New Year, so well whatcha gonna do?

How was your NYE?  The kids were really rowdy so there was lots of
"Stop it"
"Move Over"
"Can't we watch Nick?"

I guess making the kids watch the consistently really bad TV know as Channel 7 in Chicago's local NYE show, wasn't the best way to keep their attention... Tom I go got plenty of laughs out of the show.

The big excitement of my NYE was pre-ordering Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning, I have been re-reading her Fever Series in anticipation of 5th and Final book...she seems to have off'd one of my favorite male characters at the end of Faefever--she better have figured out how he isn't dead in the final book.

Tom is off at Walgreens looking for discounted holiday merchandise we don't need.  We are going over to his Aunt's house for a New Year party a bit later.  As aways I'll have to say a few times in the car.

"You better eat while we are there, We are not stopping at McDonalds on the way home."  Don't even ask. 

I don't know why I have to say that whenever we go to a party, there has not been a precedence set that we stop at a fast-food drive thru on the way home from family parties or any parties.  Yet somehow, it keeps coming up.

Each year I ask everyone in the family what their resolutions or goals or dreams for the new year are  and here are some for 2011.

Patrick:  Earn a Homework Pass, Go Bowling, Go on Vacation to the Nick Hotel and Participate in my school's talent show.

Bryce: Take a Lego Class at Moraine Valley in the Summer, Go Camping with Cub Scouts, have a cell phone
*that last one ain't happening!

Anna: Take swimming lessons, be rich, go to the beach and take a gymnastics class.  Spend more time with my family and friends.
*LOL like she has a job and doesn't get to spend time with her family.

Tom: Stop Worrying, Exercise more, Avoid white bread, be more positive.
*Id have liked him to put down yell less over trival matters involving the kids.

Me:  I wasn't feeling resolutions last night so all I came up with is, Be caught up on our bills.  Im sure Bank of Evil --errr I mean Bank of America is all for that goal of mine.

I'm on my lunch right now at work. How do I like working on a Sunday? Well I don't care for it. I like to sleep late on Sundays and not leave the house.

Did u have a nice Christmas? Mine was OK. The boys were disappointed with the amount of presents the received. Anna had more items to open, and that was a big problem. Of course the money spent was the same for each kid. *Sigh*

Moneywise there was no use of credit cards, and I had mypoints and debit card points I was able to use which stretched the funds--good thing imagine what the disappointment would have been w/o the freebies.

I think I am going to make a quiche with the leftover ham tonight...no idea on the recipe yet for that.

I ordered this book from me to me for Christmas.  I would also like cute shoes, a gift card for Modcloth.com and a necklace from Tiffanys.  Yes, I know I could purchase knock off Tiffanys.  Shrug, don't know why but I like to keep dreaming about the real thing.

News from first grade class Room 8. 
The whole class was on yellow.  The teacher 'thought' they were all talking in the hallway.  Hmm she just though it, really?  really Anna?  I guess they are all giddy with anticipation of next weeks 3 day week.  Listen to this, Monday Gingerbread houses, Tues Class Party, Wed hot cocoa and the Polar Express. How fun is that.  I want hot cocoa at work on Wed, I don't even need the movie..

Are you done Xmas shopping?  Ya?  Not me.  Though I don't know if I am going to shop much more.  I'm done shopping for Tom, as I mentioned he wants nothing, so that is very easy shopping. Anna wants everything she sees, Bryce just wants legos, and Patrick would be happy with a box of Andes Mints.

I'd like to just give out cash, well if I had some to give out, because I really really really am not a wrapper.  I don't like wrapping presents and it shows.  My wrapping looks like a 6 year old has done it.  Actually Anna is better at wrapping presents.

Its like a heat wave

The high for today is 31 F.  After the coldness this past week, 31 is a heat wave.  Warm enough I am going to go run today.  I don't like running in the winter.  Given a choice of going out to run and braving the cold, unshoveled sidewalks and patches of ice OR running on a tredmill, I'll take the elements. 

Being that it is Thursday, I was getting all giddy about tomorrow being Friday and the whole weekend coming up. And then I remembered, I'm working Saturday.  Actually Im done with work 2morrow night at 7:30 and then will be back at work by 7am on Sat.  I like the actual work I do, it's interesting and challenging.  I personally am just not a fan of leaving my house and going into work.  I could take a pass on all that.  I think the office we have in the basement is more posh for sure than my cubicle.  And the commute would be much better.  Overall, it would be better for the Environment, if I could work from home.  Really me going to work is a disservice to Mother Earth.

