Fave Five for Friday!

It's my first time playing along with the sweet Susanne. You can check out the guidelines and details of this feature here.

So here's my favorite five things for this past week:

1. Homemade shortbread that I somehow botched and in order to try and save, I ended up adding a spoon of strawberry jam to each little round cookie. Turns out, I should REALLY mess up more often, they were delish. LOL

2. My favorite shows starting again on tv, love the fall season tv lineup.

3. My new hummingbird friend that watches me through the kitchen window.

4. Talking to family on the phone, all the way in South Africa, it's one of those things we can't do often so it's always a treat :)

5. The Civil War cookbook that Jasmine brought home from the library, I'm loving looking through not only the recipes but the history.

Content!

Image credit: photobucket.com

It's one of those quiet days, the morning started out pretty hectic, if you have school aged children then I need to say no further, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's harder to get them out the door on time than it is to give birth, for me at least....by the time they're both ready to leave and in the car, I am quite certain I could have popped out one or two babies. No kidding! LOL

But that was then, this is now and here I sit at the computer, my front door is open and I'm listening to the wind rustling outside and the cars driving by once in a while, some military clad airman on his way to or from work......and the pugs who seem to think that this whole neighborhood is THEIR turf, anything that moves or breathes gets barked at. They've yelled at the wind a couple times and I think it's the funniest thing....want to see my view from the computer desk:

I've been wanting to catch up on my reading but honestly haven't had a chance, first I was sick and now with Curt working these weird hours, it means that everything falls on me. Usually at night he will help Jasmine with her homework while I fix dinner and do the dishes etc....then he helps me overlook the kids showers and reading and bedtime routines.

From 3:30pm until 11pm I am going non stop, it's just continuous crazy hectic couple of hours until I can sleep.

I know you're all sitting there wondering why I am telling you these things, you probably don't care about it LOL But it's for my family's sake, they're the ones that do want to hear about the nitty gritty, the mundane details, what the kids are doing or what I'm doing....it's a way to keep us all connected and closer over the thousands of miles that separate us.

So anyway, as I was saying....the kids get out of school at 3:45pm and by the time we get home it's 4:15pm, right away, they ask for a snack, poor things are hungry since they had their lunch at 11am, I mean that's along time for little kids to go without eating......heck that's a long time for ME to go without food LOL

After the snacks and juices are handed out, they sit down and relax for a bit, Nicholas usually playing the Wii and Jasmine on her computer playing a game or on the phone with her best friend from Idaho. I'm already going through backpacks, sifting through the hundreds of papers they send home, honestly WHY so much paper???? UGH. I sort it all into piles, what we keep, homework and trash.

After that is done, it's usually around 4:45pm and that's when I start dinner so that we can eat around 5:30pm. Which reminds me, what time is dinner at your house? Back home in South Africa we were always running around and working, so dinner was around 7 or 8pm....which now would NEVER work for us, hubby gets home from work around 4:30pm and is usually already starving LOL

Once dinner is done, the kids again go off and play together for a little while I do the dishes and clean the kitchen....then it's bath time, everyone takes their showers and puts on pj's, settles into mommy's bed and we do homework. Nicholas doesn't have any so he's content sitting there cuddled up watching cartoons or playing with the pugs while I help Jasmine with hers. This poor child has SO much homework each night and soon they'll be expected to do book reports on top of it too....she has math, spelling, 30 minutes of reading and then social studies or anything else she didn't have time to finish in class. It's a LOT and by the time she goes to bed she's beat, heck I'M beat and I'm not even doing it.

Bedtime for the kids is 9pm and only after they're asleep do I then go around the house one last time picking up toys, turning off video games and computers, putting away any last load of laundry I have left, setting the breakfast table for the morning, getting their backpacks ready, signing homework agendas and any other notes I have to for school and removing from the freezer whatever I need for the next day's meals. I put it in the refrigerator to thaw out overnight.

Image credit: photobucket.com

I'm beat, I'm honestly exhausted by the time my head hits the pillow, so reading is out of the question, as it is I watch all my new shows in between division, multiplication, pronouns and suffixes. Yes my life is THAT exciting, but yet each morning I wake up invigorated, restored and with a smile on my face because no matter how hard I thought I had it the day before, when I look at the smiling faces of my children and get a hug from my hubby telling me he loves me and appreciates everything I do.....THAT is all the reward I need. THAT is true contentment.

So here's my question....what is contentment for you?


Two Years Ago: The Things That Nourish Us
One Year Ago: LOVE Fall Season

Slow Cooking Thursday!

All my slow cooking recipes are now online and starting today, I will add all the recipes shared weekly to my online del.icio.us site too. So if you're wanting to find ALL the slow cooked recipes that have been shared since the first SLOW COOKING THURSDAY, here is the link for you.

Don't forget to add your name to Mr Linky and a link back to your SCT post so others can come by and see your recipe too.

As always, share your slow cooking recipes but if you REALLY REALLY don't have one and still want to participate, then you can share any kind of recipe.

Parmesan Chicken and Rice

10-3/4 oz. can cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 c. milk
1 1/2 oz. pkg. onion soup mix
1 c. long cooking rice, uncooked
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
6 T. butter, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
grated Parmesan cheese to taste

Mix together soup, milk, soup mix and rice in a medium bowl; set aside. Arrange chicken breasts in a lightly greased slow cooker; place one tablespoon butter on top of each chicken breast.

Pour soup mixture over chicken; sprinkle with salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese. Cover and cook on low setting for 8 to 10 hours, or on high setting for 4 to 6 hours. Serves 4 to 6.

How well do your children know you?

