Monday, November 30, 2009

Menu Plan Monday

12:55 PM 1 Comments
Hello Hello! It's Monday again and I hope that all of you US'ers had a lovely Thanksgiving and for those of you not in the US, I hope you had a lovely weekend. Mine was pretty good, I'd have to say. Like I mentioned way back on Wednesday, I had weekend company and I went to my family's for Thanksgiving.

Jim got here late on Wednesday night. This time I didn't make a bunch of food for him because last time he ate on the way and this time was no different. Yay, me for thinking of that! On Thursday, we went over to my Grandma's house and spent the day. It was really nice except for my poor niece Caitlyn came down with some sort of stomach bug right during dinner. Poor girl. I need to call and see if she's feeling any better. After dinner, we hung out for a while but left around 8 because Jim wanted to make sure we hit Michael's so he could get his Cricuit. That reminds me, I have to go back to Michael's to see if they got any more of the cute reindeer notebooks in stock. I wanted to get one, but Jim snatched it out of my hand and got it for his new girlfriend. Meaniehead. :P

Friday was good. We got up early and went and did a bunch of shopping. Walmart really sucked this year. They didn't have a good chunk of what they were supposed to and we were there less than 2 hours after the sales started. I don't know if they just didn't have it or they just didn't figure people would shop this year. I know a bunch of people were really disappointed at that. I did score some good deals though. Menards had to be the best this year. I got 2 dvd/movie/cd/what have you storage racks for $8.99 each. They're usually $24.99 so go me! After hitting 4 different stores, we called it quits and grabbed some food at Denny's before going to my favorite new thrift store out in Charlottte. Sadly, they didn't have what I was hoping to find but I did get a few things.

Let's see...then, we came back here and took naps. I didn't sleep basically at all the night before and well, he's old and 6 hours of sleep wasn't enough for him, I guess. He was falling asleep at the wheel and nearly got me killed at least once. Naps are good. Then, we got up and went back to Lansing to go see The Blind Side. Fantastic, wonderful movie. I highly recommend it as your feel good movie of the season if you haven't seen it yet. While we were there, Jim got the boys and I a $20 gift card and popcorn bucket so I can take them to the movies over Christmas break. Yay, Jim! I can't wait to surprise the boys with it.

Saturday I tried to sleep in a little because once again, I didn't sleep well the night before. When I did get up, Jim was in a big rush to get out the door and head back to his house. He'd already loaded all of his things into his car. So, after a quick lunch at Swede's, he dropped me off and after helping me put the feet on my current movie rack, he took off. He said it was because he wanted to avoid holiday traffic and all but I think he really had a date yesterday afternoon. Either that or he was just in a big hurry to be away from me and with another woman. ;)

So, where does that all leave me? Well, with a menu I need to plan! Actually, I already had it planned though I did have to tweak it. Jim never wants me too cook...I honestly think that he thinks I don't know how or something, so my weekend meals never happened. No worries, it just means more yummies for me this week.

Monday - Ground Beef Stroganoff
Tuesday - Taco Chicken Packets
Wednesday - Chicken Cacciatore
Thursday - Horseradish Burgers
Friday - Possibly @ Grandma's
Saturday - Possibly @ Grandma's
Sunday - Taco Chicken Wrap

So, how did all of you spend your weekend and what deliciousness is on your menus? I wanna know!

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

(almost) Wordless Wednesday

3:04 PM 4 Comments
Hi everyone! It's Wednesday and you know that means a photo posting from me for today. I meant to write yesterday but I had to go into Lansing and then I got wrapped up working on the items I'm going to show you here today. I've been working hard on these because they're going to be Christmas gifts. Now, the theme over at Sunday Shutterbugs is orange. I actually have some orange in these and I took them like 10 minutes ago! Woo! So, here we go!


My SnowmanOrnaments
The first little guy there is my snowman that I made for me. The second set is going to a friend of mine as a Christmas gift. It was really great being able to craft again and I had so much fun making these!

