Category Archives: Kids

Spastic Sunday….

Sunday. A day of rest. After our “shopping Saturday melee” you’d think I’d really take advantage of that….and the day started out innocently enough: Mass and donuts and then home for a “Teamwork” chores activity and by Noon, the house was clean, laundry was going, it was raining (again–thankfully!) and we were one kid down for a sleepover. Then I don’t know what happened.

I had to take our youngest to get shoes (shoes and supplies are essentially all that’s left on the school shopping list) for her and her sister, who told us what she wanted…we ran a couple of other errands (buttons to bling up her backpack and a new pillow for my awful, aching neck), somehow managed to drop her off at her friends (now down two kids to friends) and made it home.

Love this cookbook!!

Sitting for a few minutes I remembered I really wanted to cook a few meals ahead and freeze because we have an insane couple of weeks with practices nightly until 7:30 and it’s so much nicer if dinner is READY when we get home. So I began. Sometimes when I do stuff like this, it is utter chaos….controlled, mind you….but there is nothing anyone can do to help me because it would take WAY too long to explain the stream of consciousness going on in my head and here’s the breakdown that took place in the two hour period:

(It’s kind of like “If you give a mouse a cookie“….I am the mouse.)

I fried up some bacon because bacon=yummy dinner to my kids
I chopped and caramelized onions in the bacon drippings because kids don’t mind onions if they taste like bacon
I browned some ground beef added the onions and split it up for two dinners
I made some coffee and sweetened condensed milk ice cubes for my weekend iced coffees
I hardboiled a dozen eggs because we had a ton in the fridge
I had leftover SCMilk so I made a killer chocolate cake
I made two shrimp quiches and had leftover cream so…..
I made homemade whipped cream for the cake
I finished dinner for that night which was SOOOOO easy and so delicious that my 9-year-old daughter’s friend said, “Let me know the next time you have this and I’ll drive myself over here!” Here’s that recipe:

Spray a 13X9 pan and place chicken breasts in pan

Pour a jar of Alfredo sauce over chicken

Sprinkle bacon crumbs over sauce

Grate Havarti cheese and sprinkle over bacon

Bake @ 375 for 20-30 minute (until chicken is done)….enjoy!

I ran out of steam and then had a mountain of a mess to clean up, but I am hoping that it helps our hellish evenings go a little smoother knowing that dinner is ready when we get home. How do YOU prepare for your crazy nights without Driving Through and killing your budget???

Now it didn’t go as planned on Monday….but that’s another post! Have a blessed day!

Sweet nectar…

Friday: caffeine, cooties and chicken edition

Hypochondriacs, UNITE!!

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Sometimes it’s a problem working in the medical field. For a lot of reasons. First, let me assure you, I enjoy my job, taking care of patients (I’m a nurturer), hearing their stories and seeing what’s going on inside the body (I like to pretend I’m a doctor and figure out what’s the problem–makes the day more interesting). Buuuuuuuut……sometimes I get a little over it and have to dig DEEP for some compassion, because after the 20th whine story I’d rather get a spinal needle in the eye. Just sayin’….that’s when my friend and I encourage each other with these kind of things:

you are never too old for a “Gold Star”…

The bad thing is that when people get sick at home and I’ve been dealing with sick people all day, sometimes I have to dig even deeper. Pathetic. I know. And this week I’ve had to pull out the big shovel and dig for flippin’ China because we’ve had round 2 of our youngest getting sick AGAIN with a visit to the After hours Ped clinic and diagnosed with a virus lasting 5-7 days. Nausea, fever and all the good stuff that goes with it (if you can read between the lines). After recent strep throat and treatment for that, I was less than amused to deal with a virus. Nor was she. <sigh> Then it gets good….

Hubby becomes violently ill the next night with our daughter’s symptoms. Great. (here comes living out that “in sickness and in health” part…. So after a night of holding our daughter’s hair back a few times and about 3 hours of sleep next to the human furnace, I was thrilled to head to work, leaving our 14-year-old in charge of doling out Tylenol and water. Both of them were basically out of commission the entire day. I came home from work and went to work bleaching both bathrooms, kitchen and doling out more fluids and meds. They were rallying, then….

Dearest daughter complained of peeling feet and achy joints. I made the fatal mistake. yes. I web-surfed her symptoms. I know better. Let me STRONGLY encourage you. DO. NOT. DO. THIS. EVER. SERIOUSLY. Every symptom has a bizarre and rare disease to match on the web (this is why you DON’T surf the web for medical advice, people!). I found a disease for her, too. I did what any mother would do. I made her another doctor appointment. Hubby took her (he is now recovering somewhat). She did not have Kawasaki disease despite the matching symptoms…PHEW!…she DID (they are pretty sure after the swab)…have another round of Strep throat, so it’s another visit to Publix for free antibiotics and hopefully we are all on the upswing…… but…..

