Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Oh Beautiful Jars!! Stocked and Ready For Gawking

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One of the jobs on my “To Do” List was to refill all of the jars in my pantry so that I’d have easy access to all of the staple ingredients I reach for so often. Since I typically purchase these ingredients in 25-50 pound quantities, I store them big buckets, and pour a smaller portion into easy-access jars in my kitchen, refilling as needed. (Read more here about where I purchase most of my food, and scroll through these posts to learn more about my bulk shopping and storage.)

My favorite part of this system, besides the fact, of course, that this just makes my life easier and saves us money while we strive to eat a whole foods diet is this:  I love staring at my jars full of pretty food.

It’s a slight obsession. A major obsession? Yeah, probably something like that.

Well, after just a few minutes of going back and forth from storage room to kitchen, lugging buckets and bags of dry goods (a great upper arm work-out!), all of my jars are re-stocked and ready to go. Pasta, sucanat, wheat, salt, beans, corn, and rice. Oh so beautiful.

 This is the part of my pantry I stare at when I most need a fix:

Hey, it’s much healthier than my former Pepsi addiction, right? :)

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School Room Clean-Up, School Supply Shopping, and a Trip Down Memory Lane…

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It is a tradition we’ve had with our family for years. Each year, after I’ve planned our school curriculum and schedule for the year, I make each boy a list of the supplies he will need. We then head out to do our shopping. This has always helped get the boys excited for the school year to start. And then, to make the day extra special, we go out for lunch together.

Except for the “going out for lunch together” part, I wasn’t really sure how interested they would be this year in our school shopping tradition. Asa is 15, after all. He doesn’t really need crayons anymore. :)  And actually, none of the boys really needed much. We’ve purchased so many 20¢ glue sticks in past years that there was no need to add those to any list. So, instead of individual lists, I came up with a general list of what we’d need, and off we went. Sweet boys that they are, they were all super excited about our outing. (That settles it. We are totally keeping this tradition until all of them head to college, and even after that if I can get away with it. Wow, I love these kids. And I refuse to think about them going to college. It’s only three years away for Asa. STOP. I’m not going to think about it.)

Here we were yesterday, taking our traditional “picking out supplies” picture.

And now, would you like to join me for a little tour through the years? I can’t believe how much they’ve grown. I decided to go backwards, so here they are last year, 2011:

2010 (we had and extra friend with us that year) :

school_shopping_10

2009:

buyingschoolsupplies09sm

And oh my…2008. Will you just look at these sweet babies:

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And now, Asa stands almost six feet tall and speaks with a man voice. It’s unbelievable really. Did I mention that I love these kids? Allow me to wipe my eyes and blow my nose loudly while I move on with this post…

Edited to add our 2013-2014 picture:

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Before heading out yesterday for our outing, we de-cluttered the school room as well as we could. (Some of our upstairs rooms are under construction, so we have extra furniture in the school room for the time being. Therefore, I just took a picture of our very messy, piled high table. All through last year, as we finished with books, instead of being good and putting them where they went, it seems we just continued to pile them on the table. Lovely, huh?

And now…

I’m hoping to do a better job of putting books back on shelves this year. It’s not like it’s hard, you know?

Stay tuned for more updates on what I’m checking off of my Fall Preparation “to-do” list!

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Gratituesday: Lego Room Make-Over

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Yay, yay, yay, and yay some more! Our Lego Room is finalllllly clean!

You know how you have those places in your house that you walk by and immediately upon looking at it, your shoulders droop, you suddenly feel tired, and you just have to walk away? (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I am so happy for you. I hope to be like you some day.) 

Our Lego Room is such a place as this. It is constantly a mess. We clean it, and within days it is a mess once again. Legos all over the floor. Legos beginning to string out into the hallway. Legos, Legos everywhere.

First, how is it, you might ask, that we happen to have such a room in our house that is dedicated only to Legos? It is a blessing and a kid’s dream come true, that’s for sure. Well, the simple answer is that we have a Lego Room because all four of our boys sleep in one big bedroom. We used to have them divided into two bedrooms, but they’d always end up sleeping in the same room anyway (and fighting each night over which room and which bed and whose turn and bleh). So, enough was enough, and all the beds got put into one room which  became “the boys room”. Then the other room became a Lego Room. 

