How YOU doin?

At the beginning of January I set five 2013 goals.  Thought I would come back and report my progress. 

Goal:  One new recipe per week.  Report out:  Success!  We have been doing well in adding new recipes to the routine - so far we have tried the following:  Cheeseburger Mac, Mexican Chicken Breasts, Shrimp Pasta Toss (peas, parmesan, lemon zest, olive oil and shrimp), and homeade pizza with prosciutto and carmelized onions (to be honest, this wasn't a first time recipe but one I haven't made in ages so I think we will call it good). 

Goal:  Read more books for me - one book per month.  Report out:  Success!  I actually blew this one out of the water.  I have read since Jan 1 - The Art of Fielding, Hunger Games - Books 1,2, &3 (!), Water for Elephants, and Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children. 

Goal:  More Grown Up time.  Report out:  Pretty successful!  I had a super fun craft date with Stephanie and Mike and I had a date night. I also went on my Las Vegas trip (super fun!).

Goal:  Set some work goals.  Report out:  In progress.  I have been doing some brainstorming and talking with people, still room for improvement on this one. 

Goal:  Better attendance at mass.  Report out:  Total Fail.  Resolve to keep at this one.  :)

Overall, I will take this as a victory. How are you doing on yours?

Today I am...

my little happy calendar at work

Wearing... grey dress, pink tights, houndstooth Sorel boots, white puffy coat, red/white stocking cap, black/white/red mittens.  Rocking the snowstorm fashion. 

Listening to...  Def Lepard, Joan Jett, Duran Duran.  Its 80's on Pandora people!  Whats not to love?

Trying to remember... that some day bedtime battles will be over and that I will miss snuggling those cranky little people that live in my house. 

Drinking... lots and lots of coffee.  3 am starts to the day will do that to a girl. 

Playing... Candy Land (always the yellow piece) and Go Spidey (marvel's version of Go Fish).

Laughing... at Dottie's constant need to "shake her booty" even if she prefers to do so without underwear. 

Wishing... Charlie was a better sleeper, how can such a happy daytime baby be such a crabby night time baby?

Looking forward to... seeing Barb this weekend and Luke's wrestling tournament. 

Winter Wonderfuls: Ventage Tuesday

You may have come to the realization that I am a freak.  If you haven't, this post may be the one that seals the deal for you.  

I.
Love.
Winter.

Yep.  Love it.  It may be the Norwegian Viking blood in my veins.  It may be a Sconnie girl thing.  May just be that I hate being hot.  Whatever the reason - I love December through March.  

Living in the land of the frozen tundra, snow can come as early as October and stay around as late as April.  Good times.  Here are my top five things about winter:

1)  Stocking Hats.  Love them.  We own about 10 million stocking caps - these may have been my favorite ever in the collection though.  

Packer hats, Brewer hats, pink hats that sparkle, Skull and cross bones hats, camouflage hats, Bucky hats, cute black hipster hats, got them.  love them.  Ask Barb, I am always scouting for new hats.  

2) Kids bundled up in snow gear.

This picture is old but I love it.  We always put the kids to work shoveling and although getting them all in the gear is annoying, they look so cute bundled up.  Always makes me smile to see kids going nuts in the snow.

3)  Birthdays.  December and January are big birthday months in my life, Barb, Dorothy, my dad, Mike, my mom and Katrina all celebrate birthdays.  Never let an opportunity to celebrate go to waste!  

4)  Ice Skating.  I grew up in a hockey town.  I have been skating since I was about 4.  Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to teach my own kids... must remedy that pronto.

5)  hot drinks - Some people love hot chocolate.  I love Tom and Jerrys.  :)  What is not to love, booze and creamy goodness.  Yum.  

Whats not to love people?

Ready to roll the dice

Heading to the bright lights of Las Vegas with my cousin for a little girls getaway.  I am so excited to eat at good places, drink a few drinks, take no work calls, sleep through the night and as is always true when with Darla, laugh my ass off. 

