Real Life Blogging

I have a ton of posts in draft form just waiting for me to tidy them up and click publish. Yet, I don't. I'm not sure why I don't on some of them either. Quirky blogging habit I suppose.

At any rate, I visit blogs a lot. Probably a lot more then I should. Like right now there's a sink of dishes looking at me, 3 kids need bags packed for the day and my garden outside is panting for water. What might you find me doing instead? Reading blogs. I love them! It's like reading a bunch of little books all at once. I love reading. When I come across a blog that is apologizing for not posting I think, "Preaching to the choir there sister (or brother)! Preaching to the choir!" We all have moments were we cannot find time to blog. You know what I say though?

STOP!

I give you full permission to not blog. Yes, you might miss out on something in the bloggy world. You have articles that need submitted and maybe it's your job. (Obviously if it is your job and lively hood you should disregard me right now and get back to writing something though... right? Hehehe....) But think about it. If you are not blogging, what are you most likely doing? Myself I am finishing up chores, projects or spending time with my man or the kids. Now... isn't that life? Isn't that better than sitting in front of the computer like i am right now instead of what I should be doing all day? PLUS... and this is the big-ie! Would you have something to blog about if you didn't live and take some time to NOT blog?

Hehe... That seems kind of like a catch-22 there doesn't it? I want to blog but if that's all I do, I don't live life so then I have nothing to blog about. EEP!

I already run in circles enough so I'm stating right here and now (and I hope I will remember this too... remind me if I don't...) I may not blog every week and that's okay. If I'm not blogging, you'll find me living life with my family. I may live life so much that I forget to tell my computer all about it. I will still have my blog around though for when I happen to pop in and write something about all this living I'm doing. I don't want to feel anymore guilt then I already do in my life so I'm going to try to stop being guilty about blogging.

Have a great day! Blogging or not! :)

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Can God Help?

I was eavesdropping. I do that sometimes. Do you have children? Well... they are the most fun to listen to in conversations with someone else. I was listening in on a conversation between my adorable (and growing up too quickly) Sweet Pea and my occasional house cleaner. (I'll admit it! I cannot keep everything in my house as clean as I would like without help. I highly recommend every mom get a bit of help every now and again. It's not as expensive as you would think!)

Anywho, here's how the conversation went:

Sweet Pea: "Mommy is going to make me clean my room."

Helper: "Ahwww... Are you going to?"

Sweet Pea: "I asked God for help, but He lives in my heart and I don't know how I am going to get Him out."

I couldn't eavesdrop anymore for all the laughter... From me!

I love my Sweet Pea!

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Granola Recipe

If yer here just for the granola recipe, scroll on down and check it out. You can also muddle through all my gibberish about my meal plan below and get there too.

I am so excited to actually HAVE a meal plan that I am not sure what to do with it. I think I need to frame it. It's been quite awhile since I've put one together. It's not that I don't know how or want to. I just have not done it. So weird that something that could help me so much is continually not getting done.

Breakfast:
Will include homemade oatmeal, granola from the recipe below, muffins, cereal, etc

Lunch:
I think this may be more difficult then dinner plans. Can we just skip this meal? No? Rats... Usually there's sandwiches, quesadillas, wraps, soup, etc

Dinner:
Shepherds Pie
Easy Spaghetti (very unlike my Cheese Stuffed Meatballs with Pasta but still yummy!)
Fried Rice - a NEW idea (for me) from a Pin
Chicken and Noodles (made as dumplings from another Pin)
Mac n Cheese

I have a few days that I will be with or at my parents so I will mooch a bit.

Now on to the Granola Recipe that we LOVE for breakfast or a quick snack. I suppose I should note that I don't follow recipes. Sometimes it's because I can't wait to make them and never seem to have all the ingredients needed on hand. Hehehe... Impatient cook here.

Could you mess up granola?!

Here is a rough estimate of my recipe:
    4 1/2  cups uncooked oats
    1 1/2 cups chopped nuts (pecans, almonds and walnuts)
    1 1/2 cups dried fruit (I used raisins and cranberries)
    1/2 cup brown sugar
    2 Tbsp cinnamon
    1 1/2 Tbsp vanilla
    1/2 tsp salt
    1 Tbsp Agava (I think I added more than this though... hmmm...)

I would recommend NOT baking the dried fruit at all or at least not as long as the other goodies. The raisins just tasted a bit burnt or something. I loved the way this baked in my round pans. It was also easier to flip that way. I want to try banana chips next time and intend to use up random boxes of left over cereals too. I thought this would be a nice way to get rid of that "not enough to make a full bowl" cereal box. I'd also like to use honey in the next batch. I have some blueberry honey just begging to find itself in some granola.

The original recipes I gathered from are on my Pinterest Board - Morning Eats

Yummmmmm!

