really

i am a mommy who works full time outside the home (in addition to my full time mommy job) and sometimes i just don't realize my own limitations.  in an effort to be more healthy and frugal i tempted to make my own tortillas tonight.  um ....really?  i maybe need to think that one out a little bit more.  not saying i won't ever try again, but tonight was definetly not the night to try.

Easiest Lasagna Ever

The name of this recipe is Easiest Lasagna Ever, and it truly is.

You need:

1 lb Hamburger
8 oz lasagna noodles
28 oz jar of spaghetti sauce
1 1/2 c of cottage cheese
8 oz shredded Mozzarella cheese
onion
green pepper

Boil the lasagna noodles until tender.  Brown and drain hamburger.  Add cottage cheese and spaghetti sacue to hamburger.  Add onion and green pepper for taste.  Layer meat sauce and lasagna noodles beginning and ending with sauce in a 9 x 13 dish.  approximately 4 big spoonfuls of sauce per layer and 3 noodle strips.  Sprinkle shredded cheese over top.  bake at 350 for one hour.  (anyone who knows me, will know this recipe is not an original but is from a cookbook )

super simple, super good. 

i made this recipe this week and i used  this.  my family didn't even notice and they raved how good it was.  i also used the no cook lasagna noodles and they seemed to work well, other than getting a little crusty on the outside. 

enjoy!

PS...we've made a ton of progress on our project that i mentioned a couple weeks ago, hopefully some before and after shots coming in the next couple of weeks.

time flies

what is that old saying...time flies when you're having fun.  well we must be having a ton of fun. 

some pictures to catch you up on our happenings. 

reunion with my college roommates.  so fun.  these are girls who i really don't get to see or spend much time with.  after many years, we picked up where we left off.  love them and thankful to have them in my life.

no picture but i got to meet sweet baby mcclellan.  oh my precious, absolutely precious.

mini golf

bowling

a trip to independence

i love this picture of charlie and grandma pete.  they were doing crafts together. 

Post without pictures

Here I am sitting in a starbucks. I should be working but I’m locked out of my house, I don’t have an aircard, can't access the wifi so i wrote this post.  good news however is that i got in and out of the DMV within 10 minutes on the last day of the month, thank you very much.

the boys are in Arkansas this week. i met Martha Monday in Joplin. Funny how when I drove it didn’t seem that bad of a drive, not as bad as when I’m the passenger. I diddle dawdled around getting home venturing off to flea markets and antique stores. It was fun. My favorite stop was the first one, which was a flea market in Larimor, mo. It had some interesting stuff, nothing I couldn’t live with out, but still interesting.

This week has been quiet, very very quiet without the boys. I wonder if this is what life will be like when the boys leave home. Jay does his thing, I do mine. Jay and I had big plans to get some projects done. Here it is Wednesday and no progress on projects thus far. Perhaps tonight will be the night. I would love to get our living room painted. Extra bonus would be the entryway but definitely the living room. Good news I guess is we have two more nights.

I’m taking a weeks vacation next week. Can I tell you that I don’t remember the last time I took a whole week off. I’m happy just to be off and we really don’t have plans, which will drive me crazy b/c the boys will ask what are we doing today until I go bonkers. Perhaps I should reference the summer list and build my plan from there.

Do you ever have the sense that you are on the verge of a change, a shift? I do. For the last couple of weeks I’ve felt like I’m teetering… I know the change is Charlie going to kindergarten. For the first time, the boys will be in the same place, same schedule, same start time. Of course we’ll be losing our daycare costs, the first time in 11 years that we won’t be paying for daycare. It will be the first time in 6 years that I won’t be going to presentation everyday. That piece makes me kind of sad. I know it’s a very little change (not emotionally though) but it feels like it’s going to be huge.

I need an intervention. My diet and lack of exercise has gotten almost to the point of out of control. My I pod was stolen last week. Damn punks. They stole it from my car sitting in my driveway….ugghhh…ok, I will admit I was not very smart to leave my car unlocked, but I do not live in the hood. Come on people. Hopefully a good lesson for mac that when he’s a teenager and his friends suggest doing something like that, he’ll be like oh hell no. not that I think mac hangs out with the kind of kids that would think about stealing from someone’s car, you know they just might think of it as a prank. You know what I mean? So the whole point of that was running without my ipod sucks so lacking motivation there and well heck its summer, ice cream becomes one of the staples of the food pyramid in the summer…you know it has its own category. Plus life and work are stressful now…recognizing that these are all excuses.

I should rap this bad boy up. Thanks for reading my ramblings.  With that I’m out. Wish me luck in making progress on our projects.

signs of summer

Beauty

hot afternoons with  a good book and ice cold diet pepsi from qt

sunkissed cheeks

adventures

water play

home grown tomatoes from our very own garden

night at the K

before beginning this post, it's important to note that i have boycotted the royals.  i'm unwilling to support an owner that continues to put a bad product on the market.  that being said my place of employment was giving away free tickets and knowing that my boys love baseball  and are impartial to the royals, i decided to bite the bullet and take the to the game.  i thought this would be a family adventure, but jay was out of town for work so wasn't able to join us.

that afternoon we had a downpour, so the first thing charlie asked when i picked him up is if the game was cancelled.   i wish i could have captured his face when i said no, the game was still on.

we opted to hit the mcdonald's drive through on our way to the ball park.  this is important to note because mac opted to try a big mac and loved it.  mac has always been picky picky picky so the fact that he would have a hamburger that had lettuce and thousand island dressing was pretty big.  picture to document the event. 

the game was fun.  the boys were so good and the royals actually won.  sluggerr came to our row, i don't think i've ever  been that close to him and charlie didn't really like being that close. 

i need a title here

weekend has been spent at a basketball tournament.  it ended up the boys were playing up, which meant they were playing boys that had been in 5th grade and going into 6th grade.  let me tell you it was like david v goliath.  yet, they played hard, aggressive...so proud of them.  (note...we played our last game this afternoon and those boys almost beat the other team...they played so hard, so good.  we were so proud of them all.)

nana came to visit and watch the basketball games

mac and i had a date night on thursday, when we ventured out to find new basketball shoes.  we had a lot of fun and only reiterated that i need to do that more.  spend one on one time with the boys.

this boy loves new shoes...

as we were driving home, this song on the radio that was from my high school/college days.  mac kept asking me to change the station.  i said this is a great song, his reply "maybe in your day it was the bomb, but not so much anymore." (note...after watching the video, i'm feeling very old)

we had lots of rain this weekend and luckily i had a new book.  started and finshed this one.  it was good, not great but good. 

feeling sad that another weekend is yet again winding down.  already looking forward to next weekend. :)