for several days after that. To try and make up for it a little bit since the STEM club had the police department come out with the bomb robot instead yesterday I took the kids to the Community College where the first area high school robotics competition was going on for who would go to state. The kids didn't seem very interested when we told them we were going Friday night and kind of dragged Saturday morning but once we got there they didn't want to leave! They really enjoyed watching and seeing ideas and where they would have changed the design on some peoples robots! 

Also over the weeks I was given several glass jar candles most of which the candle was burned down at least half way which is fine. I've been taking the old wax and cleaning it up and storing it and then cleaning up the glass containers though the problem with it is now I have a lot! of glass containers. 

The top two I did with glass paint the bottom one was my first attempt at using the sharpie technique on plain glass which normally the sharpie technique is meant for things like mugs because they have a coating. It still worked but there was a lot of fading especially for the color green. I prefer the paint method.
The top left picture I stuck another picture inside the glass and attempted to trace it out before painting. This was very hard due to the thickness of the glass and I ended up having to close one eye so my depth perception would stop messing with me.
The top right picture I did with stick on stencils and this is definitely the easiest way to do this but you have to be careful because intricate stencils like to come off funny. I think with anything with too many flexible parts I'm going to trace out and then paint over.

The other week a cereal box also became empty so I cut it down and tried using some contact paper I had left over. It did not like to stick to the waxy coating on the box very well so I ended up using duct tape too on the inside to hold down the tabs. I'm justing this to hold some of my cooking magazines. I hope to make some more when more boxes become available.

We started picking up Katherine's friend on Friday nights and taking her out to do activities with Katherine while Brielle and my husband are out playing Friday Night Magic. The girls have really enjoyed it.

3 weeks ago we went to the Y and hope to go there this week. The next weekend Katherine's friend came over and they played on the Wii. This last Friday my husband and Brielle stayed home so the kids didn't get together but they had a sleepover at Katherine's friends house and gave my husband and I a night to ourselves.

The other week the kids had 4-H project club where they worked on making infinity scarves. They got to use a serger which not even I have even done. The project wasn't completed though so I need to pull out my sewing machine at home and let the girls use it. It was their first time on a serger and it will be their first time using a sewing machine.

A lady on one of the sites I was on was giving away frozen blueberries they didn't have room for so I picked them up and made mini blueberry pies for Katherine and myself. They were very good and went very fast.

Since then though my doctor has put me on a low carb diet. It has been a very rough time and while I got my numbers all looking good it has spied my cholesterol something horrible because snacks have become things like meat and cheese and breakfast has become meat and eggs. It's kind of weird that a vegetable is now worse for me than sitting down with a block of cheese. I'm not suppose to have rice, potatoes or bread any more but I still am just I am making sure to measure everything and to eat in moderation because the idea of cooking a whole bunch of separate meals makes me crazy just thinking about it. 

This is egg beaters (so I can watch my cholesterol), ham, green pepper, swiss cheese and onion. It's a little over 4g of carbs per one. Thankfully I don't need to eat a lot in the mornings but they do taste yummy and even the girls really like them. 

While everyone else was watching the super bowl by the looks of it on my facebook feed instead Peter was out playing Magic the Gathering with a friend and 4" of snow fell but I still put the kids to bed at a decent time and plan to work on various homework (large projects, studying for tests, etc.) tomorrow.

I was bored and I had cardboard so I made 3 letters like this one for 'KAT' to hang in Katherine's room. Cardboard, poster paint, glitter and glossy mod podge. All things I had around the house already. Katherine is really into zebra stripes and I have created a 'prize box' full of zebra striped stuff for her to redecorate her room with. It will take her a little bit to earn it and she's still trying to convince me that we need to paint her walls in zebra stripes (as my husband put it, "Not happening.") and I thought this would be a neat addition from similar stuff I've seen on pinterest just instead of going out and buying letters I used cardboard because well the cardboard was free because I just bought a small shelf so I had it laying around.