Welcome to 2022

Updated colors and pictures for the new 2022 year.  Pictures were taken by the incredible Mel Habermeyer last Fall.

How have we been?  

• Covid's still around.  I caught the omicron variant, but luckily everyone else stayed healthy.
• Teaching's still rough.  Changed to 8th grade this year, but holding myself to the same standard of quality that I had after many years of 7th grade.
• My craft room was remodeled last year, so I get to work there on school work.  Restarted quilting, and I'm loving it!
• Nate's shifted jobs and trying to make that work.
• Kids are doing wonderfully with young women's and scouts and dance lessons and so much more.

So, here's to a healthy and happy 2022.  💜

Personal Egg and Sausage Pizzas

So much potential, and it just didn't pay off for me...but the family liked it.  I found this recipe in the mymagzine that was mailed to my house from Smith's.

I've recently discovered naan flatbread.  I like to eat it warmed up with a bit of butter.  Or I've used the little rounds of naan bread to make mini pizzas for my kids with spaghetti sauce, mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil.  But this recipe was about Breakfast for Dinner.

The first thing I would say is LINE THE COOKIE SHEETS WITH PARCHMENT.  The flatbread stuck to the pan and the egg mixture baked onto the pan.  Clean up was awful.  The hash browns didn't add a lot of flavor and I wonder if baking them before (or using Alton Brown's recipe) would make a difference.  I bought and cooked sausage links and cut them up instead of pre-cooked sausage patties to crumble.  I think patties would make more sense and be easier to sprinkle across the surface of the pizzas.  I shredded my own cheese instead of buying the finer shredded store bought stuff.  I think a finer shred would act as a barrier to the egg mixture better than what I did.  I didn't dice the tomatoes small enough, but they lost the fresh tomato taste and were really yummy being roasted (yes, this is coming from someone who doesn't like tomatoes).

All these good ingredients ended up for me with a bland taste and not worth the effort.  (A bland quiche is what it reminded me of when I was aiming for Christmas Casserole.)  However, the kids liked it, and Nate ate two full flatbreads.  Maybe with a bit of practice, I can get this one to work.

Salt-Baked Potatoes with Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Butter

 Two posts in one day because this recipe needs its own post.  To quote Nate, this recipe is so good that "if we weren't already married, I'd marry you on the spot!"  High praise indeed.

I found this recipe back in 2012 from America's Test Kitchen and I have always been pleased with the results.  (Email me if you need to for the recipe.)

What made today different, and worthy of renew our vows, was that I used Yukon gold potatoes instead of russet and Nate had roasted MANY cloves of garlic earlier in the week to make his own "garlic butter" (without the butter.). When served with sour cream and chives and the garlic butter (and accompanying the Glazed Pork Chops) this was a fantastic dinner.

This recipe takes time (1 1/2 hours) but the results are worth it.  The potatoes are soft and creamy inside and the skins are crispy and delicious.  And even though I made extras to finished off the bag of potatoes, there were no leftovers.  I love it when I get a recipe right.

Glazed Pork Chops with Apricot-Ginger Sauce

 Day 3 of New Recipe week and I'm still working in the Our Best Bites recipe book with Glazed Pork Chops with Apricot-Ginger Sauce (again, the recipe is coming from someone else's blog).  I liked this recipe, but I need some practice with it to make it better.

I overloaded my pan with too many pork chops, so cooking was slow.  I didn't pull out my cooking thermometer, so the pork chops were overcooked and dried.  I only purchased apricot preserves instead of apricot-pineapple preserves and the flavor was definitely missing.  The spices didn't penetrate the pork as much as I would want, so next time I will let it sit for 10 minutes or so before cooking.  (That's a tip from this wonderful pork recipe from Cook's Country.)

With all those problems, the pork did turn out good, and my husband (who doesn't generally like pork) said that I should do this one again.  That is a win in my book.

