Mark All As Read!

If you're looking for my Slow Cooking post, it's just below.

I'm just running in quick to say that I only have two days left with my babies, next week Monday they start school again.

That is why I have been away from the blog and not posting as much, my apologies but priorities and all that right?

But I just had to tell you that I opened up my Google Reader and hit MARK ALL AS READ! Yes I did!

Why? Because I'm tired of looking at it each day and seeing 600 new unread posts, it makes me feel guilty and I hate feeling that way when I have a perfectly good reason for not blogging.

So I decided to just start fresh, oh I'm sure I'm missing a lot of old good posts from you guys, but I promise I'll catch up on Monday.

Until then, could you just not blog? *snicker* That's too much to ask you say? Oh fine, then go ahead but I'll probably hit the "mark all as read* again a time or two. LOL

I'm off to enjoy the day with my kids, that is between mountains of laundry and trying to keep the couch pillows on the poor couch. I tell you, I think my couch is counting the minutes until school starts too.

Before I leave though, won't you stop in and just leave me a Hi, come on all you lurkers, old and new readers. De-Lurk Yourselves!

Have a wonderful day everyone, I'll be back posting soon.

Slow Cooking Thursday

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.

SEVEN VEGETABLE SOUP

Land O' Lakes.com

2		(14-ounce) cans vegetable or chicken broth
2		cups shredded cabbage
1		(15-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1		(15-ounce) can extra-thick and zesty seasoned tomato sauce
6		medium (2 cups) new red potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2		medium (2 cups) carrots, sliced 1/4-inch thick
1		medium (1/2 cup) onion, chopped
1		cup chopped celery
2		bay leaves
1/2		teaspoon dried basil leaves
1/2		teaspoon salt
1/2		teaspoon ground black pepper
1		(10-ounce) package frozen creamed spinach, thawed
4		ounces (1 cup) LAND O LAKES® Cheddar Cheese, shredded

Combine all ingredients in slow cooker except creamed spinach and cheese.

Cover; cook on Low heat setting for 8 to 10 hours or until carrots and potatoes are tender.

Increase heat setting to High. Stir thawed spinach into hot soup mixture, stirring constantly. Cook, stirring occasionally, until soup is thickened (6 to 10 minutes).

To serve, spoon into individual serving bowls; sprinkle with cheese.

Recipe Tip
For an easy shortcut, you can substitute coleslaw mix in place of the shredded cabbage.

Blue Like Play Dough Winner!

Thank you all for entering the contest, I truly wish I had a copy for every single one of you because that's how good this book is.

I used Random.org to find the winner so here you go:



#12

Amanda from Faith, Food and Family said... 12

I would love to win this book! I struggle so much in getting daily Bible reading because it sees it's never quiet enough or always so much to do. I want to get better about that and be closer to God. Thanks for such a great giveaway!
God bless,
Amanda

Congratulations Amanda! Please contact me as soon as possible so I can get your book out.

*********************************

For the rest of you, I have another wonderful Christian book review and giveaway coming up next week.

The first name drawn will receive this book:

The Friends We Keep: A Woman's Quest for the Soul of Friendship

And the second name drawn will receive one of the books from the 40 minute Bible Studies series:

Be sure to come back next week Tuesday for the reviews and the giveaway.

Happy Homemaker Monday!

<a href="http://familycorner.blogspot.com" title="hhm by jasnicmommy, on Flickr"><img width="150" alt="hhm" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3362/3608789834_4d1bac04e0.jpg" height="150" /></a>

The weather in my neck of the woods:
Well I wish I could say something different but I'm sure you all know it's HOT, HOT, HOT!


One of my simple pleasures:
Buying a bag of Nestle Caramel Treasures just for me, and then sneaking in a few while I watch a movie on TV. *snicker*
It's the ONE little pleasure that is all mine.


On my bedside table:
Little Heathens - almost done, it's been such a good read.


On my TV:
The Hurt Locker
Little House on the Prairie Season 3


On the menu for tonight:
Pork Chops and Cream Corn Casserole.


On my To Do List:
Laundry
Last minute shopping for school supplies


New Recipe I tried last week:
Easy Butter Cookies, hadn't made them in a while and they just hit the spot.


In the craft basket:
Just the same old yarn, no project in sight, maybe once the kids are back to school next week I'll finally start something.


Looking forward to:
Getting my car fixed and running again, I've really missed having my own vehicle and with school starting next week, I really need to have it back.


