OH MY GOSH, I'VE BECOME MARTHA STEWART!

We like good food, especially when we make it at home. I love making foods that most do not eat on a regular basis...Chicken Cordon Bleu--easy, just sounds complicated. Sausage w/peppers, onion, bacon, parmigiano and pasta; deglaze w/a little cooking wine and pour in some heavy cream, mmm. I have a recipe for Fettucine Alfredo that is out of this world and Alfredo is SO easy...butter, cream, cracked pepper and parmesan. Add the noodles and grilled chicken, serve w/fresh salad and crusty-chewy french bread (I like French better than Italian). Heavy food, but we like light food just at well...we make a MEAN grilled pizza, yes, grilled and it's the best-tasting pizza EVER. Chicken and veggies in a little olive oil is to die for. I often just throw stuff together that sounds good and I try to make it as easy as possible. Fresh ingredients *definitely* make the difference and cut prep time down considerably when thawing is not necessary. I have a habit of waking up with a "hankerin'" for a particular food and then go buy the ingredients to make that meal; unfortunately, when we've already used our food budget to buy groceries for the week, this is not a positive. I keep meaning to just pickup ingredients for meals everyday, like they do in Chi-town or NYC. How fun! We have TWO year-round farmer's markets and I love going there, plus Fresh Market just opened down the street. It's phenomenal, so much so, that I took the time to look up the correct spelling of the word. Today, we made homeade Caesar dressing--yeah, raw egg, anchovies; it was, to use a seventh grade word, Fantabulous, Hail to Caesar! The first time I discovered real Caesar dressing was in a fancy-schmancy restaurant that Gerald's mom took us. I was surprised that night to find out that real Caesar didn't come in a bottle. They made the dressing right at our table and the ingredients looked disgusting; being that I was pregnant with Anna, I was able to decline "for the baby," plus raw egg, little flat hairy fish, and morning sickness do NOT agree; just the sight and smell of the dressing had me choking. Thankfully, I have matured.

A house with five children is run, I would imagine, very much like a factory. The main objectives are speed and cost without sacrificing quality. Lunches are made every morning assembly-line style...eight pieces of white bread, or, four tortillas, no cheese, eight with mayo slapped on with a large spatula, two with mustard, squeeze-squeeze, lettuce on three. If we're behind schedule, dry bread, just deal. Pack each in a reusable plastic sandwich box (you wouldn't believe how many Ziplocs we used to go through), Pringles in special pringle-shaped containers, cheese sticks for two, three chocolate puddings, one vanilla. All four like oranges or apples, easy. Four small bottles of water, everyone order milk at school, cold packs, one napkin each and zip, zip, zip, zip, we're out the door. Got it down to a science. LOVE pringles containers, they're easy and they keep the chips from being squished, plus there are about 1,001 varieties of Pringles so pleasing everyone's palette is simple. I know, some (mom) would say, "Why not make lunches the night before?" Several reasons, 1)the bread gets soggy--gross, 2)our fridge is already VERY full, but mainly because 3)I'M TIRED after dinner and the last place I want to be is the kitchen.

I have learned some tricks through the years. I call them my "Lady in a Shoe Solutions" Here are a few:

• "Mom, will you cut my food?" Solution: A handy little kitchen gadget I like to call a pizza cutter. You cut through steak, chicken or the other white meat as fast as a Samurai and you can now eat YOUR meal warm...maybe.
• "Mom, where's my OTHER sock?" Solution: A Walmart (ugh) lifesaver, little plastic round disks that hook two socks together and stay on through washing and drying...ultimate awesomeness!
• "Mom, I don't know where my uniform is!" Solution: Fold and put ALL the uniform clothes in one basket in the family room. Nobody loses their uniform in the bottom of their unkempt drawers, under their bed or behind their dresser. If the basket starts looking empty, I know it's time to seek out uniforms in gym bags, lost and found, etc.
• "Mom, someone took my toothbrush!" Solution: Go to Dollar Tree and buy each kid their own wire bathroom basket in a different color. Store all their bathroom supplies in their own basket under the sink and free up drawer space, at the same time, avoiding the gooey toothpaste all over the drawer and hair on toothbrushes.
• "Mom, did you sign my papers?!" Solution: Bought five expandable plastic folders in five different colors and hung them on our "office" wall at kid height. They are responsible to put all school papers in their file and I get in the habit of looking through them at night and figure out who needs help with what subject.

A few years back I decided, thanks to two good friends, that the way towels are folded and wrinkles in clothes and a perfect house were DEFINITELY not THE all that ENDS all, BUT simplicity and organization had to become my game. It's still a work in progress, we've been married 14 years, moved at least 12 times-four among states, are rearing five children and a stupid dog. We're constantly scheduled and with Saturday being the most feasible day for chores AND family time, we don't want to spend all day cleaning. The kids are responsible for keeping day-to-day trash emptied and feeding the dog during the week but on Saturday, they have a big list of chores...vacuuming, dusting, bathrooms, etc. So, the best thing we've done for our family is keeping it simple. The less clutter you have, the less you have to dust/clean around, the less you feel owned and confined BY your clutter; buying less clutter saves money! *BONUS* I'm also not anal anymore about the kids' toys/rooms, I just shut their door if it's messy. I have THEM clean out what they don't want every year at Christmas and their birthday; they do a fantastic job, especially when you give them limitations like, "You can keep what you want as long as it fits in three toy bins." I bought a bunch of colorful buckets and bins and all they have to do is throw everything in--if they have just a few toys they play w/alot, they can find even little items at the bottom of the bucket. We ban eating in all rooms except for kitchen, dining and family(on special occasions) so that I don't have to worry about finding cookies and ants in the kids' toy bins--that's a whole day shot when you have to follow the ants back to the source and then clean all the toys cause they're sticky, etc. It helps now that my kids are four and older, but it DID take a little while to get through to them, "No eating but in the kitchen," I don't know how many times we repeated it. Now, it's just habit. Am I giving a lecture or what? I don't "stock up" anymore on anything except Kleenex and paper towels because, really, who needs five bottles of Windex? They're just going to be in your way for the next year and use up valuable space for say, linens. Is saving a few cents worth the aggravation? Finding an all-in-one cleaner, like Target's Lavender cleaner is awesome. Not only does it clean, it doesn't leave behind a film like those cleaning wipes AND it makes your house smell fresh, not like perfume. White vinegar is DA' BOMB for mopping floors, it's cheap and gets rid of pet odors. It smells at first, but then disappears. So, now instead of having a "cleaning closet" full of chemicals, I have about three bottles of cleaning and the rest is open for linens, vacuum bags, light bulbs, candles...you get the picture.

Wow, I just realized that I've written a small booklet; I should be published. Funny how your thoughts just start pouring out on "paper." I should eat Caesar dressing often. Well, this is kind of embarrassing, so I'll just return you to your regularly-scheduled Sunday and we'll leave it at that.

My Goals For 2007

Eat good food

Simplify

Get organized

Write short blogs

Be relevant