It's Not Dominos But It'll Do

Text from S4J to Hubby in the barn: Oven baked sandwich from Dominos?
Hubby's response as he walks in the door: No
Text from S4J to Hubby across the living room: So, no oven baked sandwich from Dominos?

I am starving! And I want an oven baked sandwich from Dominos. Greasy, melty, cheesy, bacony, crispy, clog your arteries but you can't care because you're so happy goodness.

What's a girl still in her pajamas to do when her Husband refuses to retrieve her heart's desire for her? Fend for herself I guess.

This horrible craving is relentless in its pursuit of my tastebuds. I must have garlicy flavor. NOW.
You may already know this, but I am not a cook. I am perfectly capable of cooking and can make a good meal, but I have no love of the art form. I don't enjoy the process or the clean up. In fact, food usually tastes better to me when someone else has cooked it. And when people talk of how they made this wonderful meal from scratch and it was such an enjoyable experience, I'm sure I look at them like they are aliens. Poor aliens.

Today, for lunch, in the grips of intense craving, yet unwilling to go out for myself to retrieve lunch(I'm in my pajamas) I had to do that very thing; provide myself a meal from scratch using only the ingredients we had on hand (pajamas, pajamas - stay with me here.)

I made myself a fantastic meal. I had wheat spaghetti noodles boiled in chicken broth, cajun seasoning and garlic salt. Slathered them with I Can't Believe It's Not butter and grated parmesan cheese. Like Jenster, I forgot to take a picture before I ate it. Well, okay Jenster just takes one bite and then remembers. I was just.so.hungry.

I pulled a loaf of some sort of fancy italian bread that I had gotten on the sale rack at W*mart out of the freezer. I thawed it, then sliced two chunks from it, applied ICBINB, garlic salt, and parmesan cheese which I cooked in a pan with roasted minced onion and finally melted some mozzarella string cheese on the top. Served that with my version of bruschetta with the first harvested tomato of the season from our garden.




That was a super delicious lunch! Made from scratch. By me. AND I have enough noodles left for lunch tomorrow. It wasn't Dominos, but it'll do.

Hubby redeemed himself by running down to the corner to get me a diet coke.

Then my daughter asked, "Why didn't you just have Dominos deliver?" She's grounded.

Adventures In Letterboxing

Guess what??!!?? I finally had that good Mommy day! The twins had their first letterboxing adventure and it was a great success. (If you do not know what letterboxing is, read on. If you DO know, you can skip down to the row of # signs; Letterboxing is an outdoor hobby that combines elements of orienteering, art and puzzle solving. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites, or by word of mouth. Individual letterboxes usually contain a notebook and a rubber stamp. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp, either on their personal notebook or on a postcard, and leave an impression of their personal stamp on the letterbox's "visitors' book" or "logbook" — as proof of having found the box and letting subsequent letterboxers see who have visited. )

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We also took my friend A on her maiden voyage with letterboxing. Our clues led us to a bird sanctuary in Texas. I didn't see any birds, but I did see a rabbit. And children. Children on a field trip. I made it out okay.

Our adventure took us over bridges and paths



to this tree stump




we were instructed by our thoughtful cluegiver to remember to poke the area with a stick and to even wear gloves before searching around with our hands to find the box in the event that there were snakes or spiders also searching for the treasure.



It was looking a little bleak until A saved the day and found the box! The red areas look to be attempts at entry by wild animals..





Then my son removed the lid to inspect the contents and bunches of bugs proceeded out the top. What happened next is a bit of a blur, but I am certain there was a high-pitched scream coming out of my son. Then I saw this...


Did you notice my daughter wielding the 'sword' at the docile container on the ground?? The notebook and stamp were safely in its water-tight bag. No harm no foul. We all happily stamped in the notebook and used the stamp provided to stamp in our journals, made certain that the container was devoid of all life forms, and then A stealthily and successfully returned the box to its hiding place to be found and treasured another day. All agreed it was an enjoyable activity and would like to do another in the future. *sigh*

For Real?

