A Couple of Good Meatless Meals

Both of these recipes came from my SIL's in Chicago. Thanks girls--we've loved both of these!

Southwestern Salad with Cilantro Lime Rice (the rice is my addition)
**this recipe doesn't have actual amounts, you just have to sort of wing it**

chopped tomatoes
green onions
green peppers
corn
black beans
cilantro

Combo the veggies and marinate them in a dressing made of--
lime juice
garlic
cumin
honey
salt and pepper

You can marinate them for an hour or for the day it doesn't matter. When you're ready to serve the salad, toss it with chopped lettuce and crushed tortilla chips. I also served my salad over a spoonful of Cilantro Lime Rice (recipe below) and it tasted just like the salad at Chipotle. Yum!

Cilantro Lime Rice--
1 cup rice
2 cups water
1 tsp. bouillon
2 Tbsp. lime juice
2 Tbsp. fresh chopped cilantro

Use the water and bouillon to make a pot of rice however you make rice. You could also use brown rice. Once it's done then add the lime juice and cilantro.

Red Lentil Deliciousness--

Heat 3 tbsp. of sesame oil and add 1 tsp. curry powder. Add in 1 cup of rinsed red lentils (I bet you could use brown lentils too) and 3 cups of water and 1 tsp. bouillon. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook until the lentils are soft. Make some brown rice and fry some eggs. Serve the rice topped with the lentils, a fried egg, and mango chutney or any other sort of chutney. We all liked this one! I loved it with the chutney and can't imagine it without it but it would probably be good either way.

Nothing Much

The cast and crew of Stupid Spies, Part 1 got together on Monday to film Stupid Spies, Part 2. This filming included a trip to the local FroYO place. I had lemon custard with raspberries and it was really good. I've decided that although I am a die hard chocolate fan when it comes to FroYo (to be cool you must say it that way) I really prefer the fruity flavors. I just don't like chocolate yogurt much. It's not the same as chocolate ice cream which we all know is all kinds of wonderful. Especially if it has brownie pieces in it. Anyway, it was a fun afternoon. The kids are having a great week at theatre camp. I've managed to stay busy during my free hours of the day. I've been productive but have also had some downtime. Of course, as usual I haven't gotten nearly as much done as I had planned but that's okay. There really is no rush.


I have not been in the bloggy mood lately but I don't like to let too much time pass between posts. I like to keep my readers coming back. :0) (I started this post on Monday and I'm just getting back to it on Thursday so if this seems disconnected from the first part that's because it is disconnected--by 3 days). Last Thursday night we had some friends over and had a little karaoke party. It was so fun. Ollie subscribed to some sort of karaoke website and now we have access to tons of songs. We already had a lot of songs but now we have even more--lots of Broadway hits as well as songs that the kids love. We've heard lots of Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez. Josh and Joe teamed up to sing that song about "New Yooooorrrkkkk concrete jungle where dreams are something and something...." Josh sang most of the song and let Joe sing the chorus. They were pretty awesome. Even baby Connor and Landon got in on the action.


A friend and neighbor of mine is moving out west. She is also a really talented artist and decided to give me this awesome piece of her artwork. I'm super excited, just what I needed for my foyer and at a very reasonable price (free!). I love it and will be happy to have something to remember her by. Of course, with FB and e-mail it will be easy to keep in touch. 20 years ago it would be likely that I'd never talk to her again but it's easy to keep in touch these days.
I spent my free morning on Monday wrapping up and packing up last year's school. Ever since Hannah was in Kindergarten I've stored each school year's work in these Priority Mail boxes. They are perfect and can easily stack in whatever random spot I find to put them. After homeschooling for the past 7 years I've managed to fill a lot of boxes. Chances are you will find some in any and every closet in the house. I wonder if we will ever open them and look back at what we did.
Sunday I turned on the A/C and spent some time in the kitchen making snacks. I made these bars of awesomeness (see pic above) and they were pretty awesome. :0) The kids have had them for breakfast almost every day this week. They are packed with protein and even Omega-3 so I don't feel bad about them eating them for breakfast. You can get the recipe here, the only change I made was that I added chia seeds (hence the Omega-3). I love adding chia seeds to everything but my kids aren't so into it. I made the best donuts yesterday and no one liked them except for Ollie and I. I used freshly ground whole wheat flour, coconut oil, fresh peaches, and chia seeds. They also had sugar in them of course. Joe was none too happy about the chia seeds and made sure to let me know. He told me that he is tired of me adding those seeds to everything. The thing is that you CANNOT taste them so why not add them to everything??
Sunday night I ran the lights for a show at Bay Street. Jonathan had programmed them and then made good notes for me to follow and in the end I only messed up once and that was at the very end. I blacked out and then the guys were supposed to run off the stage so that they could come back for bows. The only problem was that I gave them a very short blackout and then the audience saw them run backstage and we all sat there awkwardly waiting for them to run back out and bow. It would have been so much better if it had blacked out, they ran backstage, and then the lights went up again for bows. Oh well.