Orange Chicken with Snow Peas

 Day 2 of new recipes this week and I'm serving rice again to my husband.  Yikes!

Orange Chicken with Snow Peas is another recipe from Our Best Bites (but the link to the recipe is to someone's blog).  This was a 4 star recipe, that my husband liked...with the rice.  Yay!  The store didn't have any snow peas, so canned peas it was, but the chicken was flavored wonderfully and everyone liked it.  (Okay, my son wasn't a fan of the ginger.).  The chicken would be really easy to overcook, so be careful.  However, the sauce needs time to thicken up, so there's a really fine line to work with for perfection.

Black Bean Soup

 It's cold and I want warm food.  That means another soup recipe.  In fact, this whole week's worth of recipes is new.  I hope my family forgives me for subjecting them to so many new recipes in one week.

I received Sara Wells & Kate Jones' recipe book of Our Best Bites several years ago for Christmas, and am still working my way through all of the recipes.  So, this week's stuff all comes from there.  Today I tried their Black Bean Soup.  I was "souper" worried because I don't normally serve black-colored food for dinner (besides chocolate), and while the kids seemed apprehensive, they didn't actually say anything.

The soup itself tasted really good and smelled really good when cooking.  I don't use my immersion blender often, so that was a new experience.  (And took a really long time).  I liked adding taco chips and cheese to the soup.  I would definitely make this recipe again...

...but not as a soup.  At dinner, Nate said, "You made a really good bean dip."  And he was right.  The texture was off for soup, but if I'm ever asked to bring a bean dip, this will be what I make.  Yum!

Brown Butter Chicken & Rice

 On the back of the Herbed Skillet Pastitisio recipe page, there's another appealing picture for a recipe called Brown Butter Chicken & Rice.  Just a couple of ingredients, and a quick amount of time brought this recipe together.

I really liked how easy the recipe was to cook, and I loved the aroma of spices that I was using.  But the recipe had some problems, too.  I struggle cooking regular white rice outside of my rice cooker, and this time was no exception.  The rice was undercooked and crunchy--not a good thing for my husband who doesn't like rice.  Green beans are out of season, and canned beans just didn't add anything special.

In the end, I liked the chicken and the flavor of the rice,  my oldest did too; but we were alone in our approval of this recipe.  That makes this recipe get 2 stars and the recipe gets tossed.

Chicken Barley Soup

Several years ago, Nate bought a Low-Glycemic cookbook from Deseret Industries (a local thrift store).  I  have been so impressed with the flavors in this book and how full everyone is.  Not everything is a success (I'm looking at you, Sweet Potato, Carrot, and Ginger Soup), but this book has definitely added some fun recipes to my files.  And here's another one.

So, this isn't a new recipe per say because I've cooked it before, but none of my family remembers me serving it in the past, so I'm going to count it.  This is a great recipe for a Sunday because it takes a while to poach the chicken and cook regular barley.  However, I "cheated" this time on a Tuesday with left-over shredded chicken from another meal and "quick barley" which was all I could find at the store.  The chicken was a little dry versus previous time when I've poached and cubed it myself, but it wasn't horrible.

I took a knife cutting class a couple of years ago, so I got to practice my knife skills with the carrots, celery, and onions.  Yay for vegetables.  I left out the mushrooms (eww, gross), but hesitantly added the spinach.  Glad I did.  It was fun to watch it shrivel up and it actually tasted pretty good in the soup.  Even the kids didn't complain, so that's a win.

In the end, this recipe gets 3 stars from us and will remain in my Winter menu rotation.  If you want a copy of the recipe, email me.

Milk Chocolate Marble Loaf Cake

Last week was a main course, today is dessert.  Last week was a brand new recipe, today is recipe that I've had in my file for almost 10 years.  Milk Chocolate Marble Loaf Cake also is a Better Homes and Garden's recipe from November 2011.  This recipe was chosen by my 5-year old as we were getting ready to go food shopping last Saturday.  She said it looked yummy and that we should try it.  So, we did.

