Well my hope is one of these days I'll be back to a normal schedule but for now that isn't going to happen. Last week I worked all last week and on top of it I didn't have a meal plan so I ended up at the grocery store every day! Did I also mention my budget exploded... yeah I did the finances. We were just barely under $800! With my husband working so much he ate out constantly... If I did mention it well then I'm still reeling from it.
Thursday, I took a pretty good fall trying to rush a paper to an engineer so I could get out of work and my foot didn't lift high enough and I fell up the stairs my hand slamming into the guardrail and then my chin following after it. I hurt pretty bad for a few days.
Brielle getting the rosemary ready.
Thursday also though Brielle and I made rosemary jelly! It was our first time making jelly and my pot wasn't big enough and we lost a bunch of it as it boiled over and I'm yelling at Brielle, "Get a bigger pot!" As I'm holding up this boiling over, foaming pot of hot death. Huge mess on my stove but we continued!
Rosemary Jelly
Later that evening when I had both the girls we made Strawberry Bread. The girls had fun mixing the ingredients and I got to show Brielle how to use shortening and flour on a pan. Katherine got to learn how to fold the liquid and powder (plus strawberries) together so that the bread was well mixed but not over mixed.
Peter's parents came in town and Saturday morning they took the girls for awhile and Peter had to work so I cleaned house! I also made the frosting for the bread which I was a little iffy on when I read the ingredients but with the girls gone I found myself licking the beaters clean! YUM! Love cream cheese frosting.
So Saturday night we went to Peter's Aunt Ann's house to have mutton and I brought a loaf of strawberry bread. I wasn't the biggest fan of it. I think it needed more strawberries personally but 3/4th of the loaf was gone by time we left and people kept going back for more. At first they'd slice off a paper thin piece and then end up coming back to take a much bigger piece so I think overall it did well!
So here it is Sunday with no kids. 11 am and I am still sipping my coffee and pretty much just relaxing and Peter finally has a day off after 13 days straight! We were talking about going to the movies but we are quickly finding out by time we get out to the movie theater the movies we want to see are almost out of the theater therefore not 3D (which is fine in my book) or not in the theater at all! But when you are talking a $15 for two people for a matinee just to walk in the door it is no wonder we don't go out to the movies very often.
I've been busy... like REALLY busy... like I shouldn't be sitting here right now busy! Here we are in JUNE! I haven't posted since early May! I'm so sorry!
Let's see what we can run through in the short break I'm stealing.
Well let's start with some family drama... always good right? It'll lead into the story later so kind of need to start there.
Back before Mother's Day my mother-in-law (MiL) decided that my husband who works on computers for a living needs to give his brother's kids laptops for no other reason than my children have laptops that they got for Christmas. She asked him how much and he shot her such a low ball price we'd hardly be covering shipping and the parts that have been used to fix the laptops up. Well we didn't hear anything and then he receives an email from his mother telling him how he's a horrible son and how his brother is down on his luck... aaaaaand we see where this is going. So my husband decides it's best not to talk to his mother than to be called mean and awful things but he did call her on Mother's Day as kind of a peace offering because she is still his mother but she didn't answer nor replied. Now let's rewind things just a little bit back early April I believe it was we had also told my MiL that the kids would be going to my parents house in Oregon for the first time in 6 years or so and she took it better than we expected and thought nothing more of it since my MiL has gotten the children during the summer and often on Fall and Spring breaks for many years now.
Fast forward and lets leave some of the drama behind but don't forget because it'll be back. Peter has been working every weekend for the past month and has had to pull 10 to 14 hr shifts at work since the new hospital was being built (and just opened this week) and he works on the hardware side of their computers and you can imagine how much there is to set up in a new hospital. School let out before Memorial Day and we had to deal with some drama from Brielle because she pulled a 77% on her Algebra final and because she is in Middle School the teacher suggested holding her back. We made the command decision to let her go forward and I'm glad we did because just last week we got her grades in and she had made an 86% overall in the class so had we held her back she would have been so bored! Katherine pulled straight A's for the first time. She's normally A's and B's but I was so proud of her straight A's!
During the bustle of the end of the school year Brielle had to go play her violin twice. Once was judged to determine her level by the music education I'm guessing for the county? I'm not sure. She got distinguished! The second time was her concert which my camera said NOPE half way through the last song.
Due to Peter's work schedule he could not go camping with us this year which is what we do to celebrate our anniversary which is always near Memorial Day (The 28th, we celebrated 13 years). I decided that I still wanted to take the kids camping so I invited a friend and he and 2 of his children (his two oldest girls he's got 6 children) and we went to Mammoth Caves and I paid for the trip and even for them to go for a cave tour because his children have never gotten to go. Peter and I are not well off but when I can I really like to include children of our friends because our friends mostly are in a much worse situation than us.
