{ In my element }

My wonderful husband told me to stay home today, and let him do Jasmine's drop off.  I did say I would go, but he was adamant that I stay home and do what I needed to do :)

Oh I needed today so badly.  It's not that I'm out of the house all day long because I'm a stay at home mom, but the past month the driving back and forth has meant 4 trips every morning and 4 trips every afternoon or night, depending on her schedule.  It makes it harder to get things done in the house because I'm constantly having to keep an eye on the clock to be sure I am where I need to be.



It felt amazing to not have to worry about that today.

I was totally in my element, being at home, pottering around, and getting things done that I've been putting off.

I washed all the bedding in the house, blankets, and sheets, and extra blankets and even the covers we keep on the couches to protect from the dog.  Obviously the weather is not exactly perfect for drying anything outside, and it was super windy today as well, so I just place them on the clothes rack inside and it does the job too.

I folded a load of laundry and then got Jasmine's work lunch ready for her.  I also made a quick pizza for her and Curt to have for lunch.

I know that it's easier to make a sandwich, and sometimes going to the trouble of making a pizza from scratch while you're busy doing other things, can seem like a waste of time.  But honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

It took about 30 minutes to get it all done and on the table, and nothing beats a fresh out of the oven from scratch pizza.  The smiles and thank yous from my family means the world too.



I started working on my next meal plan as well, and while at it, I updated the food blog with a bunch of recipes that I had been meaning to post.  I'm so sorry I go so long between recipes, I wish I had the time I did before to put them up as soon as I made them.

If you go on over to Full Bellies, Happy Kids, you will see that I added the following recipes:

Beef S.O.S

One Pan Portuguese Roast Chicken

Sheet Pan Chicken Fajita Crunchwrap

Panda Express Chow Mein

Chicken Sopa

I know a couple of you have been asking about the Chicken Sopa, so there you go, it's finally up on the blog.  :)

The more I get busy with life, the more I treasure my moments at home, and sometimes even the simple act of having a cup of tea mid afternoon, is enough to recharge my soul.  It brings me back to earth and reminds me to be thankful for the life that I do have.

I didn't quite get to finish my meal planning as the time went by so quickly and soon I found myself back in the kitchen working on dinner preparations.

I've also been meaning to get started on the holiday baking and it keeps getting put off for other things, but I did manage to bake two different kind of cookies today, one was a batch of plain sugar cookies, and the other were some Thumbprint cookies.

Tomorrow I will be making some Sweet and Saltines, Snickerdoodles, Chocolate Crinkles and if I have time maybe another type of cookie as well, I'll have to see how I get on.

As the day came to an end, I felt such an immense feeling of achievement.  It was quite a productive day for me and I'm really looking forward to the next few days heading up to Christmas.  It's time to get cracking, go on full steam ahead and get everything baked and cooked.

It is now time for hubby and I to go and pick up Jasmine from work, my girl has been at it all day long and is quite tired, but that is the life of the retail world, unfortunately.

I kept her a plate from dinner, nothing major but one of her favorites which is the fried potatoes and smoked sausage and she will no doubt have some cookies as well.

Before I leave, just wanted to share this picture of my girl with you all.  It's so weird seeing her as an adult and doing her own thing, it's like just a few posts ago I was sharing her first Kindergartener picture.  Crazy!!!

She is truly beautiful and I'm not just saying that because she's mine, though I am slightly biased, maybe a little, or a lot.  :)