I've always been under the impression that my kids had a general idea of what I enjoyed but didn't really pay much attention. Not because they didn't care, but because they're kids, they're busy playing and enjoying their childhood, too busy to notice certain things.

I was wrong....boy was I wrong. Apparently my children know me better than I would ever have thought possible.

Just a few weeks ago we were talking about Christmas and Nicholas announced very excitedly that he knew exactly what he wanted to get mommy. I asked him what it was and he kept insisting he couldn't tell me, it was a secret but he just KNEW that I would love it.
After a few hours he turned to me and said "ok mommy you know what I want to get you?"....now keep in mind this is a 5 year old boy, a BOY, a little man who loves spiderman and video games and playing ball and wrestling with daddy, so when he said "A sewing machine because yours is old and you need a nice one"......I was in shock.

Well now, he really does know me well. Of course Jasmine surprised me too because yesterday she came home from school with a really heavy backpack and when I asked if she had brought home a piece of the school building, I don't know some bricks or one of the cafeteria tables or something....anything that would explain the heaviness of that thing LOL
She reached in with a big smile on her face and said "We had library today and I got a book for you", and she hands me this:

Oh do I love this child. A book AND a cookbook at that? Not only with great recipes but wonderful photos and stories.




I can't wait to sit down with this treasure and delve into the civil war and it's history.

Thank you for all the well wishes, the cold is still lingering around but it's slowly going away and that's a good thing.

In the meantime I'm taking it easy and trying not to overdo it, which as a mother it's not an easy thing, there's always something to clean, to cook, to wash isn't there?

Have you all been watching Dancing with the Stars? I'm a huge fan of the show and I've enjoyed the first 2 nights, we have some good dancers and the usual not so great.....the kids and I also watched Opportunity Knocks and liked it, we actually played along but using our own lives as example and it was fun seeing who knew what :)

There's just so much on TV nowadays, so many of my favorites are returning this week and I couldn't be happier, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters....love it love it love it.

Well I'm about to go do the dinner dishes and clean up the kitchen, then we have homework to get through, baths and reading and all the other fun nightly routines. If you're wondering what we had for dinner, it was Smothered Chicken and OH was it good. YUM!

Don't forget Slow Cooking Thursday tomorrow, gather those great recipes to share especially now that the weather is cooling down.

God Bless,

Playing catch up.....

Boy it's been a weird couple of days. The cold knocked me off my feet, literally, I found myself in bed or walking around the house hunched over because my body hurt so much. Thankfully the brunt of it came during the weekend where I had a wonderful husband confine me to bed and take over.

For me, it was sheer frustration, listening from my bedroom as the kids and daddy laughed, ate take out and played together....for them it was great, it was a change from the normal routine, a change from homemade food and NO cookies for breakfast. It feels good to break the rules once in a while, it's called *living*.

So this morning I'm almost back to normal, I can still feel that my body is slowly catching up, my chest feels heavy and I have a cough and a pretty banged up nose from all the nose blowing I did the past few days. I'm quite the sight I tell you LOL

I went into my bloglines a few minutes ago and wanted to run away, seems you've all been very busy posters and I don't know how I'll catch up with everyone, part of me wants to just hit "Mark all Read" but then another part of me, the wussy one, says it's not right, not fair, and imagine all the cool blog posts I've missed while sick. So I'm going through the list, slowly, methodically and hopefully get to stop by everyone.

One of the posts that caught my eye was this one from Aiken House and Gardens. Uhhhh YEAH I'm a huge Anne of Green Gables fan, along with Kelli and Sarah and some others I'm sure. Just go look at this post. It's amazing enough that Carolyn lives in Prince Edward Island but yesterday she took a trip to Cavendish, oh come on, if you know Anne of Green Gables you KNOW what that means.

Yesterday I started noticing that I had ONE specific hummingbird perched on one of the Honeysuckle branches near the feeder. He flew in and out but for the most part, just sat there and I couldn't understand why, so I went online and did a little bit of research and found out not only the species but why he was doing this. Turns out that he is a male and has claimed the feeder as his own, he's marking his territory and chasing away any other birds, bees, butterflies etc that may come near it. LOL
He's also become very used to seeing me near the kitchen window and just sits there facing me, watching my every move and posing for photos, I mean, what more could I ask for?

I also realized the feeder was empty and didn't want to wait to go back to Walmart when I could make my own. And no it's not rocket science and you don't need any weird ingredients, it's just sugar and water.

Hummingbird Nectar

4 cups water
1 cup superfine sugar
3-5 drops red food coloring (optional)

Combine ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

Allow sugar to dissolve and remove from heat. Let the nectar cool and then pour into your feeder. Store remaining nectar in the refrigerator.

I refilled the feeder and had 3 hummingbirds come charging, amongst those I ended up with a huge bird trying to eat out of there, it was the funniest thing ever.

I mean really??? LOL

Curt is working a weird shift this week, he goes in at 1pm and doesn't get home until 11pm or so....it's one of those annoying night flying shifts. It's not really swings or mids or days, it's just whatever and it's frustrating because the kids don't see him at all. He's asleep when they leave for school and they're asleep when he gets home from work, so there's some crankiness going around and some "I miss daddy". It's just another of the sacrifices that come with being a military family.

My coffee is calling me, so I guess I should get off here and start my day. I have laundry to put away and some paperwork to file and I need to get my ground turkey out of the freezer for tonight's Turkey Burgers.

As soon as I can get all this done, then I can maybe sit back down on the computer and try to answer my emails, reinstall MSN messenger, visit some blogs and watch my new episode of Paranormal State that I missed last night.

Have a great day everyone!