Happy Birthday Bridget!

Happy 4th Birthday Bridget!

2011 Resolutions

My new recipe binder for all my printed recipes, emailed recipes, magazine clippings, etc.

Well, I looked back on the resolutions/goals that I made for myself at the beginning of the year and cringed. I have really only been working on organization. Crocheting and exercising - I forgot all about and saving, well, that just isn't happening this year. I have put together a coupon binder to help me save on groceries and such. I finished my recipe binder and am almost finished with our family binder. So I organized some paperwork and recipes that I had lying in a pile for awhile. The family binder is almost complete and should really help with organizing our family info into one spot and easy to find. The binders help with my piles of paperwork clutter. It's a start.

I even have my snickerdoodle recipe from Mrs. Platt's home ec class in junior high!!

My Calendar. I am really trying to keep track of it all and delegate certain tasks to days of the week.

I have watched some exercise dvds. I didn't actually do the exercises but that's the next step. There will be NO pictures of me exercising by the way.

Cheap and Easy

That's what's for dinner. I have been trying recipes in the crockpot for a couple years now because I don't have to do alot of cooking when I get home from work and there's less clean up afterwards. You can pretty much toss in any piece of meat and at the end of the day, you have a tender and juicy dinner. I should have titled this blog "Broke and Lazy".

Here's a recipe for you (and you can modify it anyway you like)

2.5 lb of cheap chuck roast (any cheap roast will do and size may vary depending on the mouths you have to feed.)

1 packet of dry ranch dressing

1 packet of dry italian dressing

1 packet of dry brown gravy mix
If I don't have one of the above, I just don't add it. It still tastes good. I usually stock up when there is a sale or buy the store brand - whatever's cheaper. Sodium, what sodium?
1 cup of water

Vegetables of your choice. I like potatoes or chopped carrots but you can even toss in a can of veggies, frozen veggies or whatever you like.

Toss all of the above in crockpot on low for 8 - 10 hours or high for about 6-8 hours. We've used all different lengths of time and temp and it pretty much comes out the same. When it is done that cheap and tough chuck roast just falls apart. Leftovers are great for sandwiches.

I would serve it over egg noodles but we used rice this time and it was still great. We had a leftover can of succotash from one of duke's lunches that I just dumped in with 2 hours to go.

YUM YUM!

If you have an easy and cheap crockpot recipe that you like, please share!!

Our new deck.

Well, not exactly but it sure looks like it! My Dear Dad. Aaaaaaaah, my dad, he drove all the way to our house alone and in pouring rain to spend the week with us and restain our deck. It was a mess before he did this. Just years of use and weather took its toll and well, it just wasn't on our list of to-do's. I don't know why because we do spend a lot of time relaxing, playing, eating and so forth out there. We just liked to complain about it I guess.

Here is the deck before, if you can even see what a mess it is. The stain is chipping off to the point that it basically looked liked we just spilled stain in places.

My talented son. He is eating a fudge stripe cookie without any hands. He stuck it to the deck window and is trying to eat it. Please don't judge my parenting skills. I think he is just showing off for pappy.

Keeping a close eye on pappy while he works.

AND, the new deck! It looks fantastic. We love it.

Now we just need new deck furniture because that old stuff we were using now looks REALLY old. Just sayin'.

So it took 3-1/2 days and 5 gallons of paint to do two coats. Lots of back breaking hard work. Is everyone as lucky as me to have a super dad?