Makeshift Mealtime

It's March 30-two days left until Tommie gets paid and we can go grocery shopping again.  We NEED to go grocery shopping.

I'm down to the wire with my meals, making the very basics work until we can do something a little fancier again.  Tonight, we had Zatarain's Jambalaya with some hamburger meat saved from last night's burgers.  It tasted delicious.  Tomorrow night I'm planning stir-fry with a veggie mix from Trader Joe's.  Finally, on Thursday, just in case we don't make it to the store that day, we'll have falafel with pitas.

These are some of my standby, freezer-type meals that can last and don't require too many ingredients to make them happen when we're in a small bind.  They are yummy, but that being said, I wouldn't mind spicing things up a bit.

Do you have any suggestions for delicious meals that take your family down-to-the-wire on your grocery money?

I'm looking forward to trying one of your recipes in the next two weeks and blogging about it...

Things That Make Me Ready for Spring...

Daffodils next to my mailbox

My Sweet Daughter continually asking to play outside

My Little Boy who stops crying immediately when brought outside

Little Feet in Little Flops with her chosen color of "black" toenail polish

$1 helium mylar flower balloons from Dollar Tree

Sun on my face

My neighbor's pretty pink flowers

Giraffey and Baby.

It's my pleasure to introduce you to Giraffey(photo-left) and Baby(photo-right).

They're important "people" at our house.

They sleep in Liliana's bed. They sometimes ride in the car. They make cross-country moves bearable.  They make vacation beds more familiar. They do not come into stores because we may lose them and may get accused of shoplifting them out of the store (at least that's what I tell Lili...the stains and matted fur would probably lend credence to our plea of innocence). They get hugs and kisses at nap time and bedtime and even occasionally practice going potty on the potty, though thankfully they never end up swimming in the potty.

I like them.  Truett is enthralled with Baby.  I think he can't quite figure out why Baby is the only person in our family who doesn't move...you should just see they way he looks into those little creepy doll eyes, waiting for them to move.  It's hysterical.

They're important people at our house because these two are important people at our house:

I thought you'd like to meet them.

Got any important "people" at your house?

Locking My Doors Extra Tight

We live in a great neighborhood.  I've told you, I think, that we even have the pleasure of living near some of our dear friends from church-the Coates Family.  They're so much fun and have a great sense of humor. I love them.

In fact, today, when I was driving home from Toddler Tuesdays at the Aquarium with the kids, I was pulling up to our neighborhood and had stopped to wait for some cars to pass before I made the left into our 'hood.  Well, I heard a honk behind me, and looked up to see Jimmy in a minivan behind me!  He was making such exaggerated gestures and faces that I had to laugh.  What a good sense of humor he has to be harassing me for being more cautious with the oncoming traffic than I maybe had to be.  So I turned around, made a face back and waited for the other two cars to pass.

Then, knowing he would appreciate it, I turned into our neighborhood as slowly as I could, looking at Jimmy behind me making faces the whole time.  As I turned and could see the driver window behind me, I looked to see if Jimmy was laughing as hard as I was.

That's when I saw a middle finger and a very mad face.

It wasn't Jimmy after all.

I had just assumed it was and hadn't much paid attention to actually "look look".  Haha.  SO, I made some other driver very angry. I then proceeded to pull in my driveway, come inside and lock my doors, just in case the angry driver was even angrier than their hands told me.

Oops! hahahahahah.  What a funny day already.

Passionately Passionate...

When you're a little kid (like me in the photo above)...you just do what you want to do.  In fact, really the only thing keeping you from doing what you want to do are your parents.

Then you keep getting older and everyone tells you to follow your passions and you start to realize that's harder than it sounds.  You start getting scared that maybe that's pretty hard and maybe you might not be able to for whatever reason and well, maybe you start thinking you don't even know what your passion is.

That last option is me.  I'm not sure I could tell you straight out what my "passion" is or what my longterm "goals" are.  Tommie asked me the other night what my goals for life are and I really had no answers other than "be a good wife, good mother, good sister, daughter and friend."  Those are great, but I think he meant personal accomplishment goals along the lines of completing a marathon, writing a novel, etc.  Ha.  So much for being a cooperative wife.

Anyway, I'm still trying to decide whether I want to find a concrete "passion" to pursue or to just continue to live adventurously as I pursue my goals of being the best person I can be in the relationships I'm in.

What do you think?  Do you have a concrete passion, and what is it?  How did you know what it was?  What are you doing to pursue your passion?  I could use some examples and some help thinking on this.

Thanks to my sister Brittany for inspiring yet another post...

So, the Dollar Tree...

Do you use Google Reader? I recently started to...it's a great way to check in on all of the blogs I follow without ever leaving the comfort of my cozy little gmail page. You should check into it. It's at the top left of your gmail homepage.

ANYWAY...

My sister-in-law, Brittany, shared an awesome blog with me via Google Reader. It's called Dollar Store Crafts. And, it's way better than you're thinking! For the most part the crafts are inspired by stores like Pottery Barn, Target, Anthroplogie, etc.(obviously there are some exceptions when you're working with a dollar.)

So inspiring are these crafts, that I made one already! These come from a crafter who shares her stuff with the DollarStoreCraft blog, but blogs more regularly here.

Check out my Easter-tastic Robin's Eggs:

This was the first batch I made. Here's the breakdown:

Blue and black acrylic paint-on hand, free

Styrofoam eggs, pack of 12(x2)-$2

Floral Moss-$1

Vase-$1

Not to bad! In fact, I liked them so much and had enough extra eggs, that I went back to the Dollar Tree and got another vase I liked. Also, this little yellow egg is how these robins' eggs started out. Here's the photo:

I want to be specific here though, these items are from the Dollar Tree, not any of the other dollar-type stores out there, I can't vouch for their goodness one way or the other. All I know is, my house has some super-cute Easter decor in it now thanks to this blog and the Dollar Tree!

I'm hooked and can't wait to see what inexpensive, easy, beautiful craft I make next. If you make any, post a link in my comments, I'd love to see!

p.s. If you're inspired to make more easter goodness that resembles the decor from Pottery Barn, check out "Dollar Barn Easter" in the following links: DBEpart1, DBEpart2, DBEpart3, DBEpart4, DBEpart5, DBEfinale -ENJOY!

Resisting....

This is me when Tommie and I first got married-probably a few months after. I got my hair cut short and LOVED LOVE LOVED it.

Now my hair is VERY long. I should take a picture with photo booth to show you, but....my hair is in a braid today cause I didn't take the time to do it!

Anyway, it's down to my shoulder blades and I want it just a little longer still. But I see pictures like this and almost call the hairdresser...

In other news, I'm off to Lynchburg today with my mom and the babies to see my sister, Kendra! Should be a blast! Tommie will hold down the fort with Maple and miss us so much he will do all of my chores and have dinner or lunch waiting for us when we get back on Saturday...(do you read my blog, Honey?)

When I get back, I'll show you my AMAZING DollarTree finds. I'm hooked!