Quick, Easy, and Cheap Recipe

I've yet to find a cookbook on the market that meets my needs. I want the recipes to be:
1) Quick and Easy
2) Very FEW ingredients
3) Healthy
4) Cheap (this relates to very few ingredients)
If anyone can recommend one, please do. I like to look at recipes on RealSimple.com, but they have lots of ingredients and are $$$. I'm going to make my own cookbook. Meal idea #1:

Ingredients:
1 can black beans
1 can diced tomatoes
Wraps
Shredded Cheese- optional

Instructions: Put both cans in pot on stovetop. Put on wraps and (optional) sprinkle on cheese and wrap up. That's it!!

Notice, one of my requirements for the cookbook was not taste great, but really these wraps are not bad. Does anyone have any recommendations on what seasoning I could add to this to make it taste better? I make this a lot (and currently use no seasoning)...

And I'm kidding about doing my own cookbook, but I am frustrated that I can't find one for me.

Late Coming

I've been meaning to post pictures from my friend Melissa's wedding (Nov. 15th) but I just can't seem to get around to it! And now, we are on vacation!! So, I don't have the pictures with me. We are taking the whole week of Christmas off and will be back to work on Dec. 28th. We are currently at my parents house and then headed to Charlotte to see Z's family. It's a good way to break up the long drive. Wow, it's cold in ATL and I'm sure will be even colder in Charlotte. David's enjoying everything Christmas and knows how to sing 'We wish you a Merry Christmas' and 'Jingle Bells'. He can also sing along to 'Away in a Manger' but not all on his own. This adds to his songs (he could already sing Jesus loves Me, ABC's, Where is Thumpkin, Twinkle Little Star, and Old McDonalds). He just loves to sing. Oh, he can also do BINGO and Happy Birthday. He runs around singing a lot.

Melissa's bridal shower
David at Mimi's house on the horse.
Emily and David. One of Mrs. Rose's daughters (the SAHM who watches him half day)

Clothes Dryer Maintenance

Machines need maintenance, there's no way to get around it really. We try to do all our maintanence DIY 'Do It Yourselves'. Today I'm talking about the dryer. Why mainain your dryer? To prevent costly repairs, improve dryer performance, and heaven forbid a fire. What needs to be done?
- Yearly- Clean out dryer vent, the piping that goes from the dryer to the outside. It collects with lint and dirt and can slow your dryer down and cause a fire. The longer the vent the harder to clean (and the slower the performance of your dryer). The best way to clean it is if you have a blower like a shop vac that can blow air or a leaf blower. We have neither. So, for the front of the vent I use the vacuum where it could reach and then I modified this dusting pole I have with a dusting thing at the end and used it- thankfully our vent is straight.
-Every 2 Years- Clean out the interior of your dryer. Take off the back and just get rid of all that lint whatever way you can. A professional charges about $130 to do this, but believe me, it is not that hard.
With these steps your dryer will, hopefully, perform better and you'll have less of a chance of a costly repair.

David is Eating

David has started eating and I am loving it. For months, even as long as David started eating solid foods he has been SO picky and wouldn't eat. He even lost a pound from his 18month to 2 year appointment. There have been days literally where all he ate was milk and maybe 1 cracker- I'm not exagerating. And, well, David has started eating recently. Not a ton, but it's a definite difference. Though we haven't weighed him I know he has gained because he looks chunkier. I think part of the eating more is that his new daycare arrangement is better in that he has more time to eat. At his old day care they only had a short period of time and then they moved on from eating and if you didn't eat in that time frime oh well. The new lady that is watching him is so very good about getting him to eat- she too has a picky eater. That, and he just wants to eat more.

His current arrangement is he goes to church preschool 5 days a week then stays with the stay at home mom the rest of the day. She has 2 girls- 3 and 1. She is from Brasil (her husband is American) and its working out really well with her. She feeds them a lot of fruits and healthy foods and though he has regressed in that she actually feeds them instead of them eating themselves, I don't care. She sits them all in highchairs in an assembly line in the kitchen and does 'airplane' practically for every bite. She is very creative with food. The other day David asked me for a sandwich. I was shocked. He doesn't like those. Come to find out, Rose, the lady that watches him has been making PB&J sandwiches and cutting them into funky shapes with cookie cutters and decorating them with cereal with smile faces and such. If only I had thought to do that David would eat a sandwich, hah!