SnowflakeSnowman Family
This snowflake too me hours! Cutting it out took ages and then stitching it took probably 2 hours. I couldn't believe it. This family of snowmen will be staying here at my house. The boys picked out which colors they wanted for their scarves and hats. I think they turned out super cute and I can't wait to hang them up.

Snowman Children
These four handsome/beautiful snowmen will be going to my nieces and nephews. From the time my 13 year old nephew was a baby, I've given each of the kids a new ornament for Christmas. The little guy there in orange is for the baby who will be celebrating his second Christmas this year. Roger picked out the colors for him and I think he turned out soooooo cute.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, if you're celebrating it and I'll try to post here throughout the weekend, but I am going to see family tomorrow and I do have company coming for the weekend, so no promises!
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Monday, November 23, 2009

Menu Plan Monday

2:21 PM 1 Comments
Well, it's Monday and actually, I've had my menu planned since Thursday. I had to go grocery shopping on Friday so I decided to go ahead and menu plan for the next two weeks. I only picked out meals, so I still need to "assign" them to days so that's what I'm going to do here. These are all from the Weight Watchers 15 minutes cookbook that I mentioned last week.

Monday-Turkey Barbecue Sandwiches (pg 157)
Tuesday- Taco Chicken Pockets (personal recipe)
Wednesday- Simple Quesadillas (pg 66)
Thursday- Thanksgiving @ Grandma's house (Corunna, MI)
Friday- Ground Beef Stroganoff (pg 86)
Saturday- Chicken Cacciatore (pg ??)
Sunday- Horseradish Burgers (pg 150)

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Sunday, November 22, 2009

Christmas

6:17 PM 3 Comments
Well, it's official. I'm out of options on how to get money for Christmas. My last attempt was to sell my dining room table set to my ex-husband. He's been using it since the divorce and I made him a reasonable offer. $150 for the table and all 6 chairs..except his fiancee said no. Now I don't know what I'm going to do. The boys gave me their lists yesterday and it was ok because I was sure I'd have that money plus maybe a tiny bit more..but she said no. Now, I don't know what I'm going to do. Their lists were full of small things because they knew I couldn't buy them the big items they wanted. They've been saving up for about 6 months to get a WII in the hopes that mom would put in the rest of the money and they know now that I can't do that. What they don't know is that there just might not be a Christmas this year; that the little plastic canvas snowmen I made for each of them this year may be the only present there is to give them. Oh God, what am I going to do? I had planned on taking that money and going black friday shopping to get the best deals I could and now there's no money.

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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Time for me Thursday

1:06 PM 2 Comments
Happy Thursday, world! I don't know how all of you are doing, but I'm doing ok. My energy stores are low but I'm slowly getting back to the point where I'm getting some stuff done around the house again. I tidied up the bathroom last night and I'm working on and off getting some stuff done in the kitchen. I've started a new freecycle box that hopefully someone will grab up so I can get some more stuff out of my house. I did get the newsletter done so now I just have to find someplace I can get it printed out. I'd rather do it here at the house, but I'm fairly certain I just don't have enough ink in the printer and 2 new ink cartridges will be more expensive than just having 35 copies of it printed out. Today I had hoped to get my Christmas cards out to start working on those, but my light has burned out in "the wall" and because of the stuff still in there, I can't get to where I need to for changing out the bulbs. On top of that, it's so overcast today that you'd swear it was after dusk in that room.

So, after all of this, what am I doing for me today? Well, I'll probably just continue working around the house as I can. Organization and clean spaces make me a happy katie and happy katie is a good thing. I think one of the first things I'm going to do is go throw a load of laundry into the washing machine. Then, I can run the other load that's been sitting around waiting for me to feel better. Instead of feeling bad that I haven't gotten more done, I'm just happy to know that every little bit helps, even if it's just done in little bits.

