Easy-Peasy Parm Chicky

This is a recipe I have adapted from 3 different recipes I've seen on Pinterest. It's a great simple chicken dish that only takes about 5 minutes to prep and 20 minutes in the oven.

3 or 4 Chicken breasts
1 Cup Sour Cream
1/2 Cup parmesan (I've used shredded and grated...either is fine)
1 1/2 tsp Seasoned Salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp Garlic powder


Get an oven safe dish prepped (I use my misto sprayer with EVOO) and lay the chicken in the dish.

In a small-ish bowl, mix all the other ingredients until well mixed. Then just spoon it onto the chicken breasts and smooth it out until it covers them. I like a good thick cover. Pop them in the oven.

I throw them in the oven at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. I use convection though so it's really 400 degrees on convection.

Is Pinterest the new Barbie?

Do you remember when everyone jumped on the "hate Barbie" bandwagon? There was so much criticism that Barbie was emulating and unachievable body image for young girls and everywhere you looked another mom was taking a stand against Barbie. To this day Barbie is (and her crazy measurements) are discussed. Mattel even increased Barbie's waist size a few years back.  With two little girls I didn't know what my "Barbie Policy" would be in this house but my 2 year old is knee deep in loving Princesses and "Bah-bee" (you'd think she lives in Boston I swear). I don't really take issue with Barbie and her perfect little plastic body. I think the responsibility rests on my shoulders to show my little pumpkins what healthy body image looks like; it's part of my task as a parent that I take very seriously. With that said... I am convinced Pinterest is my generation's new Barbie.  Don't get me wrong, I have boards and boards on Pinterest of things I want to do/make/see/eat, etc. but if I'm honest with myself, a lot of those are wishful thinking. A lot of them are a representation of who I want to be, who I feel I need to be, and who I FAIL to be. Here's a great example: I have a crochet flower tutorial on my crafty board. I would love to make them. The mind is willing but the body is weak. I started making a blanket for my first daughter and had to restart it so many times I lost count. My mom would examine it (she's my craft sensi) and start laughing because with all her years of crocheting she had no clue as to how I did what I did. My lack of talent is talent enough. For those wondering if I finished the blanket, I did not. One of the dogs we had at the time got ahold of it and pulled the yarn all over our house as well as out the doggie door. I didn't have the heart to start it all over AGAIN! My point is, are we letting Pinterest be our new unattainable measuring block? Am I a bad mom because my cleaning products aren't homemade with essential oils? Will my daughters look at pictures of their birthday parties and wonder why I didn't have life sized characters set out to greet guests at their party? Or why their Easter baskets didn't include dye-free all natural candy and homemade granola? I don't think so because as I tell myself, along with others, I am doing my best. I fail at something every day. Our house constantly has fur floating around because we have four animals...and those animals make them happy. We color from books I buy at the dollar store and I don't laminate them to create books for them to reference back on but we sure have a blast coloring them. My kids are happy and healthy and that's what matters. Now excuse me while I go empty a blue box of macaroni into a sauce pot because I promised an adorable 2 year old.

What do you mean "budget"?

For a few years now we have been living just a smudge beyond our means; every month going just a little over, just so it didn't hurt. Husband-so-dear had been applying for new jobs with greater earning potential, even second jobs but he wasn't even getting so much as a phone call. We kept thinking it would happen "any day now" (He seriously is such a great catch for a company. They don't know what they're missing. His employees love him, his numbers for his office are awesome, and the guy can do calculations faster than you can find a calculator. I used to be the "math person"...now I suck because I just tell him my calculations). Well, any day now was not coming and our "smidge over" was really starting to add up. I bought "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey and read some of it, we got excited and never did anything (womp womp). Fast forward....finally came the day where I said we have to change or it's going to start to really hit us. We sat down and joined the ranks of the other smart people out there paying down our debt with our debt snowball. We've done a lot of stupid things with our money but we are finally on the right track! Woo hoo! We made the decision to sell my car (since it still had payments and was worth more than we owed) and take that money to buy a used minivan. We had been talking about getting a van but they were so expensive. We found a 12 year old van with only 70k miles on it and it's in GREAT condition! The morning after we bought Gloria (our new-to-us van) we both looked at each other and sighed with relief. We knew we were making the right decision. We are so happy to finally be taking these steps and God had SO been blessing our faithfulness. It has been amazing to see his reassurance come through in so many ways. I'm going to try to trickle in our progress and keep us accountable through here. Even if no one is reading it now, I know it's out there and I have to answer for myself. :) Looking forward to living like no one else so later on we can LIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE!