Unfortunately, Mike still has the black death and Charlie was up all last night with a fever.

I will not feel guilty for needing this break.

I will not feel guilty for needing this break.

Love to all of you!  

Ventage Tuesday - Random Acts of Kindness (delayed)

Yesterday got away from me.  I am prepping for vacation, work is crazy and well, you know, I get sidetracked sometimes. 

January brings the blues.  I know that some people feel charged up (cough, cough, Katrina) by reflecting and making plans.  But for me?  I get the blues sometimes in January.  Let down of the winter and missing friends and family and work obligations ramping up...

In order to prevent (or cure) the blues?  Random Acts of Kindness. 

Do you know how many people touch your life every day?  Do you notice those people? 

I did 5 random acts of kindness yesterday -

1)  My work teammate is having a rough go of things in his life.  Just a lot of stress and chaos.  Yesterday I surprised him with a coffee and a donut - he makes my work life so much better and I didn't want him to go unnoticed. 

2)  My dad has bailed me out of sooooo many jams in the last few years.  He is a rock in a shifting world.  He also loves (very passionately) his Keurig.  He has always been looking for cappacino KCups.  He likes a sickeningly sweet cappacino.  I found some he likes and ordered him three boxes and shipped to his house.  Hopefully it brightens his day a little bit. 

3)  I do the vast majority of my shopping online.  That means I have pretty tight relationships with the postman, the UPS man, and the FEDEX man.  The UPS man delivers to me pretty late (like 5:30).  Yesterday the temperature didn't get above 3 degrees in lovely Frozen Tundra, Wisconsin.  I knew a package was coming and I left him a little thank you note and a candy bar.  He improves my life significantly and he was braving some damn cold weather! 

4)  I texted my cousin a reminder that we have (gasp!) 2 SLEEPS til Vegas.  (ok, this isn't really a RAK but I am sooooooooooooooo ready to go on vacation! 

5)  Mike has the man sick.  You know, one step away from black death.  I made him tea with honey and tried to keep my eye rolling to a minimum.  This is probably the most kindness I could extend because I am a SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP kind of wife.  Its the little things people.

Hope a little kindness works its way into your life this week. 

Fess Up Friday - January Edition

Confession 1:  I love winter.  I don't hate the cold, love the glitteriness and whiteness of the snow, love the feeling of bitter cold mixed with blinding sunshine.  I love my winter boots, love to see kids in snow pants with bright red cheeks.  I love ice skating, hats with pom ball tops and fuzzy mittens.  I do hate 19 hours of darkness and I do hate flu season, but you can't convince me to hate winter. 

Confession 2:  I am horrible about breakfast.  I know, I know, most important meal of the day and all that.  This mornings breakfast?  Diet Dr Pepper, Wheat Things and Queso Fresco and Chipotle laughing cow cheese.  Breakfast of champions.  It is 7:15 and I am already wondering if I can convince some coworkers to go out for Friday fish fry lunch. 

Confession 3:  I am barely sleeping 4 hours a day.  This means that my reactions to things may be a little, um, amplified. 

Confession 4:  I went on a crafting date with Stephanie last weekend and it did wonders for my attitude.  Sometimes a day of being goofy and having a friend to laugh with can be worth more than sleep.  Well, at least easier to come by than sleep. 

Confession 5:  It makes me feel dirty that all the makeup I wear has names that either make me seem like a drug addict or a sex fiend. 

Confession 6:  I go on vacation in 6 days and am SOOOOOO ready to leave my family behind and have a weekend of fun, sleep, drinking and adventure.  I feel no guilt whatsoever about doing this. 

Confession 7:  Needing to be more deliberate about finding more than 10 minutes at 9:30 pm to have discussions with my husband - remedy?  Mom and Dad night tomorrow night.  Yay! 

Hope you have a great Friday, if you are in the area and want to do fish fry in 4 hours, ring me up!

