Friday, April 30, 2010

Stop!

I can't stop, there is no stop button on me, for some reason I feel the need to constantly go go go.  Tonight I had a free night, nothing planned. Wow, doesn't happen often these days.  The man of the house (as he so humbly announced when he stopped home for lunch)  works nights so unfortunately he was not around.  I can't relax, do nothing, veg.  I can't say I didn't try, but soon I got up to sweep the floors and started going through my closet, and then thought hmm I could make something for tomorrow.  Tomorrow we are going to do a final cleaning at my sisters Cafe before the health inspector comes on Monday, but more on that 'adventure' another time.  Since they have been working so hard lately at getting their business up and running i thought it would be nice to make a snack for the busy bees.

I thought granola, and typed it into one of my fav recipe blogs Smitten Kitchen.  I found the recipe there and tweaked it a little, I couldn't put 6 T of butter in it, or corn syrup.  You must know that I'm known for not following directions and screwing recipes up, my family is usually very surprised when I make something...good.  My sister is a pastry chef, so after eating any of her treats, mine seem so elementary.  I'm working at it though.

1-12 oz bag of premixed dried fruit/nuts (the choice is yours! there are some good mixes out there, it seemed cheaper to do it this way than to buy individual bags, I'm thrifty* if you haven't caught on to that)
1 2/3 rolled oats
1/3 cup oat flour (throw rolled oats in the food processor and boom oat flour)
1/2 cup sugar (would go less next time)
1/2t salt
1/4 t cinnamon
1/3 cup peanut butter (I used the naked kind, you know no sugar, just peanuts and salt)
1t vanilla
4 T butter
3 T applesauce
1/4 cup honey
1 T water
Combine all dry ingredients, (I pulsed my fruit/nut mixture because it was super chunky)
Melt butter and whisk together wet ingredients
Combine dry with the wet ingredients.
Bake in 8x8 pan lined with foil and lightly sprayed in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes.  Let cool completely and cut into bars.  Voila!

In other news, I was at Weis and used 6 Puffs Plus Tissue coupons that I got from Vocalpoint.  They were $1.29 each= $7.74
-6-.50 cent coupons doubled = $6.00
Total : $1.74 for 6 boxes of tissues! word!  How's that for the DOTW?

*Shirley Chicken Legs and I decided a long time ago that we are Thrifty not Cheap ;-)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

It's SEW nice...I wanna sing the same song twice

Gotta love RBF, I'm 'ska-ing' on the inside.  I'm sure they meant 'so' and not 'sew' however.

How random is this blog? Seriously, you must think I'm nuts. You're right.  I like to do lots of stuff, and they don't always make sense or go together.  Like when I was in high school, I was in choir, girls ensemble, county choir, and then on the high school Volleyball team.  At my high school those things didn't mix well.  So now you understand a little more why I am all over the place? I was made that way...not my fault. :-)

One of the many skills Mama B taught me was to sew.  She would sew a lot of our clothing growing up, my sister and I often were dressed as twins, especially around the holidays.  She even at one point had a side business of making cabbage patch doll clothes! In the future I hope to teach this skill to my little girl (s)(who has ringlets of red hair).

One of my good friends is pregnant with her first child, and really this is the first of my friends to become pregnant so it is very exciting.  What better gift than a hand made one?  I came across a few patterns on Etsy.  First the nursing apron

No body needs to be seeing the goods, right?

By no means am I an expert seamstress as the picture above shows you.
I love the fabric, don't you?  I hope the Mama to be does too! We'll find out tomorrow.
Next up was the nursing pads
No body needs to know you're lactating.
I love to sew, and really wish I had more time and patience for it.

Cure

Stop what you are doing and listen...I found a cure.  A cure for a bad day, a cure for pain and suffering, a cure for sunburn, a cure for stress...anything that is troubling you, I found the cure.



So what if it has a pound of butter in it, so what, who cares?! It will cure it all.  All your favorite cookies combined into one cookie bar, how could it go wrong and why didn't we think of this before?
I love this gals recipes, came across this one and HAD to make it.  Especially when I showed my extremely preggo friend and she gave me the, " but the baby NEEDS this cookie bar"
Go to her site now, and checkout the Delicious photos and go to the store to get your pound of butter to make these.
Enjoy :-)

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Adventures of the lessons learned

It seems that my adventures lately with coaching have not been of the instructional kind.  But more so with life lessons.  Perhaps I am young and naive and just don't know any better but it appears to me that things are different then when I was youngER.  As a child my parents did their best to teach me wrong from right, manners, values, respect and all that good stuff.  Today I don't see it.
The past few weeks have been a struggle, I feel I have to keep telling myself  "I am their coach not their parent".  Who would have thought there would be a thin line here?  Perhaps this doesn't happen in all sports, doesn't help our season is 6 months long...2-3 practice/week and then tournaments 3 times/month.  As we only have 4 tournaments and 9 practices left, I'm wondering if I am making a difference.
Last night was another team meeting, we have these after tournaments and if discussion is needed on somethng else.  Commitment was the main topic last night.  I am baffled at the amount of sports and other activities these girls are in.  This year it was dance, soccer and softball.  I actually had a parent ask me if it was okay for their daughter to miss practice because they had dance.  Are you kidding? NO it's not okay.  But usually my response is, "That is your decision, not mine"
Anyway getting back to last night...I started by thanking those who stayed till the end of the tournament on Sunday.  Why? because someone left.  You see we lost semi's, so that means we would work.  And earlier in the season THE TEAM decided as a whole that everyone would stay if such situation occurred.  After we lost semi's this parent grabbed her girl out of a huddle and said "we need togo , we don't have time for this, she can still make a soccer game at 3" as I was later informed by a parent.  She did come up to me to tell me she was taking her and what was my response? "That is your decision, not mine".  How is this acceptable, she left her team.  No one except a coach probably understands the importance of team unity.  We work so hard to make the team unified and then someone pulls that. UGH.  Her leaving left the team sour, "wait, she left?" "why did she leave?" "I thought we were all supposed to stay"  This is what I am left with, a team feelin abandoned, asking questions.  How am I to answer.
You may think, geez why say that then at the meeting if it wasn't the kids fault?  Here's why...beginning of the season we try to instill responsibility.  They are responsible for getting to practice and tournaments, making sure their parents leave in time to get where they need to be.
Sorry for the babbling I'll stop now.  This time of the season is always hard, usually these are the days when I second guess why I am here.  Is it a waste of everyones time?  Only time will tell...
On a happier note I do have a handful of loving, caring, commited, respectful girls on the team.  One who thanked my Dad and I for staying.  The girl who left asked her why she would thank us (in a sarcastic tone I might add..)  I said, "Exactly"