I went grocery shopping and also go some food for the house for $86 (there's actually 2 cases of water only one in this picture) to feed 2 adults and 4 kids for 3 days and 2 nights I think I did pretty well plus like I said the oatmeal, cereal, fabric softener and cough drops were for here at the house plus I didn't take all the hot dogs and bologna I bought (5 packages of Hot Dogs, 2 packages of Bologna for free! Heck yes coupons!)
Richard is showing Katherine and his two girls how to properly use a hatchet to cut wood.
That wood later became the bane of my existence I told him I'd go buy some but he said...noooo save your money so he found very spongy wood and we spent all night fighting with the fire to get enough flames for the girls to toast a few marshmallows.
3 of the girls brought back a tree! Roots and all!
The kids found a down tree they called a bridge. Katherine wanted to cross it too and I said absolutely not!
So she scooted across on her butt and I said that was fine.
You'll notice Brielle isn't in any of the pictures above that's because that day she was with her Orchestra group at Holiday World... lucky girl. I would meet her with Daddy halfway much later that night. I did lots of driving that day.
The back of Brielle's head as we descended down into Mammoth Caves like we have done for several years now.
I blinded Richard! Hehehe! Never trust me with a camera!
Walking through the cave.
Take note of the black dot on the ceiling.
The girls all lined up for a shot. There were several pictures we took and all of them really looked BLACK... I need a better camera for this stuff!
Welcome to the Methodist Church Altar! Yes, they held services down in Mammoth Caves a long long time ago.
More Cheesing it up for the camera.
Welcome to Tall Mans Agony! OH the Agony of having to stay hunched over while going down stairs!
A REALLY deep pit!
As we bent down we had to go through Fat Mans Misery!
Here's a picture to show you a little better Fat Man's misery that's a kid squeezing through infront of me!
Hope you aren't afraid of heights! Yes, I'm looking down!
Remember that black spot I told you to remember when we walked into the cave?
Well here it is. A cute little bat!
We made it out of the cave and back into the sunlight.
We then went and let the girls fill out packets that they demanded to do there instead of back at the campsite so they could all become Junior Rangers.
So after our hike through the cave, earning junior ranger badges and lunch back at the camp we went for a hike. Richard was told by one of the rangers there was a bit of water you are not suppose to go swimming in but there aren't exactly rules against it. It made me very nervous so we went there. It was a lot of mud in the shallow parts and we couldn't let them go in the deeper areas because the area was fed by underwater rivers which looked just like deep dark pools. It made me very nervous but the kids had fun slip and sliding in the mud.
Before we went swimming though we continued to hike. This is the River Styx which was really a stream that led into a cave but it was very pretty.
We also found an abandoned old cottage.
So Saturday was our last day there and we decided to take a picture before leaving the campsite. There were lots and twists and turns on this trip.
1. Make sure you book your tour ahead I tried to tell Richard that but he wouldn't make up his mind so we only got our large group in because there was a cancellation.
2. When you are looking at 40 degree nights make sure you don't have an open roofed tent. I didn't realize I didn't have a cover for my tent! The kids slept in my other tent which was covered and they were all packed in there and toasty warm. On the second night it decided to rain! Thankfully on the first night we jury rigged a type of top so we only got a few sprinkles inside after it got past the trees above us and it wasn't a very heavy rain thank goodness.
3. When you are entering an area that doesn't allow you to bring firewood make sure you either purchase some at the area or find smaller twigs and logs the big ones are like sponges!
On our way out of the area we stopped at a place to go look at a sink hole... yes we hiked in to look at a muddy hole.
It was very neat though and a very old sink hole.
We took lots of pictures on our hike that day. Believe it or not this is just a small taste of all the pictures that were taken!
Steps from Hades!
And then one final picture as we were leaving the Mammoth Caves area at least for this year.
I'm sure we will be back next year too and I hope this next time Peter can come with.
So through the Month of April and May the kids had swim lessons and Brielle is currently in a girls only engineering summer camp for the week but again this is something I will get back to but I've been running a lot to get them to their classes.
