Baking Day!

Up until this point, I have not written about my food allergies.  So, let me share with you today.  Baking day is a necessity at our home because I am severely allergic to all milk and soy products.  For this reason, I have to make pretty much all of my foods from scratch.  Unlike my husband and children, I can't eat breads bought at the store, and there aren't any snack foods for me (except fruits and veggies) unless I make them myself and store them in the freezer.  After working quite a few days in a row, I was out of almost everything that I can eat, so today I have been baking up a storm.  I have made loafs of sandwich bread, brownies, pepperoni rolls (similar to cinnamon rolls but with pizza-type fillings), and am making English muffin bread for toast next.  I also made some stuffed green peppers for my lunches, since trying to buy anything at the cafeteria other than salad is difficult as well.  While I can't honestly say that I don't mind having these food allergies, I am finally finding some products that allow me to enjoy some of the foods I liked prior to developing the allergies and I am adjusting to this new way of life.  After 5 years of dealing with this, I am finally able to go to the grocery store without feeling extremely frustrated most times.  I am slowly finding new ways to enjoy foods that seemed impossible prior to the health food store opening in my area and am getting better with substitutions and alternatives to make some more traditional meals that I enjoy most.  So, in closing, if you have any awesome dairy and soy free recipes, please share them with me!  :)

A Day Of Rest

Last night, I fell asleep on the couch.  When I heard my husband get up this morning for work, he told me I looked so tired and was sleeping so soundly that he didn't want to wake me when he headed to bed.  After he left for work, I got our son up for school and once he was on the bus sat down to have some morning coffee and spend some time reading my devotional and praying.  Afterwards, I just couldn't get motivated to do anything.  At first I was beginning to worry about everything I wanted to get done today, but then I realized that I have worked 7 out of the last 9 days and have put in way more hours than usual working.  I decided that for once, it would be alright for me to let things go for a bit and instead enjoy my day.  I did throw in a load of laundry because my daughter had an accident in her bed which required washing her sheets, but other than that I have spent the day relaxing and I do not feel bad about it at all.  I got the fall decorations put up in the house (which was work, but will make me feel good when I get up tomorrow and smile every time I walk in the house for the rest of the season), spent some time reading, and enjoyed my time with my daughter.  Remember that in a usually hectic existence, sometimes you just need to take a day to rejuvinate by doing things that make you happy.  The photo is one that I came across early this morning.  It reminded me that life is all about perspective and helped me to change my attitude towards my to-do list today.  I hope that it inspires you as well and that you are able to enjoy at least a few minutes of relaxation today, whether all alone or with your children.  Have a blessed day!

The Start Of A New School Year

After taking the summer off from most of my usual organizational activities (and this blog), complete chaos has ensued in our home, and it is a time to get things back in order.  For starters, while we had a few random ingredients laying around the house, we didn't have any real meals or snacks, including in the freezer.  I made my first menu plan in over 3 months last week and completed a mini freezer cooking session (ham & cheese pockets and taquitos).  It felt like a small step in the right direction, but there is so much more that needs to be done.  Now, I just need to keep moving forward with small changes to get everything back the way it was.  I just have to keep reminding myself that it is going to take time and I can't overhaul everything the way I want to.  Here are my goals for the rest of this week and I will post my progress on them next Wednesday.

• Clean my desk
• Create a weekly schedule for getting homework graded
• Organize our bills
• Sort kids clothes and take outgrown items to the local mission 

