These were taken the other day, but I’m just now getting them up.

I love this one!

Proud big brother

Me with C in the sling. It’s a real lifesaver. Usually C is covered up more, but he’s getting to where he likes to look out more. When we’re outside for very long though, I do cover him up so he won’t sunburn as quickly since he’s too young for sunblock.

This day is only half over and I’m thinking I should just go ahead and brew a pot of really strong coffee. Maybe if I put a lot of my favorite vanilla creamer in it that’d be even better. Or maybe I should just drink it black. . .

My day started with my annual doctor visit. Stephen is good – he renamed it my “annual invasion” appointment. Ha. I had lots of questions for the doctor about pcos and insulin resistance and the need (or not) for me to be back on the metformin. She’s sending me for a glucose tolerance test to determine if I’m still insulin resistant. I was surprised to find out that IR can improve or even go away with lifestyle changes like proper diet and exercise. I knew those things could help; I didn’t realize that there was a possibility that it could go away. So Friday I go for the test, and the results of that will determine my treatment. All I know for sure is that I felt really good after losing weight – because the pcos was under control for probably the first time in my life. I don’t want to go back to feeling as poorly as I was before that.

That does give me the motivation I needed to start cutting back in the carbs more. I think buying those cake, cookie, and brownie mixes at the triple coupon sale last week might have been a bad idea. Honestly though, letting S have a spoonful of chocolate frosting was a worse idea (I was eating some and thought I’d share). It made him more hyper much faster than I thought it would.

Which leads to lunchtime. I made tomato soup. Good thing I made it with milk. When S knocked his almost full mug of it off the table, it splattered pinkish-orange goo all over the beige carpet instead of splattering red stuff. And he spilled the soup right as I was starting to tell him not to play at the table. Oh well. But I’m kicking myself for letting him have that frosting.

So I go to clean it up and discover that the soup has gotten inside the booster seat. I dumped the seat in the shower to rinse it off and go back to scrubbing the carpet. Right as I’m finished, I pick up the pan of soapy water. . . and dump it right back on the floor. The pan was flimsier than I thought.

I needed to vacuum under the table before tonight’s lesson, but it’ll have to wait until the floor dries out a little. I don’t want to ruin my vacuum. The floor really is that wet. Hopefully I can get to it before lessons.

Oh – I didn’t mention that little C isn’t feeling all that well. Poor guy is really congested. So much so that if he cries very hard, he snorts because he can’t breathe. We’ll be stopping at the store for some saline drops when we go out to get the sitter later this afternoon. I feel so badly for him because you can just tell that he doesn’t feel well. And as a result, he wants to be held all the time.

So yeah, that’s been my morning. I had planned on getting more things done around the house today, like dishes and laundry, but it’s looking like those will have to wait a bit. Maybe C will nap long enough later

Now, about that coffee. . .

Since we’re working Dave Ramsey style to pay off debt (and be debt free forever – I cannot wait!), I was looking around the other day to try and find a debt snowball calculator. I’m fairly good at math but don’t know how to calculate the total properly including interest, so I looked for something where I could just type in numbers.

It was eye-opening to see when things will be paid off if we continue paying exactly what we pay now. It was also fun to play with the numbers to see how much extra we could pay a month to get the total paid off sooner.

Stephen got a raise a few weeks ago. We’ve been living uber-frugally for so long – out of necessity. But now, seeing dates and numbers, it gives me good reason to keep living as frugally as we can so we can get things paid off sooner. Why loosen up now when we can relax for good later?

So anyway, here’s the link.

Snowball Debt Calculator

Last night I realized something. I have the weirdest nicknames for my boys.

I have called S Sweet Pea for ages. That seems like a nickname for a girl, but I’ve called him that ever since he was tiny. Now though, it’s been shortened to Pea.

I’ve been calling C String Bean. The swaddle blanket we use is green, and he looks like a little string bean all wrapped up in it.

Pea and Bean. What’s next? If we have another some day, am I going to call our next child Pepper?

Stephanie asked for our recipe for wheat buttermilk biscuits. This is Stephen’s recipe. He makes much better biscuits than I do. Even if I follow the same recipe, they never turn out as good as his.

Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup buttermilk

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut in shortening until crumbs are the size of peas. Add buttermilk and mix just until moistened. Turn onto floured table or countertop and knead about 10 times. Cut out with biscuit cutter and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Depending on the size of your biscuits, you’ll get 8 to 12 biscuits.

Bake at 425 for 10 minutes or until tops of biscuits are lightly browned.

This week’s menu was easy to plan since I planned it a week ago. Actually, I sat down on the 14th and planned out all our meals for the rest of the month. It didn’t take much longer and I was able to shop for two and a half weeks instead of just one. I really like it that way. Except for a trip to get more produce (today), I was able to get everything we need for the rest of the month.

Well, actually, I have a little more to get than I had originally planned. The new pastor of our church arrived this week (our former pastor resigned from the church so he could follow God’s leading for him to go out on the road as a full time evangelist) and we took a meal over one day while they were trying to unpack. There were supposed to have so many other people over from the church trying to help them. It’s hard enough trying to empty a moving truck, but when you add extra people at mealtimes, when you don’t know where your cookware is. . .and when you’ve been on the road eating fast food all week already. . .cooking for extra people is exhausting. Can you tell we’ve done that before ourselves? Moving all those times last year really did teach us something! But anyway, I had planned out our meals with very little extra, so now I need to go pick up some things a little sooner than I planned. That’s ok though. There’s a triple coupon sale later this week so that’s great timing. I’ll blog more about that later.

Here’s our menu:

Sunday
Breakfast – Cereal
Dinner (Easter) – Crock pot chicken (the last of the ones we raised), rice, green beans, and wheat buttermilk biscuits. Brownies for dessert
Supper – Leftovers

Monday
Breakfast – Oatmeal
Lunch – Tossed Salad
Supper – Spaghetti

Tuesday
Breakfast – Eggs
Lunch – Macaroni and Cheese
Supper – Chicken tacos (using leftovers from Sunday dinner) with homemade tortillas

Wednesday
Breakfast – Grits
Lunch – Sandwiches
Supper – Grilled steak over tossed salad

Thursday
Breakfast – Oatmeal Muffins
Lunch – Tuna Salad
Supper – Breakfast for dinner – pancakes and eggs

Friday
Breakfast – Cereal
Lunch – Egg Salad
Supper – Stromboli – haven’t decided what kind yet

Saturday
Breakfast – Wheat buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy
Lunch – Hot Dogs with homemade buns and oven fries
Supper – Tossed salad

You can read more menu plans over at I’m an Organizing Junkie.

Yesterday was Easter. The day we celebrate when our Lord rose from the dead.

I cannot understand how One could love me so much that He would die for me, yet He did anyway. It is so humbling to me.

I serve a risen God. One Who conquered death and Hell forever.

I don’t deserve it, but I am thankful.

Marla posted this pancake recipe in a comment she left me this morning. It looks really good, and as soon as I get some berries to put in it I’ll be trying it!

Cranberry Orange Oat Pancakes

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup 2% milk
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil or canola oil
3/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries

Mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients in a seperate bowl. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Add cranberries at the end. 1/4 cup batter for each pancake on a hot griddle!

These don’t even need syrup they are so yummy. I use frozen mixed berries instead of the cranberries when I don’t have them. You could also sub nuts or raisins! yum!

We’ve known that our dog Buddy is afraid of everything. But this takes the cake.

One of the roosters is out. It’s our biggest one – a huge Rhode Island Red. He’s not mean, but he’s out of the pen.

He just walked within 10 feet of the dog. Buddy could easily have had him for lunch, but he didn’t. He kept his distance.

That rooster is friendly. He won’t let you pick him up or anything, but he definitely won’t attack you. But apparently the dog is afraid of him.

Our silly dog. He’s a huge black Lab mix that looks more like a German Shepherd. . .but he’s afraid of a chicken. Good thing he’s a good alert dog. He barks at everything that moves. But afraid of a chicken?

This is what I’ll be doing all day. . .

I have a ton of laundry to do today. Yes, there’s the usual clothes, but I’m doing a bunch of towels and sheets today too. I’m behind on washing those so today I’m trying to get caught up. Once this load goes on the line, I’ll be putting a couple of quilts in the wash. They’ll smell so good after hanging out on the line!