Book It!

When I was in elementary school, Pizza Hut started offering the Book It! program to encourage reading.  My family didn't go out to eat very often so when I could earn pizza and we would go out - super big deal.  

I have always been a voracious reader - so much so that I can remember my dad yelling at me to put my book away and go outside.  :)  

I have set some reading goals for myself and have a ton of books in my kindle queue.  Here goes:  

1)  Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children  Kind of a weird, vintage, spooky, thriller.  I am about 25 pages in and am very intrigued.  

2)  The Round House  Louise Erdrich is one of my favorite all time authors.  Her stories about native american reservation living are fascinating and well spun tales with complex characters.  Highly recommend. 

3) Master of the Senate by Robert Caro  This is part 3 of the FANTASTIC biography of Lyndon B. Johnson.  One of my bucket list items is to read biographies on all our American presidents.  This is the best set of biographies I have ever read.  They are super long and dense, but if you know me and my reading habits, it is perfect.  Not for everyone but if you love government intrigue, plotting and history, you cannot beat this series.  

4)  Hunger Games  I seem to have missed this cult classic when everyone else was doing it. I have no interest in seeing the movies, but am curious about the stories.  

5)  Barefoot Contessa: Foolproof Recipes you can Trust  I received this cookbook for Christmas and I am very excited to start working my way through it.  Love me some Ina and Geoffrey.

My reading list is kind of weird.  What can I say.  If I read all of these, I might have to treat my family to a pizza party - Book It style.  

Check out what the others are reading:
Barb
Katrina
Steph
Em

Holy Rollers

Green Bay, Wisconsin is a special kind of place.  You may be somewhat familiar with our brand of special if you are a football fan.  NBC/FOX/ESPN likes to paint us as this quaint midwestern city full of insane football fans with no lives. 

That is only partially true. 

Green Bay has these pockets of experiences that seem like they are out of another era or in a movie about a city that is not in the "modern era", today, we hung out at one of these places. 

St Mary of the Angels Roller Rink is a parish run skating rink with a storied past (Since 1959) and part of Green Bay legend of skating parties, intra church dates, and family fun.  Green Bay is historically a VERY catholic town and many of our traditions stem from this heritage.  Today, the rink is open for family skate a few times a month and then for private parties.  There is also a roller derby team that runs a vinyl record only open skate for adults. 

In short?  This place is AWESOME. 

We decided that a good way to beat the January blues would be to take the kids skating.  Back in the heyday of my youth, I was quite the roller skater (and ice skater too for that matter).  Many a nights were spent at the Moulton's rink in Eau Claire and I love to skate, I love the weird skates, loud music, and all the kitsch associated with a fine roller rink. 

What I forgot (or did not consider in the slightest) is that Mike is not a very good skater, Luke and Dottie don't know how to skate, and we have a ten month old. 

No worries.  We will figure it out. 

It took 25 minutes to get Mike, myself and the kids equipped with skates.  Dottie in particular was concerned about fit and tightness and all that.  Luke was raring to go (problem is?  raring to go is not an asset in roller skating). 

We finally take to the church gym/roller rink and both kids are immediately on their butts.  Mike takes a few laps with Charlie to try and get his bearings a little bit (Charlie is in an umbrella stroller). 

I take turns with Luke and Dot trying to help them find their footing.  Hilarity ensued:



Thank goodness for those PVC pipes on wheels - we were able to take a few spins and not fall down every five seconds.  One foot (glide) then the other (glide).  Poor Luke, he was sooo excited that he took quite a few tumbles because he was just trying to go too fast! We all had fun though! Please note the hanging cross and feel good messages on the wall - this place is a trip. 

I wanted to take Charlie a few times so I could go a little faster - please ignore my disheveled disposition!  I am not sure he was much of a fan!

What a fun way to wrap up a cold winter weekend!



