Meal Planning October

M 24: Brown Butter & Myzithra
T 25: Restaurant (Late Midwife appointment in Salt Lake)
W 26: Homemade pizzas, Pizza Factory Breadsticks
Th 27: Twice Baked Potato Casserole This should be called heart attack casserole.  It was good, but not amazing.  Won't repeat.
F 28: BYU Game
S 29: Lefsa, Salad
S 30: Beef, Potato, & Quinoa Soup, Bread

M 1: Homemade Chicken Nuggets, French Fries, Quinoa Blackbean Salad (recipe from Chica) Nuggets not worth the effort.  They were good, but too much work.  QB Salad, delicious.
T 2: Balsamic Bruchetta Chicken, leftover QB Salad.  So so so good.
W 3: Freezer Lasagna.  Made this last month but added shredded zucchini and froze.  Tasty.
Th 4: Chicken Parmesan (from cookbook)  Super super tasty as always.
F 5: Macaroni & Cheese (mom's recipe)  I cut out the onions this time and it was a great success among the adults.  The kids wouldn't touch it, because they are insane.
S 6: Restaurant w/family
S 7: Greek Food (see last month), Pumpkin Spice Bars (Natalie)  So good.

M 8: Chicken Sausage Skillet.  Easy and tasty.
T 9: Tacos.
W 10: Olive Garden Chicken Gnocchi Soup I've never eaten this at OG, but it is tasty at home.
Th 11: Chicken Enchiladas
F 12: Chicken Tortilla Soup (per Caelin's request!)
S 13: Dinner at uncle's, Jama's Arugula Salad
S 14: Chili & Cornbread (same recipe as last month)
(This whole week was delicious.  Nothing new was made, but it all tasted real good.)

M 15: Hamburgers & Tater Tots
T 16: Costco Ravioli w/sauce of choice (pesto, butter, olive oil, cheese)
W 17: Cashew Chicken & Rice.  Pretty good.  I made a huge oil mess but I would make this again.
Th 18: Pasta w/Brown Butter & Myzithra, costco garlic bread.
F 19: Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings, Potato Skins  The potato skins were super tasty, the chicken wings were good.  Next time make the wings a little crispier in the oven and it would be better.
S 20: Jazz Game
S 21: Family dinner at cousin Nicole's, Aaron makes salsa (super yum)!

M 22: Salsa chicken, chips.  I took leftover salsa that Aaron made the day befoe and put it on top of chicken and baked it in the oven at 375 for 40ish minutes.  It was super delicious.
T 23: Chili (from last batch in freezer)
W 24: Harmon's Birthday: "Long noodles with white little cheese" (BB & Myzithra)
Th 25: Salad w/ Balsamic Dressing, Pizza Factory Breadsticks.  Yum
F 26: Alexis' Birthday Party
S 27: Pizza leftovers from Harmon's Lunch Party
S 28: Garlic lemon chicken, brown rice, salad

Pregnancy Whining

(Don't read this if you like being pregnant.  Or if you want to be pregnant or are having a hard time getting pregnant.  I know that lots of people get angry/sad at posts like this which is totally legitimate.  But sometimes a giant lady just has to vent.)

The third trimester of this pregnancy is easier than the other two.  It still is awful.  I remember thinking during the first trimester that I would much rather be 8 months pregnant than as sick as I was, and although I stand by that, it is hard to be a giant whale.

Things I hate:
-Climbing stairs.
-Bending (or lack thereof).
-Attempting to sleep.
-Being really hungry but having a tiny squashed stomach.
-Not being able to breathe due to squashed lungs.
-Braxton Hicks 22.5/7
-At 35 1/2 weeks being only 5 lbs away from the weight at which I delivered my giant 10lb 12oz boy two weeks late.
-Tiniest bladder ever.
-Driving.
-Lifting anything.
-Moving my body in any way.

