What A Night

Last night my little one went to bed at his normal time 8:15. He still goes to bed with a bottle of warm milk, he is only 14 months old and I felt he was still young enough to enjoy this. I have heard of the dental affects but we brush our teeth together every morning and as soon as he is asleep me or my husband will go and take the bottle. Anyways, lately J has been waking up in the middle of the night crying. He is not having night terrors, we are able to soothe him instantly when we pick him up and he is usually awake by the time we get to his room (which takes about 30 seconds if we walk to it). Last night I had a hard time falling asleep and the last time that I looked at the clock it was 1:15 in the morning. I figured it would be ok since J doesn't get up until 8:00 am usually. Well last night he woke up at 2:20 crying, I made him a little bottle and laid him back down. I went back to lay down and then an hour later he was up again. By this point I am still groggy as hell and cranky from the not so gentle wake up calls. I get up and go in his room, kiss him and tell him to go night night. I back to my bedroom and turned to the tv on to see if he would self soothe and go back to sleep. By 4:00 he is still crying, so I get him another little bottle of milk ( he would have had about 9 ounces total if he drank this one. Not too much for him as he usually drink that before he falls asleep). Well at 4:30 he lets out a scream from hell and I figure his arm or leg is stuck through the crib again (a problem we are trying desperately to fix) and as I get in sight of his door and see him standing up in his crib, he begins to vomit. Waves of guilt wash over him and the lovely "your an ass" feeling settles itself in. So I clean him up and his room and get everything in the wash. Put new sheets on the bed and get new blankets, then I get him and we cuddle on the couch until 5:30 watching Cartoon Network. He finally fell back asleep and I was able to lay him down and get some sleep myself.

I decided that now was as good a time as any to break the milk at bed/nap time and then break the bottle all together. He vomited up what looked like cottage cheese. EWWWW!! Wish me luck as I am sure this is going to be a blast. My house will probably be overflowing with sunshine and rainbows as we take on this challenge! Next will be getting him in a toddler bed, since nothing I do keeps his limbs out of the crib slates.

My realization of the day

I am a nagger... what a thing to realize! I was talking to my husband tonight and I thought he wasn't listening so I began to talk at him instead of to him. Then it became this ridiculous nag session. The worst part is I could see my poor husbands face fall the more I nagged about stupid things. BLAH!!! I could hear a voice in my head saying SHUT UP! But this other voice, with the head shaking and finger snapping attitude kept my mouth moving! After he left for work, all I could think was CRAP!!! Thankfully, my husband loves me and apparently decided to brush this off as a part of my crazy! He usually tells me to dial back the crazy but apparently this time I was too much of a raging bitch to even warrant the normal comments that follow my nagging sessions!

Now on to more positive things and hopefully learning some serious self control with my mouth!

Pumpkin Patch Stuffed Shells

This is a very mild tasting meal. It was good but did not knock my socks off with flavor. It is however a very kid-friendly meal, and they are hard to come by in this house! I can not wait until J can help me make this one!!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• Salt and pepper
• EVOO
• 20 jumbo pasta
• 1 lb. baby spinach
• 4 tbsp. butter
• 1 large onion
• 1 lb. extra-lean ground beef
• 1 1/3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup flour
• 3/4 cup canned pure pumpkin puree
• Parsley leaves

Directions:

1. Add 2 tsp. salt, a splash EVOO and 20 jumbo pasta shells to a large pot of boiling water. Cook according to package directions. Drain and rinse until cool. Cover with damp paper towels.

2. 1 inch water to a boil in the same pot. Add half of 1 lb. baby spinach. Let wilt before adding the rest; stir to wilt. Rinse with cold water; squeeze to get the spinach as dry as possible.

3. Place the spinach on a cutting board and chop with a bench scraper. (Or, if you don’t have a bench scraper, let an adult chop with a chef’s knife.)

4. Preheat the oven to 400°. In a skillet, melt 2 tbsp. butter. Add 1 large onion, chopped; add 3/4 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper. Cook over medium-high heat until tender, 6 to 7 minutes.