Lazy Days Around Here

For the first time in years we have had two straight weeks of almost no plans. In many ways I am loving it and am thankful for this time but it is clear that I function best when I have too much going on. I have a decent sized "to-do" list but nothing is urgent and so almost nothing is getting done. I don't really get going until about 2 in the afternoon. :0) I'm sort of keeping up with laundry, meals, and dishes and crossing a few things off the list each day but mostly I'm just being lazy. I have tons of schoolwork stuff to take care of--wrapping up last year's stuff and prepping for next year. I am going to dive into that next week when the kids are at theatre camp. They will be at theatre camp Mon to Fri from 9 to 2 for the next 2 weeks. Can I get a woohoo!?! They will be doing the show, "Honk!" This is one we've never done and I really know nothing about it. Sounds super cute though. So, I read a post last week about giftedness. Apparently, giftedness and grumpiness go hand in hand. That's really simplifying it but basically some gifted kids are also very intense, strong-willed, and often considered difficult. That really describes Joe. This post went on to talk about nurturing the gifted child and teaching them in a way that meets their needs. I plan to do some research and see if I can add or take away some things that will make our school days go a little smoother next year. This summer has been great--without the pressure of "school" every day Joe is learning a ton. He is doing math and grammar and playing "Civilization," on the computer. That game alone has taught and reinforced so much about geography, history, and the way civilizations are built. Yesterday he pretended to be a warrior (see pic above) all day and teamed up with Saladin (some guy from ancient history) to conquer all sorts of places. He blew up the Colussus with the bomb from the Manhattan Project for example. He sat next to me on the couch with a globe on his lap and talked for probably half an hour about various countries all around the world. Much of what he said was his imaginary game of conquering countries but he threw in so much fact and knowledge and history that I sat there stunned. He knows more than I do. I'm scared. How am I supposed to be this kid's teacher??? I guess the same way I have been since his birth. We've gotten this far, right? Well, the kids are up and I've lost my whole train of thought. Mr. "Gifted" is lying on the floor whining and on the verge of freaking out because I said he had to help me clean this morning. Nothing like some whining to get the day going and make my brain shut down. Anyway, here are some pics below from last weekend when we met some friends at the theatre to see Harry Potter and also from our library show last week with the super awesome Scott Humston!

The Last of the Wedding/Trip Pictures

At the wedding they had a "photobooth" that you could get your picture taken in and then later download them for free. We got some super fun pictures!











The night before the wedding we went to the rehearsal dinner. Lisa and I got a little silly...just a little.





And the rest of these are just random pics that I got from Gabi. Enjoy!

Comments on Comments and Stuff

• First of all--a few comments to my commenters--I'm glad to hear that others have used the makeup that I bought and has liked it. Believe it or not I haven't attempted "painting the barn" yet. It's been too hot and I've been too busy. Maybe tomorrow... Sorry Cheryl, but you haven't read a book that I haven't read. I got all excited to have a new Mary Higgins Clark book to get sucked into for a good long read and read the first page and realized I had read it! Super disappointing. So then I picked up the short story book Where the God of Love Hangs Out and had decided to read a couple of the stories. I didn't think it was a christian book but I did assume it was clean based on the title. Well, hopefully none of you went out and bought the book or even got it from the library. It's not clean. The first story has a woman graphically cheating on her husband in her own house with her "best friend" while her other best friend (his wife) is asleep in the guest room and her own husband is asleep in their bedroom. Needless to say that went back to the library today. And, Natalie--I totally want to come back and dance to the Bollywood song!
  