Bought a Van

We got a Van! The stats: 2005 Dodge Caravan base model, 57,000 miles, $5,500, private party sale. Private party in GA means no tax or any other fees. This was a deal. I had been watching craigslist like a hawk and jumped on this one when I saw it. True, its not the Toyota that I really wanted, but I am happy with it! Now, granted, the van is FILTHY. They didn't bother cleaning it at all. It needs new tires, an oil change, desperately needs to be cleaned, carpets need shampooing, there are ants- maybe some ant traps?, there is only 1 key, BUT all the major mechanical issues are GOOD. The hardest thing I think will be to get the smoke smell out- it was a smoker's car. I can't believe I bought a smoker's car, hah!, I hate smoke! But, I love a deal! We are going to give it some TLC and clean it up. Now are cars consist of this and the trusty 2008 Honda Fit (thanks to AGL- granted I did have to drive all over timbuktu to rack up enough miles to get it).

How 'bout Milk?

I want Juice. I need Juice, now. How 'bout milk? Oh, that's what I recently heard from David- verbatim. He has been saying a lot 'how 'bout fill in the blank' when he wants something. It's his negotiating tool. It's funny. He's a goober. Today we found out my brother his having a BOY! They are naming him Landon Sceviour. I didn't catch the middle name.

Blood Test for Thyroid

I finally agreed to let my doctor test my thyroid with a blood test. A couple of my doctors have recommended it (for varying reasons including extreme fatigue, migraines, irregular periods, etc..) including my regular doctor and my gyn, but I haven't done it because of cost (it was going to cost me out of pocket 300 dollars). I wanted a cheaper way to test. So, the one doctor recommended I measure my body temperature for some days and if it came back low that I should spend the money on the test. The temp. came back low and I took the test and as it turns out my thyroid doesn't produce enough hormones, but just slightly out of the normal range. Enough so that they want to put me on medicine. I don't know if I should take the hormones or not. The doctor said I could take a low does of the natural hormone kind (they make synthetic and natural). I haven't decided yet if I should take it. Any opinions out there? I don't like taking unessary medicines.

Vans

Wow. We are having a hard time finding a car to buy. There just is not much out there on the private party market right now! We've done a lot of reasearch, and basically Honda is out. Their Odysseys pre-2007 had major transmission problems. Toyota Sienna's from 1998-2002 had major engine sludge problems- which isn't a total falure and can be preventable with correct maintanence but often results in needed a replaced engine. So, the really old Sienna's are out. Darn, Sienna's are my fav and we can't afford the newer ones! Dodge Caravan/ Chrysler Town and Country are basically the same exact car. Same frame, same mechanically, same maker. They have a lot of maintanance issues but might be worth it if you can get them for a really low price. (we're actually leaning in this direction) And, as far as Kia, the older models are just made so poorly. Each year their reliability gets better and better. I'd be open to a newer, Kia model, but there are none out there. And, I just plain don't like the Ford vans. They are UGLY. I saw one 2000 Volvo station wagon for $1800 with 124k that made me think, what about a station wagon? But, at that cheap of a price, something must not be right... Now we're hoping to spend under 5k.

Recent Pictures

SOLD

The van sold tonight. Now we have to get another one--- FAST! It's amazing how car dependent we are! We are considering Dodges and Chryslers even Fords and Kias. My favorite is Toyota and Z's favorite is Honda but both of those are SO expensive, probably worth it in the long run because we want this next van to last us to 300,000 miles, but anyhow not an option. We want to get something with less than 50k miles and less than $10k.

