Uncle Bernie comes to Texas!

Yesterday we were happy to see Tom's brother Bernie in from Indiana. We see him every other summer when we visit Indiana but he rarely has a chance to come down here.  When we heard he was coming we knew we had to have a crawfish boil. We had to really look around for crawfish since it was a bad season for them.  We finally found someone willing to sell us a bag which turned out to be 32 lbs.  Tom cooked it out in the backyard, some mild and some spicy.  The bag fell over at one point and a few escaped. We went chasing them around the backyard, trying to make sure we got them all, they sure move fast and they are vicious! If you've never been to a real crawfish boil, you have to try it sometime :). I am so glad we got to take a brake from the issues with Ally's teacher and spend time with family.  To eat a crawfish you grab the head and twist it off.  Then you grab the tail and pull.  That's it, pretty easy.  We boil ours in a big pot that you an check out at Academy.  Then Tom adds the spices. Last he adds the corn and potatoes. A crawfish boil is a really fun, casual picnic style dinner. It's super casual and very tasty.

What a Week!

Well things just went from bad to worse this week! I had those issues at work earlier in the week and then yesterday I found myself sitting all morning with a friend whose 16 year old daughter took her own life last October.  We went to the school to discuss with the principal how certain events at the school might have added to the stress her daughter was under. I don't wish that morning on anyone else. I hope no one ever has to have that conversation again, ever.  I had a wonderful lunch with a friend who helped me through the emotional drain of the morning only to arrive home to find my youngest daughter in tears because someone had stolen her cell phone at school.  She was devastated, not over the loss of her little cheapy phone but because she felt violated and unsafe.  She had apparently struggled with this for two days before telling me, spending all day today checking lost and found in the cafeteria, office and bus, hoping someone turned it in.  I really hurt for her, that she had this burden to carry by herself.  Anyway, I finished the night off by attending a drama competition.  My daughter was in the crew of the show and her boyfriend won an award.  That was nice but the evening went downhill quickly when my daughter's teacher (from another class) happened to come over and ask why my daughter wasn't filming the event for her (the teacher's video) class.  My daughter started to explain that she didn't need footage of this event as she had decided on another way to present the story. Before she could get it all out, the teacher yelled at her and humiliated her in front of her drama class and the drama class at another school, in which she has friends.  Both classes felt awkward and were shocked. My daughter came home embarrassed and totally humiliated.  This is not the first time this has happened with this particular teacher, but usually it was in her class and never out in public, in front of other kids and adults that don't have anything to do with that class.  We have always encouraged Ally to tough it out, finish the year.  The teacher was just trying to make her the best she can be, just trying to make Ally a better and stronger editor.  Well forget it! It was not appropriate to do it at 9:30 pm at night when Ally was there at the event as a drama student and not as a video student.  I have had it! She was devastated, embarrassed and humiliated.  I told my husband that Ally had spent her last day in that class. I just can't deal with that, especially after I just spent the morning talking about another young girl who committed suicide because of similar circumstances! So now I get to spend the weekend worrying about this and what is going to happen Monday morning when I show up in the AP's office asking him to switch her out of this "elective" class and into another one.  My husband and I agree that this is simply not what we want our daughter to deal with right now.  I wish you could have seen how embarrassed and upset she was.
Weeks like these are the reason I am committed to trying to live a simple life, bring things back to the basics.  I feel like this world is moving to fast and I want to slow it down!  Pray for me.....

What a Day!

Some days are just so hectic that I WISH I could go back to being a stay home mom.  This was not a good day at work.  I got so much accomplished the three days I was home last week for Spring Break and this week has been just terrible.   I work for a Catholic church and in general I like my job.  Some days are just so disappointing, though!
We haven't been doing very good at eating out of the pantry, although yesterday the kids had a frozen pizza while my husband and I went off to Deacon classes. Today was such a trying day at work I swear I barely made it home.  I was home for about 15 minutes when it was time to take Catherine to her French Horn lesson and pick husband up from work.  Then it was home to do dishes for 20 minutes and the doorbell started ringing with girls in my little GS troop.  We had a long meeting (we made a website and wrapped up our cookie sale) and they left around 9:00 pm.  Well guess what, we still hadn't eaten yet :(. What can I say I am a terrible mom! We hurried out to a Mexican restaurant that stays open late and grabbed some enchiladas.  I just can't believe I can't go a week without eating out.  Anyway the one good thing about the place was that I had a coupon, $10.00 off our meal.  That helped a lot. Ten bucks is ten bucks.  So tomorrow I start again, going back to work and trying, as always, to slow down and live simply!

