SOCIAL MEDIA

Playing Catchup and a Meal Plan

February 27, 2025

This week I turned 39, and somehow that means Harry is turning 10. It blows my mind to think that when I turn 49 he will be turning 20. This next decade is going to be a roller coaster ride. 

I walked into my room Monday morning to find a few treats from students. I wish I was that mom who could keep up and remember this sort of thing for her children's teachers... but alas... I am not. 


Not many of you care for the kombucha sagas, but I'm sharing anyway. 

I accidently got lazy in January and didn't bottle and change ferments quick enough, I think the low temps made me believe I could delay. Wrong. My scoby (some say pellicle) was far too think and it quickly turned sour. I had to dump two weeks worth of ferment to get it back to a drinkable acidity. 

Finally this week I was able to bottle and frement my flavored F2!


While making my favorite Pioneer Woman meatballs this weekend, which are also Elliot's favorite, I realized just how long I've been making them. For 16 year (come May) I've used that Pyrex dish for this. 

Next month makes 17 years since I started dating Jeremy. 

He seems unphased by the numbers, but something about hitting the age of high school juniors and seniors is shocking. I mean, aren't we just some 20 year olds living on Duval Street in Monroe? Spening money that we don't need to spend at Eskamo's Ice Cream on Frozen Strawberry Lemonade. That's surely how it feels. 


I should have taken an action photo of Elliot during this course, when he got to those white pipes he scaled them no problem at all. They had to jump over with two feet and he didn't even hesitate. 

I'm slowly sounding like a spokesperson for this company, but it's been great for the boys. 


Now for the meal plan. It's giving - bowls. 

That was not at all on purpose. 


 

Thursday | Grilled Porkchops, Chopped Salad Kit, and Baked Potatoes

Friday | 5 Guys for Harry's Birthday



Monday |  Brunswick Stew from Daddio's Kitchen (This keeps getting delayed and moved around) 

Tuesday | letovers

Wednesday | Sam's Club Chickfila Knock Off Nuggets and Fries.

Lunch for the Week | Spring mix with grilled chicken tenderloins (easy lower fat protein) and balsamic dressing. Ratio Yogurt with Protein Kodiak Granola. 


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Weekly Meal Plan

February 20, 2025

We've officially made it to the big birthday week at our house! Sadly this year it didn't fall on Mardi Gras break, but Harrison and I will survive anyway. 


I'm attempting the Brunswick stew again. On Monday when I had it in the crockpot the power company had a planned outage that they didn't inform us about. I popped my pork roast in the crock pot at 6, and we were without power from 9-2:30. So we had Subway for dinner. 



 

Thursday | Grilled Porkchops, Chopped Salad Kit, and Baked Potatoes

Friday | Pioneer Women Comfort Meatballs with Mashed Potatoes (These are a favorite, and in her early 2000s cookbook they were called this and not bbq meatballs.)

Saturday |  Eat Out 

Sunday |  Slow Cooker Pulled Pork with Coleslaw (from a church cookbook from 1999), Hawiian rolls, and Strawberry Pretzel Salad (I add bbq sauce to the pulled pork when it's done cooking.) 


Tuesday | letovers

Wednesday | Sam's Club Chickfila Knock Off Nuggets and Fries.

Lunch for the Week | Spring mix with grilled chicken tenderloins (easy lower fat protein) and balsamic dressing. I also got some cubed cheese, it's the mood. I also made my old macro bar recipe but with a full scoop of protein for a solid 25g hit. 


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Runnaway Elliot

February 17, 2025

 The last few weeks were so busy, I was really glad we got a weekend with nothing really on the books. 


Friday night, there isn't a photo to prove it, but the kids went to a parent night at Kid Strong and we went to Top Golf. I love Top Golf, but really wish you could just book an hour slot. By the second hour my swing isn't as strong and Jeremy has a better shot at beating me! 


I've got a secret party trick of being decent at driving. Jeremy says I play golf like an old man, always consistent and straight. I blame that on being friends with a lot of the golf team in college. I'd go to the driving range and video them so they could see their swing, the benefit if I was taught how to swing a club by the college golf team. 



This month at work we have a ton of fun dress up days for the teachers, our principal does this once or twice a year. This particular week was dress like the students, the long socks had to be taken from the husband who is more inclined to changes in sock culture. It took forever to pry black ankle socks from hands. 


I may not be a favorite of my children's teachers for this, but I've used it for years. Harry struggles with fine motor skills and this helped him as a beginning writer.  If you're struggling with handwriting, or just generally being overwhelmed by a writing task - prewrite it in yellow marker or highlighter. 

By the time they hit 4th grade, and even 3rd I see this diminish. However, little boys, especially the neurodivergent type, hate to write. It's tedious, their hands aren't ready to write (yet American school curriculum pushes skills that are never appropriate), and they get frustrated. I have done this more with spelling lists and short answer writing. But seeing what they need to do and not a blank page helps. 



It also helps tremendouly with learning spacing. 

