lots and lots of info!

Wow this morning was an icky one!  I was eating my bfast and Sasha girl lost hers right in front of me! 

At work I finally realized how to help Dear Fussy, not sure I mentioned this but she’s been in panties all week too!  Anyways she’s gotten to where she says really mean things to me and asks for my CCT3….soooooo duh why have I been ‘fighting’ it so to speak this entire time?!?!  Now I kind of just let my CCT3 do everything w the little girl.  Why on earth would I willingly cause a breakdown when just letting my CCT3 helps and the task is done in less than two minutes? 

We got paperwork again today!  My old CCT1 came in at 2:05!  Fortunately enough for us I mentioned to my CCT3 to have her stuff ready so she could head right out.  I went to the ladies room and then she went.  My partner in crime took the entire time, an hour and forty five minutes at least.  The DR had scheduled the new fill in chick to come in for an hour (from 3:30 – 4:30) and that was my time.  She didn’t really come in till 3:35 and I had to help settle everybody in so I really only got forty five minutes.  I recorded it on our calendar just in case somebody wants to ask when I do my business.  I need to have the balls to say to my CCT3 that we should split it better. 

On my way home I had a bad feeling about my car b/c I knew my oil was low, at least had a pretty good idea it was.  When I pulled into the driveway I checked it and my feeling was correct.  I headed to Wal Mart.  Horrible idea at the time.  There was an accident of some sort about two blocks from the store and it took two of three lanes out.  Once I finally got there I was super quick getting the stuff I needed (I decided to make a dish for baby shower tomorrow – after pondering it over forever).  When I got in the car I realized I forgot the entire reason I was there; the OIL!!!  So I had to pull around back and get some; however I also discovered that my battery actually has a 3 yr warranty and I got it in July of 12’. 

Back home I got busy on my ‘salad’.  I used this recipe w a few tweaks of my own

            I didn’t use the corn subbed bell peppers.  Used roma and a vine tomatoes instead of the babies.  

            And since I love me some red onion did that instead of yellow.  I also used black, kidney, and

            chickpeas. 

            IMO – the first bite was kind of weird, kind of a little extra spice or something.  It’ll calm I’m sure

            once all the flavors ‘merry’. 

Okay, my belly is full and I’m ready to relax.  My eats:

Bfast – peach blueberry 7 grain

Snacks – crackers w cheese and pretzels

Lunch – soup spiked w veggies and extra flavors (I put bay leaves in and LOVED it, as well as crushed red pepper) 

Snacks – cheese cubes and grapes

Dinner – an instant Asian ramen noodles that was flavored chili and lemongrass. 

            IMO – ehhh.  It was supposed to be a soup like I think, but I didn’t want it that runny so I nuked it

            way longer than the directions said and I think it killed the flavors.  I tossed it w shrimp too. 

Time to hit the sack, the best part of today is getting some extra paperwork time.

Do you eat canned soup?  How?

HAPPY DANCE at our house!

Today I was a responsible employee!  Instead of taking the ten or so mins I had to check my email b/4 clocking in I was productive for work reasons!  Since the co has screwed me so often on tidbits here and there I’ve taken every min of my time and clock in and out on the dot as often as possible. 

The day was pretty easy overall.  None of our challenging children had fits, I made progress on all my vday needs, and I had a semi relaxing afternoon.  Semi due to the four kids refusing to clean up even though they know they need to and had plenty of warning time.  ERRRRR; I told the buggers that we will not play in h.l. in the afternoon tomorrow. 

During my lunch break I had just enough time to check emails, read blogs, and post my pics from Thursday.  Maybe tomorrow I will be able to upload the rest from the weekend. 

When I got off work I called Aaron and discovered he got off early today (and for the next month and a half) and was at the dog park w Sasha!  I was so jealous! 

Nothing out of the norm at la casa other than I mixed some recipes to create a semi new one.  Not posting pics b/c it wasn’t pretty, at least not till after I soaked up the excess liquid.  *go to bottom for my changes*

Just remembered that the blogger let me know my ?, this chick just recaps this other chick; so that she isn’t getting revenue to her site.  There seems to be quite a bit of peeps who dislike the latter. 