5. Add 1 lb. extra-lean ground beef; cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, until no longer pink, about 3 minutes.

6. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the chopped spinach until well mixed. Stir in 1/3 cup shredded cheddar. Let cool.

7. Heat 2 cups milk in a microwave. In a medium saucepan, melt 2 tbsp. butter. Whisk in 1/4 cup flour; cook 1 minute. Whisk in 1/2 cup hot milk, then the rest. When it boils, whisk 1 minute.

8. Remove from the heat; season with 3/4 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Whisk in 3/4 cup pure pumpkin puree. Stir in 1 cup shredded cheddar. Cover to prevent a skin from forming.

9. Hold a pasta shell in one hand and stuff with a large spoonful of the beef-spinach mixture (about a 1-inch ball). Cover the stuffed shells with a damp towel as you work.

10. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Smear the bottom with 1/2 cup of the pumpkin sauce. Arrange the stuffed shells in the prepared pan with the openings face-down.

11. Spoon more sauce on top. Cover the dish with foil and bake until the sauce is bubbling hot, about 25 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before decorating with parsley leaves.

Other then making to much filling and some of my shells ripping before I could stuff them this meal actually was easy to make. I didn't cut any body parts or say a single cuss word!!

Autumn Lasagna courtesy of Rachel Ray

The other night I made this autumn lasagna and I was pleasantly surprised! It had the best flavor and was very filling!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 2 1/4 cups peeled, cubed butternut squash (10 oz.)
• Salt and pepper
• 2 cups Creamy White Sauce
• 1 can (15 oz.) pure pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 10 egg roll wrappers (5-inch square)
• 1 3/4 cups shredded aged gouda cheese (about 8 oz.)
• 8 large basil leaves

EGG ROLL WRAPPERS: You don’t have to boil them, plus they have a naturally al dente texture that plays nicely with the tender veggies in this meat-free lasagna. (Look for the wrappers in the refrigerated produce section of your supermarket.)

Directions:

1. In a large nonstick skillet, melt the butter. Add the squash and 1 cup water and simmer over medium heat; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until the water is evaporated and the squash is golden and tender, about 13 minutes; set aside.

2. Position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 400°. Meanwhile, lightly grease an 8-inch square glass baking dish and spread 1/2 cup white sauce in the bottom. In a bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree and egg.

3. Cut half of the egg roll wrappers into 3 strips each. Fill a large bowl with hot tap water (as you work with the wrappers, dip them in the water to rinse off the starch). Use 1 whole wrapper and 3 strips to cover the bottom of the dish in a single layer (there will be overlap). Spread a generous 1/2 cup of pumpkin mixture on top and sprinkle with 1/3 cup cheese. Repeat the layering.

4. Add another layer of egg roll wrappers. Spread with 1 cup white sauce, then top with the squash, basil and 1/3 cup cheese. Add another layer of egg roll wrappers, the remaining pumpkin mixture and 1/3 cup cheese. Top with the remaining egg roll wrappers, then spread with the remaining white sauce.

5. Cover the dish snugly with foil and bake on a baking sheet in the upper third of the oven for 30 minutes. Uncover the dish, sprinkle the remaining 3/4 cup cheese on top and bake until golden and bubbling, about 10 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes before cutting.

As the delightful amateur that I am, I of course hit a few snags along the way! I did not cut things before hand which has repeatedly gotten me into trouble and way behind the time. I usually double the prep time! My food processor decided to be funky the night that my 1 year old decided to spend the night clinging to my leg whining. My food processor is a wonderful tool that I usually love, but everything has to be put in exactly right with the bowl and blade and I must have put that stupid bowl on 100 times, slammed it on the counter 50 times and called it every dirty name I could think of. Then miraculously my insults worked and it decided to chop my shallots! Now onto the egg roll wrappers which I couldn't find so I used spring roll wrappers (I am not sure if there is even a difference). Now I started layered and realized that I was using the paper that separated the wrappers as well as the wrappers. I did double the layers because it seemed super thin. So I had to take the layers apart and they ripped due to the thinness. Good times! I bought a block of gouda cheese and shredded it myself and some of my thumb! Thankfully that was the only cut but I got this time!!