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

(almost) Wordless Wednesday

6:16 PM 1 Comments
Wow, I almost didn't get this picture in today. I knew exactly what picture I wanted for the Sunday Shutterbugs theme of old and I just couldn't find it. Thank goodness for Flickr and the fact that I had uploaded it there. Ok, again, not taken recently. I took this back over the summer. I seriously need to get out there with my camera and start taking some pictures. Between being sick with strep and letting life just overwhelm me, I haven't done it. Now, no more excuses..hopefully I'll actually follow the rules for next week's theme and take it that week. I guess we'll see what life throws at me with Thanksgiving and company coming in from out of town.

The Sunfield Sentinel

So, this is picture for this week's theme. This is our newspaper office here in Sunfield. I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but above where it says The Sunfield Sentinel, it says established 1889. I'd say that's old! Oooh...speaking of old, Happy Birthday, Justin! *grins and goes to hide before he sees this*

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Tackle It Tuesday

12:39 PM 4 Comments
It's Tuesday and I'm clean! Ok, I know that's random and that nobody really wants to know that I took a shower and now have nice, clean hair. On a not so happy note, today I'm reminded of just how fragile life is. My friend Dave lost his wife 6 months ago and his pain just tears at my heart. I know what it's like to lose someone that you thought you'd have a lifetime with and it's one of the hardest things to survive. I'm also so sorry to hear that Kath's mother has died. I never had the opportunity to meet her, but when I was in Canada, Kath gave me a blanket that her mom had crocheted. It's absolutely beautiful and I'm going to treasure it. I have it on my couch right now and will have to take a picture of it to show all of you.

Now, since it's Tuesday, I'm supposed to be tackling something, huh? Well, I think I'm going to work on finishing up my Christmas newsletter. It's something I can do sitting right here while I wait for a return phone call. It seems there was some sort of a mixup with Ben's insurance and I'm working on getting it sorted out again. We have an upcoming doctor's appointment to have him evaluated for hamstring lengthening surgery and we need to have all of his insurances in order before then.

So, that's my tackle. What are all of you tackling today? How are your holiday plans/preparations coming along? Let me know!

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Monday, November 16, 2009

Menu Plan Monday

2:17 PM 0 Comments
Welcome back to another Monday here at Crafts By Katie. I'm happy to report that I'm feeling a lot better. Not perfect, but a lot better. I'm hoping that by the end of the week, I'll be back to full strength and getting lots done. There's always tons to be done. I spent part of the weekend working on some holiday plans. I'm going to have to make some of the things that normally I would buy because the money just isn't there this year. For the first time ever, I've considered asking that those who sponsor a family for the holidays to sponsor my boys. I hate that I'm just not sure how I'm going to get them anything for Christmas this year.

But, I'm not going to focus on that right now. I'm going to focus on what I can do and what I can do is plan our menu for the next couple of weeks. I think that I mentioned last week that I really want to work on losing weight. In the past, I did a "bastardized" version of Weight Watchers and it really seemed to work for me so I'm going to try that again. Luckily for me, I do own a few of their cookbooks which should help make this a lot easier. For the next two weeks, I'm going to use their 5 Ingredient, 15 Minute Cookbook.

Monday- Whatever sounds good (nothing thawed)
Tuesday- Taco Chicken (6 pts)
Wednesday- Horseradish Hamburgers (9 pts)
Thursday- Speedy Chicken Cacciatore (8 pts)
Friday- Turkey BBQ Sandwiches (7 pts)
Saturday- Wagon Wheel Pasta w/ Salsa Chicken (8 pts)
Sunday- Taco Chicken Tortilla Wraps (6 pts)


So there you have it, my menu plan for this week. Next week will be the same cookbook. I'm going to be doing a lot of grocery shopping on Friday.

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Friday, November 13, 2009

Finish It Friday

1:31 PM 0 Comments
Oh how I would love to say that today I'm going to finish being sick! Sadly, I know that's not the case but being sick hasn't been all bad. I've taken the opportunity to work on things towards Christmas, work on cleaning out my email (never ending project there!) and to make a solid decision to work towards losing some weight. I've said for a long time that I was going to do it but this time I'm really looking into what I need to do and working towards doing it.