I didn't make the Citrus Compote that it recommends, because I thought that might stretch what my family was willing to accept.  (Husband is not a big fan of fruit on most desserts.). I had bought some strawberries to slice and put on top, but I ran out of time.

Prep time for this recipe was a lot longer than I thought.  First the eggs needed to be room temperature.  Okay, guess I'll wash dishes for 30 minutes.  Then I totally messed up melting milk chocolate chips in the microwave.  (Forgot to wash my measuring cup between ingredients.  The milk, eggs, and butter kind of cooked with the chocolate chips into a muddy mess.)  The recipe said whisk instead of blend, so I used whisked by hand instead of my hand mixer.  The final cake was rather flat and I think this is part of the reason.  The other is that it didn't say to let the melted butter cool.  I think I may have cooked part of the eggs when I added the hot butter.

I did line the pan with parchment paper in addition to buttering and flouring the sides of the pan.  That made for easy extraction at the end.  The cake needed to a serrated knife to slice it.  I don't know if this was because of the crust or the fact that after 45 minutes, the cake still wasn't cool.

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If you couldn't tell already, this recipe did not go well.  The marbling effect worked, but the milk chocolate flavor wasn't prominent like the recipe tag-line said.  (I would probably use dark or semi-sweet chocolate next time.). My cake loaf didn't rise much because of how dense it was.  However, it was fully cooked.  The cake takes 45+ minutes to cool, which irritated the whole family because they had to wait.  The flavor reminded me of Amish Friendship Bread but without the sugary top layer.

The family thought it was "fine" but nothing special.  So, it earns 2 starts from the Call Family because it wasn't worth the effort for the mediocre results.  Good-bye to this one.

Herb Skillet Pastitsio

 I enjoying finding and trying new recipes from my Better Homes & Garden magazine.  Looking through a new issue is one of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday before going food shopping.  This recipe for Herb Skillet Pastitsio comes from the January 2021 edition.  I'm always looking for a new way to jazz up hamburger, so I thought I'd try this one.

Anyone who knows me from my childhood knows that I am a picky eater.  While my tastes have broaden slightly as an adult, I'm still cautious when trying a new recipe.  So, the ingredients in this recipe seemed pretty safe: hamburger, onion, garlic, tomato sauce, oregano, ziti pasta, and Laredo sauce.  The only ingredient I questioned was the cinnamon.  In my mind, cinnamon is a great dessert spice, but doesn't belong in a savory dish.  I am intrigued that the recipe uses both a red tomato sauce and a white Alfredo sauce at the same time.  But I'm trying new things this year, so here we go.

The process of making this recipe was pretty easy.  It was a little more work than making Hamburger Helper, but over all not too bad.  I think it took me 45 minutes to complete (the recipe states 40 minutes.).  I liked putting the whole skillet into the oven under the broiler was a pretty ingenious way to brown the Alfredo sauce.  (It also tricked my husband and kids into thinking it was just melted mozzarella cheese.)

I didn't have fresh oregano, but other than that, my picture looks pretty similar to what was in the magazine.

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So, how did it turn out?

Fine.  Like I wrote earlier, this recipe reminded me a lot of Hamburger Helper.  The cinnamon made you think "this is different" with each bite.  I wonder if using ground lamb would make a difference and worked better with the cinnamon.  The recipe suggests lamb as an alternative protein.  (I've only had lamb as a child with mint jelly sauce.)  I really liked the combined tastes from both red and white sauces.

How did the family like it?

Nate didn't like it at all.  While he ate it, I did get a "don't ever make that again" look from him.  Message received.  He doesn't like either excessive cinnamon or Alfredo sauce.  Oops.

Two of four kids liked it, but the other two were on the verge of throwing a tantrum.  

Overall, this recipe receives 2 stars from the Calls and will be purged from my recipe file.  The unique flavors that I didn't mind, weren't worth the dirty looks from half my family.

