Menu Plan Monday ~ Aug 31st!

School is back in session so that means I need to get myself organized again! No more playing and flying by the seat of my pants!

This means I'm going to try really hard to get back to my weekly menu planning. Hopefully, as well as get my family eating regular homemade meals at home, this means I'll be able to post some more recipes on my cooking blog!

I'm linking up with Laura at "Organizing Junkie" to share my menu plan with hundreds of other planners! You can click on the green link to see what they are making and get some ideas for yourself.

Monday - Stuffed Peppers with peppers from my Dad's garden!

Note: When you click on the link for the recipe, it takes you to my Halupki (Stuffed Cabbage) recipe. I basically do them the same way. Just follow the recipe down and you'll see I show stuffed peppers too.

Tuesday - Chicken Pot Pie

Wednesday - Pork Tenderloin with Scalloped Potatoes and Green Beans.

Thursday - Tuna Noodle Casserole for Daddy and Allison. I'm going out with a friend!

Friday - Homemade Pizza

Saturday - Chicken Noodle Soup

Sunday - Beef Roast in the Slow Cooker with Potatoes, Baby Carrots, Green Beans & Homemade Rolls.

Have Fun!

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I'm Gettin' Cozy with Cozi!

Yesterday I "googled" something I wanted info on. As always 175,203 results came back on 0.21 seconds. :) Obviously I didn't sit here and read all 175,203 results...as much as I was tempted...NOT!

Anyway. I did find some of the info on a new (to me) site. The site I found was Cozi. Have you ever been there? Well I hadn't, so I decided to look around. It's a total family website with an online magazine called Live Simply with a bunch of ideas, articles on back to school and nutrition along with a ton of organizing suggestions on how to make your life simpler. They also have a Cozi Blog...like I need another blog to follow! Oh! Did I mention the best part? They have an Online Family Organizer! Yup! It has a family calendar, shopping lists, to do lists, a family journal and so much more!

Below is what I've been using for a couple of years. It's one of those old paper and pen planner/organizers. You know...they are the ones everyone used before technology took over. Well I still use it and I love it. I'll probably always use it because it's customized to me and my life. However. It let me down this past week or maybe it was my memory but I'm blaming it on my planner! I "thought" Allison had a Dr.'s appointment on Tuesday. I opened up my planner on Monday at 10:57 am to see what time we had to be there tomorrow, I found out her appointment was actually in 3 MINUTES! Ooops! I messed up the days! No! IT messed up the days! ;)

So when I came across the family calendar on Cozi, I said to myself..."GREAT idea!" By the way, don't worry about me. I may talk to myself but I don't answer myself so I'm okay, right?

Oh! One more thing...Cozi's Online Family Organizer is FREE! Yes! I fell in love even more!

I set it up for us and below is a "view" of our online organizer. I know I won't use their family journal (because I have my blogs that I have trouble keeping up with so I'm not dumb enough to start something else) but I did put a pic there so I can see my sweet baby's face. There's my shopping list on the bottom right. I may or may not use this as I have a list on the refrigerator that works for me. The thing I LOVE best is the calendar. Each dot of color next to the item is a different family member. Green is the whole family, blue is Curtis, I'm purple and Allison is pink (of course).

I took the time yesterday and entered all of our appointments and schedules. Allison's is entered all the way to the last day of school! The season premiere of a couple of my shows have been entered too. I also like that if you want it to, it will remind you when you have something coming up.

I think this calendar will really work for us! Every family member can access it...which is awesome since I am the only one that looks at my planner. I also uploaded "Google Desktop" which it's linked to so I can have it to the right of my monitor with just a click of my mouse. You can see that below. Google desktop has a ton of other gadgets you can add too. I picked the weather so I'll know how to dress Allison for school and the notepad for obvious reasons.

You should go check it out!

Have Fun!

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Bye Bye Summer!

Other than Allison going back to school, I think our summer is finally coming to an end. Our weather turned from a hot summer day two days ago to an on and off again rainy day today. The picture below is the view from my living room window a couple of hours ago. I heard the wind starting to blow the leaves on the trees just before the rain started. I went to close the windows and it looked so pretty and green out there. I wanted to capture it in a picture since I'm sure the leaves will be turning soon. I'll take pictures of them when they do as Pennsylvania has a beautiful fall season. By the way, sorry about the grid on the picture. I snapped it through the screen. :)

One more pic before I go. I walked outside yesterday and noticed what is probably our last rose of the year. It looked so perfect I had to run for my camera!

Have Fun!

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Tears Times Two!

Yesterday was Allison's first day of 3rd Grade.
It's hard for me to believe!
I still remember the first time she kicked in my tummy.
How do we slow down time?!?

She woke up crying 40 minutes before her wake up time. She said she didn't want to go to school. She said she wanted to stay home with me forever. I was afraid of that. Since quitting my job in June, her and I have spent almost every moment together this summer. So. I crawled into her bed with her and told her that I was excited for her to be starting third grade. I told that she had to go to school so I can hear all about it. I wanted to know who she sat beside in class, what her teacher was like, what they did, who she ate lunch with, etc. Her reply through tears was "even how many times I went to the bathroom?" LOL! She always makes me laugh!

Well, I took her to school and had to go in to the office for something so I walked her in. After I was done at the office, she asked me to walk to her classroom with her. A little first day jitters maybe? I grabbed a badge and walked her down and as soon as she saw her name on the wall outside her classroom she was fine.