I better stop because this list could go on forever.  It doesn't help that tomorrow I will be one month away from my due date.  Still one entire month.  And that I usually deliver a week or two late.  People, that's a month and a half and I can hardly manage the situation going on now.  And don't get me started on how cranky I am.  Life is so rough that I can't even think up a good Halloween costume.  That is pretty rough.

Ok, end of whining.  For now.

Meal Planning. What?!

So I always intend to at least make an outline of good ideas for dinner so I don't keep feeding my family pasta every single night (the David Fox diet) but I never do.  We end up eating a lot of pasta.  With a few different sauces.  But it gets kind of boring.  Finally I decided to make some new and delicious foods.  Here is what happened (mostly for my own records):

M 27: Salad with Creamy Balsamic Dressing, Garlic Cheese Flatbread Amazing dressing, I have made this bread lots, super tasty.
T 28: Loaded Baked Potato Soup, French Bread Soup pretty good, not amazing.  Bread tasty.
W 29: Restaurant (Brigham City Temple Open House)
Th 30: Tacos
F 31: Cheesy Chicken Casserole I have made this several time, not great.  Not making again.
S 1: Pasta w/Pesto (Costco Pesto Sauce), Spicy Oil Dip, Sourdough The dip was not great, not a repeat.  The sourdough was not sour (can't get my starter to sour here) but was really tasty anyway.
S 2: Chili & Cornbread Loved both of these. (I used 2 big cans of crushed tomatoes instead of tomato juice, added zucchini and olives, used a few more of the veggies listed)

M 3: Leftover Chili
T 4: Pasta w/Homemade red sauce (saute some tiny pieces of garlic in olive oil, add big can of crushed tomatoes, oregano, basil, tiny bit of sugar, salt & pepper, simmer for 10-20 min), leftover Sourdough.  I make this a lot.
W 5: Beef stir fry.  Tasty.  Brown Rice.  Good.  Great way to make brown rice.
Th 6: Chicken Enchiladas.  Big can of green enchilada sauce + can of green chilies + some sour cream poured over tortillas filled with chicken & cheese.  Super tasty.
F 7: BBQ Ribs & Corn (Aaron) FAVORITE! The only thing better than Aaron's ribs is nothing.
S 8: Greek food: Tzatziki (greek yogurt, shredded cucumber, lemon juice, salt, needed dill!), Greek Salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, feta, black olives, olive oil, salt), Toum (the best most garlicky ever!), Garlic Cheese Flatbread.  I love Greek Food Day.  I probably smelled like garlic for a week after.
S 9: Hamburgers & Chips

M 10: Baked Potato Soup (from first batch put in freezer), Rolls (basic recipe)
T 11: Garlic Lime Chicken (cut slits into chicken, insert big pieces of garlic, cover in lime juice, salt & pepper) & Brown Rice, Garlic Bread (Costco)  We eat a version of this fairly often.  Sometimes with lemon.
W 12: Pasta w/Brown Butter and Myzithra Cheese (like Spaghetti Factory) So good.  We eat this a lot.
Th 13: Pork Roast (marinated in stuff from the cupboard: worcestershire, steak seasoning, balsamic vinaigrette) & Crash Hot Potatoes, Roast was pretty tasty, I needed to boil the potatoes for longer but they were super good, especially the crispy skins.
F 14: BBQ Ribs.  I invited friends and therefore made Aaron make them again.  So tasty.  I love them.
S 15: Grilled Chicken (marinated in lemon, garlic powder, s&p), Jama's Baby Arugula Salad (baby arugula, orange pepper, halved tiny tomatoes, avocado, balsamic vinaigrette)  Really tasty.
S 16: Leftovers: Salad, grilled chicken

