Pantry Cleaning

I have finally started cleaning out my pantry! It's a big ole mess in there. I have the bottom all cleaned out and now I'm moving my way up. I have already thrown a bunch of stuff away. Things that have gotten pushed to the back mostly. I hate wasting food. It makes me so mad. If those people that I live with would just put the stuff that they take out BACK where they got it then I think that would cut down on a lot of the problem. Also, if they would NOT put empty boxes BACK into the pantry that would make my life so much easier. I don't think I'll get this pantry all done today. I might take pics after it is all finished (after the floor is all down. It doesn't have any flooring in it now so Keith wants to put the laminate in there).

Dinner tonight will be super easy. Fish sticks, mac and cheese (Velveeta) and a veggie. Mallory and Wesley will be staying here till around 6:00pm so I they will be joining us for dinner. They will love the fish sticks I am sure. lol

Free Heat And Some Great News

OK, I just checked the temperature in my living room and it 84 inside my house! Keith has the wood stove in the garage going. He has this pipe thingie running from the top of the wood stove and it goes to this blower that he has blowing the heat from the wood stove into my living room. I checked the temperature outside and it says that our temps outside is 37. We haven't had to turn on our heat from the heat pump yet and this is the second day/night that we have had a fire in the wood stove. We have tons of wood here on my Father in laws land so the wood is free, which gives us free heat for the winter. Last winter I think we turned our heat on a few times, the rest of the winter our house was heated with the wood stove.

My daughter Tina found out yesterday that my grandson Wesley will get to start school in two weeks! We are all so excited about this. He will go to school 4 days a week and off on Wednesdays. He will also get to ride the bus with his big brother Carter to and from school. Wesley is so excited that he gets to ride the bus. :) I think I blogged about Wesley a while ago about him being severally developmentally delayed. The program that he will be in will be of great help to him. All of the teachers that interviewed with him said that he was a very fast learner and that he caught on quick with the things they tested him on.

My dinner tonight as very yummy. I made stuff pork chops, mashed taters and mixed veggies. My stuff pork recipe is super simple. I got the recipe from my friend Julie. All it is is stove stop stuffing on top of the pork chop. I made some gravy to go on top of it while it was baking. I took two cups of water and dissolved two chicken bouillon cubes (I was out of chicken stock so I thought. I was filling my salt shakers later this evening and came across it in the cabinet, but I swear I didn't see it when I was looking for it to use in my gravy lol), sit that aside and then took a few tablespoons of margarine and melted it, then I added a few tablespoons of flour and stirred it with my whisk. I then added my liquid to the flour and margarine and stirred over medium high heat until it thickened. Then I poured it over the pork and stove top, covered with foil and baked. It is so easy and so yummy!

Award!

My sweet friend Julieann juliean-mylife gave me this award today. I am touched and honored, thank you Julieann! :) If you haven't checked out her blog you really should, it is beautifully done and she has some wonderful post on it. The rules are I am to pick 10 blogs and give this award too them. Here are my 10 blogs that I think should receive this award. I love each blog and they each have that something special thing about them that make me come back day after day to read them. Some make me laugh, some have even made me cry both sad tears and happy tears of joy. Some I have just discovered and have been to shy to post in their comments. Others I have been reading for a long time now and have become good friends with.

The rules for this blog are:

1. Put the logo on your blog

2. Add a link to the person who awarded you

3. Nominate 10 other blogs for this award

4. Add links to those blogs

5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

6. Give a reason why you consider their blogs cool.

Ten Cool Blogs:
Barbara: http://celticspirit-domesticgoddess.blogspot.com/
Crystal: http://cmswanson.blogspot.com/

Jessica: http://www.pixiemarierose.blogspot.com/

Gail: http://gail-dish.blogspot.com/
Ms Ruta: http://mzrutabaga.blogspot.com/
Moose: http://tronwife.blogspot.com/
Ms T: http://itmatterstome-t.blogspot.com/
Erin: http://erinandshawn.blogspot.com/
Rebecca: http://rebeccaandtom.blogspot.com/
Lisa: http://goodolegoodsons.blogspot.com/
If any one of my nominees does not want to participate please fell free to not play, I totally understand.

