What's For Dinner: Black Olive Stuffed Crust Pizza

My husband was away for work last night. So, I splurged and ordered a pizza loaded with black olives from Pizza Hut because the kids and I love it. So, now you know what's for lunch today too. I love cold stuffed crust pizza.

What's For Dinner: Coffee Cake & Cheese Omelets

We are lacking in the veggies right now I know!

But, I have sour cream to use up and an urge to bake. Bisquick to the rescue.

What's For Dinner: Comfort Food Night- Beans and Weenies

This rainy day calls for some serious comfort food. I'm boiling veggie dogs and making a little pot of quickie baked beans. For dessert we have bananas and a few cookies.

What's For Dinner: Soup and Muffins

This is a clean out the pantry dinner. Tonight we're trying a instant noodle soup packet I bought at the ethnic grocer some time ago. We've had good luck with this brand before.
To make it more hearty and healthy I added a container of Trader Joe tofu and the rest of the Aldi Normandy veggies from last night's dinner.
We're rounding out the meal with lemon poppy seed muffins (another pantry clean out find) and leftover fruit salad.

What's For Dinner: "Meat"loaf, real mashed potatoes, and Normandy vegetables

I just didn't feel like another night of pizza or take out. In lieu of the bread crumbs I couldn't find in our pantry I am trying oats. If it works I think next time I'll try following the Quaker Oats recipe (using tvp/veggie crumbles of course).


For dessert we're having leftover Easter candy if the kids bother to even ask for a sweet.

Leave a Message at the Beep.

Wow have I been preoccupied. You should see my answering machine messages- 24 blinking messages. Don't worry though, I scanned to see if anything was important.

I'm at a crossroads here and something has gotta change soon. My youngest will be in Kindergarten in the fall and it has me realigning my whole perspective on what my role is/should be now.
And I'm torn with thoughts of wondering whether it has been worth it to be out of the work force for ten years so my kids wouldn't be in day care. I'm nervous at the idea of trying to find another job with a serious time lapse in my resume. Who am I and what am I good for? Should I go back to school? Should I stay home because we can afford it? How come I'm really starting to hate my house and want to move?


When I went away to college at 18 I thought I was going to be a poet. I don't remember the last poem I wrote. I don't even know if I like poetry anymore. It seems frivolous when I'm thinking about the load of laundry in the dryer, the weeds in the garden, the stains on the carpet, when I have to pick up kids from school, and when our next dentist appointment will be. Nothing in my life seems poetic anymore. Who wants to read a poem about matching socks together or scrubbing out the sticky stuff from the sink?

I am blessed beyond measure and reason and yet when I think of that hopeful, shiny faced teenager that I was, I wonder how proud I would be of whom I've become.
This is a small part of the inner turmoil that's been going on in there.

Couponicus Says-

I've been watching snippets of TLC's Extreme Couponing show. It has certainly helped reignite an interest in my coupon usage. Plus, my Mom has a little habit of trolling the local recycling bins looking for unused inserts which is nice since I don't subscribe to the paper anymore.

Other than a few coupons for free items I've gotten for "liking" things on facebook, I don't have any major savings victories to share. My take on couponing will never be what you call extreme or coupon queen. I like to get things we'll actually use for as cheaply as possible without straining myself to do so. When I am a casual coupon user I typically save between $4-8 with coupons.
I think that's because I also tend to buy generics and dent and ding items that do not have coupons.

The Extreme Couponers on the TLC show sometimes have mountains of the same item that they've gotten for pennies on the dollar. But, I don't see victory there. I see waste, compulsion and hoarding. If your family can't use up an item before it expires then please donate your extras to a local charity. It's so much better than having all that stuff end up in the land fill because it expired.

Our family is not large so I see no need to have a basement filled with items that will expire before we can use them. I like to have a back up of two or three extra items. Of course, that's not always been the case. I still have multiple cans of frosting and beans in the basement that are nearing the end of their lives. We've been baking a lot of cake and eating a lot of beans lately. I don't really want to stockpile like that again unless food scarcity (or price) becomes a big issue.

I also really don't want to pay for coupons anymore. If I can't find them free or print them I really don't want to mess with them. Thus, I will never be a reigning coupon queen.

Happy Birthday To My Husband!

This woman knows she's blessed with an excellent life partner. I couldn't ask for a better husband or father for my children.

We've got a nice pile of presents for him to unwrap. I don't think he'll mind that my daughter chose an Aldi advertisement and an old scrap of wedding paper for wrapping paper.

Hopefully the "sausage" gravy I have to make with powdered milk and tvp will be palatable too.
This is my first year attempting to make my own coconut pecan frosting too. Can you really mess up homemade frosting though? Fat and sugar, so what's not to like?
I've got groupon coupons set aside for lunch/dinner too.

Happy Birthday, Sugar! I see Monty Python and video games in your future.