• Wanna hear what we had for dinner tonight? It was a simple, good, healthy meal--we had Boca Burgers and hotdogs (Joe and Grace had hot dogs and I know that hot dogs are not healthy) with all the fixin's--tomatoes, lettuce, avocado, and sauerkraut. We also had baked beans, raw carrots, and fruit (strawberries, blueberries, and pears). I am trying to incorporate more raw veggies into our diet. In general I do not like them and therefore haven't made it a priority for any of us to eat them.
  
• I had a great idea this afternoon so I thought I'd share it with you guys, I don't know if it would work for every family. First let me say that we don't have cable and TV isn't a big part of our life. That is mostly due to Ollie's influence and not mine. Of course the kids love to watch TV but it just doesn't happen much. I don't even let them check out DVDs at the library whenever they want. The main reason that I don't is not that I don't want them watching them but that I want to have an easy reward that costs me nothing. That came in handy tonight. I have a couple of shelves in one bookcase dedicated solely to non-fiction, mostly picture books. Easy, interesting reads about everything from tree frogs to volcanoes to the digestive system. Here's the thing--noone ever reads them! So, tonight I told the kids that if they read a book from the non-fiction bookcase they could go to the library in the morning and choose a DVD AND come home and watch it. This is a win-win for me. First of all, they all went for it and learned something. Hannah read a book about Florence Nightingale, Grace read "The Story of the Constitution," and Joe read a book about the states. I had some peace while they read and I will have peace while they watch their DVDs tomorrow. Woohoo for me!! I will definitely be doing this again but I'm sure I will have to change up the rewards which brings me to my next thought.
• One of the things that Ollie and I have always done is deprived our children. Don't take that the wrong way--they have food, shelter, lots and lots of attention, even more love, and a stable home. But what they haven't had is a lot of stuff. Actually, they do have a lot of stuff but that's mostly due to birthdays and Christmas. I never buy them candy in the checkout line, we don't go out much for dinner or ice cream or get cokes, etc. So, when I want to reward them it's pretty easy. A walk to the convenience store and a pack of candy or popsicle is considered a reward. Buying a slurpee at Racetrac is a reward. A $1 burger at McD's can be a reward. Driving through Sonic at happy hour is a reward. Checking out a DVD or even renting a DVD from the Redbox is a reward. You get the idea. Even a trip to Goodwill or a local secondhand shop to buy clothes is a reward. My advice to new parents is always--deprive your children, they will appreciate so much more when it's not given out freely.
• I sure hope it doesn't sound like I'm tooting my own horn here, just sharing something that has worked for us. Goodness knows I am nowhere close to having it all together. I was so frustrated earlier today because I was trying to work on this photo book (yes, another photo book) and was continually being interrupted. I so wished I had cable at that moment because I needed something to occupy my kids! They don't know what to do with all of this free time.
  
• Speaking of photo books--I am entrenched in the digital world of pictures again. Snapfish has an offer I couldn't refuse. Buy 1 photo book, get 2 free! Since it is one of my goals this summer to get caught up on the photo books and since I try to never pay full price for a photo book I just have to take advantage of this. I have until Sunday and I'm already mostly done with one of them and have almost all of the pictures uploaded for the other two. I farmed my blog to get pictures from October and November of last year but could only use them in layouts with small sized pictures otherwise the resolution was too low.
  
• Has anybody noticed that FB is now letting you know when your friends have been invited to events even when you haven't? I found out what my friend Natalie is doing on Sunday by clicking on some notice on my sidebar. What if I was throwing a party and didn't want to invite all my friends and wanted to keep it a secret? I guess I wouldn't want to post it on FB!
  
• I found a bookcase on FB today. After going to 3 thrift stores with no luck I decided to post on FB that I was looking for a bookcase. Within minutes a friend posted that she had one I just had to come and pick it up. Pretty cool. I can't wait to have a new bookcase. I have a lot of new books for school and just others I have picked up and I needed a place to put them.
• Okay, I'm going to wrap this up. I need to do dishes and work on my photo books!