Side note, because apparently I’ve decided to jump around in this post:  It is awesome to have all of our boys in the same room. Sure, sometimes (like once a year at the most) one of them mentions something about having their own room, and truly, we’d figure it out if they really wanted it that badly. But having them all together means that they are making awesome memories together. At night, we hear them reading together, making up stories together, singing together (serious or goofy), and laughing together. It’s incredible and wonderful, and Matt and I love listening to it. 

Anyway, back to the dreaded Lego Room. It was constantly a disaster, and nothing I’d tried in the past to make it better had ever worked. Finally, last week, the boys and I talked about how we could work together to solve the problem (so that Mom could learn to like Legos again). After way too many suggestions (seriously), we finally decided that the best idea would be to purchase some drawers so that they could separate and store the Legos by color. 

We spent hours and hours the next few days, sorting colors, sorting Lego people, sorting, sorting, forgetting that we were sorting and starting to play, being reminded that we were sorting, and sorting some more. Then we re-arranged, swept, dusted, set up some ground rules, and we were finished!

Isn’t it lovely!? Now, instead of feeling discouraged when I walk by, I get excited. It looks like a great place to create and play! I’ve made the kids promise NEVER to dump out a container of Legos again for the rest of their lives!! And if they are working on a project and have Legos on the floor, when it’s time to do something else, they are to put their project into a plastic container until later. 

Will this new system work? Oh I hope so. I think so. It better. ;)

I’m thankful to have this project behind me, and thankful that together, we figured out a system for Lego Room survival. :)

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How I Missed Most of the Olympic Opening Ceremony (My Fall Preparations Begin…)

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Sometimes, I dabble in insanity.

Read this post at your own risk and do not try this at home. Long story short:  Last Friday I did too much. I over-did myself. I completely wore myself out. But shucks, I sure did check a lot off of my “Preparing for Fall” T0-Do list.

Why did I over-do? I think it’s because we didn’t have any other plans (except to go to a friend’s house that night to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremonies), and I decided that it was a good day to have a cooking marathon. I didn’t plan anything else. All my boys were busy building forts and otherwise having fun on their own. I did manage to speak to them and smile from time to time. 

Early in the morning, I put two big chickens in my stock pot to cook. I got a few other things done (like getting laundry started and putting the boys in the Lego room to work on cleaning it) while it cooked. Matt deboned both chickens for me while I made tortillas for burritos. Love that guy.

I ended up making a quadruple batch of tortillas. That’s a lot of tortillas! (The recipe is in my Totally Tortillas ebook.) 

I was then able to put together 30 Chicken Burritos. They are now frozen and ready to pull out and bake for fast lunches.

Next, I got out my spices and mixed up Taco Seasoning, Italian Dressing Mix, and Ranch Dressing Mix. It’s so nice to have these ready in the pantry so that I can quickly make what I need.

Somewhere in there, I started six pounds of meat browning so I could make Sloppy Joes. I later froze this in four portions for four meals in our future.

I had fun experimenting with my Whole Wheat Pizza Dough and made a bunch of mini-pizza sized crusts. I baked them each for about 6 minutes. Now they are frozen and ready to pull out, top, bake, and eat!

I decided that since I only had a few packages of boneless, skinless Smart Chicken in my freezer to make Crunchy Ranch Chicken instead of Chicken Patty Sandwiches. We like the ranch chicken and little better and it is sooooo nice to have these made up and in the freezer to quickly throw into the oven at meal time. (My Crunchy Ranch Chicken recipe isn’t on my site, but it is in my What To Do With the Chicken In Your Kitchen ebook.)

 Here is an updated list of what I have accomplished so far:

  • Clean and organize our “School Room”.
  • Help the boys get their bedroom and the “Lego Room” cleaned and organized. (More on that later)
  • Type up book lists and writing goals for the boys for the year.
  • Take the boys on our traditional “school supply shopping, then eat lunch out” celebration.

Here are the kitchen projects I’d like to work on so that our fridge, pantry, and freezers are stocked and ready for busy days ahead:

This wasn’t on the list, but since I had some extra shredded chicken, I quickly made some Homemade Barbeque Sauce, stirred it in, and stuck it into the freezer for sandwiches later.