K, we are watching the most recent Bourne and then off to bed.  Just so I remember:

Bfast – fresh pineapple and banana oatmeal

            IMO – was okay.  Probably better if I add some coconut extract

Snacks – berry medley, mandarin orange, kiwi, & six veggie straws

Lunch – LO soup w added chickpeas and baby limas as well as lots of spices (I can’t even remember them all, which is a shame b/c it made the soup way better! As in I’d buy it again if I could recreate this).

Dinner – Caprese Style Bake

            IMO – amazing!!!!  I can’t believe that even after roasting the s.squash for an hour (yesterday) and

cooking it in liquid for another forty five plus there was tons of it in the bottom.  Aaron said

we could repeat it, but maybe add some meat next time..  I also loved how the squash kept

it’s al dente bite!  SOOO going to have to buy this veggie more often. 

Now if you want to make it:

NEED:

1 apprx 4lb spaghetti squashed (roasted, shredded, and probably drained)

3 c tomato sauce of choice (I used my homemade Roasted Garden Veggie Tomato Soup)

½ ball of fresh mozzarella – cut into small pieces

2 vine ripened tomatoes – sliced or ‘cubed’

Basil – did not measure b/c I love the stuff and just sprinkled it on to every layer

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

¾ c Italian Cheese Blend – more if desired

Crushed red pepper

ASSEMBLE:

Preheat oven to 350

In 9x9 pan layer:

Spaghetti squash – 1 c sauce – 1 tomato – ½ mozzarella cheese – 1 tbsp b. vinegar sprinkled – basil

REPEAT

Top w last 1/3 of spaghetti squash – 1 c sauce – sprinkle ¾ c cheese over top

Bake for 30 mins covered.  Another 5-10 uncovered.  Let set for 5 mins, drain if necessary. 

I appreciate the idea from these two ladies and hope you’ll try a version of your own. 

SOOOO glad that the hubs will be home at a decent hour for the next month and half!

Thank you for letting me tell you my way of doing the pasta.  Have you made a dish with this veggie?  Please do share…

another busy Sunday

It was another long and busy Sunday here in the Vaughn family. 

I of course didn’t sleep in; got up around 6:30 or so to find a picture of my friends four new goats!   Woops I never msged her back w my inquiries, oh wellz.  Anyways almost did the norm except for the newish recipe I tried. 

I did vary it a little.  Instead of mashing 1 banana w two eggs I spilt the naner into two bowls.  In both bowls I made one pancake (the first) w/out b. powder and added it for the second.  In bowl one I used egg whites and in bowl two an egg.  IMO – tasted kind of like French toast rather than a pancake.  I was trying to save points but will try again the way it’s meant to be.  I also added fresh blueberries which turned really fat and were wonderful!

Hubs got up early and I got his motor running ASAP!  He made coffee and then asked what I wanted to do today and in return gave him a couple of tasks.  We sat down to drink our coffee and decided to go to the dog park just in case it did rain. 

We went to Shelby first.  There weren’t that many puppies.  The guys w Aida and Jack came back again today.  Jack’s owner had glasses on yesterday, but not today and he looked way younger.  It was nice that Aaron got to meet them, esp Aida’s daddy.  We also met a chick who lived on her own and had three pugs!  I got a great picture of her holding one like a baby.  TOO FUNNY!!!  (hopefully one day I’ll come back and show it to ya)

After a little over an hour we headed to Centennial for Aaron to meet Pepper and Hope as well as Bradshaw, Xena, Shelby, Nino, Titan (Pit), and Titan (GD), but only Nino and Titan were there.  As soon as we came into the park I saw Richo and his mommy and she said he was okay.  She got to cut his nails, after just a couple minutes of ‘lip’.  He stopped bleeding, and I guess was good enough to come play today.  However mom was w a group of gals rather than w her hubs.  George never showed :,( We were getting ready to leave when I saw Jill and her other crew.  Today we met Duke and Duchess, as well as Peter and Luna.  She also brought Laurel back, but Sir Walter got adopted.  I really liked D & D! 