SNOW!

My husband called me about 7:30 this morning to tell me that it was snowing like crazy where he works! I haven't seen one single flake here at the house. :( The sun is shining here now. I hope the snow comes my way, I want Wesley and Mallory to see snow falling. They have never seen a big snow fall and I'm sure they don't remember the snow showers we had last year. The last big snow fall we had Carter was about 18 months old.

When I was a little girl we used to get a lot of big snow falls. I remember going to bed at night with no snow and waking to newly fallen snow, school closing and going out to play in the snow. I also remember a few times we had big snow falls and being sick and not being able to go outside and play in it. I remember sitting up in my bed playing my Spirograph and looking out of my bedroom window seeing all my friends playing in the snow.
We had a few really good snow falls when my children were little. So they have the memory of them, but so far my grandchildren do not have that wonderful memory. *sigh*

I have no idea what dinner will be, probably something chicken. I have laundry to do and my bathroom needs a good cleaning. I really should get into my pantry and clean it out and organize it. I have right much stuff on the floor of it and all of that will have to be moved so the new flooring can be installed in the kitchen, I'm not sure if they will put it in the pantry or not. Right now it is just the sub floor in there.

I hope everyone has a great day!

Monday

I put a roast into my cast iron dutch oven for dinner tonight and it is cooking on top of the stove as I type this. I added a onion and some potatoes to it along with two cups of water with two beef bouillon cubes to it. I'll make some gravy, peas and some biscuits and that will be dinner.

I've been putting things back together in the living room. Linda helped me put my computer back together last night and she put up everything up differently then how I had it. I like the way she did it all. The tower is beside the monitor instead of in the tower cubby hole that is at the bottom of the desk (she tried laying the tower on its side and putting the monitor on top of it (my tower is one of those skinny ones and flat screen monitors fits nicely on it), but my monitor which is a flat screen was to tall and didn't fit. It will make cleaning the dust off the back of the tower a lot easier then when it was on the bottom. She also put my printer in the printer cubby hole on the desk and she put my speakers on the top shelve along with my wireless router and my DSL modem thingie. I'll get a pic of it later and post it.

Sunday

Well my guys got most of the dining room floor put in today. They had to stop at a certain spot so there is a little bit of the dining room that isn't finished. My kitchen is a galley style kitchen so it is long, they hope to get it all finished next weekend. What is finished looks so good. I am so happy with it and wish we had of done it sooner. I don't think Emma likes it to much, she keeps slipping and sliding all over the place when she runs to fetch her ball.

I went to Target today and bought some new curtains for the living room. It's been so long since I bought new curtains I didn't know most were sold with just one panel. The last time I bought curtains or even looked at them in the stores they sold them in two panel packages. I found some I really liked but I needed four panels and they would have been over $40.00 and I just didn't want to spend that on curtains right now (there really isn't anything wrong with the ones I have now, I just wanted new because these are so old). I was so excited when I found a display on the end cap and they were on sale and they were two panels, a valance and the tie backs for $13.99, plus I had a $5.00 off 25.00 or more coupon! I decided on the color and picked up two packages and a rod. I cant wait to see how they look all hung up in my living room. I hope to talk either Keith or Matt into putting the rod up this week some time so I can hang them.

Flooring, Tempers And Pictures

Well my guys started installing our new floor this morning. Less then an hour into it Eric and Keith got into an argument. Keith said Eric wasn't doing it right and Eric said he was and that Keith didn't know what he was doing. Eric threw up his hands and said, he was done, that Keith could finish it. After Eric sat in the kitchen for about 10 minutes and Matt calmed Keith down, they finally kissed and made up. After that little spat was out of the way they worked wonderfully together. They haven't finished. They still have to finish the whole living room, hall, dining room and kitchen. They stop at my computer. They will pick up in the morning at the computer desk and hopefully finish it all tomorrow. I have to say that what they have done so far is so pretty! I LOVE it. :) Eric's boss and his wife came over earlier today to see how Eric was doing. He said Eric was doing a good job.
Here are some pics:

Eric installing our new floor

Taking a break

Done for the day. Matt, David and Eric's arm.

Pretty!!