BUT...

I wasn't!

As I was pulling out of parking lot I started to cry...uncontrollably...and couldn't stop!
I shouldn't have cried...this is her fourth year after all!

I guess in the past years her going back to school meant that I didn't have to drive 3 hours a day anymore (because my Mom watched her in another county) and I was back to 2 hours.

Also when I dropped her off, I was on my way to work most of those days so my mind moved on to what I had to do when I got there.

This year when I dropped her off, I felt lost without her.

I guess she wasn't the only one with separation anxiety!

One a good note, when I picked her up at the bus stop, she told me that she wanted to hide in the school so she could stay longer because "It was SO much fun!"

Thank Goodness!

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A Sinful Slice of Heaven!

Who knew that if you took a slice of frozen cheesecake, put a stick in it and dunked it in chocolate that it would be so yummy?

I didn't. That's for sure!

Allison and I went to Horse Trading Days (no, we didn't trade a horse) in Zelienople back in July. It was a hot, hot day. We needed a cold treat and ice cream would have melted in a second. So. We opted to try the frozen cheesecake on a stick. OH! MY! You have to try it! It was cold, smooth, creamy and chocolaty. We declined the nuts but you could have your slice take a swim in them if you like. We bought it from one of those concession trailers. You know the ones. They have the best "fair food" ever!

Speaking of fair food, my friend, Nancy, tells me that a new restaurant opened up where she lives (and I used to) that sells fair food ALL THE TIME! What a fun idea! Can you imagine being able to get a funnel cake or those yummy greasy fair fries anytime you wanted? I am so glad it's an hour away or I might be in trouble!

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A Booty Bench to a Pet Pedestal!

Welcome to all my new friends that are visting from Miss Mustard Seed!

I hope you enjoy this makeover. It's another one I did for my daughter's bright tween room. It goes along with the chair I shared last week. If you missed it, you can see it here.

A year ago I took Allison to my sister's house for her annual 5 day visit and spoilfest. She lives 2 counties away from us. I dropped Allison off and set out to do some antiquing and thrifting in a new territory. I stumbled upon this huge run down store that looked like it was going to be a score of a stop. Well...as I was walking in I saw this bench thing sitting outside. It was amongst a whole bunch of seat-like items. There was an older gentleman sitting on one of the items. I looked this bench over and asked "how much?" He shrugged his shoulders and said $5.00. I said "sold!" I had seen one previously in another store for sale for $20 so $5 made me happy. What a great deal! I couldn't wait to get inside the store. Well. Although the store had beautiful antiques and other items that were unwanted by their previous owners, I felt the store was WAY over priced! I'm no expert on pricing but I've been around enough to know about some antiques and they were asking way too much! It was crazy!

Anyway! I did manage to find a couple of small items, paid and went to collect my bench. As I walked outside I realized the bench was not originally for sale. It was a booty bench for all of the old friends of the store owner! While I was shopping in the store, I guess they had gotten off of work and started to gather outstide. I scooped up my bench, they had a little laugh at the Mom who bought "that old thing" and I went on my way!

I had planned on using it my entrance way to sit on while putting on shoes but then when I got it home, I didn't like that I idea. So it sat for a year until last weekend when I was redoing Allison's room. I was faced with the dilema of where to put the 10 gallon crabitat. Yes. Allison has hermit crabs...thanks Aunt Susan, Stephanie and Uncle Brian! The only flat surface big enough was her dresser. Well. That was not going to work for me! It didn't fit into the image I had in my head for her pretty new tween room! After stressing for a little bit about this, it hit me on Friday night! I would redo the bench and make it a pedestal for the crabitat!

Well. Whose laughing now?

A piece of foam rubber, some batting, a can of spray paint and a piece of fabric and TAH DAH!

We have ourselves a home for the crabs that is worthy of a tween room!

As you can see, the crabitat fits perfectly! I thought that it would slide but it doesn't at all. However, I am going to put some non-skid stuff on the bottom just in case.

Have Fun!

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The Status and The Before...

Well. 80% of Allison's room is done! I have a few big projects left to do. I didn't get them done because it started to rain in the afternoon of makeover day and put a halt to my painting outside. So far this week, the weather hasn't been cooperating for me to finish them yet either. Next week, we are getting away for a few days so we'll have to see when I can finish them. Maybe when Allison goes back to school in two weeks.

Anyway. We had the "reveal" on Sunday night when she came home and BOY was she surprised. She didn't know it was happening. I kind of felt like we did our own version of "While You Were Out." Even without everything done she LOVED it! I had made enough changes in the room that it was dramatic enough of a change for her to be totally surprised and blown away! I'll share more of her reaction when I get the room done and post the whole transformation here on my blog.

I hadn't thought about taking before pictures until my friend, Sandy, reminded me. Most of the wallpaper border was already down but I was able to get this pic which I think is enough for you to get the idea of the before room.

Also. Stop back on Thursday. I'm posting the makeover of an item I used in the room. Think trash to treasure.

Have Fun!

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I'm A Sneaky Mommy!

Allison is at my sister's for a few days and I'm up to something!

Shhh! Don't tell but my creative juices are flowing!

Aren't these colors fun for an 8 year old girl?

Have Fun!

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