The Realities of Freezer Cooking

I love the idea of freezer cooking.  For this reason, I have repeatedly tried freezer cooking.  I have done the marathon cooking sessions as well as swapped meals with a friend.  It is all great.  It truly does save time and money.  There are times when just whipping a meal out of the freezer at the last minute has been a great help to my family.  The problem for me is that I actually really enjoy cooking.  Coming home to make dinner after being gone all day usually isn't a problem because it gives me a chance to de-stress in the kitchen alone while my husband takes care of the kids for a few minutes.  So in reality, what happens at our house is, I put all these well-planned and carefully cooked meals into the freezer where they stay for months until I finally work them into our dinner plan because they need to be used up, and then we ended up eating a sub-par meal that has been in the freezer a bit too long no matter how well wrapped it was.  So my new take on freezer cooking is to stock our freezer with a few homemade convenience foods.  I have already been freezing batches of chopped onions and peppers, cooking large quantities of hamburger and freezing it in the portions needed to make some of our favorite meals like tacos or nachos, and pre-marinating meat for the grill prior to freezing.  After reading Money Saving Mom's 4 weeks to fill the freezer series, I'm also going to start making some lunch and breakfast type of convenience foods for my husband.  New recipes from her website (www.moneysavingmom.com) that I plan to try are pizza pockets, ham and cheese pockets, energy bites, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Now that I've told you how I feel about freezer cooking, why don't you tell me what you like or dislike about it and how you go about freezer cooking if you do.

Happy Mother's Day!

While today was not a noteworthy Mother's Day, I am still thankful to be a mother.  I have to keep reminding myself when day to day frustrations arise that we do it all while we hope and pray that the end result will show all of the work we put in.  The hard part is that it is a very long process.  Today in church, they showed a video about the unnoticed acts of mothers.  I know that I every day do many things that go unnoticed by my children and husband, but I have to keep in perspective that God sees it even if no one else does.  Often times, when I'm struggling with feeling unappreciated, I remind myself of the verse in the Bible that talks about doing all things as if doing them for the Lord.  This helps me to keep plugging along in the drudgery of unending to do lists that are part of being a mother and also helps me to enjoy those unexpected sweet moments when my husband does notice all my hard work or my son unexpectedly does something nice to help me out.  While thinking about all of the unnoticed things I do, I can't help but also think about the many number of unnoticed things I'm sure my own mom did for me and my sister, and I am so appreciative of it now, even though I can say with all honesty that I did not completely understand all that she did until becoming a mother myself.  So to all of the ladies out there, whether it was the best Mother's Day ever or one full of struggles, know that I am wishing you a Happy Mother's Day and that someday all of you do will be recognized in one way or another!

Rest & Relaxation

Life has been better to me lately and I feel like I can finally get back into a routine and start blogging again.  My goal is to post on Wednesday and Friday during the summer.

My husband and I just returned from a 5 day cruise to Grand Cayman and Cozumel and it was just the time I needed to come home feeling refreshed.  We laid out in the sun, had a few drinks, ate lots of yummy food, and enjoyed adult time doing things such as karaoke that aren't a normal part of our lives.  We had left the day after classes were done and enjoyed a long weekend with our kids and my family in Florida before we left on the ship.  The end of the semester was very difficult for me so I couldn't wait to go, but now that is all behind me and I'm ready to start teaching for the spring/summer semester next Monday.  Right now I am busy planning my baby's 1st birthday party.  While I am excited, it does make me a bit sad that the year has flown by so quickly.  Sometimes I think that I focused to much on other things and should have made time with her more of a priority, but in the end, we do the best we can at the time.  As I am only working 16 hours a week this summer (plus grading, but I fit that in whenever I can), I have plans to spend a lot of time enjoying my time at home with the kids.  We have a 15 foot pool, a trampoline, and by the end of the day, hopefully a swingset so we will have plenty to do.  Do you have any exciting plans for the summer?

The Road Of Life Is Full Of Potholes

This weekend was my son's state championship for wrestling.  The coach's wife gave the hotel information to my husband, who apparently was not listening when she was explaining it.  He simply told me to call and make a reservation at that hotel so I did but they said they were sold out.  We made other arrangements to stay with my aunt that night and then come home the following afternoon after he wrestled.  When we stopped for him to weigh in, he asked if he could stay and hang out so we agreed.  A little while later the coach's wife called and asked if we were headed to the hotel.  Apparently she had made all of the reservations in her name and had paid for all of them.  We then had to scramble around to get all sorts of things we hadn't brought to stay with family or for two nights.  The rest of the weekend was filled with computer glitches, getting lost, and a bunch of other mishaps.  In the end though, our son had a great weekend even if he didn't place and we survived.  My husband and I even got some alone time on the way home!  :) 

Remember... When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!