Other then those few snags the meal went off without a hitch! An hour after it was supposed to be done and buried under the sea of dirty dishes that I needed to create the meal!!

A Financial Reality Check

This is not a poor pitiful me post, as I know there are so many people worse off and we are able to pay all our necessary bills and have some extras like cable and internet. This is a little insight as to how stupid my husband and I were with our money and why I am now trying all these new things all at once!


So, recently it seems as though the only checks that are being cashed in this house are reality checks. Blah! Getting older and wiser isn't always fun and it definitely isn't the fairytale I had always imagined it would be! Before my husband and I were transferred to our current location we lived in VA living the single life. We lived together but we were not married and we had a small apartment and a cat. It was very simple to maintain and he was active duty and I had a full time teacher's assistant job. Financially we were set and life was good for our checkbooks! Emotionally we had a lot of growing up to do but that is another story. So anyways, we got to do what we wanted, when we wanted and buy anything we wanted. We went out to eat and on dates all the time, we bought new clothes and my cat was so spoiled it was unreal. Then we transferred...


We decided to buy a house because it was hard to find a place to rent with 3 pets. My husband decided to get 2 lab puppies right before we moved and our cat weighed 20 lbs at the time. So we bought a house with a large yard for the puppies.

Fast forward to last month and we are still living like we used to but with our income reduced by $1500 and our expenses increased by $900 and we are in debt. We sat down one night and actually talked (amazing little concept that one) and realized that were were in debt with credit cards and personal loans to the fabulous tune of $20,000. After we added it all up I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. We won't even include all the money we owe his parents and thankfully they aren't keeping tabs because I may just vomit. Now, I know everyone is in debt (for the most part) and it is just the reality of life in this economy but we also have the debt of the house, a car payment and then life's expenses. The only thing that we have charged to credit cards that was necessary was our cat's vet bills (he was diagnosed with cancer in his leg and it spread so quickly we couldn't save him and he had to be put down. :'( but we had several vet visits to find this out and do what was best for him... not cheap). The rest is frivolous crap that we bought for fun...

For the first time ever we made a budget and we realized that in one month we spent over $800 on gas (my husbands work commute accounts for about $500 of it) and over $600 eating out. So everything we do is budgeted, even how long we can take a freakin' shower (haha, I kid!).

The point of telling the world our financial idiocy? Well now that we are on a budget, we had to make a menu to make grocery shopping more organized and cost affective and because I have to find free/cheap ways to entertain myself and our son. I only know how to make the basics, shake and bake, box mashed potatoes, the sides that come in boxes and bags. But now that we are eating in more I am making more creative things and trying to make better dinners. I am teaching myself how to cook! I do know how to bake sweets and usually they turn out good!

Thankfully we found a great meetup group in our area. I also made a friend who has a son the same age as our son. Her and I get together weekly and scrapbook (I bought a ton of stuff pre-budget) and just hang out while the little ones get some much needed social interactions with someone their age. Along with scrapbooking, I have started making decorative bows thanks to some youtube videos and a friend of mine is teaching me to crochet. I also want to learn to quilt!

All of this leads to Newbie/amateur homemaker status for me and guinea pigs for my family and friends!

An introduction

I am 26 years old and I have always worked. My parents taught me along time ago that if there was something I really wanted then I would have to earn it. I tried to work most of my pregnancy but we had a complicated ride and I ended up on bed rest through half of it. Then after giving birth to our son I was going to go back to work at 8 weeks but I really didn't want to be away from my little guy. And day care is ridiculously expensive, especially for an infant and my paycheck would have barely covered the cost and then add in my gas and we would have been losing money. Luckily, we were able to afford for me to stay home!

So here I am trying to figure out how to be the Susie Homemaker that it seems all other stay at home moms are! It should be interesting, since I am learning how to cook, I am not very creative but I aspire to do so many crafts and I have always had a hard time making friends.

*For anyone that is super anal when it comes to grammar and spelling be warned... I suck at both!!*