Week 2

        Hope everyone has had a great week! I know I have been challenged this week. 8 days on the kitchen was fun and exciting. Well onto the goals that I have done!

1. Smoking- I fell off the wagon for 2 days this week. But I'm back down to 4-5 cigarettes a day.
 2.Family time- is coming along. The kids got a little involved with me in organizing the kitchen. We are all eating dinner at the table at night. I also got the kids outside since the weather was actually warm for Jan. We pulled weeds in front flower beds!

 3.Organizing- my "new" kitchen looks great. I was able to save so much space! When I open my cupboards now they almost look empty. Me being a couponer, I had stockpiles of everything! Now it's all condensed down into containers. No more stuff falling over in my cupboards. I even put my cookbooks into categories (breakfast, dinners, desserts, etc) so no more searching for the right book! Look for my previous post Operation Kitchen Reorganization. I think next month I will do Adyson's room gathering ideas right now. 

4. Healthy eating- coming along great. I made HOMEMADE Stroganoff the other night, I only have a few "dinner helper" boxes left.

Homemade Stroganoff
1/2c dry/powered milk
1/3c cornstartch
1.5 tbl beef bouillon cubes crushed
1 small onion chopped
1/2 tsp each-basil-thyme-pepper-parsley-
1tsp garlic powder
2 c egg noodles
1.5 lbs hamburger
3.5 cups water
1c sour cream

mix hamburger & onion, brown & drain fat.
whisk cornstarch and 1/2 c of the water together until mixed well. Then add everything to pot EXCEPT sour cream.
Bring to boil - reduce heat, cover & simmer 15-20 minutes until noodles are done, stirring occasionally. 
Just before serving add sour cream. I chose to add sour cream separate-on top of servings, this way I can freeze leftovers, since sour cream doesn't freeze well. I froze leftovers in quart size freezer bags. Don't forget to label & date! 
This was awesome!

5. Yoga- still going great! researching now to find new moves for my yoga ball. If anyone has a suggestion to a magazine or book for this let me know!

6. Reading- I have read HomeMade by Readers Digest. Its a great book I bought it on my NOOK Color, so friend me & I can lend it to you. Teaches you to make a lot of your own homemade cleaners, beauty stuff, gardening tips, etc. So right now I am only 1 book behind!

7. Brain Teasers- I think the last 11 days of dealing with the kitchen were a brain teaser enough. So I got out the Suduko book & its sitting on my night stand to work a puzzle tonight.

8. Blog- Still going! or you wouldn't have anything to read!

9.Positive- Been doing great at having a "Can Do Attitude" the kids are starting to pick up on it too!

10.Crafts- Did 1 craft that went with my kitchen about creating my own cookbooks out of all the recipes i found laying around. I took spiral notebooks and labeled them and added recipes. Some recipes I stapled (if they were already on recipe card) and some I wrote in.

I still have to make them "pretty". Thinking of using  wrapping paper to  cover ?
We shall see what works, or old pieces of fabric? 

11. Music- My hands have been tied up with the kitchen (ha ha sometimes literally). I have scheduled music time for later today! :)

12. No Chemicals- has been working out great. I made my own coffee creamer this week, and the Homemade Stroganoff.

Coffee Creamer
1-14oz can of sweet condensed milk
2 c milk (what ever you normally use)
This make a good "base" to start with. You can make it sweeter if you would like. Take 1/2 c milk heat in microwave about 1 min. Then pour in your sugar, mix until sugar is dissolved let it cool! Then you can add it to the rest of the batch.

You can add flavorings or extracts to it & get a flavor you like. Mine is Cinnamon!

1.5 tsp cinnamon extract
1/2 tsp Almond extract
1 tsp Vanilla extract


13. Gardening- I had a great idea for starting plants indoors. I already had soil, starter pots, most of the seeds. I did go buy a wire shoe rack & assembled it. Put it near back door (now that I have room in my kitchen) it cost me $10 it also collapses for storage! Yes I know its early to plant, BUT when we waited and planted indoors in Feb, the plants were only 2-3" tall come April. NONE of those plants survived. So this year we are starting a few weeks earlier, so the plants can be 6-8" tall by April.

Labeling for now I stapled a stick to the seed pack. Adyson & I are looking into "cooler" ideas for labeling. I planted....
HERBS
Rosemary-basil-cilantro-oregano-tarragon-thyme-sage-parsley

VEGTABLES
Cherry toms- Slicing toms- cucumbers-Kohlrabi-green peppers

FRUIT-
Watermelon

So far this year has been awesome! So 11 out of 13 goals started!!! I need to get better about Music and brain teasers! Much better then last weeks 7 out of 13!!! Now since my attention has been focused on the kitchen the last week, its time to show some TLC to the rest of the house, dust, vacuum, etc....

Until next week, I hope all of you are achieving you goals for 2013!