Go, Go...Gettin' it Done

My God-mother posted & shared this one Facebook yesterday, and I wanted to share it too...plus a few extra ideas.  This looks like an incredible way to organize household chores & 'to-do' lists.  Thanks Bakerette!  She has lots of cool stuff on her site, too.

Other ideas I have are:

1.  ALL YOU-At least two Friday's & Sunday's a month on the FREE days, carve out an hour or so to work on 'your' projects like; scrap booking, crafts, hobbies, a special hike, or anything you LOVE to do!  Make the time for yourself.

2.  MONTH Up & Comings-First Friday of the month-glance ahead on your calendar for any birthdays, celebrations or events you have upcoming for the month.  Write out your list of ingredients, plans, or 'to-get's.  If you're mailing cards, take a moment to sit down & write your correspondence, address, & put a stamp on so it's ready to go. (November is a great time for Get-It- Done Friday's.  Work on Christmas plans, gifts, cards, or other items to make,  wrap & get ready to send snail mail if that's your choice.)

3.  DIY days-At least two Friday's, Saturday's or Sunday's a month plan for one of your household projects to get done.  If you've wanted to paint a room-take the time on one of those days, seen some neat ideas on Pinterest-try you're hand at it or any other DIY project.  You'll have a WHOLE new home or space to enjoy & be proud you got it done!

4.  RECRUIT-If you have children, recruit them to help do these chores on some of these days. They can take out the garbage, dust, clean toilets, put away their laundry-gauge it for their age (big & little) but there's plenty of ways to work together as a family team!

Smokin' socks

This is the last time any one will see these.  It breaks my heart!  They've been a part of our family, covered 40 of the most precious toes, and lived in the depths of my war-torn laundry basket.   Ha-Ha!  So Long Socks!

Am I truly sorry to see you go? NO! I've been carting you around trying to find your match for months-with no success.  Somewhere in the deep dark depths of the washing machine world there is a void.  A large deep, soft and fluffy void of socks.  I don't know where this 'sock void world' is or how so many of my family's socks end up there, but apparently it's a great place for socks to go for a permanent vacation and most likely find their one true match.  While they do this they leave us mom-type-folks hanging onto threads, literally holding their knitted together existence in our hands ravenously trying to find their match.  So, so very unfair! 

My remedy for this came when I was pregnant with our fourth child (horomones run amok), and it's proved extremely therapeutic. Campfire anyone?  Preferably in our wood burning stove! Bwa-ha-ha! Did you get the hint of sinister laugh!

Throw them all in the the wood burning stove, grab your favorite fire starter, and BAM...you have yourself some smokin' socks.  They go out in a blaze of glory! Thank you socks-be gone, be ash, be out of my laundry basket.  This simple act of fire is extremely freeing.  No more digging through the trash (when you do finally throw the mismatch in there) anticipating the next laundry load in the dryer will have it's match, thinking you could knot them together for another dog toy or making yet one more dust rag.  I mean really...that's why we have cats for our dogs and who needs one more dust rag?  Not I.

So long smokon' socks!  Off to the softer sock place in the sock world sky.

Zikes...the Zukes of the Garden!

If I was a zucchini, I'd be happily flourishing in my garden!  Yee-Ha!  I'd be basking in the afternoon sun and enjoying the cool of the early morning and night with my neighbors squash, cucumber, pumpkin and onions. Most of all I would eagerly anticipate four excited children lifting my oversized leaves to find the hidden treasure of my green growth. How fun it would be to be a zucchini?!  Something to ponder...

I don't have a natural green-thumb, but I'm slowly learning how to grow and produce some bountiful crops.  My zucchini's are the first to really sprout and grow!  There's so much you can do with zucchini: grate it for breads, can it for cold winter days, make soups and freeze, or slice and bake it with a little butter, garlic salt and Parmesan cheese on top.  My family loves to do this.  We toss them on the grill as well...so good!

I wanted to share one of my favorite Zucchini Bread recipe's:
3 eggs
2 C. sugar
1 C. vegetable oil/substitute with 1/2 applesauce if you'd like
1 tsp. vanilla
2 C. grated zucchini
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
3 C. flour
Chocolate chips; semi-sweet or milk chocolate to taste.  I usually toss in a heaping handful or so.

Beat eggs, add sugar and oil; mix well. Blend in the remaining ingredients.  Grease two loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.  I like to start checking my breads at around 35 minutes in the oven.  I also like to make mini-loafs.  Those only take about 30-35 minutes.

