menu plan Monday

Surrendering to the kids’ culinary wishes

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menubuttonMacaroni and cheese and fish sticks again? Sometimes I feel like we’d be doing just as well to go to McDonald’s every night for dinner. I haven’t talked all that much here about how frequently Rockford is away, but it’s often enough to make it difficult for me to get into the habit of making a real dinner. Poppy isn’t the world’s most adventurous eater (ha!), and it’s just too discouraging to make a meal for three that one person so vehemently won’t eat. Pete’s a good eater, but his five very enthusiastic bites just don’t make up for her meal-time crabbiness. So I make something I know they’ll both eat, and then after they’re in bed I have a tuna fish sandwich or a bowl of oatmeal. Because guess who doesn’t like fish sticks? That’s right: Me. (Unless they’re on a sandwich. Poppy’s food peculiarity has its obvious roots.)

(Note: I know this is a wrong and terrible way to look at things, but some days I am doing my best to hang in there. So. Mac & cheese and fish sticks it is.)

My, that was a downer of a menu-plan intro. I blame the weather. It’s the greyest of greys here today, and stormy to boot.

Monday: Breakfast for dinner

This will be eggs, veggie sausages and toast. It’s always a hit, which is why we have it at least one night most weeks.

Tuesday: Macaroni & cheese

I was going to make this from scratch, but then Target had the blue box on sale for 90 cents.

Wednesday: Fish sticks

We bought a giant bag of fish sticks a few weeks ago. I’m hoping we’re near the bottom of it.

Thursday: Chicken-apple sausages

I hope it stops raining by Thursday, because I want to grill these. We’ll have them with Alexia oven fries, which are delicious.

Friday: Homemade pizza

I finally made pizza dough for homemade pizzas last week, and they were quite lovely. The pizza dough recipe is here, and I can’t recommend it enough. It takes some time, but it is so easy. Last Friday’s pizzas were pretty standard-issue; I’m thinking I’ll do something different this week. Rockford and I both really like Thai chicken, and I’ve been toying with the idea of a banh mi pizza. I’m just not sure what to do for the sauce. The sauce I make for the sandwiches has mayo and Sriracha in it, but I don’t like the idea of mayo on a pizza. Any ideas?
Scrapbooking

Only two months behind on the 2010 scrapbook

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I haven’t been writing much about scrapbooking lately. But then on Saturday night, I “met” Melanie on Twitter while we were both watching the Mizzou game. I clicked over to her blog and discovered that she’s a scrapbooker, too, and her (very cute) layouts inspired me to do a better job of sharing my own.

(If this is a little discombobulated: I apologize. I just woke up from a nap, and I’m still a little groggy.)

I’ve been leaning toward a more minimalistic style lately; I’m thinking about dropping the background paper altogether for next year’s album. Here’s my most-recent page:

happy birthday to you

The journaling reads “Poppy requested a ‘pigs in mud’ birthday cake.” See? Even the journaling is minimalistic.

Resources
I need to do a better job keeping track of where I get stuff. Here’s what I used for this page, though, with as much detail as I can remember.

  • The paper and most of the other elements are from a kit by Studio Flergs. It was a limited-edition thing, and I can’t find a link to it now. I have it listed in my files as “for Melissa.”
  • The frames are from Katie Pertiet’s Photo Clusters No. 12.
  • The font was a free one from Two Peas in a Bucket called “Pea Patti.” I use it for a lot of my journaling.
    • Diversions

    Desperately seeking a snooze

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    I know I said “wah wah I can’t make a video,” but then Fadra stopped by with a swift kick in the pants pep talk. So I got over it, stayed up way past my bedtime, and made what is very likely to be the one and only “vlog” (ugh) entry you’ll ever see ’round these parts.

    (I am aware that I need a haircut. I have one scheduled for Saturday.)

    So here it is. Why Nichole Needs a Good Night’s Sleep: An Attempt to Win a Mattress.

    Update! I didn’t even make the finals. 🙁