I truly had a blast, because cooking all day is what I call all sorts of fun. But by the end of the evening, my feet were more than a little bit fat from standing on them all day. Then we went to our friend’s house to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony, and I promptly put my feet up and fell asleep on the couch, missing a good portion of the event. I woke up somewhere around the marching in of Brazil, fell back to sleep, then awoke again with Romania.

Yo. I was the life of the party that night.

I’ve taken it a bit easier since that day. Good idea, eh? I really was bordering on being unwise with what I was trying to get done on Friday. And so, I learned my lesson. It would be no good to start our school year off with an exhausted Mama. (Of course, I’m no longer exhausted as my long nap during Opening Ceremony that night was quite refreshing…)

Stay tuned this week for more updates from “the list”. Trust me when I say that nothing else from that list will involve chicken. Or tortillas. Or Legos. 

Well, I do still need to at least tell you about the Legos….

 

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Menu Plan for the Week (What? We’re Actually Eating Out?!)

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Well, I’m off to a great start on my “To Do” List, and you’ll be getting a play-by-play all throughout this week. Bless your heart for being a fly on my wall.

In true “Getting Ahead” fashion, and also in true “I’m totally veering off of my original “To Do” list already” style – since I was making one Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casserole for lunch today, I went ahead and made an extra one for the freezer. Twice the food, but only one set of messy dishes. Score one for the freezer. (I used my Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole recipe, but you guessed it, instead of using beef, I used chicken. Clever, huh? Oh, and I also cooked the rice in chicken broth for extra flavor. Tasty!)

We often have a couple extra boys with us on Sundays. Today we got to celebrate a birthday with one of them. I gave him some choices, and he picked Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bars… “with Chocolate Milkshakes, please?” Well, of course. (Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bars:  This Oatmeal Butterscotch Chip Cookie recipe baked into bars – 350° for 25 minutes. Wow, it is the day for recipe variations, apparently.)

Note to self:  Never again put candles into cookie bars which have just come out of the oven.
They are hot. Duh.
Therefore, they will, of course, melt down into the cookie, causing a nasty,
waxy mess which will almost, but not quite, ruin your birthday celebration, for Pete’s sake.
And also:  As soon as you get off the computer, you need to remember to put “new birthday candles” on your shopping list…

Here is our menu plan for this week:

Sunday, July 29
Straw Propeller Gourmet Oatmeal (The boys were SO excited to help me review these this morning. More info on Thursday.)
Cheesy chicken and rice, green beans, sweet bell peppers
Spicy avocado dip with organic corn chips, fruit

Monday, July 30
Whole wheat pancakes, blueberries
Out to lunch for our “back to school” outing – more on that later this week
Crunchy ranch chicken, stir fried rice and veggies

Tuesday, July 31
Creamy orange cooler, scrambled eggs
Black bean salsa, fruit
Taco potatoes, watermelon

Wednesday, August 1
Pancake sausage muffins, cantaloupe
Tuna salad, tomatoes, sweet peppers, peaches
Lasagna casserole, tossed salad, zucchini

Thursday, August 2
Coconut flour muffins, applesauce
Salmon patties, peas, smoothies
Grilled Italian chicken, zucchini, corn on the cob

Friday, August 3
Cereal (Mom’s day off)
Out for lunch (wow, really?)
Grilled steak, tossed salad, green beans, corn on the cob (um, yeah, it’s my birthday)  :)

Saturday, August 4
Easy breakfast casserole, fruit salad
Leftovers
Cheeseburger macaroni, peas

If you looked thoroughly at my menu plan, you will see that we are eating out not just once, but twice this week. Craziness, huh? It’s a week of celebrations, what can I say? Oh, and do you think the “Cake Boys” might make an appearance on Friday with a special birthday edition? I’ve been sensing that something sneaky is going on behind my back. Just so long as there is chocolate involved… :)

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My “To Do” List As I Prepare for the Fall (And My Plan to Blog My Way Through the Preparations)

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I know it’s only July, but I have to start preparing now if I plan to survive the busy fall season. August through October are always our busiest months of the year, as we start school, freeze and can garden produce, and juggle umpteen soccer practices and games. I love soccer season, and am so excited for it to start I can hardly stand it. My husband helps coach our local York College ladies soccer team (I can’t wait for these gals to get back into town!), three out of four of our boys play on teams, two boys referee, and two boys are on additional traveling teams. There are a lot of schedules to keep up with. 