So remember my MiL? Well she decided to call a few weeks back trying to make plans for the kids to go to her house for 4th of July and completely forgot that we told her they were going first to South Dakota for my cousins wedding in June and then my parents were driving them from there to Oregon and hitting Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone on the way. Sounds exciting for the kids right?! Well she blew up and started saying all these mean and awful things from then my mother has been dealing with her. While my MiL complains about her work and one of my nieces being so lonely during this time my father has just come out of chemo, literally just had back surgery and then just had his heart checked because things sounded wrong. Thankfully my dad's heart seems okay but they think they've found another problem... I think some time with the grandchildren would be good while he still can get up and moving! So we've been dealing with a lot of drama from that.
Back to the engineering camp. Well because it lets out at 12:15 I had to find a sitter by the school to pick her up and watch her for an hour. It's completely thrown things out of whack and with Peter working so much I found myself with a lot of free time and cleaning didn't sound too appealing (when does it ever).
So instead I found myself in the kitchen.
Homemade Chocolate Chocolate Chip Fraps
Cinnamon Coffee Cake
I also tried to make kale chips... these did not go over well! First of all if the stem is too thick it doesn't dry out properly and I over cooked most of them so many turned into powder.
No one liked the taste and the smell was so strong. Now I did the other half of the bag (because I had 2 trays and that was half the bag) in the dehydrator for about 2 hours and that might have been a tad much. They came out much better done, not burnt either but still no one liked them. Thankfully I bought the kale on discount so I didn't lose a bunch of money. I kept the dehydrator ones I figured I might toss a few in with my can o'soup that I normally eat for lunch. We will see.
I have also been very tired of the same o'thing for what we eat around the house. I was going to make lemon chicken but it happened Peter was actually getting off at a decent time so he BBQ'd some chicken but I decided to move forward and make roasted veggies. They were alright I suppose but I wasn't overly fond of the herbs suggested by the recipe. I may do this again but use my own herb combination. Brielle ate a lot of them but she likes veggies. I made the other two at least choke down some potatoes. I had the potatoes from my various attempts at making potato chips in the dehydrator which I don't have pictures of but thus far they have been a flop and no matter how thin I get the potatoes they are so VERY hard! They make kettle chips seem soft.
I also this past week went over to a friends house to show her how to make laundry soap and helped her out with that and then came home and made a batch myself because I was out.
So on to today's drama. This morning Katherine's alarm she begged me to turn on to 6am didn't go off or she slept through it so she woke up crying her eyes out. I found out why she wanted to get up so early is because she wanted to spend time with her dad who's been working a lot so I had Peter give her a call and that set things to rights.
Yesterday I had gone over to pick up Brielle from the man watching her for me who is an old family friend and also has a young daughter and I noticed the house needed some TLC inside the kitchen so I grabbed my floor cleaner from the house and went back over there and worked on the floor and the dishes. He told me also that I didn't need to rush over there so fast it gave his daughter something to do. So today I took a little bit of extra time and picked up the piece I need to fix the hose from the dollar store and then grabbed what groceries I needed for dinner and some cream cheese because later I plan to make strawberry bread. So I was about half an hour later than normal and when I got there I saw Brielle outside and she came straight to the car and I made a joke about her wanting to run away from their house. Well she broke down in tears apparently he never walked over to meet her at the school. Now Brielle is almost 13 so her walking a couple blocks didn't worry me but she then proceeded to tell me she had walked back and forth from the house to the school this whole time because no one answered the door. Needless to say I was upset. So then I call the mom who is at work and she calls his mother who goes over there to pound on the door while the mom is making phone calls to everyone else in the area. The school Brielle was at calls me telling me some man was asking after her and this is well over an hour after they got out of camp. So everyone one was freaked out but I tried to calm people down I had Brielle home safe now finding him and his little girl that was another question. Eventually it was found out because of his extreme pain (he's on disability too) he had taken some pain medication and fell asleep which now has the mom upset and I'm making sure Brielle packs her cellphone for the rest of the week.
Well that's a short rundown of things about as compressed as I can make to cover up til now. I'm sure I forgot stuff but I don't think anyone is going to blame me for that.
Oh on a funny note I had to write my own job description at work because raises are coming up and after being there over 6 years they still didn't have a job description for me!
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Other stuff I forgot I did. I made 1 out of 4 hair ties I want to get made before I send the girls off for the summer so they can have these for 4th of July.
This was my first attempt at one like this.
I also had to pull out my sewing machine and I helped a friend of mine with a REALLY long stitch in a tent she is making for for the SCA and then had to turn around and patch my old 14 year old sleeping bags but hey for under $4 I got two good sleeping bags again.
Like I said I did more than my little mind can keep up with. I also did some running donating samples I had around the house for shampoo and stuff to a family in need. Peter and I got to go out for dinner and a movie for our anniversary thanks to a friend who watched the girls. --- Just a lot of things.