No me gusta Babies R Us

Ugh!  I'm SO frustrated with Babies R Us.  Right before I got pregnant with The Princess, a Babies R Us opened up about a mile from us.  I thought it would be heaven.  I was WRONG!  When I first went to register there my SIL who was 6 months ahead of me with baby #1 cautioned me that their customer service could be difficult.  Well it wasn't my only registry but I was excited and did it anyway.  It took FOREVER just to get someone to show up at the registry desk to get us started.  That was my first experience there.  Then every time I've gone into the store, out of the 10 check stands that they have, none are open and you must go to the customer service desk.  So you end up in a line with everyone else who is returning, etc.  Pain in the booty!  So my last straw came last week.  After The Princess's 4 month Dr. appt. we needed to get her some liquid vitamin D.  We still have credit to Babies R Us and I had a coupon (don't even get me STARTED on all of the exclusions on their coupons but it does sort of play into this story) so we went there.  I had read every exclusion on the coupon to be sure that our vitamins would be covered.  No exclusion on vitamins.  Perfect.  Not so much.  When I went to checkout, (at the customer service desk of course) the girl couldn't get the coupon to work.  Mind you-it's from THEIR store on one of THEIR receipts.  She finally calls someone.  Together they determine that since the vitamins are made by a formula company that they are considered formula.  Uh...no.  They are not.  Just because my washing machine is made by GE it is not also a refrigerator.  So I came home and contacted their customer service.  They emailed me back wanting the store number and I got a canned email back.  No attempt to try to rectify the situation, just a "Thanks for your email. Sorry it happened." email.  I felt that they should have at least offered to honor my coupon and send me the couple bucks it would've saved me, even if it was store credit.  Am I out of line on this one?  Are all Babies R Us stores like this because I haven't heard much in the way of "good" regarding them?  Thankfully between SuperTarget across the street and Amazon.com I can get The Princess's items elsewhere as soon as I use up our credit.  I'd like to hear what others think.

Here's the email from customer service if you're interested:

Thank you for contacting the "R" Us Family.

We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us. We value your opinion and as a company, we work hard to ensure appropriate Customer Service is provided into all aspects of our business, especially at the store level. We are disappointed when we learn we have fallen short of our goal. We would like to offer our apology and please be assured, your comments and suggestions are extremely important to us and will be shared with the appropriate department in order to rectify the situation.

Thank you, once again, for contacting the "R" Us Family.

Gift Cards Are My Cryptonite

I must say that I am thankful for every gift card/certificate I have received. The giver was thinking of me and blessed me by using their own money to show me love.  I have never been ungrateful.  That may be my problem.  You see, when I have a gift card in my wallet it stays there for a ridiculous amount of time.  I never want to "waste" it.  I treasure them so much I don't want them to be used for nothing-ness.  Lately my husband has taught me a valuable lesson.  He had gift cards to home improvement stores and since we have been scraping to make ends meet, he used those gift cards to buy things we needed at the house (light bulbs, etc.).  He even had CostcoCash that we used for groceries.  These were presents given to him over the years.  They belonged to him but used them for our family.  I felt awful.  He looked at me and said, "When we get into a better financial state, I can use regular money for what I need or want.  Right now this is what we need to do."  That was so selfless of him that I really treasured it.  Being one to always look for the bargain, I have been shopping around for "The Baby Whisperer" book.  The best deal I could find was on half.com including shipping.  However, I have gift cards for Amazon.com (I loove Amazon).  I didn't want to "waste" them by paying more for the book.  Then I realized that by using the gift cards I am still getting a book for me (not really that selfless) and not taking any money out of our family funds.  Yes I paid a few dollars more, but in reality I paid nothing.  Sometimes the things Hubby says are really wise.  :)

I "Pink Puffy Heart" Target

Have you SEEN the toy clearance at Target this week?  It's fantas-mic!  Yesterday while Daphne (my car) was getting fixed (sensor was shorting out...thank God for warranties) the Mama came and picked up the Princess and I and we went to Target.  I went for a Cookie Monster for the Princess...and came out with a huge chunk of Christmas shopping done.  Have yet to meet a person who goes to Target and ONLY gets what they came for.  However I'm SO proud of myself.  I bought 9 presents (Christmas and birthdays), 4 greeting cards, a DVD for the Princess and I, AND her Cookie Monster.  And do you want to know how much this great adventure cost me?  $91!  That was fantastic!!!!  I'm so proud that I can't even believe I scored so well.  We only have a couple of birthdays left for the year that I didn't get presents for yet but one of them is going to be a pinterest idea.  Two things I'd be lost without...Target and Pinterest.  As I tell my Sister-in-law, "If you're not pinning, you're not cool."  :)  I'd love to know what you do to meet your budget for Christmas.

Working From Home

I think I must have 5 books on my Kindle about being a SAHM and bringing in money.  I am mildly obsessed with it.  When I got pregnant with our Princess we knew we'd need a smidge of extra income with me staying at home...THEN the bomb dropped on us.  The church where DH was a youth pastor had a bit of a shake up and let him go.  BOOM! (bomb dropping).  We were in the hole a lot more than a smidge.  I'm already a "coupon queen" (my extended family jokes that if there is a discount to be found, I can find it) and we live pretty frugally, so where were we going to make this up?  We pray, of course, that God will provide.  He always has. However, we believe that God also gives us the opportunity to better our situations; He doesn't just drop money into our laps.  So what are we doing?
I have made it even more of a priority to shop for only what we need and what we are going to use right now.  I use more and more coupons, I shop second hand for as much as possible (babies don't use clothes and toys for very long so I can often find virtually brand new items second hand), and I recently took on tutoring clients again.  Before the Princess arrived I was working at a tutoring center that was great and I have just started back with them this week but can I just tell you how tough it is to be away from the Princess for just that short time?  I'd much rather have students here at my home.  Soooo I posted on Facebook about my tutoring services and my FB is blowing up!  Woo Hoo!  I'm so excited!  We also decided to open our own little computer repair business through our home.  We had very little investment to start it up and we have years of experience so hopefully that will help us make ends meet too.  Yikes!  When I put it all down it sounds like a lot but it's all worth it for our little Princess to be with Mommy.  What do you to make ends meet when they just don't connect?