Afterward we stopped at Wal Mart, where I thought we’d be maybe twenty minutes, but Aaron actually spent an hour in there!!! 

Back at the house we settled in and watched an episode of Dexter, than made dinner, and now watching the movie we picked up at the store. 

That’s it really.  I sooo wish we could connect here so I could upload all my entries from the last week +. 

I didn’t eat all that much

Bfast – ‘pancakes’

Snacks – cheese and an apple (at bfast more around brunch time so wasn’t too terribly ungry but knew I needed to eat something to tide me over till dinner)

Dinner – FRIED frenzy!!!  Aaron made beer battered crappie and I made OR as well as FF.  I also made a small bowl of red slaw. 

I’m hoping the onions and grease don’t wrestle in my belly over night. 

I love spending time w my family watching the little one have fun.

Thanks for listening to the mundaneness of my day. 

wednesday catch-up and a fun thursday

So this is sort of day two of my attempting to get back on track.  I didn’t write to you yesterday thinking I’d try to follow WW, but I would like to tell you about my dinner double date.  We ate we Lindsay and Colin at Ru Sans.  I actually got there first.  IDK if you remember or not but the last time we met them it was raining and I hadn’t driven in that area for a while and had no clue where parking was.  This time though I parked behind the Station Inn, which was free and luckily I didn’t get towed.  There was a concer going on so that may have had something to do with it.  Hopefully there will be a concert or shin-dig going on next time we dine there. I enjoyed myself as always and found out some extremely interesting house talk that I won’t describe here if there is some strange reason a stranger happens upon this and reads.  I will say that it def. opened my eyes to new living.  On to dinner shall I?... I thought hubby would order the sashimi plate again, but he didn’t.  Since I had the menu printed off from last time I knew some of the things I wanted to try and made two separate choices: one for just me and one in case hubs did order sashimi and would share.  As just previously mentioned I got the pleasure of ordering my own dinner: Albacore Tuna Nigiri, Tuna Maki (tuna wrapped in rice w seaweed on the outside), and Tiger Shrimp Appetizer thing.  IMO the albacore didn’t seem that much better than the ordinary tuna.  The shrimp app was way different than I read the description.  I can’t really remember the description, but on the plate there was this MASSIVE serving of semi bland guacamole.  Probably about two avocado’s worth!  Off to the side of the guac was some deliciously marinated and cooked shrimp.  And surrounding the other edge of the guac were these weird chips (that I know were described as crisps of some sort) but kind of had the consistency of Muncho’s and felt really strange on the tongue.  I’m pretty sure that the chef/creator included one shrimp per chip and assumed the guest would use a quarter of a cup of guac per chip/shrimp combo.  Def. not worth the eight + bucks they charged, but oh wellz, at least I tried it and found out.  Not everything can be a win right?

Now on to today since that extremely long paragraph just recapped dinner!

Bfast was a banana and some blackberry carbmaster.  Nothing fancy or plated/dished. 

The day was pretty amazing.  We had three out of six kids, all there are on my case load.  My CT was nice and stayed in the room with me the entire time.  All three had some amazing days: Burrows made some amazing eye contact to request help several times, vocalized for his SLP during therapy, used his fork with only one reminder, took a nap, and several other positives; the biggest one being that he didn’t have any meltdowns!  Blondie actually actively engaged in several activities.  She made choices by pointing, requested a song, babbled, and walked on her own without any outside ‘pushing’: she got out of her chair and walked to my CT.  Oh yeah and she spoon fed herself ¾ of a cup of yogurt!  Sassitude participated a lot today too.  She also vocalized for several things and showed us that she knew body parts!  When mom picked up Sassitude she mentioned that the SSI lady though she had Autism.  My CT and I just gawked.  The child was/is a Shaken Baby, which of course is going to have/display some sort of ‘issues’.  The SSI lady thought that the child stemmed and played to focused on one activity.  For heavens sake she’s got brain damage!  Maybe her stemming is b/c she has vision trouble?  Or maybe she’s two and likes dolls!  Anyways I could go on and on for many pages I’m sure about how stupid the SSI lady is, but I think you get the point – brain damage not Autism!  And while I’m on my soap box this just goes to show ya how over diagnosed Autism is!!!      