Fess Up Friday



Good advice. If I listened earlier, I wouldn't be here. But that's just the trouble with me. I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it. -- Alice (Disney's Alice in Wonderland)  

 We know what the good advice is, right?  I know that giving up and letting your three year old sleep in your bed at 3 in the morning will lead to problems (immediate - getting dressed in the dark when your alarm goes off; long term - getting this tantruming drama queen to sleep in her own bed) but DAMN, we are tired and so I don't follow my own advice. 

I know that drinking too much caffeine stops having its desired effect and instead will give me a week long headache, but DAMN I am tired and looking for a boost so I don't follow my own advice. (hence the coffee, diet dr pepper and ibuprofen sitting on my desk)

I know that when my internal filter is feeling wobbling I should BACK AWAY and keep my mouth shut.  Yeah, not so much lately.  

I know that my newest makeup delivery (NARS blush, Bliss handcreme and Too Faced lipstick) will not solve any problems - but DAMN they are fun.  (side note, if you are looking for new lipstick, I cannot recommend Too Faced enough, loving it right now).  

Yesterday two really fun things:  I had an email exchange with someone lovely who will remain anonymous who had to listen to my barrage of complaints about how no one has a freaking positive attitude and was bringing me down (while I am sure she was thinking, DAMN, listen to your own advice) but it did make me feel better and it did make me laugh to hear her responses.  Second, texts last night from someone who can ALWAYS make me laugh - best part of my day.  

Happy Friday.  No advice for the weekend as I won't follow it anyway! 



Ventage Tuesday - Soup-er Supper!

When I am having a hard day, or feeling down, I love to chop things.  I find the repetitive motion and uniformity very soothing.  Because of this love of chopping, I make soup often.  Lots and lots of soup.  

I figured that writing about five soups for today's Ventage prompt would  be pretty easy.  No so my friends.  Most of my recipes are not recipes.  They are just chopping and putting things in the big pan without writing things down or even being very precise.  

Makes writing about soup recipes tough.  So here are my five favorite soups - please forgive my annoying cooks notes and remember that for me, it is about stress relief, not stress creation!  

1.  French Onion Soup.  I like this recipe, although I do use provolone cheese sometimes because it is much cheaper and easier to work with than the gruyere.  The trick?  Don't rush this soup, the onions need A LOT of time. Its work it though! (bonus - lots of chopping).  

2.  Baked Potato Soup.  I don't really use a recipe for this.  I made it just this weekend and it is a great way to use up stuff in the fridge.  Make some bacon in the oven - I prefer good and crispy.  Take a little of the bacon grease and add a couple of tbsp butter.  Saute one large chopped onion.  Then add several large potatoes, cubed.  Add chicken broth til potatoes are covered.  Cook (about an hour) til potatoes are soft.  Add one of the following:  cream, sour cream, greek yogurt or cream cheese.  Mash potatoes (I like it somewhat chunky).  If it seems too thick, add more cream.  add the chopped bacon in and corn.  Add two or three handfuls of grated cheese (cheddar, colby-jack, whatever your preference).  Serve with biscuits.  Yum.  (and lots of chopping).  



3.  Pioneer Woman Chicken and Noodles.  Yum.  This is just yum comfort food at its best.  Plus it is a huge batch so there are great leftovers.

4.  White Chicken Chili.  This is my husband's favorite soup.  Very good - I like to use the leftovers to make white chicken chili nachos (clearly a health food).  

5.  My Chicken and Dumpling Soup (with Grandma leone's dumplings).  This is my can't miss soup.  Use what you have, make the stock, cook it forever, make egg/flour/milk dumplings.  There is no recipe.  Only chopping and deliciousness.  

Well, now I am starving.  Off to check out everyone else's:

Katrina
Em
Steph
Barb

Set it Up Sunday

I may have mentioned that we are making some big changes in 2013.  One of them?  We have hired a nanny and Luke has enrolled in a new preschool.  I actively resisted this change for several months, liking the security of a day care, the comfortable, the known.  