You could add craisins, walnuts, white chocolate chips, or drizzle chocolate across the top as well for a 'little flair for the gourmet' and to make it look pretty. If you want to drizzle the chocolate over the top simply melt the chocolate in the microwave with a little oil. Then drizzle it on top.

I find zucchini can be a little 'extra' wet, so I pat it down with paper towels after I grate it, and let it air dry a bit before I add it to my bread. (My unscientific method for not making bread as heavy as a brick that my husband could use on one of his houses.)

Also, here's a couple other Zucchini sites hosting lots of different and useful ideas.

All sorts of Zucchini Recipes-Yum!

Zucchini Brownies

Zucchini Canning Recipes
 

Ziploc Omelets

So this is an awesome way to make omelets for those of us who make 'egg-stra' special disasters when attempting to make omelets in their traditional form.

1.Just grab a Ziploc bag. Write your name on if you're making multiple. 
I like to put it in a mixing bowl, just makes it easier to work with.

2.Start your pot of water boiling.

3.Toss 2 eggs into your Ziploc
4. Add a splash of milk
5. Plop in your favorite meat or veggies
6. Throw in a handful of cheese-any kind you like
7. Dash a little Salt & Pepper on top
8. Extra spices like red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper for a zzzest
9. Seal up the Ziploc
10. Squish up all the ingredients in the bag. Great for kids to mush!
11. Grab your tongs
12. Drop Ziploc bag 'carefully' in pot of boiling water with tongs
13. Let your concoction boil for about 12 minutes until the eggs don't look runny
14. Once cooked, pull out your gourmet omelet, carefully with tongs
15. Cut off the top of the Ziploc and roll the omelet onto your plate

 16. Garnish with green onions, peppers or whatever you're taste buds crave

ENJOY!

M & M's to the rescue

We had a world-wind trip to Yakima, Washington this weekend for a very meaningful Family Reunion.  It was lots of fun to see, meet and put faces and names together on my husband's paternal side of the family.  It was, however, a creative trip with four children in the car for a full 24 hours (round trip).  On the way there we borrowed a friends Mi-Fi jet pack.  Thanks to the GOOD Lord!  So it allowed the boys to watch Net Flix on their I-Pads and play games.  Our littlest one was done with our trip on about hour 6.5.  So a little screaming occurred, but we got through it.  We just had to turn up the 80's hair band rock and roll I downloaded on my I-pod, and put the pedal down.  I actually had to hold on to the little handles by the window and duck behind my sunglasses to survive my husband's road rage and speedy driving...but that's a whole other story.

Our trip home was a tad different.  I realized my error in  re-charging some of our techo gadgets-about 2.5 seconds into my husband accelerating onto the highway.  Even though I had spent a small fortune on all the various 12 volt adapters, converters, and plug-in galore, there's always something missing.  I have yet to figure out what that 'missing' thing was to make everything function properly, but most importantly it's what I did find-a packet of M & M's.  The boys had a great opportunity to count trees-my idea (they finally rounded up to several million), semi's and look at nature when their 2% charged techno gadgets failed them, but it wasn't as easy for our one year old.  Hence out comes the M & M's.

It's amazing how two small bags of chocolate filled bliss can instanteously stop screaming, creates great entertainment even fills the gaps in a hungry tummy.  What more could you ask for?  Therefore I made those two bags last 12 hours.  Needless to say she was amped up on sugar until about midnight the night we arrived home, but eh-it worked for the car.  M & M's to the rescue!

I have to be honest.  It's not the first time M & M's have come to my rescue.  One blustery winter day in December of 2006 I had a two and a half and one year old.  While desperately trying to wrap Christmas gifts and get them in the mail, my little guys were just simply bored and into everything.  I was finally to my whits end.  I was getting nothing accomplished and had been rolling like that for days.  And then I saw it...the brown bag illuminated itself on our rough-sawn log table my husband made.  It glistened as an answer to prayer....M & M's!

In slow motion I ripped a small opening in the bag's corner.  Walked over to the center of our cozy living room and pulled the bag's corner with vigor! Plop..plop..plop...sploosh! All the  M & M's, of a three pound bag, cascaded to the floor.  Perfect!  "Here you go boys," I called.  "Have fun!"  They dove on them like ants on a picnic.  Their cheeks looked like squirrels packing acorns in for the winter. Their eyes were large and round watching my every move-wondering when I might change my mind on the whole thing.  But I had no intention to, it was 20 minutes of solid entertainment for them and I got Christmas 'to do's' 'to done'!  When I've mentioned this story to some folks their eyes get big and ask if the boys got sick.  Unfortunately at the time, I never even thought of them becoming ill.  I was totally in my momentary trance of complete self gratification in actually getting something accomplished
.  Horrible I know, but honest.  They didn't get sick, just for the record.  M & M's to the rescue!