I’m not complaining. I soooo love it. But at the same time, I’ve started to feel almost panicky about being away from home so much and keeping up with all of my responsibilities. My solution?  I’m praying for peace.  Panicking helps…nothing. Oh yes, I’ve proven that over and over. I’m asking God to help me relax, to use me to bless people, and to help me enjoy the ride this fall. Oh, and I’m also already starting to warn and remind my friends that in a few weeks, I will not be able to formulate cohesive thoughts or finish my sentences. I am so blessed to have friends who continue to put up with me during these busy months.

In addition to spending much time in prayer, I’m doing as much as I can now to make my homemaking and home schooling efforts easier once we’re in “the thick of it”. I decided to share my “to do” list with you, then blog my way through it during the next several days. You do want to watch me prepare for the insanity, don’t you? Yes, that’s what I thought. ;)

First, here are the home projects I’d like to complete by August 5:

  • Clean and organize our “School Room”.
  • Help the boys get their bedroom and the “Lego Room” cleaned and organized.
  • Type up book lists and writing goals for the boys for the year.
  • Take the boys on our traditional “school supply shopping, then eat lunch out” celebration. (They’ll never be too old for this, right?!)

Here are the kitchen projects I’d like to work on so that our fridge, pantry, and freezers are stocked and ready for busy days ahead:

Disclaimer:  All items on these lists are subject to change. I may not be in the mood next week to make calzones. I may instead decide to make Creamy Chicken and Rice Casseroles. Or maybe I’ll make both. Or neither. I will likely think of something in the middle of the night tomorrow that I forgot to add to my list. I’ll be sure to call you at that time so that you are aware that my list has changed. You’re welcome. I may decide that cleaning the Lego Room isn’t even worth it since it’s likely to be a mess thirty seconds after we finish. If produce becomes freezable or cannable during this next week, that will trump all else. (“Cannable” isn’t a word and spell check wants me to change it to “cannibal” but that is obviously not at all related to my plan for next week, so I am leaving it as is. We all know what I mean. I think.)  Regardless, I do plan to take lots of pictures and blog my progress. It may will be messy. Read at your own risk.

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Victorio Food Strainer and Sauce Maker – Best Investment Ever for Homemade Applesauce and Tomato Sauce!

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applesauce_victorio

I’ve always known all of you were smart. You’ve proven it to me once again.

Last year, while I was making applesauce and experimenting with ways to make the process easier, many of you suggested that I get a Victorio Food Strainer. Before that day, I had never even heard of this gadget. And I’ll admit, I really questioned – would a Victorio really make the process of making applesauce go any faster? I mean, there are apple cores and bad spots to deal with. No matter how easy the process, you still have to prepare the apples. I’m usually dealing with several bushels of apples at one time. It takes time. It takes work. There’s no way around it.

Or is there? (There is! There is!)

I’m so excited after making 13 quarts of applesauce yesterday, I could do flips. And guess what? Since I invested in a Victorio, I still actually have the energy to do flips! (Not that I can or will. I’m not that coordinated.)

But it’s true. The Victorio DID made the applesauce making process much faster and easier. Like hours easier. I can’t believe how much time I saved compared to how long it used to take me to make applesauce.

I’ve tried all kinds of methods of making applesauce:

Yes, I’ve been making applesauce for years, using all varieties of methods to save myself time. This is why I feel like I have a leg to stand on when I say that using a Victorio Food Strainer is by far the easiest, fastest, most efficient way to make homemade applesauce – especially if you are making large amounts! (I’m also very sure this is going to save time while I make tomato sauce, though I don’t have enough tomatoes ready yet to give it a try.)

With the Victorio, you wash the apples, halve or quarter them, cook them down, then run them through the Victorio. You don’t core them. You barely touch them. My hands didn’t even turn brown – and I did loads of apples!! And this is why I want to turn flips.

Here’s a picture of what my new toy looks like:

I even figured out how to put it together all by myself. Aren’t you impressed?!