But, our life had other plans and a great opportunity to bring someone into our home and allowing the kids to be together during the day, with age appropriate break outs for them to get some socialization came our way.  

Miss Haley has joined our team and lesson learned?  WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG?  

The kids are happy.  Luke loves his new school and it is not every day, it three mornings a week.  They love being together.  They love being home and not rushed around.  It is good.  

Our house is clean?  Miss Haley seems to be significantly more organized than me and is putting some systems into place.  I cannot create those systems, but I can follow them.  Clean house equals happy mom!  

Kids being in my house all day every day means some changes though!  One is in our food habits/consumption.  I have to be pretty disciplined in menu planning and grocery shopping. Lunches for kids, dinner for all of us.   Here is this week's plan:

Sunday lunch - Cheeseburger Mac Casserole
Sunday dinner - ham balls (like meatballs but with ham) mashed potatoes and broccoli

Monday lunch - leftover baked potato soup
Monday dinner - scrambled eggs with green beans (Mike's out of town)

Tuesday lunch - leftover ham balls/mashed potatoes
Tuesday dinner - Beef pot roast, carrots, potatoes and gravy

Wednesday lunch -  Bean and cheese quesadillas
Wednesday dinner - Chicken and Rice with veggies

Thursday lunch - PB&J, fruit and pita chips
Thursday dinner -  Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Wraps (plain shredded chicken wraps for kids)

Friday lunch - Veggie Beef soup
Friday dinner - thin crust homemade pizza (roasted veggie for adults, pepperoni for kids)

I also did a big snack plan for things to have on hand:

apples,
bananas
pears
oranges
popcorn
raisins
vanilla wafers
crackers and cheese
string cheese

Lots of prep work to do today - better get after it!

Ventage Special Edition: KickAss Katrina

in the Year of the Awesome, we are all about celebrating and focusing on good.  Today?  Awesome because it is the day Katrina joined our planet spinning around the sun. 

I think you know this, but Katrina RULES.  Here are five things i LOVE LOVE LOVE about her.

5.  Nothing is too absurd to brainstorm with her.  She is an ideas person and loves to think things out and push limits.  She pushes me to think in different ways.  I love this.  She is always on the path of a new idea and happy to bring others along with her on that path. 

4.  She is super creative.  She has one of the best Project Life albums out there.  Here is one of my favorite weeks of her PL project.  It has Ventage, gin ( a personal passion of mine) and best of all?  A picture of a full on SMILE from Katrina! :)  I love her clean style and wit.

3.  I have never physically been in the same room with her but consider her to be one of my dearest friends.  She transcends boundaries and thanks to Al Gore's interwebs, we are able to support and laugh with each other.  I think this needs to be remedied very very soon. 

2.  She is committed.  To health, to happiness, to living honestly and with simplicity.  She walks the walk - and helps others (including me) clear the cobwebs and focus on what is important. 

1.  She will try new things.  She embraced eyeshadow, gin, and many other things because someone said, "I think you might like this"  I love that about her so much - she doesn't let the "we've never done it this way" hold her back.  Now, she has had to try some other new things in the past year that have been more complicated than eyeshadow, but she faced them with grace and humor mixed in with tears and I honor and admire her growth. 

She is my friend.  Happy birthday dear girl, may the next year be filled with so many awesome things for you that the interwebs can't hold them.  love you.