Blogging Deliquent

As my words want to burst through my fingertips, I have to admit...I am a TRUE blogging delinquent.  Cardinal rule for blogging..."if you can't keep up on it, don't do it".  Well apparently that's been the fact since April.  Now-to my thought processes' credit, I didn't think I was 'that' far off, because I have so many things I 'mean' to post on my blog.  So moving forward from tax season, six weeks of traveling for little league, end of school CrAzInEsS, four summer birthday's, summer camps, 4-H fair, 22 animals, four kids, a construction company, a weekly column, camping in our Awesome mountains, a garden-which is actually producing edible products, tonsils out for one kido, a rapidly approaching family reunion, school closing in-deep breath, oh and throw in about 100 loads laundry, meals, four children and a husband...but moving forward it's all good 'cause that's the beauty of the summer and writing for your own blog! Yee-Haa!

One a side note besides being a blogging delinquent...here's a picture of one of our lucky hens.  She flitted, fluttered, and fluffed herself farther from the coop than usual.  And why is it she's lucky?  Well, she's 'lucky' our Corgi didn't ring her scrawny, crooked chicken neck.  See...he's gotten a hankerin' for chicken, and because of his taste buds we're down to two hens.  Now to remedy his eating disorder we've been told to tie a dead chicken around his neck and let it hang there until there's nothing left.  I for one couldn't see how that would be beneficial; a. he'd probably continue gnawing on the dead chicken, b. it would probably make him mad-der and he'd want to kill more, c. it's just a plain ol' disgustingly nasty idea. 

So in my illustrious wisdom, I decided to borrow a remote shock collar.  My friend said if you're going to shock 'em, may as well make it count.  So I turned it on high, and waited.  I snuck around our farm with the remote tucked in my pocket like an FBI agent searching out a thief.  I was anticipating just the right moment to ZAP him without his knowledge of me being the Zapper, but I waited. And then I waited, and waited...oh did I say I waited for DAYS.  Did he ever come close the our last remaining chickens?  Never. 

Well it came time for me to give up on using the collar.  It had been on about a week.  When I reached for him, and unhooked the collar's latch a vile stench came from his neck. I peeled the collar away from his skin.  Fur, pus, and infected liquid from his neck overwhelmed my senses.  After a moment of pure disgust, I felt his neck, pulled fur back for a serious look and was immediately nervous.  It looked a dog vampire had attacked him.  The two shock prongs were longer than our perimeter collar we used on him as a pup.  I didn't give it a second thought when I put the remote collar on him.  I wish I had.  The prongs had dug deep into his neck, and it was badly infected.  I felt horrible!  He had shown no signs of discomfort.  He is always in tow of myself and our children, and it's not like he's isolated.  He's with us all the time! I immediately called my vet, and got him in within the hour. 

Thankfully it looked worse than it was.  His infection was serious, and once she shaved around the area I could actually see the damage.  But he didn't require tubes inserted in his neck to drain the fluid. It was extremely swollen, red, and pus still oozed from the vampire marks.  Our vet told us she's had to euthanize dogs because the remote collars spin around and get lodged at the base of the neck and spine because they're on too long, some infections have been so bad-it killed dogs, and one dog had gone missing for several days wearing a remote collar and was hung up on a fence.  When the owners found it, the dog was alive, but barely.

So my chicken eating dog.  Oh my chicken eating dog.  What to do about a chicken eating dog?  NOTHING!  Buy more chickens!  And build a better fence!  I could have bought 50 more chickens at $2.99 each for the price of the vet visit.  Which I'm not complaining about the vet bill.  I'm so glad she was able to help our little corgi and that's just what it costs.  I totally understand!  And would gladly pay it two-fold again if need be.  But I would've saved him the pain and suffering of the whole darn thing!  Let alone the guilt on my part!

So moral of my story...
1. Think twice about free range chickens if you have dogs,
and tying a dead chicken around your dogs neck.
2. ALWAYS remove a remote shock collar after using it with your dogs
3. Can't fault a dog for having a hankerin' for chicken!

Until next time,
The Delinquent Blogger