7 Quick Takes--Monday Edition

• I love that our first day back from our trip is a Monday. Monday is my favorite day of the week. I love the routine of it and getting a fresh start on the week. Of course I love weekends but sometimes I feel sort of lost and not sure what to do with myself. Monday mornings I wake up and know just what to do with myself. Housekeeping, schooling (during the school year), planning dinner, etc.
  
• I bought makeup at Target tonight. After seeing some pictures of myself from our vacation I've decided that it's time to start painting the barn. After all, I am 40. On our trip when I watched tv here and there and kept seeing this commercial for Almay Smokey Eyes. It is a 3 pack of eyeshadow and you put one color on the eyelid, one color on the crease, and one color on the top. I love that it shows me just how to do it. Also, a nice surprise was that I didn't even have to decide which set of colors to get. They have a set just for blue eyes (and one for green, and one for brown, and one for hazel). I also bought mascara that is just for blue eyes too. It's still just black mascara, not sure how that's special for blue eyes but I bought it anyway. I am looking forward to testing it all out.
  
• I went to the library today and checked out 4 books--The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, Just Take My Heart by Mary Higgins Clark, Ape House by Sara Gruen, and Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom. They all look interesting, I'll let you know after I read them.
  
• It felt weird today to live normal life--laundry, errands, movie at the library, dinner, dishes, a trip to Target and so on. It seems we've been gone for longer than 3 weeks. It's good to be home.
  
• I'm watching the Bollywood movie, "Bride and Prejudice," right now. It's pretty dumb and obviously I'm not that into it since I'm also blogging. I wanted to see it though. If you've never seen a Bollywood movie you really should. They are set in India and are filled with colorful, dance-filled musical numbers. They are also pretty clean since they are set in a Muslim country and mostly watched by Muslims. The girls watched some of it with me before they needed to go to bed. They loved it.
  
• I really thought I'd sleep so well in my own bed last night but I didn't. I actually slept better in the tent. Maybe I should have Ollie pitch it in the backyard and I could sleep out there for old time's sake. Or not. Hopefully I'll sleep better tonight. I was probably just high strung after a whole day of driving.
  
• I made up dinner tonight (inspired by Ollie's previous creations) and actually came up with a good pasta dish. I sauteed onions and garlic in olive oil then added 2 cans of diced tomatoes, a jar of chopped roasted red peppers, a small can of black olives, and a can of artichoke hearts. I served it over rotini and it was really good. The only seasoning I used was salt. I actually am not a big fan of basil, oregano, rosemary, etc.
  

Big Road Trip Days 22, 23, and 24--Wrapping it Up!

We left Friday morning to begin our trek home. Our first stop was after just an hour and a half...we visited for a little while with an old friend of Ollie's and his family. We drove another 5 hours and camped at Giant City State Park. We had a great night camping--no rain and it wasn't too cold. Grandma had packed us sandwiches for dinner and even a very small bottle of wine. Friday was mine and Ollie's 16th wedding anniversary so sharing a bottle of wine seemed appropriate. :0)
The next morning Ollie and Joe did a little hiking while Hannah and Grace slept in and I read a book in the tent. Then we loaded up and headed out again and made our way to Grammy and Pop's house for dinner and some birthday cupcakes. We had lots of fresh veggies and burgers and then NutterButter and Chocolate Overload Cupcakes and some Peach cupcakes. They were pretty amazing!
As I type Grammy and Pop are making breakfast and after breakfast we'll hit the road and make our way home. So far we have gone 4700 miles and by the time we get home it will be at least 5100. I've never gone on such a long trip, it's been memorable with lots of good times and a few bad times but overall I'd do it again!

Big Road Trip Days 20 and 21--Hangin' With the Fam

After such a fun and busy weekend we were all ready to just chillax on Wednesday and Thursday. The kids played, roller bladed, swang, the big girls walked to Bath and Body Works three times, grownups chatted, ate, and just enjoyed watching the cousins have such a good time together. We had my birthday party on Wednesday night and then Thursday night we all gathered at Steph and Gabi's for pizza on the grill. It was soooo good!