New Friends, Lost Furniture and No Regrets

We have been moving for a month. We're downsizing from 2250 square feet to just under 1200 cozy squares of feet. More than anything we need to make room for laughter rather than another box of toys. (More on the what we left behind in a future post and a surreptitious interview I did for a home pub with the boys from The Minimalists.)

I have found myself saying things during this stressful time that have made the move much more enjoyable, when looked at from a distance, and a foot rub:

“It’s behind the marinated chicken!” (Followed quickly by this, which I knew the OCD hubby would next ask.) “It’s good through Friday!” (While wrapped up in the foam from the seriously overpacked sofa that didn’t arrive on time or in one delivery.)

“You can whine on the time out tile or in the bathroom with the door closed. Your choice.” (Before we received our lost furniture, or any.)

"It's a sofa, not an airplane." To the 100th Kmart customer service rep who was still looking for the other half of our sofa 22 days in.

The twins didn't blink when we moved their itty bitty mattresses to a bare floor and tucked them in to their new bedroom that first night. They easily made friends with the kids over the back wall. They throw Nerf balls back and forth and have shared yogurt and boiled eggs. They call to each other, "I'm here, friend!" That's a nice thing to hear every day!

They are thrilled that so many people are out and about walking dogs, babies, sometimes both and that the garbage is picked up twice weekly and the mail man waves to them. So much to see from the front porch!

"Mommy! The garbage man is sharing with the neighbors. He's taking everybody's trash! It's nice to share. I am so proud of him." 4-year-old logic.

We relied on some informative bloggers who have done this whole move thing before. You think there's always time and lots of helping hands when you plan a big move months in advance, that there will be room to breathe and work around the problems that inevitably pop up. But no. That's the joy of moving, of uprooting yourself and starting new adventures. Yah, I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown. But I'll wait until after we bake the bunny cupcakes for Monday's school party. Coconut and butter always makes things better.

Dr. Oz Breaks Into Our House

I use the warm lentil salad as a snack or paired with many of the diet's main meals, particularly as a base with greens and a bit of the brown rice for a very filling dinner with a nice piece of poached or grilled salmon. The dressing for the lentils is made in large batches as well.

We’re a happy bunch, not really into worrying over those carbs or GMOs in our daily doings. But then Dr. Oz started popping up on the TV that seems to always be on in the, well, TV room.

And he makes sense. I’ve been checking out the RapidWeight-Loss Plan and I got hooked on the veggies and all the healthy snacks.

While we may have a regular booth at McDonald’s, we are big on healthy stuffs too. And maybe that's why we're, um, big. We like the raw nuts, berries over bananas, hummus, Greek yogurt for just about any time of day or recipe substitution and leafy greens are a go-to dine and dash for those nights when time is eating into our bedtime reading rituals.

So I decided to try the diet. I made it a week. It was easy. It wasn’t expensive. Everybody could eat the same dinner, with a few more fun things thrown in for the kids throughout the day.

But…I had no idea I’d miss certain foods and libations.

Eggs. I love eggs. I love to dress them up with little carrots and olives to make them into bunnies and penguins for the twins. They don’t eat them but we all get a kick out of the process and end-product. Plus, more for mommy.

Coffee. I love green tea. Drink it nearly every day. And I usually only partake of one cup of bold Starbucks brand home-brewed coffee with a splash of FF dairy creamer. I crave that cup and a splash all day long. All. Day. Long.

Juice. I love me some juice and seltzer. The twins call it spicy juice and the Burger King by the thrift store (our weekly sojourn into shopping on the skinny), has one of those choose-your-own flavor machines. Oh man, it’s like a mommy bar! Lite cherry syrup with seltzer. Mango syrup with a splash of Minute Maid Light lemonade with the flavored club soda. Sigh. Nope, just my lemon water, thank you. Kids! Eat your fries before they are cold (or confiscated!).

And that brings us to the lemon water in the a.m. I buy lemons in bulk. I drink lemon water all day, ice cold. Sometimes I add cucumbers for a little kick. Cucumbers! But that morning cup of hot lemon water is a little much. Maybe it’s the lack of French Roast flavor and a splash, just a splash, of FF creamer.

Anyway. I lost six pounds during that one week. Six pounds! Every one in the family was elated...when I went off the diet and stopped being so cranky. I drank three cups of coffee that day on the strong Keurig setting with extra splashes of the hubby’s Coffee Mate Girl Scout Samosa full fat creamer. Heaven.

Good news is that I have included more veggies in our daily and some of the recipes I came up with when the chicken and rice became too boring are now family faves.

Here’s the first of many I’ll post as the hubby lost a bit off the middle while I was trying to shred, so we’re getting back on the Dr. Oz health train. What is it about that man?!