Time to say Goodbye to Big Gold

In the past 2 years in addition to being an engineer I guess you can say I've also been sort of in car sales as a business, hah. No really, we've sold 3 cars and made a profit on each one of them (not large ones, but still every little bit helps). My trick is simple, we buy low and sell normal. HOWEVER, starting in 2010 we will no longer be able to do this! In GA you don't have to pay taxes on private party (person to person not dealership) car sales, but in 2010 you will have to. This will put the private party car business out of business. So, as the year comes to an end we have to sell Big Gold, my beloved van, and buy a permanent car that we will keep for hopefully years to come. Sure, I'd LOVE to keep big gold, but let's face it, we can't afford to keep her! I'm hoping to make a decent profit on her (we bought it for a good deal)- unfortunately we havn't had it for that very long, only 5 months or so which looks fishy to buyers. I'd like to hold a year before we sold, but we can't do that because of the tax law changes. So, we have someone looking at Big Gold this weekend. I'm hoping to find another van for under $8k total price to buy but we're not going to do that until we sell Big Gold.

ABC, Twinkle Twinkle

David loves two songs- ABC and Twinkle Little Star. He sings them over and over, and wants us to keep singing them. He knows every word of both song. His teachers at school have graduated him to real underwear- YIKES! He is still going #2 not in the potty. We might have another daycare arrangement to try out soon. Things have not been good w/ D's school. His new room is better, but still every morning he says 'no school, stay home please, I no like school' then when we get to the gate (at the base) he starts crying. It's so sad, I really wish I could just stay home with him. Unfortunately that's not an option right now, so I've located a SAHM and I'm trying to work out an arrangement where he goes to a church preschool everyday from 9-12 then she picks him up and watches him the rest of the day. The downside would be, Z and I could no longer drive to work together because of not being able to drop him off earlier than 9. I would go to work at 7AM, Zach would drop David off and go to work at 9AM, and then I would be able to get off earlier than Zach to pick him up. The bad part is I won't be able to see him in the morning before he wakes up, but that will be the sacrafice I'll have to make to get him in a better childcare sitaution. I"m hoping we can get this worked out.

Daycare update and Consignment Sale

We haven't found a permanent solution for D's daycare yet, but we did get him placed in a different room at his current daycare which is better. We might have another alternative in the works. We're currently exploring this option.

I went to the Macon MOPS consignment sale this weekend and here is my loot. I got David a Mickey Mouse costume for Holloween. He LOVES Mickey Mouse, which is so funny because we don't know where this preference came from. We've since bought him a Mickey Mouse movie and he likes it. We only watch movies now that we cancelled cable.

Potty training is going well. He's pretty much doing all his pee in the potty and 50% of his #2's. I'll take it for a 2 year old. We don't give him m&m's all the time any more. Only occasionally when he asks or at the end of the day for a 'good day'. We are still using diapers at night time.

Potty Training and Daycare

Our family spent the 3 day weekend potty training! With a 2 year old? Crazy? Yes. Honestly, I thought he was too young, but he has far exceeded our expectations and is now diaper free except for naps and night time. He is in training pants during the day. He has about 2-3 accidents a day still. Sometimes we initiate the potty time and sometimes he does. He gets m&m's as a reward at home and stickers at school. The hardest part by far was the first day when he didn't really know yet what we were trying to get him to do.

In other news, we are looking for a new daycare. David moved to the 2 year old room and there have been numerous problems that I won't go into detail about. The gist of it is, his afternoon teacher is AWFUL. I literally almost punched her in the face today at the daycare. Zach had to pull me out of there. I complained to the director and she said 'well she came here 2 weeks ago and was very highly recommended by the teen center'. Hah, teens are totally different that 2 year olds! Please pray for us that we find him a new place. Poor David is having a hard time and this is causing us a lot of anxiety.

While I'm at it with the charts...

This chart shows what was stated in that video posted a while back. Adjusted for inflation, incomes are stagnent and dropping from the 70's to today. In spite of this, home prices have soared from the 1970's to today. What does this result in?
Affordability has worsened over the past 20-30 years for families trying to purchase a home because incomes have not kept up with rising housing prices. (this is why, ultimately, the result of the housing crisis is a good thing- lower home prices. The market is re-adjusting its prices to levels they should be at. It's correcting itself from prices that got way too high)



A recap of the long video I posted earlier:
Comparing the 1970's family with the 2009 family you would think that the 2009 family would be more wealthy with better savings and less debt because the wife now works and in the 70's she didn't. However, this is not the case. The family today actually spends less (inflation adjusted) on expendable goods such as clothing and food, and despite having more income (because of the mother working- dad's income has remained stagnent/even decreased some inflation adjusted), is more in the hole because of the huge cost of housing and healthcare (including premiums paid to your employer). The video ultimately got to the point that the middle class is shrinking and there will be no 'middle class' soon.