I wonder if I could get Michele Obama to push for more people to work from home, like she is working on childhood obesity?  We could have tax incentives for employers and all the work at home people could pledge to snack on healthy fruits and veggies from their kitchens.  I think I am on to something here.

Best Cookies Ever

Got the most lovely of gifts recently...Cheryls Cookies.  Man they are just the best cookies every. And it's really good that they come individually packaged.  That way they are very portable and its much easier for me to not accidently each a bunch at one time. The frosted sugar cookes are my faves...Oh they are so good.  You have to try them.  There is a link to get a sample pack of 6 for just the shipping of $6.95

Cheryls free sample

Speaking of gifts once again this year Tom has said that he doesn't want me or the kids to get him anything for Christmas because if he wants anything he just goes and buys it.  This is such a pain, and no fun.  Christmas is about giving and I'd just like to be able to get him a few things for Xmas.  I guess he is trying to be helpful, but it's just a killjoy. Maybe I should wrap up some of his existing stuff so he has stuff to open on Christmas.  Yep That's what I am going to do!

Look Mom Zombie Intestines!

I know it's been ridiculously long since I posted.  I meanted to post about 500x in the  past 2 months. I even downloaded an app to do blogging via my phone but I can't get it to work w/blogger so much for that.

Yesterday in the wind and snow it was time for my holiday work party.  The party is geared toward kids so not only was there a visit from Santa but also a wandering Magician (actually 2) and a balloon lady.  While I was getting a  plate of food from the buffet.  I love brunch, esp where there is bacon and chocolate upon it--while I was off grabbing food the Balloon lady visited the kids. 

I sat down to eat my food and Anna was quick to show off her balloon Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  "Look it's Rudolph!  Rudolph really looks like a poodle, should I show him to Santa?  Sure Anna, you can show him to Santa.  No you can't  have my bacon...

And then there was much eating, kids playing, raffle prizes and even a DJ.  Anna and Bryce were tearing up the dance floor.  They also played very nicely with a couple of younger girls that were at our table, which was nice to see them being so well behaved as to be mini babysitters.  Gave me warm fuzzies.

And then as we drove out of sight, due to low visibility based on the snow and wind, Patrick pipes up from the back seat.  "Okay I still have 10 math problems to do...and my Art Project, "  Bryce chimed in with dibs on the Nintendo DS, and Anna had the last word with...

Look Mom my Rudolph came apart! Now it's Zombie Intestines!

Running Running Running

I picked up this book from a used bookstore because I thought Patrick might like to read it. The main character is a girl, and so he has no interest in reading it.  So I'm going to take it to work and read it at lunch. This weekend we didn't have any big plans so I caught up on some work around the house and spent this evening cooking.  I made chili, as I like to do on Sundays during football season.  Now I'd like to share my recipe; however, I make it differently each week--depending on what I have on hand.  For example today it has Peppy Papaya Salsa in it, Wahoo Chili (the only staple in each batch) and some of the Flavors of India Seasoning Salt.  Then I chopped up an onion, three stalks of celery, added a lb of ground turkey, one big can of Red Gold Diced Tomatoes and 1 can of great northern beans because that is all I had besides garbonza beans.  Next week it may very well be totally different. 

Then again no chili next week, as next Sunday is 10/10/10 and that means I'm gonna go run the Chicago Marathon.  Now between not having the kids in day camp this summer and going back to work 9/1 I haven't been able to run as much in preparation as I would like for the marathon.  Therefore my only goal is to finish the marathon before they close down the race.  ( that would be after 6 1/2 hours).   My other goal is to be able to walk the next day w/o crying.  I can't wind up all super sore for a few days, so if anyone has any advice on how to avoid being sore after the marathon, PLEASE let me know! 

I can't believe it is almost time for the marathon, well actually, I can I signed up to run it ages ago. 

End of September Already

Went right from work to get Anna from Daisy Scouts then home and then we went over to the Family Night at Bryce school.  It was Book Fair night so the library was crowded with lots of kids looking for books.  And a few parents.  I picked up Ruined: A Novel.  It takes place in New Orleans and I love reading stories set in New Orleans. 

Im going to say that I think in general, reading is better than doing dishes.  So that is why my sink is full of dishes right now.  It's a statement not sloth. :-D 

It's been really bad allergy weather for me the last few days, but today I 'gutted it out' and didn't take a Zyrtec, it helps with the symptoms but man does it make me spacey.  I really should get around to going to an allergist one of these days, right. 