Eating out of the Pantry

It was hard going back to work this morning! Spring break was about 3 days too short.  Anyway I was determined to get back on track as far dinners from out of the pantry.  I thawed out some chicken that I had marinated and frozen last month and dipped it in a breadcrumb and parmesan cheese mixture. Then I made some boxed rice pilaf, frozen vegetables and biscuits. We had two fresh mangos that I picked up over the weekend so I sliced those up.  We tried some of the jam that our GS troop made on the biscuits.  I figure the meal cost about $7.00 total.  That's less than $2.00 per person with enough leftover to have the chicken salad for lunch. After dinner I made the leftover chicken into chicken salad for tomorrow's lunch, baked a cake and put some jello in the fridge for tomorrow's dinner.  It's a good start, lets see what I come up with for the main dish. 

 Today I found a ready made 4'x4' raised garden for $25.00 at Big Lots. It's just basically 4 cedar boards that snap together into a square but it saves me the hassle of going to buy the wood and assembling it myself.  If they had two I would have gotten two, but I got the last one.  I wanted to extend my garden this year and this will be perfect.  Now I need to purchase some soil and then decide what to put in it.  I didn't see any at the nursery last weekend but I really would like to plant more squash. That will surely be my weekend project for next week.

Spring Garden Part 2!

Well I said I would post pictures of my "re" newed garden and here they are.  Everything is going well so far, I can hardly wait for things to really start growing! Springtime in Houston is so beautiful, it was a gorgeous day. A bit warm but I guess that's welcome after such a col winter.  The girls had CCE classes today, I teach Catherine's class.  Afterwards we went to lunch with my parents and so it was late afternoon when we got home.  I had just enough time for a quick nap before heading out into the garden to water and  tidy it up a bit.  Looking around I noticed that we have about 5 tomato plants, 3 eggplants, 6 cucumber plants, 6 zucchini plants, spinach, lettuce, lots of herbs, 1 grapefruit tree, 1 lemon tree, 1 tiny orange tree and 1 fig tree.  Oh and a few beets! I am pretty happy with that. I really really want things to grow just as much if not better than last summer.  Most of all, I want my zucchini to live!

Spring break is over so the kids are back to school tomorrow.  I'm sure I should be getting ready somehow but I've decided to watch tv instead. LOL!

Spring Gardening!

Last year I really wanted to plant tomatoes and some other things so I stared a small raised garden in the backyard.  It reminded me of the Victory Gardens that people used to plant during one of the World Wars (I or II ??) My daughter calls it my 'apocalypse' garden since I joked that I was doing it so that we could be self sufficient in case of an apocalypse!  I used some old cement blocks and filled it with soil.  Then I planted tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, beets, and zucchini.  I realized pretty quickly that I put way too many things in that one poor little space but I still had very successful crops of tomatoes and cucumbers all summer.  Late summer brought bunches of eggplants!  It was a very fun experience except for the fact that my zucchini all died early on and that disappointed me.  I knew that I was going to try it again this summer and today was the day to get going!  I worked on the bed and then my little daughter and I planted a few tomato plants, 2 egg plants, 4 zucchini and 4 cucumber plants.  This is a lot less than last year and I am happy with the way it turned out.  It started getting dark before I could get a picture but I will post one tomorrow.

I also have a small kitchen herb garden right outside my back door.  Last year I grew basil, thyme, chives, rosemary and oregano in it.  I also have pots of mint (for my mojito's!!) on the patio.  Today I was able to trim up and get my herb garden up and running again.  I planted more basil and rosemary but my thyme and chives were still doing well from last year.  You would think by all of this that I am some sort of master gardener but it is actually just the opposite.  I don't have a clue what I am doing, just reading books and magazines here and there!