Here’s a little tutorial to show how easy this process was. You wash your apples (or in my case, you ask your children to wash the apples while you are working on other jobs in the kitchen).

You halve or quarter your apples and put them into a big stock pot. I simply halved mine since they were small.

Add a little water to the pot to keep the apples from scorching, then you cook them for 15-25 minutes until they are soft (while you go do something else!). Then you run the soft apples through your Victorio. The process barely even challenged my arm muscles it was so easy.

All the core and skin comes out the shoot, leaving bowl after bowl full of beautiful, smooth applesauce.

I had enough applesauce yesterday that after we all ate as much as we wanted, I canned 13 quarts using the water bath method. Awesome!

The jars are still sitting on my countertop so that I can admire them for a little while longer before putting them away. You know I always have to do that right? ;)

I have to say that the Victorio Food Strainer was a wonderful investment. Anything that saves me time in the kitchen, especially during the fall season when all the garden produce threatens to overtake my kitchen, is a life saver. It is very reasonably priced for such a handy appliance.

Do you have a Victorio? Do you love it? Do you want to turn flips with me over how great this thing is?

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Air Soft, Chocolate Cake, and Movies

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Our boys have been all about making fun plans with their friends this summer. I’ve loved watching them take initiative by making the phone calls themselves, setting up baseball games, soccer games, and basketball shoot-arounds. They’ve even “written and directed” several movies and invited friends over so that they could “shoot footage”. One mom commented, “It sure has been great for Justus to be the Activities Event Coordinator for all of our kids this summer.” :)

Today, the choice event was a game of Air Soft. As they were making the phone calls yesterday to prepare for this, the idea came to them that maybe they could also do some baking so they would have something tasty as a surprise to serve to their guests. After all, it’s always a great idea to serve cake to your friends after you’ve spent an hour and a half shooting at them, right?! 

Upon hearing their idea, I quickly squashed down my instinctive protests about them turning on the oven when it was 105° outside. If they want to treat their friends, who am I to argue? (Especially when they were leaning toward making something chocolate and I would get to be the taste tester.)  I did suggest, however, that they make their baking plan, prepare their ingredients, and then wait to actually bake in the evening when the temperature cooled to a more comfortable…98°. Ha!

Well, one brainstorm turned into another, until what had once been an idea to bake a simple treat turned into an elaborate plan to bake and decorate a layered Chocolate Fudge Cake. In addition, they decided that while they were making the cake, they should also make a movie such as they’d seen on Cake Boss on Netflix. Did I mention I had some produce I was in the middle of chopping and preserving during all of this? To suggest that my kitchen was a little bit of a (hot) hubbub of chaos may have been an understatement. Apparently, my family thrives on messy insanity.

Fantastic as they are, our boys don’t always work well together in executing a plan, but I’ve got to hand it to them:  The cake mixing and measuring went off without a hitch (with only a small amount of batter landing on the floor…twice). They took turns. They worked together. They even sort of cleaned up after themselves.

After the cake cooled (the next morning), they took turns decorating it with Fudge Frosting. As you can imagine, it was always a pity when they got frosting on their fingers. What could they do but lick it off?

 I was just pleased that the frosting bags didn’t explode. 

 They were so proud of the finished product. And so they should be.

Then, my yard and house became a center of excitement as a total of nine boys came in and out, making me wonder all morning long why in the world I was continuing to run my air conditioner. I’m pretty sure all of our guests must surely think that the only phrase I know how to say is, “Close the door please!” 

Oh, and how did the guests like the cake? Based on the fact that the only thing left in my kitchen when they were finished was a bunch of chocolate cake crumbs, I’d say they liked it just fine.

Then they headed right back outside to shoot each other again. You’ve gotta love it. :)

{Well, if you can believe it, after I had this post written and ready to go up, Justus showed me the finished movie they had put together. I got quite a chuckle out of it since 1) he said a lot of similar things in the movie that I said in this post, and 2)  It’s an awful lot like the actual show Cake Boss, with a Coppinger twist, of course. Therefore, I decided to post the movie to share with you, if you care to watch it. You’ll especially appreciate it if you’ve watched the actual Cake Boss show…or if you are an aunt or loved one who just can’t help but think that my boys are cute. This just features three of our boys since our oldest is at camp.}

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Gratituesday: My Date With the School Books

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Maybe it’s been the heat, maybe it’s been the lack of routine, I really don’t know. But for some reason, for the first time ever, I had not been as eager as I typically am about the arrival of this upcoming school year. 