Warm Lentil Salad

(4 servings, but you can eat it anytime on the Dr. Oz diet)

Prep time: 20 minutes

I adore lentils. They soak up the flavor of whatever they are bumped up against and make cozy partners with nearly any veggies you may have on hand. This recipe is good hot or cold, eaten as an anytime snack (very filling) or laid out as a bed for a beautiful piece of grilled salmon (recipe to follow). I make a big batch at the beginning of the week to have it on hand.

Ingredients:

2 Tbs of olive oil

1 leek (or green onions)

2 carrots diced

1 tsp garlic, minced (more if you like a big flavor)

1 C lentils

1 onion, diced

1 turnip (I use leftover raw turnips on hand from making Dr. Oz’s veggie stock)

Cloves or a dash of all spice, to your taste (it brings a depth to the flavors you’ll )

For the dressing:

(I make a mason jar of this stuff and use it as salad dressing or pour over the brown rice at dinner if you are following the Dr. Oz diet)

1 tsp olive oil

4 tsp Dijon mustard

2 Tbs red wine vinegar (I only had apple cider vinegar and that tasted just fine as well.)

1 Tbs kosher salt (or sea salt)

1 tsp black pepper (I add more depending on how I plan to use it, as a side or a main meal)

Directions:

Cook the lentils to package directions (about 20 minutes of boiling time with 4 C water) with the turnip and onions.

Heat the olive oil in a medium sauté pan to fit all those veggies, add the leek and carrots and cook over medium for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and swirl it around for about 1 minute. Take the pan off the heat and put ingredients in a bowl. Add the cooked lentils after discarding the turnip (which you could save for mashed turnips for b-fast or a main side, but that’s a future recipe post).

Whisk together the dressing and pour to your desired taste over the lentils. Done! (Add salt and pepper to your own taste, but don't leave it out completely!)

This is a great go-to dish when you have to whip up something awesome in no time. Serve it with tortilla chips as a cold dip as well!

 

Super Bowl Brings Inspiration

In Vegas, it's all about the spread for the biggest game of the season. I was bored with the 10 avocados we bought on sale. (Hubby: "Why do we need 10 avocados?" Me: "Because they are less than .25 cents each." Everytime we have to have this conversation, everytime!)

So I got a few of my favorite food MVPs and came up with Bacon Avocado Creamy Horseradish dip.

It's one avocado, 1/2 cup of sour cream mixed with teaspoon of horseradish, along with a dash of cumin, cilantro or parsley for a little green, green onions for some crunch and mixed until that heavenly creamy green hue. Top with crumbled bacon (a hubby addition, of course!) and it can be a made a lowfat dip for game day!

We also bumped up the couch time with Super Bowl Bingo, since we're not big bettors in this Vegas casa. SBB is a mix of commercial info and game play moments. For instance, check off the horse box when the animal comes on the screen (just once!) and if the Broncos fumble. Had no idea I'd jinx the team! Thought we'd also use this idea the next time we have to watch a princess movie for the umpteenth time! It took about 10 minutes in total (finding the paper was the time sucker) and we can use it for Disney movies that tend to drag on for those over 12.

Valentine's Day Time Arrives

I've been putting in more face-time for my job and getting ready to go out to yet another entertainment event tonight on the Strip. I hope they have reclining seats! I'm a tired mama after three race track runs and a Valentine's Day craft - chair back envelopes. Easy peasy with my Tacky glue squeezy!

Since February decided to start on time, I had to jump on this project I'd been planning for, oh, years, since I first neatly organized it on my must-do craft board on Pinterest.

I looked around a few sites and found what would work best for these eight hands was glue (not hot) and felt. I found a big roll of stiff pink felt in JoAnn's remnant bin along with a few scraps of red felt. Total cost $3 and change. Score!

I folded the pink felt in half, cut it down the middle.

Then folded over the top to make a triangle.

Then folded up the bottom, glued and waited about three hours before gluing on some hearts and letters the hubby happily drew and cut for me. Having an artist on hand is, well, handy!

It could use some ironing, but I still need to slap on some makeup before our 7:30 p.m. dinner reservations. The wrinkles will fall out with all the use we plan to give these V-day chair-back envelopes! They are surprisingly strong and sturdy. We plan to put in cards, stickers, candies (left over from their birthday pinatas last month!) and use it as a reward system of sorts for chore completion. Wish us luck!

Old Habits Have Their Way With Us

The snowmen have added a bit of sparkle to the post-holiday blahs.

So it's a new year, lots of feelings of fresh beginnings, particularly since we're moving from a large, two-story home to a sweet one-story house with lots of good memories. This is going to be interesting because I'm a fantastic procrastinator and we have about six weeks to move.

We were all a bit blue after this year's fun-filled holiday days as we put away the Christmas bins and pulled out the moving boxes. The kids had three birthday parties, four Christmas celebrations and a few new experiences within those 31 days of December.

And then January came with a bowl of bean soup to start the New Year with high hopes and a little luck.

Blah.