While I was gardening away, my husband was making a seafood boil in the backyard.  He has a giant pot that he boils crawfish, mushrooms, potatoes, corn, blue crabs and giant gulf shrimp in.  We set out an old table. covered it with newspaper and feasted surrounded by our fresh new gardens!  Our oldest daughter preferred the crawfish and the younger one likes the shrimp but says it's all too spicy for her. After we were done we went for ice cream.  A wonderful end to another perfectly simple day!!

St. Patricks Day

Happy St. Patricks Day!  Today I took my Girl Scout Troop (Juniors in High School) to a church friend's home to learn how to make jam.  We brought the jars and she provided the fruit, sugar and sure jell.  I have always wanted to learn to make jam.  It was much easier than I thought.  I was really proud of the girls, all working so hard to boil, measure, stir and fill the jars!  When we were done everyone had 2 jars of strawberry jam and 2 jars of mixed fruit.  The mixed fruit had wild grapes, blueberry and pineapple.  This is truly an art.  I am so afraid that in the next two generations there won't be anyone left to do things like this.  Truly a lost art.  The most fun I had was listening to the little jars pop as they sealed. Some were popping in the car on the way home.  Now the real test is, could I do this again?  I can't wait to try......

When I got home I started working on my next project, St. Patrick's Day dinner.  I put a huge corned beef on to boil along with cabbage, potatoes and carrots.  No matter how big I buy the roast it is never big enough. It barely fed my family plus my parents.  I had bought two of them last week with intentions of freezing one but I am thinking I may go back and buy another to freeze. The price on them is so good.
My mother-in-law taught me how to make corned beef and cabbage when Tom and I first got married. We have enjoyed it ever since. I did try to make some homemade irish soda bread and it turned out really good.  I found a recipe online (see link below) and Catherine sat with me while I made it.  She wouldn't eat it, it had currants. She said she doesn't like currants or raisins.  Well it was a pretty good dinner and cost about $15.00 to feed 6 people.  Not to bad for a festive meal.  So I am wrapping up another day of living simply and I feel pretty good about it so far.
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/irish_soda_bread/

Ally's17th Birthday

Today was my daughter, Ally's 17th birthday.  I kind of felt like it was a special day for me, too.  I spent the day thinking about how my life has changed since having her 17 years ago.  It is really strange, she only has one year left with us and then she'll be gone.  She is really growing up!  We really splurged taking her, her boyfriend and our other daughter out to Salt Grass for dinner.  I know I was working on eating out of the pantry this month to pay off some pesky bills but today was definitely a day to celebrate. We ate an early dinner and came home for cake.  Now she is at the movies with friends.  So now I am going to hit my pantry and coupons to see what I can come up with for the rest of the week.  Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day and I have a corned beef in the fridge so I know I will make that.  I want to try making some soda bread to celebrate the day.  I will post tomorrow if it turns out!!

Eating out of the Pantry

I noticed on some other Blogs that frugal moms were trying to save money by eating only what they have stored in their pantry for one whole month.  They only go to the grocery store for fresh dairy and produce once a week.   We really need to catch up some bills this month so I decided to try it.  Here is what I want to do:
1. Eat out only two times a week until the end of March (baby steps, we eat out a lot!)
2. Spend only $100 on groceries until the end of March (about $100.00 less than average)
3. Eat out of the pantry/freezer as much as possible.
Tonight I dug through our freezer and found some frozen hamburger meat that I had made into a basic meatloaf mixture before I froze it.  I browned it instead of forming it into a meatloaf. I found some whole wheat noodles and had a plan!  I cooked the noodles and mixed with a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, a little water, some Italian seasoning and 2 cups shredded cheese (also from the freezer).  Added the cooked hamburger mixture.  My family seemed to really enjoy it, it was kind of like chili mac, I guess.  I also made a can of peas.  Pretty proud of myself, I usually never try things without a recipe.  Well tomorrow is my daughter's 17th b-day and I told her we would take her out. I think I will use up some day old bread to make french toast in the morning instead of offering to run out for donuts or catching McDonalds on the way to work.  It's Spring break for my husband and kids but I only took two days off so I will go into work for a bit tomorrow.  If you want to try this pantry thing with me, let me know we can share ideas!

First Post

Hello, welcome to the first post of my blog!  We are a  Catholic family of four trying to live a simple and meaningful life.  Thanks for following our life!