The Gravy to my Mashed Potatoes

36 Things I love about Mike (in honor of his 36th birthday)

36.  Your love of Red Vines. (clearly the superior licorice)

35.  Your capacity to think big.

34.  Your sweet dance moves.

33.  Your sense of style.

32.  Your insistence on a positive attitude (no wallowing).

31.  Your willingness to clean up the high chair and the floor around the high chair (clearly the grossest job ever). 

30.  You calling your mom faithfully every Sunday because it makes her happy.

29.  You teaching Luke to play golf.

28.  Your dance parties with Dorothy.

27.  You blaming every bad habit the children have on me. 

26.  Your generous spirit.

25.  Your good taste in hamburger joints.

24.  Your intensity. 

23.  You wearing silly costumes. 

 22.  Your kindness to strangers.

21.  That you always let me have the first sip of a shared drink. 

20.  Your love of Sundays.

19.  Your embrace of the birthday ethos. 

18.  You getting up in the night with a crying, crabby baby.

17.  Your daily check ins.

16.  Your awkward responses:  Awesome!

15.  Your complete devotion to our children. 

14.  Your willingness to have little adventures.

13.  You make me laugh. 

12.  You don't judge. 

11.  You are a great kisser.

10.  You smell good. 

09.  That you love the mushy french fries and I love the crispy ones.

08.  That even in a tough year, you were always plugged in. 

07.  You see the best in everyone.

06.  You are a problem solver. 

05.  You are very generous, even when it proves to be more than you expected.

04.  You are very cute.

03.  You are a great dad.

02.  You have beautiful children.

01.  you are you.  I don't want anyone else. 

Happy birthday Mike!

Ventage Tuesday - Year of the Awesome

Funny that 2013 starts on a Tuesday.  The Ventage girls are a pretty reflective group.  Katrina and I shared some hilarious email the week before Christmas where she said she loved the week AFTER Christmas more than the week OF Christmas.  

My response?  "I like the week after too - except all the reflecting"  

Katrina:  "Well, you might want to stay away from my blog for a few days."

bwhahhahahaha.  

I am an action kind of gal more than a thinking kind of gal.  I find that if I spend too much time thinking, my natural inclination is towards the morose and melancholy.   Morose and Melancholy (that would be a sweet girl band name) are not real conducive to my life these days - I don't have the time or energy to feel down.  

So I move and try to be action oriented.  

Taken at 9 am January 1, 2013.

I was talking with the kiddos about New Years Resolutions and it proved to be more of a lesson for me.  

Luke:  "I want to eat healfy and work hard at wrestling practice"

Dottie "I will eat more carrots and play lots of princess"

Charlie "babab baa eeeeeee" (my baby to internet translator isn't working today).

The kids were naturally (without any prompting) very balanced at looking at making plans.  They weren't beating themselves up about the things they should do better - it was just a fact.    They also were excited about the good things in their lives and doing MORE of that was a given to them.  

So in the spirit of being balanced and not beating myself up about the things I could do better - here are my five plans for 2013 (Ventage Style and Year of Awesome focused)

1. Keep our meal planning with variety.  GOAL:  One new recipe every two weeks.  

 2. Read more books - for me.  Before I had kids, I was a really intense reader.  Since kids, I think I have read maybe 5 books - 4 of them parenting related.  I miss reading and I miss the glimpse into other worlds.  GOAL:  One for me book per month.  

3. Take time.  I need some more grown up time that isn't work.  With Mike, with my friends.  Its important and I want to do it and I want to model for the kids that being a grownup is a little more well rounded than my current situation.  GOAL:  GROWN UP TIME one time per 2 weeks.  

4. Work.  I need a plan, a road map.  I have some ideas of where I want to be - now I need to figure out how to make that happen.  GOAL:  Create an action plan and work the steps, allow self the space to change/edit/grow but DO NOT GIVE UP.  

5.  Faith.  I feel the presence of God in my life.  I want to be more deliberate about how we as a family (and just me) work on this.  I want going to Mass with the kids to not be an ordeal.  
GOAL: Have a three week rotation for Mass.  One week, go alone, second week, go with entire family, third week, Mike can go alone if he chooses.  

I will check in and let you know how things are going (and to keep myself accountable).  I hope your 2013 is a great one and you are welcome to join us on the Year of Awesome. Check out the rest of the gang:  Katrina, Steph, Em, and Barb.