Anyway, here is my thought for the day.  $100 bucks is the new $20. 

Still looing for 8 days a week.

Yes wouldn't that be nice?  work 5 off 3 still have 52 wks in the year, we'd all be younger.  Heck it could probably save Social Security, b/cause it would be longer b/4 we hit our 60s, 40s would be the new 60s LOL.

This month has been major time juggling, and I am still waayyy off.  I know this will come as no suprise but working out of the house really takes up a lot of time. LOL.  And the house doesn't clean itself, much to my dismay neither does the laundry.  So really I think I need a wife.

This week I started my getting up early and running plan only to be twarted by Tom's work on day 2 of my getting up early and running.  I decided that the best thing to do was to get up and run anyway.  So I got up at 530 and ran 3 miles instead of getting up at 530 and running the nice 6 to 8 miles I planned on running. 

Basically this week I discovered I have to get up before the dawn, which I am not a fan of, in order to get anything done.  This is why women are tired and cranky and have to invest in lots of undereye coverup!

K gotta run off to work now!

Golden Winter Soup

Saw Butternut squash at the grocery store and thought that soon it will be time to make my favorite soup ever. I was sure I blogged about it, but I just ran thru my posts and darn it if I couldn't find it. So I looked it up on-line and there is the link for it above. It's super super good. You must try it! From Cooking Light magazine!


I have the ingredients to try some new recipes I took from Food Network Magazine and some old Women's Day and Rachel Ray magazines. Here is the problem, I took out the recipes and put them in a blue file folder. And now I can't find it anywhere. Tom swears he's seen it, but tis no where to be found. Grr. I need the recipes to go with my ingredients! They were all new recipes and I have no clue how to make them w/o the recipes! Ack!

So tomorrow I am going for a long run, I need to get in 10-12 miles for sure, I haven't run since Tues! Good thing I ran 15 miles on Mon and 5 on Tues, never the less, not enough running. It's totally Tom's fault he golfed alllllllllllll day on Sat and golfed until 5pm today.

So then tomorrow much running, some BBQ and then everyone needs to get to bed early b/cause we all have work or school in the AM! I'll be starting week 2 at my new full time job where it is very quiet. And they pay me for my time. Quite different than my time at home rearing children. When you are raising your kids, it's very loud and you don't get paid. You don't get any vacation time either. Oh sure, your spouse may think when the family takes a vacation that you the mother is also having a vacation, but we know better don't we stay at home parents? Yes, a family vacation should be paid at time and a half and you should get PTO (paid time off) for every hour of the vacation!

Never the less, the kids are adjusting well to me working, and they only started crying when I answered the question, so will you be at my halloween party?

No, I won't.

But considering there is 1 of me and 3 of them at 3 different schools all of which have their halloween parties on the same day and time--two of them would be losing out anyway, so at least now they don't have hurt feelings that I didn't 'chose' to come to their party.

Golden Winter Soup Frm Cooking Light Magazine
Ingredients


2 tablespoons butter

5 cups (1/2-inch) cubed peeled butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)

2 cups (1/2-inch) cubed peeled russet potato (about 12 ounces)

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 cups sliced leek (about 2 medium)

4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

1 cup half-and-half

12 ounces baguette, cut into 16 slices

3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded Gruyère cheese

3 tablespoons chopped chives

Freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Preparation

Preheat broiler.



Melt butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add squash, potato, salt, and pepper to pan; sauté 3 minutes. Add leek; sauté 1 minute. Stir in broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until potato is tender, stirring occasionally. Place half of potato mixture in a blender. Remove center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape); secure blender lid on blender. Place a clean towel over opening in blender lid (to avoid splatters). Blend until smooth. Pour into a large bowl. Repeat procedure with remaining potato mixture. Stir in half-and-half. Cover and keep warm.


Arrange bread slices in a single layer on a baking sheet; sprinkle evenly with cheese. Broil bread slices 2 minutes or until golden. Ladle 1 cup soup into each of 8 bowls; top each serving with about 1 teaspoon chives. Serve 2 bread slices with each serving. Garnish with freshly ground black pepper, if desired.

Wine note: This is one vegetable soup that can easily handle a lighter red wine. Stick with the French theme and look for bargains from Burgundy, like Louis Jadot Pinot Noir 2005 ($20). This wine has pretty red berry fruit, great balance, and gentle tannins that make it ideal for lower-fat dishes. The underlying earthy, leathery flavors bring out the rustic nuances of the potatoes and squash. —Jeffery