Hey, I cooked for something.....

So yesterday, due to vacations, Tyler's bible study group was at our house. Since many families are on vacation, about ten kids showed up, mostly my chicas. That would be chicas por Jesus from Velocity. Fun times. Then, Pastor Tim took Tyler and two of the gals to the mall. I said I would make tacos for dinner and they all came back and ate them. Then the hubby got home with his brother Keith and Grant had Elijah sleeping over, so it was worth it to cook.

Tacos are easy and healthy. Lean ground beef, cook it up and add the seasoning. Chop up some lettuce and tomatoes. Sour cream and I found the bonus, guacamole in my freezer. Soft tortillas, we are a soft taco family. Queso dip and chips. Shredded cheese. I normally make home made salsa, but I did not have the stuff on hands, a great alternative is Chuck and Dave's fresh stuff. You can get a really big one at Sam's club. Then it is just pile on what you like. You can even make nachos if you like. Really, it's a twenty minute meal.

Oh, I did make Redonna cheese crisps or quesadillas. See, I used to just throw some shredded cheese on a tortilla and stick it in the microwave. That was until my small children went to my friends house. She puts butter on two tortillas, cheese in the middle and fries it in a pan like a grilled cheese sandwich. Crispy yumminess and you cannot go back to limp, hotness from the microwave. Then I cut them up with a pizza cutter and wahlah, Redonna cheese crisp.

So, tacos for a crowd went well. I love a full kitchen, especially full of teenagers. Love it. Oh, we had ice cream for dessert. PT had two kinds, it is his weakness after all.

I hope your kitchen gets filled to the rim soon.

God bless you and yours.

I cook for nothing

As a working mom, sometimes I feel guilty that my kids don't get home cooking. Sometimes I feel so guilty, I make a wonderful dinner. That is usually the day that my husband comes home and says, "I had a late lunch, looks great, but I am not hungry". The kids are eating over their friends houses and all my hard work goes into the fridge as leftovers.

This summer, I have discovered that kids like carnival food. Any day I get out the deep fryer and make chicken nuggets, french fries and cheese sticks, they are happy. I cannot, in all good motherhood, do this more than once or twice a month. My kids would die of a heart attack by the time they were twenty. Hey, everyone loves the deep fried stuff. Of course we do, or we would not go to the state fair for elephant ears and indian fry bread. Or deep fried twinkies. I actually tried one of those, all I can say is, not worth it. Totally disgusting. Now, a real, dipped, deep fried corn dog, that I can do. There is something magical about it. Crispy yumminess, dipped in mustard, so good. Baking frozen corn dogs out of a box do not compare to deep fried freshly dipped ones. Hmmmmmm, when is the state fair?

So, after grilling and salad making and Sunday dinners and all my hard work, all they really want is carnival food. Well, being a mom, I must shove something healthy down their gullets, or it's just wrong. Every time I see some child with pop or kool-aid in a bottle, I want to talk to the mom. Not that pop and kool-aid are bad, they should just be used in moderation, not as a daily drink for hydration. And I don't think they ever belong in a bottle. Just my opinion, but seriously, come on.

So what's for dinner tonight you ask? It is my day off from my other job, so I will grill out whatever meat is on sale. Marinate it in Italian dressing. Make a cole-slaw/ramen salad, and maybe some roasted potatoes. See? Protein, green stuff, potatoes. Nice balance. The deep fryer shall wait for another day. Oooooohhhhh, I have watermelon for desert. Not the healthiest of fruits, but hey, it's summer.

What are you making for dinner?

God bless you and yours.

Let the groaning begin....

In an effort to get my children ready for school, we have started cutting back on their curfews and bedtimes. Also, the time they get up in the morning. After many years of trying to wake children up on the first four weeks of school, starting this procedure a couple of weeks early seems to work out. They hate it. They push it. They try to stay up late with lame excuses. I don't fall for it. These kids have to get up early now so they can get up early then. The end.

Of course, this means no sleeping in for me either. That five in the morning alarm is going to start going off again. Why did I ever stop getting up at five? It is hard to get up at five and keep going. Especially since I gave up caffeine and I cannot have my coffee. Coffee good, stomach bad. Oh well.

What routines do you start doing before school? Do you let your kids sleep in to the bitter end? Or do you try to get them into school mode a little early? Let me know.

God bless you and yours.

Manners

As I work at Starbucks and serve countless people in a day, I am dumbfounded by their lack of manners. Mostly teenagers, but lately, old and young alike, have lost their ability to be kind and courteous. This results in me coming home on a friday night after working, waking Tyler from a dead sleep and lecturing him to make sure my kids do not act like mongrels. When did the manners stop? I actually came home yesterday hating the public at large.