So I'm stealing a bit of time this morning to actually sit down to my blog! I know shocking right? Well I have a cup of coffee and I'm ready to tackle this thing.
Okay maybe not ready because I'm not sure where to start. First I guess I will tackle the schedule. I signed the kids back up for swim lessons so things have been crazy again with them going every Tuesday and Thursday. Gross Out Alert This past Thursday at swimming Katherine ate a banana before going and then swallowed a big mouth full of pool water and threw up in the pool! Everyone had to leave the pool for the class and instead they had 'safety' day.
With this new crazy schedule it means Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to use my crockpot or rely on meals in boxes. This past Thursday was Royal Round Steak. This is a recipe I've struggled with though I did better this time.
Recipe:
Royal Round Steak (as it reads on the recipe)
1 to 2 lbs beef round steak or stew meat
1 to 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 envelope (1 ounce) dry onion soup mix
2 cans (10 3/4 ounces each) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
Hot cooked egg noodles
1. Trim round steak and cut into cubes. (Partially freeze meat for easier cutting.)
2. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown meat on all sides.
3. Combine dry soup mix and canned soup in mixing bowl. Pour mixture into Crock-Pot slow cooker. Add browned meat. Cover and cook on High for 6 to 7 hours.
4. To serve, spoon over egg noodles.
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My experience. Well first let me tell you what I used that might be different. I used 1 1/2 lbs stew meat and 10 1/2 ounce cans of soup aka store brand Campbell's is 10 3/4 oz. (Did you realize there was a difference?). The first time I tried this recipe I did it with 1 Tbsp of oil and added only the oil and I kind of mixed the meat in with the soup removing the oil from the meat before putting it in my crockpot and set it for 6 hrs on High and then it would switch itself to warming. When I arrived home much of the meat was burnt to the bottom and there was a thick layer of burnt soup mixture along the edge. I used a lot of milk and was able to salvage it. The second time I tried to make it the same way but left the oil and juices in the pan when I dumped it in. Much of the same result though not quite as bad. This was my third attempt because no matter how badly I mess this recipe up the kids keep asking for it and after nearly 6 months of saying, 'no' I finally gave in. This time I used 1 can of Campbell's because I happened to have it around, 1 can of store bought, 1 1/2 lbs stew meat cooked in 2 Tbsp of oil. I put the soup mixture on the bottom of the crock-pot and added the meat WITH the oil and juices on TOP of the soup and made sure the meat wasn't directly touching the edges to start with. I set my crockpot to 8 hours on low but around 6 hours when I got home I switched it over to the warm function of my crockpot for the next few hours until dinner. There was still signs it wanted to do what previous patches did and the top edge was still burnt and the whole thing seemed thick so I added some milk to thin it out. It came out better this time and took less time to fix. I have enough stew meat to do this once more so what I might try is adding some beef broth to it from the beginning to thin it out a little. Maybe half a cup? What do you think?
I've been playing with my dehydrator again. I had 3 discounted apples that were getting to be iffy just because of my time restraint this week and I had 3 banana's that something NEEDED to be done with. I tried the banana's in a 1/2 c Honey mixed with 1/4 c Water. Sadly no matter what I do the bananas come out sticky. They taste okay the girls commented on how much milder the flavor is with the honey because before just dipped in lemon juice your mouth puckered because they were so sweet. I did find something out though the reason my banana chips won't get 'crisp' is because I'm using older bananas also no duh I'm used to grocery store banana chips that have been fried but these homemade ones you need to keep in airtight containers otherwise especially in humid places like Kentucky they will start to rehydrate rather quickly.
Speaking of cooking I had this discounted bark chocolate I picked up a few months back and I picked up strawberries (I still do plan to dehydrate some at some point). And I thought to myself what would be better than chocolate dipped strawberries. Now I've never played with chocolate other than like chocolate chips and it was one of those experiences where I really wish I had a double boiler but this time with the bark chocolate I'm not sure what is different about it but I had no problem with it on the stove top with constant stirring and a low temp.
It has been declared that I must make these more often (and do you see the banana chips we dipped too... yum! Those were first batch of just lemon dipped banana chips). As Katherine put it, "You need to make those more often because they are healthier than just plain chocolate." LOL! I like how my girl thinks!
Brielle got her award for being in Jr. Beta and also got her medals for her solo and trio performances and earning the rank of proficient from the judges! We are very proud of her.
And by this point if you are wondering how I have so much time it is because my husband is working every weekend now and will be for a few months while the new hospital gears up to open and during the first part of it opening.