M 17: Lasagna (recipe from my mom), Garlic Bread from Costco.  Delicious.
T 18: Grilled Brushetta Chicken, Baked Potatoes.  I cheated and baked this, because a charcoal BBQ is too much work some days.  Also I marinated it in only Balsamic Vinaigrette for a few hours, not their dressing.  Definite repeat.  Tasty.  Aaron proclaimed it fancy too.
W 19: Leftover GBC & Lasagna
Th 20: Salad with Balsamic Dressing, Pizza Factory Breadsticks These are unbelievable.
F 21: Restaurant.  Cafe Rio.  Delicious times one million.
S 22: Leftovers. So exciting!
S 23: Salad w/balsamic dressing, mashed potatoes.  This was supposed to be Alfredo sauce night, but I wanted mashed potatoes (that Aaron made and were delicious) and we had salad stuffs.

The Facebook Problem & Solution

So, I may spend too much time on Facebook. I also obsessively check my email. These seem pretty ridiculous for a lot of reasons, the main two being: what important email am I waiting for, and am I really gaining anything from excessive FB use, or just wasting time? The answer of course is that I am just wasting time. Because I have two small children I often have a minute or 4 here or there, but not often long chunks of time where I can do something like sew two pieces of fabric together, read a chapter in a book, etc. However it takes about 10 seconds to get on the computer and see if I have any interesting emails, and if I am good, only a couple of minutes to see if there is anything amazing, new, or hilarious on Facebook. I tell myself it is not really so bad, and just an outlet to the boredom I sometimes feel, but I think in actuality it makes me feel worse. Not like by reading posts on FB I feel depressed because other people are out doing cool things (chances are if you are posting about all the cool things you are doing on FB instead of actually just enjoying them, you aren't really having that cool of a life anyway) but more like it is very unsatisfying. I cling to the lame excuse that I use FB to keep in contact with my friends, which is true, but I don't really need to check it many many times a day to keep in touch with my friends. It's not like I email, text, or call my friends 10 times a day, why would I need to see if they've posted in the last 2 hours?

This has led me to wonder what I could do differently to be more "satisfied" with my interneting. I hate when I put my kids to bed and am so tired that I feel like I can't do anything except sit around and play on the internet because that's all I have the energy to do, and two hours later I have nothing to show for it except for 10 more pins on pinterest of things I will someday (maybe) think about making and perhaps a comment on someone's photos on Facebook. That is to say, not a lot.

So, say you spend 1 hour a day on Facebook. I have no idea how much time I really spend on it, because really I don't want to know. I figure if I check it even if just for a minute 10 times a day that is too many. So we'll use an hour, because that is where I am going with my idea. Anyway, if I am spending an hour on FB to "socialize" and "keep in touch" with my friends, couldn't I do that in a better way? For example, if I used even a half hour a day to write a friend an email, write a real piece of mail, or call someone on the phone? All of those things sound like they take almost as little energy as clicking around on the internet, and I would venture produce better results both for me feeling fulfilled and keeping good friendships. Bottom line is starting today I am going to check my FB once a day, and spend 30 minutes that I would have been wasting there doing "friendship building/life fulfilling" type activities. For a week. Maybe in a week I will find that I didn't really like doing that and will go back to wasting my life on Facebook, but maybe I will find I am happier instead.

Comfortable in your own skin

I have probably never really felt comfortable being "me". I don't mean that I act differently/pretend to be someone else on purpose, I mean it more in the self-conscious kind of way. I would think it's not unusual for people (especially ladies it seems) to feel self-consious, but I always seem to feel like 100 times more than the average person. (I am so self-centered, but whatever, this is my blog!) I know there are plenty of people who are pretty confident in who they are and seem to have an effortless time of not acting self-consious, and I am constantly impressed by that.

The other day I mentioned to Aaron how where people sit in a room often says a lot about them, and joked that since I prefered the corner in the back what does that say about me? But then I thought about it and thought that although now it is more of a habit than anything, it started because I don't like the idea of people watching me without me knowing. Ridiculous, as if people might be looking at the back of my head and judging me! (What, am I 14?)