Ramblings of an Observer

Recently I have met a friend at work who is going through a divorce. Today I found out my dental assistant that does my teeth is getting divorced (and she is my age). And this brings me to the question that has been plaguing sociologists for years- the issue of high divorce rates. Since the 70's there has been an extremely high rate of divorce in our country. Also, in the last 30 years the rate of married women with children working full-time increased by 50%. Are these numbers related to each other? I think so. Now, the woman has two full-time jobs. Not only must she have her 'career' job, she has to manage the home full time. And, it's just not possible to 'have it all'. Even if the husband helps at home, the load is stressful for the couple. There is not only the stress of home life - raising kids, housework, meals, upkeep on the home - but there is the added stress of a two-working parent household: getting the kids to day care or school, getting them home and to their activities and practices, both parents having job-related stresses that carry over to their home life.

A lot of the men in my generation were raised with the mother handling the majority of the household duties, which wasn't a problem because they didn't have to work in industry. Now, the men expect the wives to do the same AND they expect them to work full-time, which just puts to much stress and strain on the wife and on the marital relationship, hence all of the divorces. This is my theory based off of what I've seen in the people I know who are divorcing.

He's 2!

David turned 2 yesterday. We took him to McDonald's afterwork. We are officially celebrating this weekend as my parents and Zach's mom are coming to visit this weekend. We'll probably go to eat pizza- D's favorite. Currently, David has been making a lot of progress with his language. He is putting together words in fragmented sentences. Some of his words are still hard to understand if you don't know him well.
Here are examples of the types of words he puts together:

'I got a boo boo again'
'David wants (fill in the blank)'
'David needs (fill in)'
'Get up mama'
'Take shoes off me'
'Theres other one'
'Where (fill in) is'
'go home first dada'
'All go outside'
'Come mommy play motorcycle'
'Thoman is my friend'

...the list goes on.

Confessions of a Goodwill Shopper

Yes people, occasionally I will grace the aisles of a goodwill. I must say, the goodwills in afluent areas have much better selection than those in, well not well off, areas and Warner Robins falls into the latter category. I went in search of birthday toys. I have to say, I was surprised at the amount of broken toys and toys with missing pieces. Despite that, I picked up a few good things and also 3 shirts for only 2.50 each. As a side note, their furniture is WAY overpriced! They had this dinky kids dresser, broken and written all over for $70, what? And, furniture straight out of the 70's for more than Ikea prices. To that, I have to say, Get with it Goodwill!

I got a big yellow dump truck for 2.02, a smaller green regular truck for 4.04 (why more? who knows.), and even though I was certainly not in the market for it but I wasn't going to leave the store without a temper tantrum if we didn't get it and I was too tired to deal with that after work, a ride on toy for 6.06. I was hoping to find a bubble mower and toy cash register, but had no luck. With the B-day quickly approaching we ended up going to Toys-r-us and paying full price for those and I also got some new puzzles. I was also looking for the book 'Cordory' at goodwill. Zach said he liked it as a kid and it's 16.99 full price (robbery for a little book!)- I had no luck finding that either but I think I might be able to get it on amazon cheaper.

I think if I'm ever driving through Alpharetta or Buckhead I might stop at the goodwill.

A Must listen

This is interesting- long, but, very worth your time!

My Outdoor Boy

That would be David. He LOVES being outside. Anything to be outside is what he wants to do. Chalk, coupe car, running around, picking weeds, PLAYING WITH THE HOSE, oh boy, he just loves the outdoors. I'm going through my cans of OFF and sweating buckets in this 100 degree heat. 95% of his tempertantrums involve either wanting to go outside or not wanting to go back inside. He didn't get this from me!