Homemaking Tip for this week:
I have these handy plastic fridge stack beverage containers. They don't take up a lot of room in the refrigerator and I always have one with koolaid, one with water and one with iced tea. On the kitchen table I have a basket with utensils, straws, napkins and paper plastic cups.
I've showed the kids how to get their own drinks so when they're thirsty, they just grab a cup and get their own drinks from the fridge. It saves me having to constantly do it for them and they like knowing they can do it themselves.


Favorite Blog Post of the week (mine or other):
Absolutely NO blog reading for me last week, this we've been enjoying the last two weeks of our summer and I've been away from the computer.


Favorite photo from last week:

My kitchen window when the sun starts setting, it's one of my favorite places in the house.

Lesson learned the past few days:
It was actually a lesson learned from my book "Blue Like Play Dough", and that is, that you don't need to doll yourself up to go to God. He loves you for who you are and how you are and as a mother there's nothing better than realizing that even when I'm in the middle of the living room surrounded by what seems to be a tornado of toys, my hair is messed up, I have a stain on my t-shirt from lunch preparations and I'm flushed because of the annoying heat......I'm still acceptable and wanted and loved by God. What a beautiful thing it is!


On my Prayer List:
**My brother Bruno, he is just getting over Pneumonia
**My grandmother Odete, she's still slowly getting back to normal after her stay in the hospital
**My grandmother Jacinta, she has osteoporosis and her poor spine is curved. It seems that she pulled something or did something to her ribs and has been in a lot of pain lately.


Devotionals, Scripture Reading, Key Verses:

Courageous in Christ

My blessings are so many, my troubles are so few, how can I feel discouraged when I know that I have You. - Helen Steiner

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." - Joshua 1:9

Coming up to breathe......

I've been busy and running around and sorta kinda crazy lately.

See school starts on my birthday, August 10th, my kids seem to think it's a great thing because they want to come home to some birthday cake, me on the other hand, I'm a little sad, I wanted them home with ME. Oh well, can't always have what we want right?

So I've been a little MIA, if you've noticed, maybe you haven't and now that I'm mentioning it you're probably sitting there thinking "oh well, she was gone?" LOL

There's a lot going on, from the hustle of getting everything ready for back to school, which includes shopping for endless supplies and buying new clothes and backpacks and shoes and hair accessories and whatnot.

It's by far, my least favorite time of the year, just trying to get through the school aisles at any store is enough to make the most patient person on earth, cringe. But that's a whole other post.

After spending the whole day gone yesterday for errands and groceries, school stuff and car parts to finally get my Durango going......today was spent at home, doing......well......let me show you.



Car things.....like trying to change out the water pump which let me tell you, is very fascinating, at least for me, I got right in there with my hubby and got my hands dirty and handed him tools and peeked here and there, and asked questions, oh many questions.



Thankfully I have a wonderful patient hubby who actually gets a kick out of having me all up in his business, bugging and asking stuff and sticking my hands in that grease.



See, I have to tell you how wonderful he is because he's sick, he's got the summer cold we had and he was feeling miserable but he still went out there and worked on my car for 5 hours.



I don't know if he was concentrating or praying at this point, he was having the hardest time getting some of the bolts and nuts to come loose.



We may have at some point gotten a wrench stuck in the neighbors thingamagig *snort*

I know that sounds dirty, but I don't know the name, it's this really long metal thing that you use to help you with the torque, you know....(just pretend you know what I'm talking about).



Took us a while to get the wrench loose, we pulled and prodded and laughed until our sides hurt and still ended up messing the thing up, I'm sure we'll have to buy him a new one LOL

All this time the kids were in and out of the house, playing outside and then going back inside and at one point they went in and were gone for a while, so I cleaned my hands up as best I could and came in to see what the deal was and was met with this............



"We decided to beat each other up" was their answer. I honestly thought it was real at first and got a little freaked out, then they started laughing and I just had to take some pictures. LOL



I have children with a very vivid imagination and sometimes it just cracks me up to see the things they come up with.





I cleaned them up, made them popcorn and got them all snugly in front of the tv watching a movie, then went outside to let hubby know that I was done for the day, I even acted like I had done a lot LOL

I found him around the driveway at the gate to the backyard, having a little chat with Lola.



And that was it, that was our Sunday.

I would love at this point to say that my car is fixed, but it's not, we got everything loose but we were too darn tired to even begin install the new water pump.

It will get done sometime this week or next weekend before hubby has to leave on a short little deployment.

I joked with him and said, it's no rush fixing the car, the minute he leaves to go anywhere it will just break again Hahahahahah

Anyway, I better skidaddle on off to bed, I have to get my body used to getting up early again, it's going to take me longer than a week that's for sure.

Have a great night everyone, I'll see you bright and early for the Happy Homemaker Monday.