Not now, I've got a headache.

So, yeah, I know, I haven't gotten the new WFMW header. Sorry, I'm a little behind. Also, this is going to be bloggy carnival week. Holiday Happenings, WFMW, and BooMama's Soup's On. It ought to be so. much. fun!

This week Shannon, the host of WFMW, has posed a question:

It's 5:15 pm, the kids are hungry, you have a headache, hubby is almost home,
and the pantry has three things in it. What is your BEST last-minute meal
recipe?

I make baked spaghetti. Well, really, if I have a headache, I sit on the couch and walk Honey through the steps to making baked spaghetti, but it's all the same right? I love this because if I buy all the right package sizes, the ingredients are already measured and prepared. All I have to do is throw them together, all in one pot. Making the clean up easy schmeasy. Honey LUVS it, the kids tolerate it, and it's oh so easy. And it goes a little somethin' like this;

1 lb. ground meat (we use ground turkey, but it would be great with beef or sausage)

1 1lb,10 oz jar Prego spaghetti sauce (we use traditional flavored because we're crazy like that)

4 oz. spaghetti

2 c grated mozzarella cheese

to taste: garlic, dried diced onions, oregano, basil

Cook spahgetti in large sauce pan and drain. Using the same pan, brown and drain the meat. Add sauce, noodles, and 1/2 of the cheese. Add seasonings. Stand at the stove and stir the sauce until the cheese is melted. Try a taste just to make sure the flavor is good and imagine you are a fiesty Italian mama that makes her own sauce from scratch. When your Italian alter ego is satisfied with the taste, pour in a 9 x 13 casserole dish and top with remaining cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 mins or until bubbly. Have Honey pick up some Fazoli's bread sticks on the way home. Serve warm and enjoy!

For more quick recipes check out WFMWTWDIFE.

Just for Heather

Here is a post just for Heather. On her Backwards WFMW post, she asked how we deal with our children's art work. Here's what works for me.

In Bubba's room, we hung a clothes line of sorts.

We bought 2 hooks, and tied some jute twine between them.

Then Bubba uses clothes pins to attach his works of art to the clothes line. When it is full, he has to decide whether to keep or trash an item before he can add another one. This reminds me that I need to hang a couple in the play room for the girls. They would really brighten up the walls in there.

It's Backwards Day!

I am so glad it's Backwards Day at WFMW because I have a question for you, Girls. Honey and I both love salad. I know, it's a rare thing when a man likes to eat it, but mine does. So, I love to take advantage of this and make big salads for supper every now and then.

The problem is, we never eat all the lettuce in one sitting. We always have some left over. I personally like to have left overs so I can pack them for lunch the next day. What I don't like so much about left over salad is that I don't really know how to keep the lettuce fresh. Crispy, not too dry or wet. And definitely not limp. Oh, and the brown edges aren't to appetizing either. I know it won't last forever, but it would be nice to have fresh lettuce for a couple of days.

I have tried buying it in the bags already pre cut and washed. I have tried buying it in heads and cutting and washing it myself. I have tried paper towels, zip-locs, rubbermaid, paper towels and rubbermaid, zip-locs without actually zipping the loc, . . .I can't figure it out.

Help!

Save my salad sanity!

What are your tips?

Yes, I was an Elem. Ed Major

It's Works - for - me - Wednesday over at Rocks in My Dryer. I love reading all of these posts and getting such great ideas. Head over and visit Shannon and glean from the wisdom of the internets. And, share an idea of your own.

I'm clumsy. Yes, you heard it here first. I have not one iota of grace in me. I fall, stub my toe, drop things, or bump my thigh into the corners of my furniture pretty much on a daily basis. I try to confine my clumsiness to the privacy of my own home, but I usually end up making a fool of myself in public anyways.

One of the things I am prone to do out in public is drop my Bible. Juggling stuff to entertain 3 kids during worship, a purse, and a Bible often proves too much for my graceless body.

I am also an avid note taker. If I'm going to remember it, I must write it down. So, you can imagine the scene that occurs when the Bible of an avid note taker gets dropped, or kicked off the pew by a 4 year old, or merely slips off of her lap. Sermon notes, church bulletins, Sunday school papers, recipes for the potato chip casserole I tried at the last potluck . . . go EVERYWHERE! It's not a pretty sight, and the embarrassment that takes over my whole entire being when the person sitting 6 people down has to pick up the reminder to make 2 dozen cookies for the college retreat last November is just too much to bear.

So, out of pure necessity, I avoid slipping notes between the pages of my Bible. I just stick them in my purse. It has a zipper to hold everything inside, so when I drop it, nothing falls out.

But that's not my Works-for-me-Wednesday tip. I'm getting to that. Several years ago, I adopted a new note taking habit. I hardly ever take notes about the sermon or Bible class on a separate piece of paper. I just don't. I realized that I was never going back and reading the notes that I did take. And really, a Bible can only hold so much extra stuff, so where do you store them when your Bible is filled to the brim?

To solve my note taking woes, I started taking notes in the margins of my Bible. I underline, write, and circle to my heart's content. Because space is limited, I only write the truths that really speak to me. The pieces that I truly want to store in my heart and live every day. And they are right there beside the verse used by the speaker. And I don't have to spend 4 days sifting through folded crumpled church bulletins to find the ONE that I needed.