So, the question remains...what am I finishing this week? Well, I'm going to finish up telling y'all about part of my trip to Canada. We'll consider this hmm...Part II of III? Ready? Are you? C'mon..are you? *grins*

Like I said before, we drove to Canada on Friday after the boys Halloween parties at their school. We didn't get there until probably 10:30 on Friday night but our wonderful friends Rob & nickle were up and waiting for us. In fact, nickle was busy working on Rob's costume for the party we were all going to the next night. We had a great time sitting around and talking and munching pizza and talking and sitting around and ...ok, you get the point. I think it was something like 3am before we crawled into bed. Then, we were all up by 7 the next morning!

Why? Well, because Rob was part of the board of the group that was putting on the Artisan Faire and we all went to help setup and get everything ready. I know that we could have slept in, but we totally didn't mind helping out. We love getting the extra time with our friends and I think I'm just a helper by nature.

I just have to say right now that the Artisan Faire was incredible! Every table had something new that I was going ooooh and ahhh over. I had three that were particularly yay, but I'm only going to tell you about one of them here. The other two I'm hoping to do reviews for later and need to speak to the shop owners about it. I promise that I'll get on that as soon as I can. Now...the one I want to tell you about...if you're on a diet, you might not want to read anymore.

This table was right next to Rob's and so I got to sit and stare and drool over her things for way too long. What is it? Do you really want to know? It was DEE-Lectibles! She had the most delicious looking cookies and brownies. Oh how I lusted after those brownies. She even had these cookies, that tasted kind of like ginger snaps, but looked like rulers! I'd love to see about getting enough of those to hand out at the kids' end of the school year parties. Now, I do have to mention that not only were here things totally delicious looking and tasting, her prices were wonderful too!

Ok, I know that I sound as if I'm gushing but seriously, if you'd tasted her things you'd totally agree with me. I know that some of you live in Canada and maybe even in the part that's over there by Toronto and St. Catherines. Dee doesn't have a website yet, but she agreed to let me give you all her email address, so please do contact her if you're in the market for deliciousness. And just to tempt y'all, I'm putting up these pictures so you can go mmm, awww and wow! Did I mention that if I ever get married again, I'm going to beg her to make the cake? I wonder how much it costs to import a wedding cake...

Ok, now that you are totally drooling and in awe, drop Dee an email at sexy_cook@hotmail.com. Trust me, you won't regret working with her and you will love, love, love her things.

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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Time for me Thursday

12:53 PM 0 Comments
Ugh! I'm still not better! Ok, I'm better, but I'm not well. I just feel totally drained and as of last night, I was still running a low grade fever. For someone who planned on getting so much done this week, this is totally frustrating. It's 1:13 in the afternoon and I really want a nap. For me today, I might take a nap. We'll see.

But, my Time for Me thing is totally a mom thing. I'm going to brag on my children. Last Monday (November 2nd) was parent-teacher conferences at their school. This is the first time I've been able to attend in the past 2 years and I was glad to be able to do it. We got to the school a few minutes early and tracked down the book fair. The boys both enjoy reading and I thought it would be a good reward for them if they each got a new book. Just before Roger's scheduled meeting, we headed down the hall to his classroom. Peter, Donna and the boys were already there and Peter didn't look happy to see us at all, but too bad. I'm mom too.

So, Roger's meeting - Roger is in 3rd grade now and has Mr. Willard as his teacher. We love Mr. Willard. He's funny and engaging and clearly loves to teach and yet nobody gets away with anything in his classroom. His students are the kind that come back year after year and keep in touch. He teases Roger saying Oh no, it's time for the bad meeting..or saying he's a horrible..oh wait, great kid. Roger had all A's and 1 B+. He was 2% away from Principal's list as he repeatedly has told me. He's doing great in Science and Social Studies where a lot of other kids are struggling. He's one of the few kids who hasn't gotten in trouble and Mr. Willard said he was a model for the other kids in the classroom. The whole meeting lasted 5 minutes because there were no concerns!

