Monday Update

Well hello there. I admit, I haven't been keeping up with the Ultimate Blog Challenge, and now I'm over a week behind in posting. That's just not good. I feel like I have a valid excuse though: I was on vacation. And who thinks about blogging when they're at the beach? Okay I did think about it a little bit, but I just didn't act on it. I didn't open Blogger one time while on vacation. I don't think I even did that much internet surfing, which, for me, is kind of huge. But it was vacation. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Now, however, it's time to face reality and get back into routine. Today was Monday, the first day back to work and school, and it wasn't so bad. Hopefully that trend will continue for the rest of the week.

Stay tuned for regularly scheduled programming! I have some recipes to post, some typography to talk about, and more.

Thanks for coming back!

Freezer Cooking Friday: Recipes to Try

Today's Freezer Cooking Friday consists of a list of recipes that I want to try, and those that we've enjoyed over the past week. I didn't do any freezer cooking this week, but we have been enjoying the fruits of my previous labors! I love having a stocked freezer.

Here's what we had in the last week:

• Monday: Enchiladas (recipe coming soon!) - this was the first time I tried my regular enchilada recipe for the freezer. It was a hit! They weren't soggy, or too dry, so I'll be making this one ahead again soon. Really soon. I love enchiladas.
• Tuesday: Hawaiian Chicken in the Crockpot, from Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer. Another yummy one that's always a family favorite. It's so easy to throw everything in a ziploc bag to freeze, then on cooking day, just dump it into the crockpot. Dinner is done!
• Wednesday: Tacos - pre-cooked and seasoned ground beef, thawed, reheated in microwave. Such a timesaver.
• Thursday: Leftovers for me and the hubs, chicken nuggets for the kids. Also known as "cop-out" night.
• Friday: Typically our day to eat out, or dine with parents, which is the case tonight (spaghetti!).

The freezer stock is getting low, but we're on vacation next week, so I won't do another session of cooking/prepping for probably another two weeks. But I can still hunt down recipes in the meantime, and get a headstart on planning. Or at least, planning the way I plan - lists in notebooks.

Recipes I want to try in my next cooking session:

• Cheesy Rigatoni Bake, Daily Dish Recipes - Looks so cheesy! I love cheese, so I know this would be a winner
• Cheddar & Cracker Chicken, What's Cooking Chicago - This was on my list to try last time, but I ran out of chicken. Definitely doing next time. Again, cheese.
• Pepperoni Roll-Ups, Dinner with the Donnells - I love pizza, the kids love pizza, and who doesn't like crescent rolls?
• Taco Meat - a staple in our house
• Enchiladas - see above
• Crockpot Orange Chicken, The Pursuit of Happiness - this one looks really good, so I think I'll make it this go 'round.

Well, that's a start. Have you tried Freezer Cooking yet? Try it! You won't go back to those harried weeknight dinner times, I swear. Enjoy!

Pondering: Is A Cash-Only System the Way to Go?

I'll admit it: I'm terrible with money. I always have been. And even in spite of my attempts to manage my money better, I'm still terrible. Confession: I LOVE spending money. It doesn't even matter what it's being spent on, most of the time. I like to shop, I like to buy things, I like to have things. I'm sure there's some psycho-analytical reason for all of this, but I've never had it evalutated. Maybe I should.

When I was in college especially, I would say, "I'm too young to worry about money", and I would spend every cent my parents sent me. Then the next week when another check came in the mail, I would do the same thing.

Now that I'm older (wiser?) and have a dual-income household to manage, that way of life is long gone. But I'm still not managing things very well. I use my debit card for everything, and claim to keep a running tally in my head, but I'm really not that great at math. I've been burned living this way many times, and Wells Fargo is loving having me as a customer, I'm sure.

So where does that leave me? Pondering going cash-only, that's where that leaves me. But is that the way to go? I know there are more than a few financial "gurus" out there who claim that it is the only way to go, but will it work for me? Maybe I should challenge myself to not use my debit card for a month, and only use the cash that's in my pocket. That would certainly be an interesting blog series!

I'm thinking what I might try is this: pay bills out of each paycheck, then withdraw cash for everything else. Things such as groceries, gas, eating out, etc. would all be paid for with cash. I'll have to do more research on the Envelope system.

What are your thoughts? How do you handle your family's budget?

Typography Tuesday: Font Addict

I mentioned in my blog last week about how much I love Typography. Fonts, fonts and more fonts, I love them all. If you're a font addict like me, there are lots of great sites to get free fonts for you to have as your very own. Be careful, though. Make sure you read the terms for each font you download; I wouldn't want anyone to be sued for using and selling a product using a font that was only meant for personal use.

My favorite font sites:

• dafont.com - my #1 Go-To site
• fontfreak.com
• 1001freefonts.com

There are countless others, but you'll probably just get stuck on dafont.com for hours, so I won't make a huge list.

In order to use all of the fonts that I have collected over the years - and I really should count them - I've recently been trying to come up with new ways (for me) to use fonts. I've embroidered with different fonts, but I just don't have much time for embroidery these days, so I've moved on to die-cutting and print. I've been personalizing different items using adhesive vinyl and my Pazzles die-cutting machine. There are lots of other people doing this same thing, so I'm trying to make myself stand out a bit by using fonts maybe not everyone is using.