New Year, New Project

I'm really good at starting resolutions in January.  Finishing them is another thing.  So, I can not promise to blog every week.  But I will try.

While preparing for food shopping last Saturday, I noticed how large my folder of recipes to try someday had become.  Well, someday has arrived.  

One of my 2021 resolutions is to try one of these recipes that I have collected over the last 13+ years of marriage.  The recipe will be prepared and then analysed on ease of making, taste, and how the adults and kids like it.  (Because we all know kids and grown-ups have different taste buds.)

I'm not looking for new recipes.  Trust me, I have more than enough for this year and more.  If you'd like a copy of a recipe, let me know.

Thank you to my dear friend Lisa for this cute apron for Christmas!

Social Distancing Week 2

Church, this second week at home, was more normal, if that's a thing anymore.  Nate was able to administer the Sacrament to us, and that brought peace to my heart. We also had a little more structure in our meeting and I think the kids responded well to that.  Our Sunday School lesson was on Jacob 5.  After summarizing the Allegory of the Olive Tree, Nate took out family outside to see his two peach trees.  One was ready to burst into blooms, the other had no blossom buds.  We could see how the one tree was not doing well and wouldn't produce any fruit.  Then Nate took us over to his apple trees where he had recently grafted in some different types of apples.  Seeing the process really helped me understand the allegory and all the work that is necessary to bring forth good fruit.  It won't happen by itself.  So, what am I doing to help the work of the Lord?  What more can I do?

Week 2 of teaching online found me at my computer from 6:30 am to 8 or 9 pm.  My students were turning in a ton of work (yay!), but being at the computer all day made me feel like I was being horrible mom.  The kids ran around wild and watched hours of TV.    We had a schedule that I printed off each day, but this was survival mode and so the schedule was mostly ignored.  Hopefully, once the oldest start new content next week, some form of normalcy will appear.

To help engage our students in our daily video chats, our team of teachers hosted our own video Spirit Week.  Each day the teachers of Team Fox, and some of the students, dressed up for a daily Zoom meetings.  This silliness made smiles happen as we connected digitally if we couldn't connect in person.

	Crazy Hat day with my Graduation Cap.  Hard to believe that it was almost a year ago that I defended my paper on the Math of Solar Eclipses.	For Character Day, I was a MathNet detective from the 80s PBS show Square One TV.
Crazy Sock means I wore my Math Socks.  Could have gone crazier with all the Fox socks that I have.	Bring your Pet to School day means that Mittens got to see my students. This was probably my favorite day of the week because I had over 20 students in the online meeting introducing their peers to their pets.	Aloha!  We ended up not hosting a video meeting this day, but sharing pictures of our Hawaiian get-up helped us all get through the dreary isolation.

I had hoped to have many more books read, and the house deep-cleaned, and my quilt finished, and my children perfectly dressed, and the laundry done, and... and... and...  But I feel like the one thing that I have had to accept (again) is that good enough really is good enough.  And what is good enough during social distancing is much less than before.  We might not have a bulk supply of toilet paper, but we have enough for our needs.  We might not be able to pick up more than 2 loaves of bread at the store, but we have a wheat grinder and I have a husband he enjoys experimenting with baking bread.  We might not be engaging in home-schooling, but we are home, and safe, and the kids are learning to cope with this strange situation we find ourselves in.  It's far from perfect, it's far from ideal.  But it's good enough.  And that is good enough.

Social Distancing Week 1

2020 will go down in history as a defining point for this generation.  And not due to some grand event like a putting a man on the moon or a tragic event like 9/11.  Rather this historic event is due to a microscopic pathogen known as the corona virus or Covid-19.  While the virus started off in China in January, it has traveled across the world, affecting millions, and even killing others with previous health complications.

