Day to Day With Mom

I was unable to write this weekend about how great my son’s basketball team did in their first game. They won 13 to 11!  My little man even made a few shots and was at the free throw line a couple of times. I don’t think I could even attempt to shoot the ball from the free throw line with so many people watching but he did it and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve mentioned before that my fiance is coaching the team so that made it even better for them to win. I had two happy boys! I’m very proud of them and the whole team, I’m hoping to see a great win this Thursday night also.

Baked Porkchops

Ingredients

• porkchops
• lipton onion soup mix
• 2 cans cream of mushroom soup
• 2 cans of water
• pepper, salt, seasoning salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix one can cream of mushroom soup and water. Pour into the bottom of a glass baking dish. Season porkchops and place onto of mushroom mixture. Mix last can cream of mushroom soup and can of water with lipton onion soup mix and pour over porkchops. Bake in over for one hour or until done. 

* You can also place a layer of rice in the bottom before adding porkchops and bake the same way. It makes for a yummy one dish meal!

If you’re like me you’re always busy and quick meals are a must so what’s better then a one dish meal? I have a hard time finding meat that my youngest daughter will eat but tonight after making this dish I was happy to find that she had eaten every bit of the meat! My son doesn’t like mushrooms or onions but if you’ve cooked with cream of mushroom soup and lipton onion soup mix before then you know that the mushrooms and onions are not that noticable. Mixed together it has such an incredible taste. My son thought it was gravy and ate every bit of it.

Surprise Eastern North Carolina today is a snow day!!! We live in an area that rarely sees snow so when it happens it’s the best thing in the world… for at least a few hours. The girls heard on the news lastnight that it was supposed to snow, we hadn’t said anything to them about it because in our area we’ve heard it all before and never saw a flake but after fighting the excitement and heading to bed we woke up to slow flurries at 6am which has gone off and on strong for the past eight and a half hours! The kids were allowed to play outside this morning before the wind got too bad but of course my son is back outside again. This is my girls first real snow so they are really loving it but I don’t think they knew it was going to be so cold!

Growing up my favorite part of snow was making snow cream! Ok maybe not making it but eating it sure was fun. My son has been through a few snows since he lived with us the few years we lived in Greensboro NC and of course it snows more there then here. So he’s begging for snow cream. I’ve tried to explain to him that the snow needs to get a little deeper and go alittle longer b/c you shouldn’t eat the first snow or early snow. He’s now waiting patiently.

here is a recipe from allrecipes.com

snow cream

• 1 gallon snow
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups milk

When it starts to snow, place a large, clean bowl outside to collect the flakes. When full, stir in sugar and vanilla to taste, then stir in just enough milk for the desired consistency. Serve at once.

However some folks use evaporated milk, some use eggs, and some don’t add the vanilla. This recipe is basically what I do so that’s why I posted it. It just goes with what you like and how you want it to taste. Kids don’t really care either way, they just want to eat the snow!

I failed to do a meal time Monday post because honestly I was just plain burnt out from working all week and weekend. Knowing that I would be working all weekend my fiance did most of the cooking. My favorite dish of his is his pizza which is pictured above. Trust me when I say that this picture does it no justice at all. The was a little slice cut for my youngest daughter and you can see it’s not the smallest slice in the world. It’s the biggest, yummiest, pizza I have ever tasted. We don’t get it much but when we do we are all very happy for days!

Since my job has picked up the other client work has become seriously hectic. I’m not really sure why but honestly has me almost in tears from being so tired by the time I am done working. The calls are back to back no breaks at all, you are talking nonstop to people that really don’t care about what you have to say and are ready to fuss about everything you tell them. I am so very thankful that the client has returned to our company and I’ve been given this opportunity again because the money is wonderful, I wouldn’t be making this much working outside of the home but I am definitely working hard for it. Even with the stress it brings I am praying hard that the client doesn’t pull out again anytime soon, even though I know it’s only available for a few months I am trying to make as much money with it as I can before they pull out. Maybe that’s why it’s so stressful.

I was supposed to work this morning but instead I woke up to my middle daughter vomitting nonstop! That really isn’t something you want to wake up to. She’s excellent when it comes to being sick, I mean she’s a lot better at handling it then I am. She doesn’t cry that much and doesn’t freak out like most kids… and myself! I’m not quite sure what happened though because she’s been just fine since Christmas. Hopefully it’s just a quick bug and she’ll be ok tomorrow before her brother and sister get sick as well.

“Stress is when you wake up screaming and realize you haven’t fallen asleep yet.”

I love that quote! I can totally relate to it in so many ways. Lastnight ended stressful and today began just as stressful with little sleep in between. I’m use to working the hours of midnight thru early morning but with my job picking our big client back up these next few months I have to rearrange my working schedule and work during the day whenever I can get quite time away from my kids. I’m really not finding that to be something that is actually going to happen in the near future.