This font is Ziggy Zoe, one that I found out there on a free font site, and thought it would be great on water bottles. It is. I've sold a ton of these things! Now if I could only get them back in stock...

I've also ventured into print a little bit, inspired of course, by Pinterest. Last week I featured my "I Love You Because..." print, and this week I have a slight variation:

It's a good daily reminder of what you are grateful for, making you think of something new every day. I know I need to be reminded sometimes, and seemingly a lot more lately. It's dry erase, so that makes it easy to change it up each day.

So, I'm going to keep playing with my fonts, and looking for great examples and more inspiration. Be sure to check back next Tuesday and every Tuesday for more Typography!

Duh, Pinning.

It is true. I can't.stop.pinning. I pin at work, I pin at home, I pin on the go. It's ridiculous. I'm an addict. I can't help myself.

There is always new stuff on Pinterest, and I want to make sure I see it all. New recipes, new crafty ideas, new funny photos...the list goes on. My favorite categories are DIY/Crafts (obviously), Recipes, and Kids. There are so many great ideas and so much inspiration all in one place it's almost overwhelming.

Here are some of my recent Pinterest favorites:

I love Star Wars humor.

This original idea was for storing scrapbook materials (stickers, specifically), but I think it would be great to use in the kitchen, to hold all of the recipe printouts that I've found on Pinterest. A Spinning Cookbook. Oh, I better copyright that. Spinning Cookbook © <-- and I totally just googled how to make that symbol. 

Baked Penne Pasta. I had this for dinner just last night and it was yummy! I made it ahead as part of my Freezer Cooking Plan last week; took it out of the freezer yesterday morning and baked it for dinner. I liked it, the kids liked it, we'll be having it again!

So, that's what I've been pinning. What have you found lately?

A Day in the Life of a Working Mommy

My typical weekday looks a little something like this:

• 4:30am: Husband's alarm goes off; he's out the door in 15 minutes flat.
• 6:30am: Alarm goes off
• 6:39am: Snooze alarm goes off
• 6:45am: Feet hit the floor, and I'm up and running...or, sort of.
• 6:50am: Jump in the shower before the 2-year old wakes up, otherwise forget the shower
• 7:00am: Out of the shower, waking up children
• 7:05am: Getting dressed, waking up children
• 7:15am: Argue with 5-year old about wardrobe selections while trying to convince 2-year old to get a diaper change and get dressed.
• 7:30am: Tracking down shoes, while feeding dog, letting dog out and hopefully back in, getting snacks, juice boxes, and mommy-juice (aka coffee)
• 7:45am: Out the door, in the car
• 7:55am: Drop 2-year old off at school, try to avoid altercations in the super-tiny parking lot
• 7:58am: Convince 5-year old that Mommy's tired of the Backyardigans cd, listen to something else.
• 8:20am: Drop off 5-year old at different school
• 8:30-8:45am: In the office.
• 8:50am: Rest, enjoy the peace and quiet of the early morning office and coffee.
• 9:00am: Work, work, work.
• 6:00pm: Out of office, in the car
• 6:20pm: Pick up 5-year old from school
• 6:25pm: Car snacks and discussion of the day with 5-year old
• 6:45pm: Home
• 6:46pm: Routine tackle-hugs by 2-year old
• 7:00pm: Dinner (on a good day)
• 7:15pm: Convince children vegetables are necessary, and that we can't always have chicken nuggets (daily battle)
• 7:55pm: Cleanup
• 8:00pm: Kids Bath/Jammies/Cuddles/Storytime
• 8:30pm: Bedtime
• 8:35pm: Mommy/Daddy TV/blogging/crafting time
• 10:00pm: Off to bed to start all over again in the morning

Wow. I've never written it all out before Scary stuff. I'm fortunate in that I have a very flexible employer where I don't have to dress professionally everyday. If I had to fit in trips to the dry cleaner or finding matching heels and stockings everyday, I'd be in serious trouble.

What's your day like?

The Ultimate Blog Challenge - Again

I've kind of gotten bad about blogging in the last couple of months, so I decided to challenge myself to keep up with things a little better. I enjoy writing, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside lately as I keep adding things to my neverending to-do list. So, for the month of October, I've joined the Ultimate Blog Challenge - 31 days of blogging, or one post everyday. If you've been following along, you may remember that I've done this once before, back in April. I didn't quite make the 31 posts in 31 days, but I was pretty darn close. This time around, my goal is to make it all the way. I know I can do it!

I do have some plans to try to keep it interesting around here: Freezer Cooking Fridays is one new series I've started. Take a look at the first post in the series and you'll see what I'm talking about. I've also started Typography Tuesdays recently. It's fun to have a day of the week tied in with specific posts. It makes it kind of easy to figure out what to write about! The first post was done on a Thursday, but it will be moving to Tuesdays starting this week. Stay tuned!

There will also be product updates, what's new in my shop, recipes, and tutorials posted over the next month, so please check back and see what I'm up to!