In Utah, we started to see effects of the virus as school events began to be postponed or even canceled.  Dances, science fairs, sports, and other activities moved to online venues, when possible. 
Libraries and other public building closed also due to the virus.  Stores limited their hours of operation, and provided special hours for the elderly.  Toilet paper, cleaning wipes, tissues, hand sanitizer, flour, sugar, canned beans, rice, and other staples vanished from the shelves in a matter of minutes.  A rush at the grocery store meant that I spent a hour in line that wrapped around the inside of the story to get 2 gallons of milk and a pack of diapers.  Thank heavens for food storage! I think that the epidemic finally felt real to me personally when we moved from having Church as a congregation to hosting our own Sacrament Meetings in our home.  While very spiritual (and much shorter) than the 2-hour block, I miss the interaction with my friends and neighbors.

The state of Utah issued a "soft closure" for all school starting on Friday, March 13th due to the corona virus called Covid-19.  (unlucky day?)  This meant that all schools were closed for students, while teachers would work either from home or at a mostly empty building.  Our district decided, since we were so close to the end of the term, to make the 2 weeks review only and allow students the opportunity to fix any/all low scores in their grade.  As teachers, we quickly put together a review packet for those who needed it, and changed all the deadlines for our online assignments.  While this was helpful for students, it caused a lot of extra work for teachers as we now had to accept missing/late work from January.  Yikes!  But we got through it.  Teachers also learned how to host video meetings through Google Meets and Zoom, and all the joys and surprised that come through that.  I am very grateful that I have worked so hard the last 5 years to understand the finer details of Canvas, which is our district's online learning platform.  Because of that understanding, my students have had a much easier time transitioning to completing online reviewing.  In two weeks, we'll see how the online learning of new material goes.

Wednesday, March 18th was supposed to the first day that students got online to start their review material.  And while that happened, at 7:09 am, a 5.7-magnitude earthquake hit the Wasatch Front.  It felt and sounded like a large snow-plow was driving down the street.  But the house continued to shake for over 30 seconds scaring my kids and myself.  Once everyone was calmed down, we checked in with Nate at work, family throughout the state, and neighbors.  Everyone was okay, just shaken up (pun intended.)  There were several aftershocks recorded throughout the day and coming weeks, but we only felt the 4.2-magnitude one around 1 pm--nap time.  Because of this, my two youngest have struggled with nap time and bed time ever since.  But we'll get through it.
 
For online learning for my children, they have also spent time at home with Nana and Mom going over old assignments and exploring their many digital apps (most of which I have ignore to this point in the year...no longer.)  I have also issued my two oldest a daily Lego challenge.  They were excited about it first, but now it seems like just a chore.  I'll have to see what I can with that.

Before we got too serious with our social distancing, we helped my parents with their kitchen remodel.  In these pictures, we are helping to take the old hard-wood floor boards to the dump.  Nate decided to move his truck closer so he could just chuck the boards over the fence into the back of his truck.  After seeing this happen, my mom said, "Be careful!  Don't hit your window!"  And then CRASH!  Right through the back window went the next boards.  Oh well!  

I think one of the things that is so difficult about social distancing is that EVERYTHING is closed.  (As it should be.)  I miss the library.  I miss being able to go food shopping at 9 pm after the kids are in bed.  I miss window shopping at an actual store instead of online shopping for everything.   I'm going to miss getting my hair done in a couple of weeks.  I miss seeing my friends and being able to go out to lunch (inside a restaurant) and getting pedicures.   I miss seeing my extended family in person and giving them hugs.  I miss 2nd Sunday and 3rd Sunday family dinners.

I know that social distancing is necessary to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus, but it's hard to be home ALL THE TIME.

2 weeks of Spring Break before Spring Break

So today our State governor "soft" cancelled school for the next 2 weeks due to the Covid-19 virus epedmic.  And while I like the time away from disruptive students, I'm concerned about how to help keep my own children occupied.

So what better thing to do than blog.  Here we go.

Next Round Finished...Finally

Thanks to my son for holding so still so I could take the picture.

