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De-cluttering: Day 3

Well I thought this declutter project would be difficult: letting go of things I've held onto for so long, throwing away things, giving away things, plus the time involved. However, I'm finding it to be a relief rather than a chore. I'm really enjoying making more room in our house. I vow to no longer be a pack rat. I have came across some interesting things while digging through closets and storage boxes and am pleased. There's a lot to get rid of though. Does Scott really need to keep his saxophone from HS? Probably not. Do I need to occupy 3 closets with just my clothes when I usually wear what's out of the dryer anyway?? Probably not. I'm donating clothes I don't wear. I came across an interesting fact: Most people wear 20% of their clothes 80% of the time. Boy do I believe that, except in my case I probably wear 10% of my clothes 90% of the time. When I was working it was different, but now that I'm home, I wear 3 pairs of jeans on a regular basis and a dozen shirts. The bulk of my clothes I don't need anymore. I find this project to be liberating and also stress relieving. I'm always stressed at how the house is cluttered and messy (not dirty, but messy)...this will hopefully be the fix for that. It's keeping me busy and giving away things to people they need/can use is a great feeling. We watched "Pay it forward" last night in tribute to some comments posted on Swistle's Marmee Post. I feel like a better person for giving away all my crap lol. If I haven't told you about Swistle's blog. I apologize and recommend you to check it out. It's a very neat blog! I'm addicted. :D

Oh Baby!

Well I thought I would give a random update on the family, since its been awhile...Nothing is new really. Haelie is a mess some days though. Since we got back from Iowa, she's decided she would quit the pacifier cold turkey...since then I've become her human pacifier. This makes my days long, my body ache, and various parts of me chapped....you get the picture. I'm very pleased the BFing has gone so well with her, as I gave up so early with the boys...however, it's a LOT of work as you EBFing mothers know. Haelie has gotten to the point where she barely takes pumped milk in a bottle...this is fun...no pacifier, no bottle, feels like I run around the house topless most days. I thought she was going to be a thumbsucker for a few days, she found her thumb, but it didn't do what she wanted it to do. So back to me. She's not letting Daddy, or anyone else for that matter, hold her if she sees me or hears my voice. She likes to be upright. Laying down on an incline is not her cup of tea, she wants to be in her jumper or on my hip. The swing, the bouncy seat, and carseat are all bad...Which is totally awesome...heh. As of late, I've gotten a lot of use out of my sling although I don't think I'm using it correctly, or she just doesn't wanna be in it like she's supposed to...neither would surprise me. Also, if I have her, she wants to be entertained by me singing to her, watching something fun, etc. The boys make her laugh and then she gets scared. She doesn't nap like a normal baby, she power naps. She won't poop in a wet diaper and she can't stand a wet diaper for more than 5 minutes. She's a mess...BUT she's a good baby when she gets what she wants. The boys, minus the cabin fever last week and over break, have been pretty excellent. If I were fighting with them too, I'd be a wreck. This de-clutter project is going to be hard but I'm going to try. My goal is to have the house completely de-cluttered by Valentine's Day. This gives me approx. 1 month. Seems like forever but I'm figuring in days when I can't put Haelie down and weekends, unless Scott is working. Plus all my normal duties of cooking, laundry, dishes, errands and such are gonna slow me down too. I'm setting an attainable goal! Wish me luck. Any tips/tricks will be appreciated. I'm going to start de-cluttering today.....If I don't post for awhile, I may be trapped in a junk avalanche....

HELP!

I have a plan to completely de-clutter the house. This is going to take weeks. And I refuse to start in this arctic weather, due to many trips planned for the trash compactor, etc. Although I need some suggestions on how to go about said plan.

Do I:
A.) Go room by room
B.) Start on specifics and go from there (clothes, books, etc.)

The reasoning behind this crazy idea is this. I have a small house, two adults and 3 little people live here. We have entirely! too much crap that we never use. We're getting a safe, need to make room for it, etc.

Next...what do I do with all the extra crap?

Do I:
A.) Garage sale
B.) Donate it
C.) Trash

I need some help getting motivation to do this too. I'm dreading it and I haven't even begun....