To pick us up, we're stealing an idea from a friend and fantastic babysitter-source: we turned January into Snowman-uary. (Hey, ABC is touting Juan-uary in honor of their "Bachelor" guy. OK, that does work a little better than ours.)

We bought a really cute and super sparkly silver tree for a dollar at Walgreens during their final, please-take-it-or-we'll-burn-it holiday leavings sale. We also scooped up some light-up snowmen ornaments and bells for a quarter each. We hope to add snowmen every year as we continue the tradition, and not procrastinate as much next year.

We put the tree up on its spindly stand and it lasted a whole 15 minutes before Mr. Man took it apart from stem to stern to see how it worked. Hubby came in and fixed it with a wood dowel from a dollar store kite, whose innards were somehow lying unnoticed in the corner of the TV room. I really need to get around to that cleaning list on www.justmommies.com.

Only took 15 minutes to dismantle into a heap of tinsel and silver.

Snowman-uary has so far included a trip to Mt. Charleston to make a snowman, fun facts (January 31 is backward day...shouldn't be hard!), and Martin Luther King, Jr. We still haven't gotten around to making snowmen using cotton balls and black felt, but there are still a few days left in the month, right? It's nice to keep some traditions going strong!

Can you spot the mitstake?

Jack regressed.

My little man, the first to stay dry through the night and the first to go to the big potty at a restaurant bathroom, is back to pull ups, and not successfully.

If he’s really concentrating at work or play, he forgets. Let’s just say we should probably invest in thick towels to get us through this phase.

I feel terrible. How to help my boy? But, earlier in the day, a friend posted a helpful Huffington Post piece that said: "I want to be a better mother. Not the best mother. Not even a mother who never curses. But I seek to understand the cycle of nurturing -- what we give ourselves, we also give our children."

I’m talking to him, again, using the firm voice recommended by the latest potty-training book I’m hoping will magically save us from pee floors, when my email pings. It’s a message from an editor who had earlier caught an error in my latest story to her. It was a small error, sure, but felt real big to me. I really like this editor. I was very embarrassed, and wondering if she would hire me again. 

I open the email while still admonishing little man about the perils of pee on the floor. I smile real big and clap my hands. Little man is confused. My editor is offering me another job. Jack wants to know why I have tears. I tell him I feel bad because I made a mistake.

He leans in for a big hug and says, “I make mistakes, too.”

A little lesson for mommy in a big way.

It’s a Thin Line Between Burn and Bake

We’re bakers, from way back. Not great bakers, but avid lovers of baked goods and that delicious aroma that fills the house during the holiday baking season. I prefer cooking to baking, which is too particular for my culinary style. But it’s hard to wrap a herb-crusted NY Strip loin to fit those flat-rate boxes.

But back to the baking. Our little ones have finally figured out where all those goodies we pack off to friends and family originate. Mommy’s kitchen.

We’ve had some close calls of little hands reaching for just-popped-from-the-oven confections. I have a perfect oval letter O on my right forearm, seared there by a sizzling pot handle that I had nudged too far east of a smart location so the twins couldn’t get any ideas about helping me pour the caramel.

Aside from being painful, it made for some fun dinner conversation. Scott asked if I’d finally reached the 5^th level of Oprah’s fight club and, in honor of that achievement, received my official mark from the great One. I wish.

Aside from his helpful humor, the big guy had a great idea. He put blue masking tape at the three entrances to our open kitchen. The twins thought it was a great idea, too. They would run, full tilt, right up to the blue line before coming to a screeching halt. Fun. Really fun, for them. Eventually they lost interest, but they didn’t forget to stop at the blue line and ask if they could enter.

We might have to buy more blue tape. 

Oh, and here's my go to, oh-jeez-we-forgot cookies, which really came in handy this year:

Refrigerated cookie dough

Toasted almonds

Chocolate chips (or kisses, broken candy bars, any left over Halloween candy can do in a pinch even)

Coconut (fresh, not toasted)

(All ingredients are to your taste. If you like a thick, chewy cookie, use lots of dough. Prefer a thin cookie? Use just what you have on hand or just one of the regular cookie tubes, etc. You can also put crushed candy canes on top, instead of coconut. I've tried almost everything with much success, except crumbled fruit cake. Blech.)

Smoosh that cookie dough in the bottom of an 8x8 or small square pan you have on hand. Moosh the almonds, either sliced or chopped, on top of the dough, sprinkle the chips on top and bake at 350 until just golden. Sprinkle the coconut on top and return to oven until coconut is just toasty. Cut into tiny squares and put in those festive mini cups. It's always a hit, holiday or anytime you need a baked good that shows a little love.

I melted the chocolate and spread it around for this larger pan to make for easier cutting in a hurry, but you don't have to spread the chocolate around after you pull it out of the oven and before you layer on the coconut. We like to experiment, which is why baking isn't our preferred culinary endeavor.