My body is use to being awake at nights now so this morning I woke up at 5:30am after sleeping for what seemed to be only a few minutes. I got up fixed my fiance’s lunch and got his clothes ready so he wouldn’t be late for work searching for them. After getting him out the door to work I got my son ready for school and out the door at 7:30am. I was thinking this was really going smooth and things would work out perfectly since I had to go to work at 8:00 and everyone was where they needed to be… especially the girls who were asleep.  Low and behold here comes my youngest walking out the door at 7:50! She never wakes up that early! Of course she wasn’t in the mood to hear me tell her to go back to bed so I canceled my 8am and decided to start work at 8:30. Well after trying to get her back to sleep for thirty minutes here comes my other daughter! I was doomed before I even got started good. I chose to go ahead and work because the money is too hard to pass up. I told both girls to watch tv and eat their breakfast while I worked for a little while.

I’m not sure if I even got one order done completely and if my head crew listens to my phone calls I’m sure to get fired on the spot! My girls would not be quite, they wanted to fight at all the wrong times, come in and out of my office, chase the cat. It was awful and that’s putting it very nicely.

Now after my morning shift I was in a total freak out, I really felt like I had done nothing but rushed around all morning and screamed constantly while having my customers on hold on the phone hoping my mute button was working well. I had to then put supper on the stove which ended up boiling over all over the stove since I wasn’t in there to watch it. My phone then got turned off and after making a payment (thanks mom) an hour later they cut off my internet! I was supposed to work again later! I called embarq which for the past year has been nothing but trouble and is a company I really hate with more passion then I have ever felt. I first got a man that I couldnt understand and that’s who I made my payment through… well we see it didn’t go well since I got cut off! I then talk to another person which wasn’t any help at all. Finally after thinking about what they had said and looking at my current bill which came in today I decided to call back. I finally got a guy on the phone which evidentally was actually paying attention when they went through training! He listened to me and looked at my account. I had figured out that I was being charged for long distance when I shouldn’t be and that’s why my bill was crazy. This guy actually took off the wrong charges and made sure my payment posted and cut me back on! I swear he really needs a raise!

So now here it is evening and I’m tired and stressed! My girls are ill and my house is a mess. I don’t know if this new schedule is going to work.

I have spent most of the day trying to figure out what to cook for supper. I hate days like this! It’s time to go grocery shopping because we have absolutely nothing in our freezer, nothing in our cabinets and why have I have to wonder why I didn’t think about the fact that we needed supper tonight! I told my son we are going to starve tonight we are going to watch the commercials about food and pretend that it’s us eating. Hmmm I wonder if it would actually work. (smile)

I started thinking about when my parents use to visit me when I lived in Greensboro NC. There was a restaurant called Mayflower. Of course it was a seafood joint and perfectly priced with large amounts of food. As much as I love seafood I always chose to get the chicken and fettuccine. Here was this restaurant packed full of people eating piles of shrimp and fish while I sat eating chicken and noodles, with a small salad of course. I haven’t had it in a while. It’s really quite funny because my family and I moved back to our hometown a few years ago and they actually have built a Mayflowers here which we have yet to visit! I haven’t had chicken fettuccine in a long time and boy would it be good tonight!

Chicken Fettuccine (meals.com version)

Ingredients:

 2 packages (9 ounces each) BUITONI Refrigerated Fettuccine
4 (about 1 pound total) boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cooked and sliced into strips
3/4 cup Italian salad dressing, divided
3 cups chopped cooked vegetables
3/4 cup sliced sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, drained
1/2 cup (1.5 ounces) BUITONI Refrigerated Freshly Shredded Parmesan Cheese

PREPARE pasta according to package directions.

HEAT chicken strips in ¼ cup dressing until warm; toss with pasta, remaining dressing, vegetables, tomatoes and cheese. Season with salt and ground black pepper.

The picture above shows my son on his hunting trip (which for all you animal lovers consists of looking at animal tracks, taking pictures, shooting trees, spending quality time with pop, and making enough noise to wake the dead!) he seems to be in such deep thought which is exactly how I’ve been for days now.

This year is already flying by! I’ve learned that it’s just another year though it’s not anything different just begining where the last one left off. I guess that’s something I’ll have to change though because I am set on making this year a great one! 

So far this year has had it’s ups and already some downs. My job got the client that we lost back which means I’ll be making more money again and I have to say it’s definitely coming at the perfect time. I start working for the client again on Monday and I can’t wait! However with every good there is a bad. The time frame for this client is now 7am to 11pm which means I won’t be able to work a lot or either I’ll have to work all day Saturday and Sunday. I’m usually working anywhere from midnight to 6am because that’s when the girls are quite but hopefully with a little help from their dad and my son I’ll be able to pick up hours in the late evening to work it all out.

We got a call from the parks and rec cordinator and he wants my fiance to coach my son’s basketball team. He’s pretty excited about it, he helped coach football and he coached his basketball team a few years ago so this year should be a little more hectic but well worth it.

I got into my first fight of the new year with my fiance. Of course you would think we could at least make it through the first week without fussing but no that’s not possible. I hate fussing especially when it’s over stupid stuff which seems to always be the case. I guess if you dont fuss a little then you arent really living and loving!

My son comes home from nana and pops tonight and heads back to school tomorrow which I’m sure he isn’t real happy about. I have to admit I’m ready for everyone to head back to school and work, I’m looking forward to the usual routine of things.