Almost 2

I have lots to post and no energy or time to do so, including a fabulous vacation thanks to this time-share thing (don't worry we didn't buy) to HAWAII- Honolulu! I was FINALLY able to take vacation days at work being there 6 months, and that I did! Oh, how I loved being able to see David all week. But, we did have a babysitter! We brought my mom and it was great!

I'm online right now shopping for D's birthday presents. I know exactly what I want to buy him. I went to Toys-R-Us and scoped things out, but I'd prefer not to buy new because, it's all junk anyways. I'm scanning craigslist and I'm realizing living in a small town is terribly bad for craigslist (especially if your looking for specific things). I miss Atlanta! You could find ANYTHING on there. I think the only way to buy used in WR is to go garage saleing, but honestly, my Saturdays are consumed with laundry, cleaning, organizing, etc. and I just don't have the time ('keeping house' whoever said weekends were for enjoyment?? hah!). The Macon MOPS does have 2 huge consignment sales a year- the next one coming up in September (a little too late for birthday gifts!). For the next couple of weeks I'm going to be night stalking the craigslist. (it's blocked at work)

The water damage in David's room spurred us to redecorate D's room. I knew it was coming because the asthma/allergist specialist told use we needed an allergy friendly room (no curtains, cloth surfaces, stuffed animals, minimize any surface that collects dust). It is actually very sad for me to take down his baby room. I really loved how it was decorated. My mother-in-law made this shelf and picture board to his specific bumble bee theme and it was all so cute. The new room is good, but just not the same! We painted over the green with gray to go along with the Thomas bed that my boss gave us that David now sleeps in (and is obsessed with). We painted is dresser white. We really don't have many decorations. We did put a train sticker type thing on the wall. I'll have to post a picture! We did move his train table to the room, and that fits well.

July 09 Pictures

Pictures from late June/ July including trip to the GA Aquarium for father's day along with a ride in the MARTA, a trip to the allergist, the wall damage, July 4th, a Sunday visit from the Grandparents, and maybe some more...



Since, David can answer 'How old are you' we decided to teach him to answer 'What's your name'. He knows his name is David because he points to pictures and says it, but he doesn't know how to respond to that question. Well, in the process of trying to teach him, his answer was 'dog' followed by laughter and then 'dog' more laughter and again... Silly boy.

A Better Week

I'm hoping to have a better week this week than last week! Whoa, last week was rough! First of, Z was out of town. It started off Tuesday AM David was sick coughing and wheezing and couldn't breath. I took him to daycare and they said he couldn't stay so I took the day off. I stayed home w/ him and took him to the doctor. She said he had bronchitis and asthma. (though not 'officially' asthma because he's too young for that diagnosis but they treat it as asthma) THANK GOODNESS Mimi saved the day and came in town Tuesday afternoon to care for David. Mimi woke me up in the middle of the night saying we had to go to the hospital because David couldn't breathe. I thought she was exagerating at first, but when I finally got up, really I was scared to death. He was seriously gasping and couldn't talk. So we spent from 2am to 5am in the ER. His diagnosis was bronchitis with bronchiospasms and asthma. He had an X-ray and they said it was 'borderline' pnuemonia' with little fluid on the lung. We got more meds and went home. I got up for work 1 hour later at 6AM- man was I tired that day.

So, the 'mommy guilt' is on full force for me. All the doctors told me that it is likely he is having these asthma episodes because he had RSV as an infant (was hospitalized at 4 months old). RSV causes asthma in over 80% of the children that have it as infants. I know if he wasn't in day care he wouldn't have had RSV and most likely wouldn't have this asthma stuff. But, I can't focus on that, and I just have to deal with the fact that this is the situation now.

Also, the day after the hospital a water pipe broke in the wall and gushed for 2 hours before Mimi figured out how to turn off the water valve. (I'm glad she was there, though, it could have been WAY worse if it had gushed all day). David's room had all kinds of damage. So, I spent the majority of the next night pulling out drywall, wet insulation, a basebored, and pulling up the carpet. I put fans on it all and it's all dried out now. I left the mess to be cleaned up another day.