Who was so crazy as to sign up to complete an entire quilt in 6 weeks?  Oh, that's right--me.  So, that didn't happen.  But I'm not giving up.

Life may have been crazy overly exhausting for the last month, but I've finally completed the "baby section" of my Starstruck Quilt.  My favorite part of this round is the small gray "tulips" as my 4 year old calls them, or "cats" as my 2 year old calls them.

On a silly note, after 10 years, I truly made my craft room into a craft room...by dropping all my pins on the floor!  Thank Heavens, I only have a handful of pins at this time.  Still, I wouldn't go in there barefoot for awhile.

This month has been crazy, and finding moments to work on my quilt has been difficult.  But I'm happy with the progress and look forward to starting the next round of my quilt.  That is right after I'm done baking rolls, making jigglers, and winning our family's "key lime pie" bake off today.  ;)

Being Kind to Myself. It's Harder Than I Think It Should Be

 After the Fall General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I felt like one of the messages for me was to be kinder to myself.  I know that what I think I should do and what I actually can do are not always the same...so why do I make myself feel guilty when the two don't match?

My "craft room" after I cleaned up.  Yikes!

For example, knowing that I was behind on my Quilt Along, I came home ON TIME rather than 2 hours late from school and decided to sit down and work on the wall hanging section of the quilt.  I knew that I should be able to complete the whole thing in 2 hours before I needed to pick up the kiddos from daycare. But then reality hit.  I needed to move the laundry from my craft room (notice I
didn't say fold), find my sewing machine in the storage room, and then locate my scissors, and don't forget to look for the pins that were for some reason up on a book shelf in the living room.  Then I needed to vacuum up that spider, and search for my seam ripper.  And once I got everything together, it was time to pick up the kids.  I just couldn't do what I wanted.  It's wasn't can versus should, it was can't versus should--and it left me feeling awful.

I wish I had a magical story to tell here and how a fairy godmother came and made everything alright and I finished the quilt wall hanging on time, and cooked a gourmet dinner, and had a spotless house, and folded that laundry, and created the perfect lesson plan for the next day.  But that's a lie.

I know that I have a hard time balancing all of the good and better things in my life, and that it's difficult to choose what's best.  Some days I can do it all, some days I feel like I should do it all, and some days I fall apart and cry because none of it happened at all. 

The point of this ramble is that I accomplished something.  And that may not be much to you, but it makes me happy.  It makes me proud.  And I did it just for me.

So, this is me celebrating what I can do.







I can make flying geese using a no waste method.










I can create perfect half-square triangles.










I can learn a new quilt block called the "switch and flip".









I can find time to finish the wall hanging section of my quilt.

I can acknowledge that my family comes first, and my job come shortly after that--but I am important!

I can understand that while I may not be able to grade tests coherently after 10 pm, I apparently have no problem quilting after 10 pm.

I can apologize because I am NOT a social person while quilting.  (Sorry, Nate.)

I can enjoy hot cocoa and quilting at the same time.

I can finish what I started out to do without feeling guilty about the time it took.

I can do hard things.

Cutting Out Fabric or Grading Tests...which is worse?

I am behind on my Quilt Along.  But then again, I am behind on grading the last unit's tests.  So, which one gets accomplished tonight...that's right, the one that's about me.  (See, it can be all about me sometimes.)

After two long nights of parent teacher conferences last week, I thought I'd tackle the dreaded cutting out of the quilt fabric.  Honestly, I'm glad to get it all done in one fell swoop...but I still don't enjoy doing it. 

So, after ironing all 22 fat quarters and 8 1/2 yards of background fabric, the designing began.  The question became where do I place all of the colors.  I want to eventually place this in my room (after we paint, and get new carpet, and remodel a dozen other things first).  That means the gray needs to be more prevalent.  And each of the strawberry fabrics has a LOT of pink--which is not my husband's favorite.  Fortunately,  he gave me the go ahead to make this quilt however I would like.  (I love you, honey!)   Two hours of digital coloring and I ended up with this.

