The Road Home...

Relationships take time and work, going to boot camp, graduating, then going back to grad school... Anyone who says they have the perfect relationship obviously doesn't worry about money time, shared spaces, or children! While watching Sex and the City The Movie this morning, it came to a part where Samantha says 'I've figured out that a relationship doesn't mean happiness, what about you?' gesturing to a very pregnant Charlotte 'I'm happy everyday.... Not all day every day, but every day.' And Thank you Charlotte for speaking the God's honest truth. After a very long day in town where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, we salvaged the day with a series of things going very right! Then the trip home. As I said in an earlier post, we had a bit of a blizzard a few days ago, so coming home we expect far from perfect road conditions, but not the kind where you get buried in a drift!! Apparently the wind had decided to blow, drifting snow across the road to the top of the tires (this is a prime example of the stuff that makes it VERY difficult to live out here). Thank the Lord for wonderful neighbors! We got stuck about a half mile away from a family on the Dana Ranch and Justin came up with his chained up pick up and pulled us out of the drift and half way home. We rolled in at about 8:30 pm, having started down the 24 miles road at about 5:45 pm. My amazing husband always gets us home! :)

Mexican Emily's Style...

I can't stand taco seasoning from a packet! It's a total pet peeve now, all I can taste is intense amounts of salt (yuck) so it spurred me into finding a less sodium clustered way to make taco meat.

Please ignore the massive amount of grease in the bottom of the pan, I squeeze it out before I put it on a plate but this is my culinary masterpiece for the week.

Taco Meat
1lb ground beef
1/2 Cup Tomato sauce (pre-salted can)
2 teaspoons Cumin
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Pepper to taste

Brown ground beef, tomato sauce, cumin, garlic powder, pepper, together in skillet. The tomato sauce will absorb into the meat along with all the yummy spices and you have a low calorie low sodium solution to high sodium taco seasoning!!  This is very similar to a seasoning mix that the Mexican crew that comes up here to work in the summer uses on their meats (which are to die for!), and i'm too chicken and know too little spanish to ask what they use.

Howdy Neighbor...

There are things in life out here that flat out suck (the blizzard the last two days), but then there are the things that are downright hysterical. I saw a picture a few days ago that had a deer looking in the front door at Fuddruckers (yes that happens frequently up here), and I laughed, deer are funny creatures. Now cows, oh cows, they are anything but predictable. A cow gets chased by horses, humans, and dogs it's entire life being taught to respect authority. There is nothing scarier than an angry cow who decides to turn on you and face off. However, there are things that go beyond the typical behavior for cows.

Hello, Mr. Bull... Though I appreciate your plea to come inside the warm house, I do believe it would be excrutiatingly hard to fit you through the front door! :/  And yes, it snowed all night long! I knocked on the window to get his attention for the picture (he was trying to eat my porch mat) and he gave me the most pathetic/annoyed look ever. Bryce got up and shooed him out of the yard and closed the gate but not before he said goodbye with a few angry tail swishes!

The Weather Outside is Frightful...

But swims inside are so delightful! My girls and I decided yesterday that we were going to take a trip to the tropical, ever warm, waters of Hawaii. Our tropical pool may have been the bathtub but the girls splashed around in their bathing suits and had a blast.

Now, a day later, we are covered up in snow... The thick white cold stuff that has a tendency to ruin pretty much ANY outdoor plans? Yup, it decided to come down in buckets!

It appears winter is here to stay... 18 inches on the ground and counting!

Menu Shmenu....

Menus save my life! For thirty days I have one less thing to think about! I try to go grocery shopping just once a month, using coupons and utilizing loss leader sales. I found that I can feed a family of four, including diapers, on about $250 a month. This last sale at Albertsons was one for the record books, it seemed as though they had seen my menu and put everything on sale accordingly! From pineapple, to turkeys, they were having a sale on everything. I try to shun Wal-Mart as much as possible, I honestly can't think of a worse store... Ever. Bryce and I have had our share of the 'wal-mart reds' where we are in the WORST possible moods until we have checked out, unloaded and are back in the car. Yuck. My favorite part of shopping this month was the meat sale. After Bryce shot his elk, we got our bi-annual 1/2 a steer so we were more than set for red meat, but I don't know about you guys, red meat can get a little old after a while! So onto our monthly shopping we went, Albertsons had a buy one get one that just about made me jump for joy, buy a ham, get a turkey free! The even better part.... I had a coupon for the ham! Boo-Yeah! Ok so that was a little cheesy, but getting stuff on sale excites me!

As far as the menu goes, I plan by using different cuts, 20 ground beef meals, 5 shredded beef or elk meals, and then 5 'other' meat meals (This month Turkey, Chicken, and a couple veggie meals!). Part of the daily routine consists of preparing as much as I can before I am crunched for time so in the mornings I get out everything I need to make the meal and set the meat out to defrost. Not only does this make things easier, dinner becomes just that much more simple to fix when you have a husband and two children screaming at you that they're hungry!

A new spin...

On Dr. Seuss... My wonderful little girl woke up this morning with one task in mind... Reading Mama a story! So while Bryce was getting ready for work I sat down with Sarah and she opened the Dr. Seuss book 'One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish'. I snuggled with her as she carefully opened the first page and waited for her to start 'reading'. She sighed and said.

'Mommy told me no.... Daddy tell me no.... (turned the page) Mama told me no more, Daddy told me no more.'

Startled, I looked at the page, then realized that my sweet girl was inventing a story all her own. I truly never thought that the fact that she gets told 'no' on a pretty regular basis would have any implication on her story telling. Apparently this Mama was wrong!

So this morning i'm stuck here thinking, is that what she is going to remember? Her childhood memories are going to be littered with 'Mama telling me no...', or her sitting in the corner. I know that i'm WAY over thinking it, because i'm not here to be a competetive player in Sarah's popularity contest, but i'd like to be seen as mostly positive!! Why couldn't she have put in 'Mommy took me trick or treating, Daddy took me trick or treating....' We had a blast! The girl was shivering cold with her coat on but she just kept going and going!! We got into the car at the end of the block and she looked at me and said 'Thank 'em Mama, I love you!'.

Note the bright red shoes!!! She's asked to be Dorothy every day since Halloween :)

Gratitude...

With Christmas fast approaching, the television commercials are popping up more and more frequently. The Target one is cute, the dog running through all the people and small buildings, but the one that has my head spinning is the the one from Famous Footwear.  The one wear the blonde teenage girl says 'she won't ever get us, understand us, or get us what we...' then is so suprised and overjoyed when her mother 'gets' her enough to buy her a pair of Madden Girl boots. Her younger brother shares her excitement, and then the mother proceeds to get a hug from her daughter followed by the worst line of all 'This is a Christmas miracle!' I find this to be extremely disturbing. I realize that every teen says the same thing, our parents don't ever get us, that they don't understand us, blah blah blah. Thank God we grow out of that stage, but I have to admit that on Christmas morning I never ever felt the way that that girl spilled on a nationally distributed television commercial. And since when did parents find it an achievement to BUY their childrens gratitude and love? 'A Christmas Miracle'? That would be the reason for the season, that would be the gift of spending time with your family, or being alive to live the day. Not to mention the fact that our children are watching these commercials and the way that girl acted towards her mother and the gift is how our children could take our gifts on Christmas day.  How in the world is this right?