David is doing better now. He went back to school today. He's still on some of his meds. He was originally on an antibiotic, oral steriod, and albuterol in the nebulizer. Now he is just on albuterol and a steriod in the nebulizer. He's still wheezing some, but not nearly as bad as he was. I can tell he is on the 'uphill'. I just have to say thank you to Mimi, I don't know what I would have done last week without her!

Leaving on a Jet Plane..

Zach left earlier today for a business trip for work. He'll be back Friday. He switched jobs internally from under one boss to under another- a lateral move (i.e. no raise). The new job- still F15's just 'systems' instead of 'structures' will involve more travel, about a week per month he thinks, possibly more. I'm not to happy about the whole thing (I think that he should have gotten a raise or not taken the job switch) but such is life and I will deal. A lot of times I wish we worked in private industry and not in the government for pay reasons because I know that a raise would acompany a job change (not to mention being higher paying to begin with). I know I need to be happy we have good, stable jobs; but, It's not so easy being a full-time working, single parent (while my husband is gone)! I hope he likes the new work load better.

For father's day I got Zach tickets to the GA Aquarium. We went yesterday, and man was it CROWDED! Wow. That's all I can say about that. Well, David did love it and we had a fun day in Atlanta visiting our favorite old places. It was a good day. I will post pics soon.

Hi.

It's June

It's June. It's HOT outside. I spend most of my time, most of my days holed up in a cube with three other people. Not much to update with the little man other than his vocabulary is growing rapidly. We continue to be less than stellar parents and only read to him once in a blue moon (any advice on how to get into a regular reading schedule? even just a book a day?)

Ok, so here are some random things I've learned surfing the net while at work. Adjusted for inflation, for any given job the American worker makes 40% less today than they did in 1972. So an engineer 35 or so years ago made 40% more than one does today, this would be true with any job. (you can tell this is true based on society, it used to be most every mom stayed at home and the dad worked, now wit most families both parents need to work to get by) Ok, also, if the US government taxed every american 100% of their paycheck we still couldn't pay off the deficit (I had to wonder, but for how long? Like at some point it would get paid off). Maybe we should immigrate to Switzerland!

On another note, Zach's childhood friend Josiah came to visit last weekend. It was a good time.

Hemp Milk

I'm going to give you the short version of a very long story. For the past three weeks David has been having 2 episodes a day of explosive diarriah. After many stool samples and an x-ray, it was determined that David's problem was that he actually had severe constipation. HUH? Apparently, he had hard poop lodged in his colon that wouldn't come out and the only stuff that could get out was the diarriah around the poop that was lodged in his colon. NICE! Well, at the end of last week we had this medically taken care of. And, the reason for my post is, at one point the doctor determined that either his problem was 1- lactose intolerance or 2- hard poop lodged in his colon. Before we found out #2 was actually the problem I was brainstorming milk alternatives. And, even though he's probably NOT lactose intolerant, I've become extremely found of the idea of making my own Hemp milk. It's one of the highest sources of Omega 3's and 6's. I've decided I'm going to give it a try. I'm ordering the seeds online. I'm going to mix 1 cup of seeds with 5 cups of water and some honey and some vanilla and blend and then strain in cheesecloth (I'm buying on amazon). I might have to do some tweaking to make it tasty. Even if I can't get him to take it all the time, I'd love for him to drink at least one cup a day.

Rain Rain Go Away

'Rain rain go-way' This is what David has been singing this past week a lot! I think it's cute how he says goway instead of go Away. Anyhow, here are the events of the past month and a half or so that I have been meaning to post!

The bi-annual air show on base.






Cousin Rachael

Easter- we only got 1 picture.


This was Zach's cousin Rob's wedding in Charlotte, NC last weekend. It was lovely. Little man was SO tired.

Uncle Josh



David almost fell asleep near the dance floor.


David's first visit to waffle house. David is VERY allergic to egg and this was our 'test' to see if he could eat things that were cooked on the same surface as egg, because WF cooks everything on the same skillet.