Menu Plan Monday

This is an odd week around here, ReverendDr. has gone to a conference and then this coming weekend we are going on vacation. Last night the kids, Grandma and I had French Toast and Sausage, unheard of since ReverendDr. doesn't touch french toast or anything else containing egg, cream, milk products or countless other foods with a 10foot poll. I am also using up odds and ends. If the kids don't like what I cook then they can always have a peanut butter sandwich. Those are the only two choices.

Monday- Tortellini Salad with FETA cheese

Tuesday- Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with tomato soup

Wednesday- Quiche, ham and Spanish with more cheese

Thursday- egg rolls with homemade friend rice,

Friday- Homemade soup of some kind, maybe broccoli cheese with homemade bread

then Gone someone else will be cooking

ROKU Player Review: Update

Ok, so we've had the ROKU player for a while now and it definitely was worth the money. I will be canceling the cable. We opted to use just the NETFLIX on it though there are supplemental channels you can buy. Anything that you see on Netflix that has an "add to instant que" on it you can play on the Roku. There are a lot of documentaries, tons of children's things, old movies etc. series etc. not everything is down loadable but Netflix is converting things quickly. It will also definitely save us money as it is just the 8.95 a month.

Let Me Tell You About My Snow-blower

I live in the frozen north, at this moment in my backyard there is almost 2 feet of snow, it's going to snow for the next 4 days and it's not going to get above freezing for the 7 day forecast...O, I also live two blocks from one of the Great Lakes which is currently frozen so the wind is really wicked.

We have really great neighbor's who snow blowed us out the first year we moved here, then one summer I found a snow blower at a yard sale,( I was a few days overdue with Presbybaby at the time) the thing looked new but the lady said it didn't work, it was in the garage when they bought the house. Well I talked her down to $25 and hoisted the thing into my minivan and away we went. A $30 repair later and it works like a beauty (she didn't know you had to mix oil and gas together for the fuel). It glides through the snow banks like a dream, provides enough resistance for a good workout too. I kind of feel like the Lone Ranger, I put on my knee high boots, my leather lined work gloves and my un attractive coat (which now smells like a mix of gas and oil) and out into the frozen wasteland I go. I blow out us, the neighbors the guy stuck who parked on the street and the sidewalks on our side of the road. Of course when I return bright red and sweaty I make sure to play the snow blowing martyr to the ReverendDr., but secretly I am a little bit in love with it.

New Years Resolutions

I wouldn't call these "Resolutions" rather areas of "Habits" I need to form and how do you form a habit? by doing it EVERYDAY for a month.

1. Get up at the same (early) time each day, and go to bed at the same time (which I hate doing), of course with having little kids is only but so doable.

2. Make a hot breakfast each day.

3. Live by budget, it was easy when we didn't have any money we had to plan and stick to our budget, now that we have less debt it's so easy to got out to eat more and throw extra things in the cart. I also realized we were spending close to $100 a month on milk....

4. Serve one raw food with each meal.

5. Work with Presbyboy on learning good habits, hes at the age where he wants to do and help with everything, I need to teach him while hes teachable even if it does take much longer.

6. Really make a point to have devotions with ReverendDr, having them TOGETHER as often as possible.

The Great Television Debate & Roku

The great debate that the ReverendDr and I have been going back and forth about since the first Presbybaby came into this world is about TV, how much should we spend, what should we watch etc. First we had deluxe cable with "on demand" so we could put on the cute little shows and not be worried, then they started with commercials...then we moved and went down to the very "basic" about 12 station, so this left only PBS in the morning and DVDs...which had led to a huge DVD mess! borrowing them from the library and buying them, digging through to find which ones are theirs. I have tried different organizing systems and it's just not worked. So now we have "expanded basic cable" which has Playhouse Disney...and a whole lot of marketing to kids and a whole lot of rock music and other things that I don't want my babies exposed to. So what has high quality entertainment , is CHEAP and "clean". Well I think I've found the answer,a friend told me about something I didn't know existed. A ROKU player is a box you hook to your TV (same way as a DVD player) and it has a WIFI signal built in or you can hook an Ethernet cable into it. So you do have to have Internet service. You can get NETFLIX for 8.99 a month and put movies and shows into your "instant que" then watching them on your TV, I knew you could watch them on your computer but not on TV. A basic player is $79 so for the player and NETFLIX pretty good deal! We plan on getting rid of our TV since we don't watch sports and get most of our news form the Internet I think this will work for us, will let you know how well we like it.

So Good, you MUST buy this!

I really try to stay away from prepackaged food, MSG etc. and most of it doesn't tempt me in the least, Hamburger Helper, ahh... no thank you ! Well I had a really good coupon for this so I bought it, you add your own chicken (I also added mushrooms), OMW it was absolutely fabulous!!! I can't believe how good it was! I served it with a hot, crusty baguette and a tossed salad. Bury the box deep in the kitchen trash and your husband will think hes married a gourmet cook.