Magical Things

You're fired! Thanks for all the recipe suggestions for my abundance of specific pantry items....or not. Anywho, oh well. Today is Tuesday! It's above freezing outside!!!! Hallelujah. Comfort Food Week (last week) ended with a fantastic Chicken and Noodles dinner. It was everything I could hope for in a comfort meal. It warmed me up on the inside, tantalized my taste buds, pleased everyone, and made tons of leftovers ;). Here's how it goes:

Chicken and Noodles

1 Whole Chicken (~4 lbs)
Carrots (optional)
Onion (optional)
Celery (optional)
Water
Big pot
Flour
Milk
Frozen Egg Noodles (16oz package)
Big pot
Yummy seasonings (I use Sweet Smokey Pepper, Garlic Salt, Onion Salt, and poultry seasoning and pepper)
Gold Medal Wondra Powder

Take whole chicken and cut it up into breasts, legs, thighs, wings, etc...If you don't know how to cut up a chicken, I suggest you learn, but until then you can buy "cut up chicken" or just use various chicken pieces of your choice....or have your MIL come over and do it for you ;) I don't cut up chicken...bad experience trying to separate leg quarters...long story lol Put in big pot and add enough water to cover, dump in your seasonings***, carrots, onion, celery etc. Simmer until chicken is done. Although this takes awhile, you don't wanna rush it. There's lots of magical things going on in the pot... Once done remove pieces of chicken and de-bone, then re-add to pot. Bring to boiling again and let simmer 30 minutes. This will create ALOT of chicken broth...which is freezable in proper storage containers**. Remove some of the chicken broth, you don't need as much as you would think, as you don't want this to be soup, until desired amt of liquid remains. Add frozen noodles, cook 5 minutes. While noodles cook, take a tightly covered small dish (I use a tiny pyrex bowl with a tight fitting lid) add 1/2 cup of milk and 4 Tbl flour. Shake until smooth. Add a cup of milk to pot and add flour/milk mixture and stir. This should thicken it up some. IF its not thick enough, add Wondra right to the pot. It's a "quick mixing flour for sauce and gravy" this stuff is AMAZING. If you've ever had trouble with a white sauce thickening or runny gravy, you need this product. SOOO much better than corn starch or regular flour. Add a little, stir, let thicken, and repeat if necessary. When to desired consistency....its done!!!! We serve over top Mashed Potatoes.

**TIP: Pour chicken broth into ice cube trays, freeze, and place in freezer bags. Each cube is approx 1 oz.
***TIP: Keep trying it! Add additional seasonings as needed. I can't tell you how much of what to add, it all depends on personal preference.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do. Tweek it to your needs and let me know how it goes! I'm excited to hear about your results in my recipes. Any feedback would be appreciated!!!

Recipe Challenge/Pantry Rummage

With this stupid sub-freezing temps I do not! want to go anywhere. That being said, I don't wanna go to the grocery store everyday. SOOO I started to rummage through my pantry and create some meals out of what I have on hand (not my strong suit). I have come up short. I need help from my faithful reader(s)....

Here are my pantry items and quantities that I'm at a loss with:

Corkscrew pasta, 2 lbs-ish
Elbow Macaroni, buttload
Granola, 1 lb
Corn Flakes, 3 boxes?

Why in the hell do I have all this random shit in my cabinets? Good question, I have no idea. Anywho, submit some recipes to me containing 1 or more of the above ingredients and hurray! I'll do something special for ya...:) idk what though....:\

Recipe for disaster? Perhaps...

Well last night I decided to make my pork roast. With the Alaskan weather we've been having lately, comfort food seemed appropriate this week. Everything was going okay yesterday for the most part. I got a lot of laundry done (woo hoo), the house quasi picked up (woo hoo x2), and I had a delicious hearty meal waiting on me *jumping for joy!* I thought I would take a minute to express my feelings for my crock pot. If you don't have a crock pot, get one! I love my crock pot and don't use it nearly enough. I think I'm going to try out some different "slow cooker" recipes soon and will let you know how that goes and post recipes accordingly. The mission today is to do catch up around the house AND take down the dreaded Christmas junk. I leave all my Christmas decor up until after NYD. When I was growing up, I was told it was bad luck to take Christmas stuff down before then...IDK how true that is...but I can understand why a person would wait til after NYD, such as, the turkey/diabetic/alcohol induced coma most of us are in after the holidays. So Anywho...FINALLY, after over 3 months of looking at my Christmas tree, it's going! And I'm not just taking it down, I'm Throwing! It! Away! I don't think I'll take the lights off even. I'm gonna throw it in the back of the truck as is and take it to the dump!! Normally this attitude would probably spell "divorce" with Scott and I, being he loves Christmas more than he loves me...HA! However, we both agreed we need a new tree next year. Our tree has been up so long, the lights are half burnt out, the colored ones are losing their color, and the tree looks tired...of course it is a 40 yr old tree. It's had a good life. SO why take it all apart!? That's just more work for me. I might need some help getting it out of the house though...I just now that about that. Could be very interesting trying to get a 7' tall tree out the front door by myself lol. Colton and Dakota are strong "muscle men" I'll have them help me after school lol. Of course they'll probably throw a fit about "Christmas being over". Oh well. Can't please everyone..............!