Why would I feel that way when I love school time with the kids? I’m pretty sure it’s just because starting school means that I need to be a bit more disciplined and organized. I’ve enjoyed our “take it day by day” schedule this summer. What can I say?

However, with school starting for our family in just two weeks, I finally made the time to sit down will all of our books and began to get myself organized. Once I sat down, I believe it took about 3.2 seconds for me to get excited. Books! History! Fiction! Non-fiction! Goals! Fun! 

I am once again feeling like I can get into the home schooling groove. Not only that, I am super excited about what the kids and I will be learning this year. (Yes, the kids and I…because I usually learn as much as they do. It’s a huge perk to home schooling. I, the mom, get soooo much smarter. Although please never, ever ask me to be a participant on Jeopardy.)  :)

As I made out our schedule, I was pleased to see that it actually seems to work on paper. We never carry out our schedule perfectly, but sometimes I can’t even get it to work on paper, much less in real life. This year, I believe I figured out what might work. (And if I’m wrong, we’ll just tweak it as needed.)

I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn along with our kids, the chance to read loads of excellent books with them, and the privilege of being with them for so much of the day. 2012-2013 school year – here we come! (But not for two more weeks. For now, I’m going to stick to a non-schedule, thank you very much.)  ;)

Share how God is working in your life on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

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Menu Plan for the Week…and Are You Having Trouble Leaving a Comment On My Posts??

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I’ve heard from several of you that you’ve tried to leave a comment on a post sometime in the last couple of weeks, but my site hasn’t let you. How very rude of my site to not let you say what you would like to say. I’m so sorry. We’ve tried to get to the bottom of this, with little success. So, the only thing we can think of is that, since my site has recently been upgraded (on the back end), many computers are remembering my site as it used to be, and is therefore not letting you leave a comment.

Doesn’t that just totally make sense? No? That’s okay. I know what I mean. Sort of.

What I recommend to you is that you “clear your computer cache“. Hopefully that will take care of the problem. Because I reallllly want you to be able to leave comments when you want to leave comments. I always love hearing what you all have to say.

Not sure how to clear your cache? Here is a “how to clear your computer cache” tutorial, which is very helpful.

Don’t you wish there was some method of clearing your brain cache when you’re feeling bogged down and overwhelmed? If I ever find a tutorial for that, I will be sure and let you know. (Although I suppose prayer would do the trick, wouldn’t it? God is always good to take a load off our hearts and brains.)  :)

I am loving this time of year, with so many great, fresh fruits and vegetables available!! Can’t get enough! We are focusing on having two or three fruits and vegetables for each meal. It’s awesome!

Here’s what our menu looks like this week:

Sunday, July 22
Oatmeal, fresh peaches
Tuna salad, cherry tomatoes, applesauce, cucumbers
Calzones, cherries, baby carrots

Monday, July 23
Banana muffins, cantaloupe
Chicken burritos, watermelon, carrot sticks, kiwi
Cheeseburger zucchini boats, green beans

Tuesday, July 24
Whole wheat waffles, blueberries
Homemade chicken nuggets, peas, kiwi
Taco potatoes, smoothies

Wednesday, July 25
Pancake sausage muffins, cantaloupe
Pizza on the grill, peaches, peppers from the garden
Turkey sausage and red bean stew, watermelon, tomatoes

Thursday, July 26
Scrambled eggs with cheese, cherries
Grilled hotdogs (I use Applegate brand all beef hotdogs), watermelon, green beans
Italian pasta bake (on the stovetop so I don’t have to heat the oven), tossed salad, zucchini

Friday, July 27
Peanut butter honey toast, peaches and cream
Cottage cheese and pineapple, tomatoes, sweet peppers
Steak on the grill, zucchini, corn on the cob, cucumbers

Saturday, July 28
Granola, fruit
Leftovers
Bbq chicken, fried zucchini, green beans

 

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