There are 4 other people in the house still, so we will see how it goes!

St. Raphael, the Archangel, patron saint of illness and healing, Pray for us!

Olympics=International AWESOMENESS!!!!

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image cred: CP entertainment

I love the Olympics. Winter or Summer. They are so exciting, motivating,and inspiring and I love to soak up as much as I can get. In between a full-time job, 4 kids and a Hubby it’s often not much, but thanks to technology…..I CAN get every bit of info and playback I need! Phew. I mean, there’s only so many hours in a day and there’s no medal in Olympic viewing….

So far, for these London Summer Olympics here are my Olympic observations:

1)Seriously over-the-top creative opening ceremonies. Um, the baby thing was a teensy bit creepy but overall (what I saw) was extremely imaginative and told quite the story spanning decades. I loved Daniel Craig and the Queen and got a kick out of trying to explain to our daughter how Her majesty got from the plane/parachute to her seat for the ceremony so quickly and gracefully. Lots of unexpected twists, however, like it or lump it….that show was some SERIOUSLY creative work and immense effort and organization to pull it off. My head almost blew up imagining the logistics of it all!

2) Awesome commercials, WAAAAAAY better than the Superbowl! My current fave is Ryan Lochte (local boy done good….except for the UF part, but hey this ‘Nole will let that slide…) swimming to London. David Boudia “diving” off world’s tallest building for Visa is pretty phenomenal, too. Of course, there’s the P&G commercial with the nod to Moms in the training of Olympians and the sacrifices made in getting to the Olympics. Truly though, if you look in the stands you certainly see lots of dads and other family members present as well. I only have to look to my own friends and their swimming/lacrosse/running/baseball/soccer/volleyball kids (and my own) and see the sacrifices made on an ongoing basis. The crockpot is your friend, repeat after me….

3) Speaking of families, I also love the numerous olympic stories that we hear about. John Orozco, one of the US Men’s gymnast hopefuls was one that I caught last night. The amount of drive and discipline ALL of the Olympians have is astounding and this young man is no different. His desire to make a better life for his entire family is touching. The dude’s strength and prowess on the pommel horse and parallel bars, sheesh! These guys make it look so easy, meanwhile I am huffing, puffing and using a chair and maybe get my chin up over the bar for a second.

4) The watching of the Olympics itself is an event. An all-day event (thanks to the time difference here in the States). The weekend has been great, but now it’s back to work, what to do? what to do??? Ah, but there’s an app for that (and an app for walking/running if so inspired by the Olympics….):

Sshhhh, don’t tell my boss, but I am hooked up for work-day viewing! Just need to keep it charged!

Of course there are also Olympic watching parties. We went to one last night. A friend of a friend hosted it at their ~~mansion~~ house on the river. Food out the wazoo and Olympics on about 72″ of HDTV. New people to meet, watching boats troll down the river from a day out on the water, fireworks to the south. It was exhausting!

This little hairless kitten was one of the host’s pets…oh the interesting things you come upon when at an Olympic watching party…

5) The outfits which so far have been mostly swimsuits and gymnastics-wear, which just further point out the differences between the Olympian’s discipline and my lack-of-discipline. Whatev. (If AT&T comes knocking on my door for some sponsorship I may consider cutting out the sweets. Maybe.) I was interested to see the US women’s beach volleyball and Australia’s women beach volleyball match and even more interested in the difference in uniforms. Once I got past the fact that the Aussies were quite covered up I realized at least those girls didn’t have to deal with the sand digging into areas sand ought not be AND that they also didn’t have to keep yanking up their bottoms. It was different for sure. However, they may be on to something. Don’t get me wrong now, I was FULLY cheering our US moms on and thrilled for their win to move on!!

**speaking of outfits, how about the Dutch women’s field hockey team. Wow. Beautiful ladies. Eye raising uniforms…..

6) More watching today with rowing, swimming, synchronized diving–China is the SHIZ, but SO happy our girls did so well!! I was so exhausted from so many sports I needed a 2-hour nap to recuperate from it all. Sheesh. We should get bonus workouts just from vicariously participating in all this activity, in my opinion!! Who’s with me??? No worries, I’ll still be up at o’dark hundred for boot camp, even without sponsors and fanfare. (or not, since apparently we have a little bug going through our house and Hubby and daughter are battling it out for my doctoring skills….and it’s 1:40 a.m.—–guessing this is the REAL reason God gave me a huge nap today!)

I’m sure there will be more likes and inspirations as the days carry forth with the medal watching and you can be sure I’M watching whatever I can squeeze in!! How about you? Are you cheering on your country and becoming a little bit obsessed, or are you like my boys: all like….whatever?? I swear, I don’t even know who they are…