I know as I sat at my dinner table, I had to ask politely, "could you pass the peas please?" and once they hit my hand, I had to say thank you. I want to know why parents stopped teaching their children manners. I did not. My kids are polite. Total strangers tell me how polite my children are, so I am pretty confident in this. Manners begin in your home, period. Please and thank you should be uttered thoughtlessly, not eliminated from their vocabulary. If one more teenager asks me to "get me a strawberry frappacino" I think I shall ask for the magic word. "What's the magic word?" I don't care if there is a line out the door every friday, I must take a stand for humanity and insist on the magic word. Then, I think the bar person should physically hold the frappacino hostage until the other magic word is uttered, thank you. Such a small amount of effort to be polite and we all have fallen short some how.

I am constantly amazed at the children of today and how much they lack in manners, common etiquette, and the simple matter of being around adults. Most cannot hold a conversation without including all the texting synonyms. Some cannot spell, because of the same synonyms. Omg, idk what to do with these kids. Most teenagers cannot even order properly because they are texting at the same time. Rude, rude, rude. We have to put it to a stop.

If my mother and I were in a line and I was a teenager and I was rude I know she would have slapped me silly, made me apologize and then slapped me again. Rudeness is running rampant and I want to know when this started. Because most of my friends discipline as I do, I know you are all going to agree with me, but is anyone out there who would like to get on a soap box and tell me why manners are not important? Just checking.

God bless you and yours.

A Summer Reading Suggestion.

Okay, first, sorry for no blog yesterday. I had to get up at midnight to go get the boys from their Cedar Point trip and then I had to open Starbucks. I could barely see straight, let alone blog about anything that was worth reading. Missed you guys too.

Second, you have read Stealing Home by Allison Pittman. Even if you don't read historical romance. Even if you don't read Christian historical romance. Her blend of characters, brutally honesty in writing and the story are worth picking this book up. I have to be honest and tell you I only picked it up because I met Allison at the Glorietta Christian Writers Seminar and we have become friends. We should all support our friends. I am not a big reader of Christian fiction. That being said, I loved this book. Could not put it down and it caused many a late night before I finished it. Great read. Perfect for a quiet afternoon on the beach or poolside.

I love finding a new author that I like. Knowing her personally only makes it better. She works very hard on her craft, something that I know is not easy to do. I have also read her book, Saturdays with Stella, which is non-fiction. Also, a great read, especially if you are wrestling to find your place in God's family.

So, I encourage you to go out and get Stealing Home, you will enjoy it. What are you reading around the pool this summer?

God bless you and yours.

What the........

As I roll over last night I hear something in the bathroom. Check the clock, it's 1:30 in the morning. I realize the sounds coming from the bathroom are my son's nightly rituals for getting ready for bed. Huh? It's one thirty in the morning, he should be in bed. Especially because they had to get up at 5:30 to go to Cedar Point with our youth group. So I ask you, am I crazy? I know teenagers like to stay up late, but what I cannot figure out is why? Sleep is good, sleep is fun, sleep is necessary. He knew he would not be able to sleep in, so why stay up so late? I don't get it. I really don't.

Then I realized he had been out skateboarding all day and had not checked in. Wrong answer. I asked him this morning when he got home and I believe he was home at curfew. But I dropped him off at like one in the afternoon. Not a word all day. I know he is all of fifteen and can handle himself, but really, throw the momma a bone here.

So, here I sit, perplexed, do I make him wake me up when he gets home, so I know he is safe and sound? Do I rely on his word, which is pretty honest if I do say so myself. He will use this as an excuse to say he should have a cell phone, then I could a hold of him whenever I wanted. That is not going to happen. All his friends have cell phones, I can always embarrass him and call one of them.

I am not sure I will survive these teenage years. Yikes. I wonder if God gives us teenagers to teach us perseverance. Good question when I get to heaven. My only hope is that I know someday, hopefully years from now, I will laugh at him handling his own teenagers. That will be worth the wait.

God bless you and yours.

Okay, the laundry soap is a go

IT WORKS. My clothes are whiter and brighter. I cannot believe I did not find this sooner. What a God send. Saving money, I mean tons and tons of money and it works really really well. I was a little skeptical. I mean, who can really make ten gallons of laundry soap for two dollars? Well, I can. And I will from now on, so worth the maybe half an hour it takes to whip up.

I was a little scared when I uncovered it Saturday morning and there was a gelatinous mess in a bucket. Then I followed directions and stirred it up, divvied it up with half water, half stirred up stuff and now I use it every day and it is wonderful.

All the stuff in the recipe is stuff our grandmas used. Borax, Fels-Naptha soap bar, washing soda. The stuff they used before commercials told you that you needed the newer and the better. Well, the older stuff is just as good or better in my opinion.

Again, I call out, what do you do to save money? Let me know.

God bless you and yours.