Ben's Meeting - Ben is in 4th grade and has Mrs. Stephens as the teacher. She seems nice but more formal. It could be because in the 4th grade, they start preparing the kids for middle school. Ben had something like 4 A's, a B and only one C. I'm so excited for him. Up until now he's really been a C average student and to see him really working and pulling higher grades thrills me. We're never quite sure where his capabilities lie and he's showing us just what he can do. His behavior is good and people love him.

I'm so proud of both of my boys and reliving those moments and how proud I am of them has put a huge smile on my face. What are you going to do to put a huge smile on your face today?

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Use Your Stash Closing Down :(

12:50 PM 0 Comments
Ok, I hadn't planned on blogging more than once today, but I just read something that makes me so sad that I just had to write about it. About a year ago or so, I found this wonderful new blog called Use Your Stash and I loved it! They had great challenges and were just really wonderful women. Well, today, for the first time since the move, I thought I'd pop in there and maybe it would motivate me to get through the wall boxes so I could start crafting again. Much to my dismay, there's a post saying that this will be their last month! What? Noooooo! nonononono!

Alright, I know that stomping my feet and throwing a fit won't do me a lick of good, but I really loved this blog and I hate when I find something wonderful just to have to vanish. For any of you who used/loved/visited their blog in the past, please go on over and give these wonderful women some love. I'm sure that it wasn't an easy decision for them to close down. Plus, if you need further incentive, Kimmie is giving away some of her crafting things and for a comment, you get an entry. She's a hugely generous soul.

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(almost) Wordless Wednesday

12:20 PM 2 Comments
Woo! Look at me, two posts on two days in a row again! Ok, so maybe that only impresses me but once my routines get broken, it can take me a while to bounce back and I'm proud of me for jumping right back in.

So, have any of you gone over to Sunday Shutterbugs and checked out their pictures for this week? I was just over there and they're pretty cool, I have to say. Their theme for this week is Flags but since I wasn't home last Wednesday to post for that one, I wanted to do both this week. Now, I'm going to confess right up front that I didn't take either of these pictures in the past two weeks. I know that's kinda breaking the rules, but I'm sure the girls won't mind. The Fall picture (which was last week's challenge) is actually from maybe umm..2 weeks ago? Not that long ago, really..The Flags picture, I will admit to taking back in August, I think it was. I'd love to go take a flag picture today, but I'm still on don't go out and about duty until we're sure I'm not contagious.

Mom's Pumpkin
The Pumpkin that Mom made. (Halloween '2009)

Sunfield Parade 2009
Sheriff's Department in the 2009 Sunfield Farmer's Parade
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Tackle It Tuesday

11:50 AM 0 Comments
Wow..it's been over a week since I posted. Did you think I got katienapped in Canada and they wouldn't let me come home? Nope, I didn't get nearly that lucky. I did have an incredible time there though and will be posting about that very soon. This is going to be a pretty short post because well, because I brought home more than TimBits from Canada. It seems I also brought home a case of Strep Throat! Eww, Owww and Ugh! I got to the doctor's yesterday and got my medicines and luckily am feeling better but it's going to be a bit before 'm totally back up to full strength.

But, keep your eyes open. I have tons of great things to write about from the past week or so. There's the trip to Canada and I just have to brag about Parent-Teacher Conferences. I wouldn't be a mom if I didn't, eh?

Ok, but until then, I have a pretty "simple" tackle for today. I'm going to tackle strep and since that doesn't leave me much energy for anything else, I think I'll also work on clearing off our dvr. (shhh..don't tell, but that means I'll be laying on the couch watching tv today). I might even work on my Christmas card list. Have a great day all!

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