Since today is Thursday I did half my afternoon time in the baby room and other half w the big kids.  The AT in the baby room is back (she was out due to her son getting tubes – he did well and hasn’t slept comfortably yet, but that’s it really).  I went in a couple of minutes late, my CT doesn’t think getting in to our rooms on time is very important.  I as trying to leave and she kept trying to talk to me.  However when I got in there the AT was already doing DN’s b/c the floater was in there, so I didn’t feel too terribly guilty.  When it was time for me to leave though she wasn’t done and I went to the next room late.  I really need to say something to the DR about this again.  I think I’ve asked before what to do in that case, but don’t really remember what she said to do. 

Both of the teachers were out during my time w the big kids.  Not a big deal really.  I actually enjoyed it too.  I got to work on doing a jigsaw puzzle with the DR’s daughter, which was fun trying to get her to look at the box and try to create a picture.   I’m sure Aaron would insist that was a reason to have kids; so he could do it too.  The bad part about both teachers being out is that they’ve changed their aftercare routine a bit and I’m not familiar with it so I didn’t keep the kids on schedule.  My bad.  The AT said it wasn’t a big deal that they would just all play together. 

Earlier on in the day I asked the DR if I could work on Sassitude’s metro sheet if numbers were low this afternoon and she said it was fine.  However when four o’clock rolled around and I tried to get the Giraffes room covered she, the DR, told me to go ahead and let the chick out doing paperwork complete her time and I could just take some from her tomorrow.  Wonder if that will follow through?

I was able to get out of the classroom at a quarter till and complete my TEIDs I didn’t finish due to my CT wanting to talk. 

When I got off I was torn btwn going/coming home to make dinner or go to hubby’s game.  I ended up coming home and told myself that since his game should be at seven next week I can do that better.  I’ll at least have time to eat something before that hour. 

At the casa I prepped bfast – strawberry and mango for a parfait, lunch – a salad to top w Mexican chicken and fruits and veggies, and then dinner.  I used an idea from here and tweaked it a bit. 

1 Serving:

ingredients

1 cabbage leaf

3 inch chunk of leek

1 serving sun dried tomatoes

1 serving canned chicken or chicken of choice

22 g dried pasta of choice

Parmesean cheese

Spices/seasons of choice: mine were Italian seasoning, chili powder, and garlic

To make

Heat skillet   Sautee cabbage, leeks, and sdt’s.  Stir in seasonings and a bit more oil for taste.   Toss in chicken.  Stir.  Toss over pasta, sprinkle w cheese, add S & P if you’d like.  EAT. 

I liked it.  Next time I’ll probably use a bit more oil maybe?  It wasn’t quite as moist as I’d like, but good flavor. 

While eating I went through the circulars.  It was a right around seven when I finished and Aaron wasn’t home.  So I washed dinner dishes and sat down to a cup of lemon cream pie yogurt from Aldi.  It was okay.  Their banana cream pie was much better. 

Aaron got home around 8:30 or so, which I though was unusually late.  His game was at six, ends at seven, and should have been home by eight.  He said his game didn’t end till late b/c it started late.  He had a strange auror about him and his eyes were really red.  He said nothing was wrong.  After a bit longer he did confess to pretty much drinking all afternoon.  He had a couple at lunch w his coworkers.  A couple more at the lot while working on his own car off the clock.  And a couple more at the game, since it’s a drinking and playing league.  I’m surprised he’s up and walking and driving.  However I know it’s been over a course of several hours, but still makes me a bit nervous. 

Well now that he’s home and we are going to watch Tudors.  Most excited about my kids doing so well today! 

Thanks for reading about my day…