Yeah, OK, that wasn't my WFMW tip either. Here it is: After a few years of this "notes in the margin" thing, I found that all of my pages were beginning to look the same. Special verses that I underlined for emphasis were beginning to run together. They were all underlined. I was also wrestling with knowing that God loves me completely and lavishly and I was spending much time reading this truth in the scriptures. I wanted a quick way for these verses to stand out to me. I wanted to pick up my Bible, flip through the pages, see a verse that reminded me how much my Father loves me, and read it . I wanted a quick reminder and pick me up from the Lord himself.

So, I began marking these scriptures with small stickers. Every time I read a scripture that reminded me that God loves me, I put a small heart sticker in the margin beside it. The next time I needed a hug from my Father, I flipped the pages of my Bible until I found a heart sticker.

Soon, I realized that I had many issues that were keeping me in spiritual bondage, so I started marking scriptures that helped me with specific issues with different stickers.

In the back of my Bible on one of the "Notes" pages, I made a little legend to help me remember what all the little stickers mean. Some of my subjects include: Promises God Makes/Keeps about My Deliverance, Absolute Truth, God Loves Me, and Remembering that I live my life using God's power and bringing glory to His name.

I find these small, (1/2 inch), stickers at teacher supply stores or Christian book stores. They aren't all religious in meaning, but they mean a great deal to me. I love being able to have the verses at my fingertips whenever I need a pick-me-up or a gentle reminder.

What Bible study techniques work for you?

Because it's totally my day off

Since we were unpacking on Labor Day, I'm declaring today my day off. I will spend it doing the things I love not the things I need to do. One of the things I love is blogging, so you're getting 2 posts today.

I know.

Take a deep breath.

Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer is hosting a Brand-Loyal Edition of Works for Me Wednesday. And I want to play. So here is my newest name brand love.

This summer I found Lipton To Go in the sugar free, white and green tea versions. My favorite is apple-cranberry white tea. But I also love the raspberry green tea. Honey loves the citrus green tea.

They are so refreshing and convenient. I am a bottled water addict, but sometimes my taste buds like it when I mix it up a bit. The only draw back is that these mixes still contain caffeine. I'm a de-caf girl, so I have to watch my packet consumption.

Hop over to Rocks in my Dryer to find more brand loyal posts.

It works for me...

This weekend we planted our summer vegetable garden. I am fairly new to the vegetable garden thing. Last year, Honey finally talked me in to trying it, and I have been hooked ever since. Honey grew up planting one every year. In fact, when he was young, his mom grew such a big garden that her family ate their fill during the summer months and still had enough left over for canning.

We do not grow this much. But we do have a little place out back in our new yard.

The space is just big enough to grow our favorite fruits and veggies. I fell in love with vegetable gardening because I loved having the fresh food right at your fingertips. There is something so fulfilling about walking outside and picking dinner. The kids ate our home grown vegetables so much better than the store bought ones. They seemed to be more open to trying them if they knew we grew them in our garden.

Last year we started mostly with seeds. This year I bought as many plants as I could find. I want to begin harvesting as soon as possible!

Home grown summer vegetables work for me. Vist Rocks in My Dryer for more ideas.

Works for Me Wednesday - Easy Summer Scrapbook for Kids

First of all, this mama is not a scrapbook queen, so don't set your expectations too high. Although, this project is perfect for any level of scrapbooker because you can make it as simple or as cutsie as you want.

Last summer Bubba had just finished Kindergarten. He was an emerging reader and writer. The first grade teacher in me cringed at the idea of him spending the entire summer doing brain mushing activities like playing video games and watching TV. I wanted him to retain everything he'd learned in Kinder, and maybe even pick up a few new things.

I came up with this:

A summer journal Kindergarten style. I bought an 8x8 scrapbook, a package of colored printer paper, and top-load plastic cover pages. On the left side I made simple scrapbook pages documenting the activities we wanted to remember. I kept the pages simple so that it wouldn't be so overwhelming and so I would keep up with it and get it done quickly and almost immediately.

Then on the right hand side I gave Bubba a piece of blank, white printer paper and told him to journal about what he was doing in the pictures. This eliminated the "Mooom, I don't know what to write about." whining. It also gave him something to say ("I was wearing orange shorts." "I was hitting the ball.")when he was just out of words (a boy thing).

I told him not to worry about spelling (as he gets older we will work on that) and to write whatever he wanted to about each activity. If he asked how to spell something, I said "Do the best you can." If he was completely stuck, I helped him hear a few of the most important sounds in the word and moved on. I asked him to come up with a couple of sentences for each page, and...I also paid him a penny per sentence. If I really wanted extra, I gave him a nickel for 3 or 4 sentences.

When he was finished writing, I asked him to read it back to me. If there was a word misspelled or hard to read, I drew a line under it and wrote the correct spelling (mainly for me when I wanted to go back and look at this piece of history YEARS down the road). I tried to leave the grammar and syntax as he'd written it. My goal wasn't a perfect paper, but to document his work at that time in his life.

We accomplished this while the twins were napping. It kept him quiet so they could sleep and gave us some one-on-one time. I also quickly realized that he would not be up to this EVERY SINGLE DAY, so we just worked on it once or twice a week, or less if we were caught up. (BRIBING him with money didn't hurt either.)

In the end, we had fun reliving our summer memories, Bubba's brain stayed activated, and I ended up with a great scrapbook. It WORKS FOR ME!

Go to Rocks In My Dryer to see more great Works for Me tips.