FYI: Here's the link to my Pork Roast Recipe. I have some leftover uncooked chicken thighs I need to do something with. Any suggestions?? Today I need to make caramel corn!!!! I've been planning on doing it for a long time now...what's a better day than today!?

OH before I forget, there's a few kid things I'd like to give kudos to: Monopoly Town and Uno! Attack!. They're great games for my boys!! Thank you Hasbro and Mattel!!!!

Survival of the fittest!

Well I survived December....*sigh of relief*. December was insanely crazy for me. 10 days in the arctic (...also known as Iowa), Christmas vacation for the kiddos, Christmas festivities, etc...It was all full of drama drama drama too...:\ BUT part of my new year/new you campaign I'm going to let go of the drama in my life, thus relieving stress! :) How fantastic does that sound?? So far so good... of course it's only day 5.... Anywho, I'm going to try to keep my faithful reader updated and include some recipes here and there, maybe even a pic of the kids once in awhile! Don't get your hopes up though...I'm not the best at remembering to post pics for some reason, hell I'm not the best at remembering I have a blog. HA!

Recipe of the Day

FRIED CHICKEN (for Dummies)

Warning: this fried chicken will cause all kinds of nasty health conditions, such as but not limited to, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight gain, etc...but boy is it yummy!

Needed:
Family pack of Chicken THIGHS With SKIN ON!! (if you only like white meat or don't like the skin...just give it up ;) lol)
Flour
Milk
Salt & Pepper
OIL (don't try to get fancy with expensive oils, the plain ol Veggie oil is perfect)
Skillet with lid
Some deep dishes (pie plates work great!)

First off, this is a very easy recipe, although it takes awhile. So bare with me. Before I bread the chicken, I rubbed it down with salt and I soaked it in room temp water. Flipping every so often. You can soak as long as you'd like I did mine about an hour.

To make your breading its real difficult so pay attention...flour, salt, pepper, blend in a dish!!! This sounds fool proof does it!? Almost...:) Pour some milk in another dish. Put empty skillet on stove, turn stove on med-high. Once hot to the touch add about 1/4" of oil to the hot skillet. Now its time to get dirty...hahaha, bread the chicken. Take the chicken out of the water and dip in milk, both sides and plop it into the flour stuff. Coat well. Make sure all the little places are covered with flour. Test grease temp by throwing a pinch of flour mix in the oil. If it doesn't sizzle, its not hot enough...wait. Once HOT!, put them things in the grease. If you need to turn the temp down do so, you don't want your grease to smoke, every stove is different. Fry the chicken until underside is a nice golden brown color. Flip over the chicken in the skillet very careful (as not to splatter grease or mess up the breading, fork works well). After flipping, cover skillet with lid and turn the temp down just a bit, from med-high to med, ish. This is the waiting game....check on the chicken periodically to make sure they're not getting too brown. It will take awhile for the insides to cook through, be patient. To test done-ness cut one open, or if you're an experienced chicken cooker person, watch your juices. When they're done they're done!

I ALWAYS make gravy from my grease...if you plan to do the same, I suggest transferring cooked chicken to a baking dish and placing in a 200 degree oven while making the gravy. Reasons being not only to keep it warm, but to also prevent the crispy exterior from becoming soggy.

Here's an additional tip: after breading the chicken, stick it in the freezer for just a few minutes, it helps keep the breading on it during frying...if you have time.

I serve fried chicken with:

Mashed Taters
Gravy
Fried Vegetable, such as vidalia onion, mushrooms, squash, etc. (might as well while you have your hands messy and the grease out)

....Just wondering how I'm only 23 and I sound like I'm Paula Dean....hmmm food for thought I suppose (no pun intended ;))

Anywho, give the chicken a whirl, if you have any tips/tricks/comments/concerns please, don't hesitate to say.