That thinking prompted more thinking about why I could possibly care what people think, at age 28.66. First, I am married. The likelihood of Aaron leaving me because my hair is ridiculous or because I am pretty jerky a lot of the time is unlikely becuase A. he alerady knew that about me and B. he is really forgiving. So although I like him to be happy and think I am a nice person, I am not particularily prone to feeling self-conscious or worried about him. Second, I have children. They do not seem to care about anything except whether I will play and cuddle with them. Also they forgive me when I am not nice or ignore their pleas for more cookies, so that tends to make me less self-conscious. Third, I have the most amazing friends, and am pretty sure that they will like me despite my flaws, and if they don't, I am cocky enough to believe it's their loss. So that leaves strangers, and really, why on earth would I care about what strangers think? (Unless of course I was behaving poorly and deserved reprimand.)

Finally, I decided that I am done being self-consious. It's not really like it came overnight, but the decision to stop acting in the same patterns did. I think a huge part of the dissolving of my self-critical thinking came when I had Harmon. I was so amazed at what I did, what I grew, the thinking followed if I can do that, I can do anything. With Sammy I seemed to lose most of my insecurities about my body. Even when I was at my thinnest I never felt (like everyone else in the world) that I was skinny. I look back at pictures now and want to go back in time and smack myself. And when I think about it like that it helps me to appreciate my body at every stage, not just at my "ideal". My body works, I have no injuries, no disabilities, I was able to grow children, make them come out of me, and feed them. So even though I am not always happy with the shape of my body, I am more happy now than I have ever been with what my body can do. So in light of these and several other self-confidence building experiences, I have decided it is high time to start feeling comfortable in my own skin.

A post about feeeeeelings.

This post is probably a bit overly dramatic and more open than I usually care to be, but I figure since only like 3 people read this blog you will know well enough to know that it is just ramblings. -------------------------------------------------------- Sometimes I don't really notice when I enter a down period. It will slowly creep up on me and then suddenly I will go "Oh! I feel unhappy! When did that happen?" It is more or less pretty easy to reverse this situation, as it is likely I have let a lot of little easy things slip. Other times I will quickly notice what I can only describe as what feels like falling helplessly into nothing, and that is a lot scarier. Lately I have been feeling the latter. I want to pretend like "nothing I do seems to help" but honestly I am not doing much except for letting myself feel bad and not trying to do anything about it. Last night I was feeling particularly sorry for myself, enumerating (to myself) how little sleep I have been getting, how mean I have been to my children, how bored I am, how little free time I have, how bad I am at personal scripture study, how much I feel like I am lacking direction, etc. etc. In my hour (or two...) of moping around I was struck with a thought of another time I felt similarly and a song that really touched me at that time. I pulled out my trusty ancient ipod and was glad to find what I was looking for. One of the years I was a counselor at a camp for teenage girls the director gave us a CD by Kenneth Cope. Last night as I listened to this song I remembered the same thing I felt then: The best way to heal (feel better) is to let God. I think I will make myself listen to it multiple times a day until I get it through my thick skull. Breathe In Me by Kenneth Cope You breathe in me And I'm alive With the power of your holiness You breathe in me And you revive Feelings in my soul That I have laid to rest So breathe in me I need you now I've never felt so dead within So breathe in me Maybe somehow You can breathe new life in me again I used to be So sensitive To the light that leads to where you are Now I've acquired These calluses With the darkness of A cold and jaded heart So breathe in me I need you now I've never felt so dead within So breathe in me Maybe somehow You can breathe new light in me again

Conquering the Pillowcase

I always have 10011981818 projects I have started or want to start. Some are hard, and some are easy. A long long time ago I bought pillow inserts with the intention to make cases for them. That should have been extremely easy. But for some reason I never got around to it. Something about a lot of kids or whatever. But victory is mine, as I finally made some with some old fabric I had lying around. Just 10011981817 projects left to go.