Well that's pretty much it. I got part of my garden in last weekend and if I ever get enough energy I'll get out there to start the rest of it. For now though I better try and take care of a few things around the house because tomorrow is Mother's Day which should be changed to, "Deny mom from working on the house so she has to work harder on Monday" Day.
Well it's Monday and I realize I didn't hold true enough to getting back onto my blogging kick! Eep!
Our door to the underside of the house. It's to help the fairies keep our A/C running this year.
Things have kept pretty busy at the Sims household and I really am looking forward to some down time.
Spring has sprung though so that doesn't allow for a lot of down time.
A plant I put in last year that never bloomed for me has decided to just be the prettiest thing this year!
Bulbs blooming... wait I thought those were suppose to be pink...
Momma bird the babies are so cute!
With spring has come gardening but the weather has been all over the place! I feel like our central unit needs a toggle switch on it! Some days we are hitting 80's and other days like today we'll be lucky to see mid-60's. I'm getting tired of the weather not making up its mind.
Spring also means spring dance. This year's theme was like a night in the tropics or something so I glued a bunch of dollar store flowers to clips and did Brielle's hair up like she asked. I thought it was silly as heck but she loved it.
I got the parts in for my pressure cooker but in attempts to figure the blasted thing out I realized that my jigglier doesn't jiggle it's fixed in place. I looked this up and apparently it's common for Mirro but I have no clue how to read the darn blasted thing! Still doing research and getting a hold of the lady at the extension service has been heck! I've about given up after 3 weeks of calling and leaving messages.
I also got myself an early Mother's Day present.
And what is the first thing I do with it?
Mind you they turned out like banana chewies I couldn't get them to 100% dehydrate *sighs* And they were too sweet! I heard they need to be just starting to spot and I had some that were and I wasn't going to touch them. I like mine darn near green.
You may recall I mentioned a friend of mine had a mild heart attack and was going in for surgery around her heart? Well the surgery went well though lots of horror stories and the poor dear is still having problems getting around because of how they did the surgery but she is okay and that is what matters! For the day of the surgery I took off work to watch her youngest.
And mommy was always worried her little one wouldn't be able to sleep anywhere but at home but see I'm an old pro at this. Awww almost makes you want to have another one. Almost....
That's just the activities hasn't really spoken to home life.
The girls had a wonderful time in swim lessons every Tuesday and Thursday. They really wanted to go back to swim lessons and since some drama has happened (trust me you are better off not knowing how my in-laws are) we've decided to go ahead and sign them back up for swim lessons so I will go down to the Y today and see if I can do that.
Brielle's glasses broke.... again... they broke last month too and I had to use the warranty.
Peter has been working a lot of weekends and a lot of sudden later nights so it's made things a little hard. Things are about to get harder though. They will be working every weekend until sometime in June (for the most part weekend off here or there if lucky) and starting at the end of the month he starts going on to 12 hr shifts as they try to get the hospital ready for the go live date.
Because of all of this we ate out more than we should have and that dramatically hurt the food budget. April grocery and household spending came to a grand total of $690.26. Nearly half of that was just in eating out. Mind you we made more money this month too because on top of all this extra time Peter has been working side jobs too so there were several times he said, "Don't worry about it I just got paid" but instead of paying with cash it was just instinctive to pull out his credit card.
Counting today there are 12 school days left! That's it! Then the girls will start summer camp and then in June we are going to South Dakota for my cousin's wedding and then staying a week up there with my grandfather and my parents who are driving in from Oregon and then the girls will be going to Oregon with my parents! My parents are so excited! My dad hasn't been able to seen the grandchildren in around 5 or 6 years. My mom has seen them more recently than that but not by much. There are all sorts of plans to take the girls camping and fishing and to see the sights so I'm excited for my girls and the great chance they get this summer.
It's a very strange year though. Because of the new hospital Peter and I don't get to celebrate our anniversary together, we may not get our family trip to Holiday World this year (still trying to work that out) and we aren't going to have our family trip to the beach instead I'm spending my vacation for this trip to South Dakota which I haven't decided if I can drive it or not. I'm having to work this out with my work schedule so that makes things difficult. Sounds so petty but it really has me bummed. It's hard when you work and you work and you work and the little bit of family down time you normally have is gone. It can be disheartening.
Well I think that's about it. Time to get ready for a month of groceries.... did I mention I was so out of it last week that I didn't go grocery shopping other than for milk? Yup so I've got my work cut out for me, plus going to the Y and getting Brie's glasses taken care of. I hope that short list doesn't take too long I'd like to get onto the house!
