A Little Taste of Spring and Other Musings

yesterday it was absolutely beautiful here. my husband tells me that it was 72. the kids were outside most of the day, we took a walk looking for birds with our binoculars and drew a house on the driveway that must have been about 30 floors high and had about 800 windows. i purchased these beautiful flowers about a week ago at a roadside stand that was having a $12 per box sale on their "Easter flowers." they had been in the garage since then because it had been windy, rainy and cold and i was afraid to put them in the ground because we have still been having some mornings with frost. well, i brought them out of the garage yesterday to let them have some sunlight on the driveway and right before our eyes they opened up full and beautiful. the kids thought it was the coolest thing to actually see the flowers move. i have to admit i have never seen anything open that quickly either. the tree out front is also starting to bloom. it will be a mystery what type of tree it is until we see some leaves. the "mystery bushes" that are planted in various places around the house are also budding so we should be able to tell what they are soon too. of course today it's back to a little chilly and windy.

alright, now for the random sidetracks. today i started using something which i have a feeling will make my life alot easier and save me some money too. it's called Library Elf and was recommended in "For the Love of Literature" by Maureen Wittmann. (which is a spectacular book by the way) so here's how the elf works for you. it doesn't come in the night while you are sleeping and make shoes for you but i'm thinking this is better. the site asks you what library system you use (they are linked up to tons all over the country) and then you enter your library card number. it then is able to show you all the items you have checked out, those you have on hold and here's the kicker...it e-mails you to remind you of their due dates. i'm predicting that alone could save us about five bucks a week. with as many books as we have out from the library at one time, some times i just completely lose track. it's actually those darn videos that get us. a dollar a day per video when they are late. so with one video each for the three kids and sometimes an educational topic or something for my husband and i, it can add up quickly. we'll see how it goes, but i'm predicting this is going to be good.

second, i think i'm going to give the old blog a little structure for awhile. why? because i need structure. i'm a creature of habit and any little arena that i can control a bit more is right up my alley. check out the personality test from the other day. i'm a freak. i know...trust me. anyway, i'm going to try and post about a certain topic on a certain day of the week. of course, in my randomness, if i choose to deviate from the outlined day...well, that's just my choice. i find it hard to believe that something of that nature would cause a riot among my three or four readers. so let's just say, "trying something new, work with me here." i still haven't figured out exactly what all of the days will be (because of course they all have to involve some catchy play on words or something) but i have picked out "menu monday." on monday i will post our menu plan for the week. this is not because i think anybody cares, but because if i feel as if i have to put the menu on here...i'll actually do it more than ten minutes prior to dinnertime. ;) and since it's wednesday, and i always make so much sense...here is the first installment of menu monday.

monday - turkey tacos and mac n' cheese (we had company, this was a quickie decision)


tuesday - burgers on the foreman and whatever anybody else pulled out of the fridge and/or cabinets

wednesday - homemade chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries (both in the oven) and
salad

thursday - grilled chicken salads (yummy, yummy, yummy!)

friday - scrambled eggs and potatoes

saturday - homemade pizza (you'll notice a theme there. saturday is always homemade pizza around here. that's something we instituted about a year ago to help preserve sanity.)

sunday - lasagna (with the tastiest homemade, homegrown tomato sauce), honey and dill carrots, salad and bread.

so that's what's cookin' at the cafeteria for us this week. if you have a hankering to post your menu let me know. i would love to get some fresh new recipes. :)