I have just as much going on as ever. I noticed this moment however, that I am just not sitting down to write about it. (Also not sitting down to do much reading.) I really enjoy the medium of blogging for relieving my brain of my thoughts, and also to keep people up to date on what's going on with our world. So - it seems that sometimes I just need to be more intentional about it. Which is the case with a lot of things in my life. I'm certain I am not the only one. There are only 24 hours in a day - you can't change that so you have to choose how you would like to use them. Anyway.... maybe I'll write more about that later. Right now, I wanted to tell you about this cow....





We are continuing the renovations in our home (no I have not forgotten to give the final reveal of the master - I am just still working on making it swanky) and the current major work has been taking our 13 year old daughter's room down to the studs, reconfiguring, rewiring and rebuilding to beauty and ever so cute teenager domicileness. My daughter is a saver of things. Like; everything. Empty rolls from papertowels. Shoe boxes. Things, things and more things. No clue where she gets that from. "PURGE IT" is what I always say.

Anyway....

The rule is that nothing is going back into that room if it does not have a place to be. I mean NOTHING. And there were a few things that went straight into a box labeled, "Not even if it has a place!" The cow was one of those items. It's atrocious. It is a bank. And as you can notice, the giant hole next to the giant purple udders is missing its plug. Therefore it can't even be functional. It's just a blight on my view.




My daughter noticed the cow in the, "No way on God's green earth" box and promptly proceeded to make a case for it. Really? For real? I tried to talk with her about how really and truly ugly it is. Unphased. How she couldn't possibly care for it as much as she thinks because she didn't use it for anything. Unphased. How the fact that it has 2 inches of dust on it tells me that she really doesn't love it at all (yes those are dust streaks from the cow on the table). Unphased. She is certain that this cow must remain in her room. She has promised that she WILL give it a prominent place of display and she WILL keep it clean.

What's a mom to do? The cow stays. However, the girl has been informed that the first time I swipe dust off it, it goes straight to the trash. Not.even.a.yardsale.

God help her future husband.

Whoa Nelly!

I have 1900 unread posts in my Bloglines! And I just wrote you a whole update post about what I have been doing that has been borrowing my time. But I got ADD and left the page without saving. So BOOOO, the whole post is gone!

I've been working quite a bit and will leave you with a new pic. I'll try again to write soon.

copyright Sing 4 Joy Photography 2009

Into The Light - Organizer Extraordanaire

I LOVE to organize. I find beauty in organized things and comfort in knowing where to find something when it is needed.

So it is with consternation that I admit to you today that I HATE putting things away. I really want to just wiggle my nose and have things BE in their perfectly labeled places. I think this is partially why I have been feeling so overwhelmed by stuff. There is always something that has to be put away. Like all.the.time. Even for an organizing obsesser like me this can become a sheer battle of will. I want to win the battle. Also, I don't want to become completely crazy and get freaked out every time there is junk mail in my mail box or a stack of school papers that the kids have brought home.

The good news is that God is a god of order. Which means I am not left to my own devices, and I do not need to be crazy afraid of being overtaken by stuff. An example of this can be found in Numbers Chapter 2 where He lays out the entire plan of how the camping was to go down, who would be placed where and in what order. If the God of the universe took the time to help the Israelites get and stay organized, He will help me too.

And now...brought to you by the Old Testament book of Numbers AND Woman's Day July 2009 Issue....



I really liked this suggestion and will now share it with you, all my millions of readers...

"file it right. We really only need about 20% of the papers we file. Here's Lillard's method for weeding things out: Every time you retrieve a file, put it away in the front of your filing drawer. At the end of the year, the most frequently used files will end up in the front, and the ones you never look at will be in the back. Give those hidden ones a quick once-over and toss whatever is unnecessary."

It's Not Just For Swine Flu

Photo courtesy of SupplyLineDirect


Not only does this product help stop the spread of the dreaded swine flu h7ybn2 airborne communicable diseases, but do you know that you can hang around all day with your jaw wide open and no one will even know?! They'll just think you're either being productive or prophylactic.

Straight Up Hamper Scamper

Choose 5 picture frames and clean their glass. Inside AND out!

...and have lovely day.