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The UNShopping Trip

An evening of bad errands was not a fun way to end the day. By bad, I mean BAD. I was only supposed to be 15 - 20 min tops in the store. My list was sour cream and lettuce for our tacos and an attempt at finding a coupon from a tear pad that I really, really, really wanted.

My first mistake was using the restroom. UGH! How disgusting!! If I hadn't had to go so bad, I would have walked in and walked right out of this restroom. Broken locks, no purse hook, yuky seats that I cleaned with my own handy wipe (I'm SO glad I saved those restaurant alcohol wipes in my purse!) and a hand dryer that didn't work. The only good thing about that restroom was leaving it.

UGH! UGH! UGH!

Second mistake was looking for the coupon FIRST. Duh! This blew my mind on my list. Yes, a two item list and looking for a coupon totally made me forget why I came to the store in the first place....

Oh look, a coupon! Now what was I saying?

Hehe... Just kidding! This time... Sometimes (I'm such a ditz) this would be reality!

So after I remember what my list was while in the back of the store, I decided to get the lettuce that was in the front of the store and a head of broccoli because that's needed with tacos too right? Ah well... we've been wanting broccoli for awhile now. And once I was at the front of the store I remembered that I needed sour cream which was in the back of the store. (See a problem here?! This is a pretty big store too!) ERGH! Then after locating the sour cream and headed to the check outs at the front of the store I come across an awesome clearance rack of cereal! Yes... CEREAL! How was I supposed to pass that up? So now I feel pretty smug that I remembered to bring in my coupon box (that I wouldn't have needed for lettuce or sour cream in the first place) and start digging for a coupon that I knew I had for this cereal. Where was it? Hmmm... I couldn't find it so I picked up two boxes of cereal because they were a favorite treat to have and I don't usually get them because they are so expensive.

Are you still reading this?! Wow! Thanks!!

The mistake that hurt my heart the most was not trusting my memory in what I have in coupons. See, I can't remember a two item grocery list, but I can remember what coupons I have. I can't remember where items are located in the store to plan a route, but I can remember what I have in my box of over 200+ coupons. I had a coupon for the boxes of cereal! It was $1.50 off of 3 and it was in my wallet. ARGH! Remember that I only picked up two? Can I throw myself against a wall now? This coupon would have made 3 boxes of cereal less than $1.20 each, which isn't a great bargain because I used to get cereal for less than $.99 each but now-a-days that just doesn't happen.

Soooooo...

My final mistake was my checkout lane. I had problems at the self check-out that I chose (shocking!) because by now I knew I'd been in that store for a crazy 40 minutes and I needed to get out. Pronto! I thought the self-checkout would be faster. But guess what... the clearance cereal would not scan correctly. (Hold me back!) I was about to loose it. 

Long story short:
Awful bathroom trip, forgotten list, bad store route planning, lack of coupon usage on items not on my list in the first place and items not on my list not scanning properly = What was I thinking?!

I think I need help. Would a therapist even listen to me with this story? I think they'd be laughing me out of their office by the time I reached the cereal boxes.

OH and in case you care to know, I never did find that coupon in the store either. This is how NOT to shop, okay. Glad you learned something here. Moving on....

Have a great day!

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Starting Seeds Indoors - Update!

I am so impressed by how well my seedlings are doing! I’d even venture to say they are NOT seedlings anymore but more like plants. I started them 3 weeks later than last year and almost all of them are the same size as last years plants, if not bigger. It’s awesome!

The kids are always clamoring to water the or move the plants around with me too. I think I've included them more this year in plant care than last year. I definitely feel more experienced about how to take care of them so I feel I can pass that on to them now.


I already have plans to try and stagger plant starting next year. I can even wait a bit longer for the most of the cold frame plants. They have completely astounded me this year! I am so impressed with them.


I have to be more careful on watering and water MORE too. I am up to 1/4 cup of water per day. I started out with just 1 teaspoon and water in the tote they sit in but that’s not enough. I get very unnerved when I have wilting plants in my bunch so I increased their watering amount. Seems to be much better! No droopy plants here:
 
One major difference between this year and last year is my plants root systems. WOW! The whole adding dirt as they grow is working exactly as I’d hoped and maybe even a bit better then expected. Every tomato that I started out with just 2 inches of dirt and added dirt to them as they grew has a root system like this:

Fantastic!
How is your garden growing?

This post is linked up to a zillion different places... but all of them have great things to learn about gardening or explore!!

 Tuesday Garden Party over at An Oregon Cottage. Head on over there to check out more awesome gardener's, tips and ideas.

HSV - Homeschool Village Garden Challenge

If you homeschool and garden be sure to link up to this and share!

I am linking this NOT EVEN CLOSE TO Wordless Wednesday post to:
5 Minutes for Mom
Dagmar's Momsense

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