Now with older kids and spacing, I've used graph paper. By 4th grade spacing between words can be more of an issue than just getting all those letter on the paper. 


The temps dropped by down on Sunday, so Elliot insisted we go to the park. 

However, only Harrison and I went on a walk. Ellit got on his scooter and closed off those useless little boys ears, then promptly sped away. We watched him cross the road as we were jogging and yelling behind him, and he was quickly out of sight and on his own. 

Harrison kept making me promise that if we got to the car and didn't see him that I had to call Daddy and tell him we lost Elliot. 

But in true Elliot fashion, we finally got back to the car and there he was waiting. He said he told everyone in the park hello. When I gave my rant about kidnapping he just assured me that he wasn't kidnapped and acted like Harrison and I were overreacting. 

Typical. 

I really thought that if anything the geese would have slowed him down. Especially after how he reacted to being chased by that squirrel last time. 

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Weekly Meals

February 12, 2025

This week's meals! A lot of the ususal and a few repeats. I really need to photograph and share my lasagna recipe. 



 

Thursday | Grilled Porkchops, Chopped Salad Kit, and Baked Potatoes

Friday | Valentine's Day - we are changing from our ususal steaks at home to play Top Golf.

Saturday |  Lasagna and Sourdough bread (I need to share my recipe.)

Sunday |  Leftovers for lunch & dinner is a variety of dumplings, al la Trader Joe - but Walmart - they're really stepped up their game. (we always do appetizers on Sunday night) 


Tuesday | letovers

Wednesday | Sam's Club Chickfila Knock Off Nuggets and Fries.

Lunch for the Week | Spring mix with grilled chicken tenderloins (easy lower fat protein) and balsamic dressing. I also got some cubed cheese, it's the mood. I had a kombcha snaffoo, so I'm drinking keifer while I recover from antibiotics and wait for the next kombucha batch to be ready. I also made my old macro bar recipe but with a full scoop of protein for a solid 25g hit. 

I tried adding extra water since I was using extra protein, do not reccomend. Go one tbsp at a time with water. Different powders really effect the texture. I just ate mine as a snack, and after being in the freezer since 7am, it is still not hard. I could eat it with a lot of finesse, but it was a struggle. It was a wet pile of chocolate protein. 


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Snow Day 2 & 3

February 6, 2025


Name something better than freezing temps and sweats? Nothing. We are back in the 70s this week and I am dreaming of weather cold enough to turn on a space heater for. 

On the 2nd and 3rd day of snow on the ground we lazed around and did very little. It was a perfect winter wonderland where we (me) could pretend that we were snowed in and living that way up north life. 




Dill, much like Harrison, preferred life staring straight into the space heater. Surely he lost an eyelash with his behavior. At times the living room smelled of hot dog from him baking himself for so long. 




Elliot got into a drawing mood and spent two days making a book that he has since carried everywhere.
 



Elliot and I wandered to the park to see how it all looked before the snow melted. This is drama child when I said "Hey take a pic before we get home." Notice the stuffing coming out of his vest, he leaned on the old janky fence when they were in a snowball fight with the neighbors and tore it up. 









On day 2 the snow was still deep enough that the four wheeler was getting stuck. 







We now have to make up a day of school due to the snow. Well, I do. The boys school hasn't announced that. It was worth it though. Send me to Canada any day and I'll happily live in a winter wonderland.

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The Acadiana Blizzard

February 5, 2025

 What started as turning off the outside world during the snow week, morphed into having a cold and it being observation week. Now it's Wednesday and here we are... having skipped blogging. 


I don't know if you've seen photos, or heard about our record snowfall. But it the experience of a lifetime, and it might be the only time we experience this much snow in Acadiana in our lifetime. Magical doesn't even sum this up. 



Our usual is a few flutters and then completely melted by noon, ever 10 years. 

This 10 year snow started in the morning, continued into the afternoon, and stayed on the ground for most of the week. 

I refused to let the kids go outside and even touch it until the snowfall stopped at 2pm. 



Of course, we had no appropriate snow gear and sent the kids outside wearing surgical gloves over their mittens and grocery bags over their socks. 




The snow was so powdery it was as if we were trying to shape bags upon bags of confectioners sugar into balls. 







Harry was not such a fan, he lasted for two hours and was done for the rest of the week. Elliot on the other hand, he wants more and needs this to happen again asap.





Our backyard was our best snow, Jeremy has cleared a lot of the trees and foliage. He also went out the day before and cleaned up the yard to make sure we had the best snow... no dog bits. I appreciated that. I measured it being 7 inches in most areas. If you're curious about a trampoline in the snow, the kids said it's like bouncing on the ground. I didn't test it out. 




And finally, to top off being cold, we came inside and made snow cream. It was good, and if you're lactose intolerant... get the proper milk before it snows. Whole milk was the death of me. Totally worth it, but attempted murder.

The leftover Butterfinger bits from our bible study dessert and the kids chocolate syrup were a great addition. 



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