It's not a perfect digital drawing, because I'm pretty sure there is a better software out there than my scrap-booking program.  But the kids were at day care, I had the day off of school, so I'll take what I can get.

Saturday dawned with the need to go food shopping, clean the house, take the kids to practice for their Primary Program, basketball game, family reunions, grade those darn tests.  But, nope.  I did very little of it.  (Primary Program, basketball game, feeding the kids.  You know, the essentials.)  I spent the day cutting out fabric.  And I mean the WHOLE DAY.  Eight hours!  Yikes!  But I felt like I got to know my fabric better (how do you do?) and could figure out how the quilt was going to be assembled.  Plus my mind was reviewing rigid transformations, linear algebra, and other geometric transformations with each cut.  (What?  You don't do higher mathematics in your head while quilting?)





 This is my favorite print!  It will be the center star on my quilt.












Look how cute the dragonflies are on my background fabric!






Saturday evening I got interrupted by having to watch a family night movie with my family and my sister's family (Hurray! Welcome back to Utah!), so it took until tonight to finish cutting up the remaining pieces.  But it's done!  And here's the proof!

It's late.  But the cutting out of fabric is done.  Not a lot of scraps left over, so no mistakes?!?!?  Look for a post again soon about the wall hanging section and baby quilt section.

The next project

My master's degree is finished!  Hurray!  So after a mostly peaceful summer of doing absolutely nothing, it was nice to get back into teaching and having a schedule.  It's also been nice to say

"Yes!"

instead of "No" all the time.  My latest "yes" was to myself.  I was browsing Facebook and came across this beautiful quilt.

http://www.happyquiltingmelissa.com/p/quilt-longs.html

 I loved the colors and I loved the design, and I thought "why not?"  I mean, it's not like I have 2 sets of quilt blocks from my first ever Block of the Month clubs over 15 years ago that are still not assembled or my first quilt from my mother-in-law's Quilt Guild classes from 3 years ago that I haven't finished yet.  And I'm a working mom who teaches full time then runs after four munchkins.  But "why not?"

So, ready or not, here I go.

Last night I bought my fabric at Quilt's Etc.  I loved the colors and I think the strawberries add a fun detail.

Have you ever started something because you wanted to, and not because you had to?

Happy New Year 2019

Ya, so that whole Instant Pot thing didn't work so well.  Good intentions and all that...

How do you like the new theme of the blog?

I am excited about the new Sunday School curriculum for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints called "Come, Follow Me".  We will be studying the New Testament this year.  There's a ton of ideas that I have...but honestly, I'm not going to blog about them very much, if at all.

This year, my New Year's resolution is to FOLLOW THROUGH and FINISH things.  I've already finished repairing Sammy's pop up book and Carter's beanie babies (things I've put off for weeks and years, respectively).  But the big thing is finishing my master's degree.  My final project is due March 1st.  Wish me luck!

Instagating an Instant Pot

Wife, mother of 4, middle school teacher, graduate student, and somewhere in there is just me, Jen.  On a typical weeknight, I have about an hour to actually decide what I want to fix for dinner, cook it, eat it, and clean up before it's on to homework for kids, bedtime for husband and kids, and homework for me.  Do I really need to state that I don't have a lot of time to cook the way that I dreamed about as a teenager?

I'm always looking  for quick, healthy, recipes that my children will eat and that actually taste good.  My mother gave me an Instant Pot for Christmas, and I'm willing to try it.  But I'm going to need some accountability, or it will end up sitting on a shelf in kitchen waiting for that once-in-awhile recipe (Sunday Roast in a Slow Cooker, for example).  So, I made a Pinterest Board with my sister-in-laws to see what they've tried and get new ideas.  And I'm going to blog once a week about my adventure.  (52 posts instead of 365.  Seems reasonable...right?)

Welcome to 2018.