"Cookie Monday"

So this isn't a cookie recipe, and it's definitely not Monday, but work has been insane for the past four days because it is the last week before Christmas break and the kids are off the walls and I am going crazy trying to get everything done so that I can have an enjoyable Christmas break, but here it is anyway...

Cinnamon Sugar Pecans

(recipe and picture here)

These are so easy to make, and turn out soft and tender which is WAY better than the candied nuts that you buy at the fair or the boardwalk. You are not going to be in danger of cracking a tooth while enjoying these delightful treats!

The only problem you are going to have is stopping yourself before eating ALL of them. And an added benefit is that your house will smell amazing. I will tell you that it is a big time commitment because they bake for an hour, and you have to stir them every twenty minutes, but it is completely worth it.

I made a batch for Eric and I about a week ago, and we have been demonstrating a lot of self control and the small amount that we have left is still just as tender as when I took them out of the oven (although slightly less decadent because they aren't warm anymore).

Since baking that batch for us, I have made five additional pounds that other people have purchased, and I have to make another two pounds tonight for someone. They are very easy to make yourself, but if you'd like me to make them for you I sell them for $15 for one pound, and $25 for two pounds (plus shipping costs). 

Make sure that if you make these, you have someone to share them with so that you only have to feel guilty about eating half the batch instead of the whole thing!

Until next time,

~C

Preview: next Cookie Monday will be about my great-grandmothers lemon butter cookies which are a Christmas tradition in my household! I can't wait to make them with my Dad on Saturday.

A New Favorite - Cookie Monday

I wanted to take a short minute today (really short, I promise) to talk about one of my favorite new cookie recipes. They are called lemon crinkle cookies (recipe on Kitchen Meets Girl) and they are DELICIOUS. These cookies melt in your mouth and are the perfect amount of sweet and tart to satisfy any sweet tooth.

And the best part? They are fool proof! Really I mean it. If you can stir together ingredients, spoon balls of dough, and roll them in powdered sugar, these are the cookies for you! Here is a picture to get you excited about making them!

(Picture and Recipe here)

I will offer just two simple tips to make your cookie baking process easier. 

First, make them small. I mean, like actually small. They will look so strange on the cookie sheet, but here is my logic behind this suggestion. By making them smaller it is easier to ensure that they are cooked fully, and they are MUCH easier to eat. The first time I made these cookies I made them big. Like tablespoon sized dough balls, and while they were still amazing, you also looked like you had just been hit with a snowball from all the powdered sugar. Making them smaller allows you to just pop the whole cookie in your mouth with very little mess.

Second, make sure they cook fully. The recipe says to bake them for 8-10 minutes. Really push it to the 10 minute side (maybe even a minute or two longer). When they are not baked enough they are still yummy, but they are very difficult to get off of the cookie sheet (even when you use a silicon mat) and if you are serving them to guests, there is an egg in the batter, and that's just not a risk we should be willing to take.

I hope you enjoy this cookie Monday recipe and tips as much as I do (and more so my husband and everyone at his office - these are their favorite). If you try this recipe let me know how it works out for you!

Until next time,

~C

Christmas Cards

Do picture cards with no handwritten message from sites like Shutterfly and Snapfish count as what we used to consider Christmas cards? I am one of you! I send out picture cards just like the majority of the people, but I was thinking about how it used to be. You know, the "good old days".

Anyway, this year I am trying something new to make my Christmas cards more personalized (kind of). I wrote my first "Family Update" letter to mail out along with the picture card. Now, I know it's not truly personalized because everyone is getting the same message. But it did take more thought and effort than simply stuffing the pictures into envelopes. What kinds of things do you include in your family update letters?

I think this might be my response to all the negativity in the world. I am trying to grasp at traditions from Christmases of old, when the world wasn't so scary, and there were far fewer bad guys. I might be 27, but I still believe in the magic of Christmas.

As I sit here writing this, Eric is wrapping Christmas gifts and I can't go into our bedroom. I never really spend time in there during the day, but it was like the instant I couldn't go in, I thought of about five different reasons that I needed to get into the room. I'm trying to be a good girl and not bother him too much, but it is difficult. I think it is my turn to wrap gifts next.

As Christmas gets closer, what kind of family traditions (new or old) do you participate in? Let me know and I will share some of mine in my next post!

Until next time,
~C

...It's a Scary Thought

DISCLAIMER:
There will be quite a bit of negativity in this post. If you don't want to read it, stop now.

I am currently about one-third of the way through my fifth year of teaching. I remember being in the throws of my student teaching experience and the mentor teachers telling us that the first three years would be really challenging, but then in the fourth year you really hit your groove. I think in a lot of ways I have hit that groove. I am much more efficient at lesson planning (kind of) and grading. I also feel more confident with the decisions that I make in my classroom and when I'm planning. Where I do not feel "in the groove" is the overwhelming sense of dread and impending doom I feel nearly every morning as I drag myself out of bed before the sun.

I have often thought, as much as I believe that teaching is the right career choice for me, there are just as many reasons why I feel it is the last thing I should be doing with my life. Now, I understand that restarting at three different schools in the first five years (due to moving around to accommodate the start of Eric's career and his schooling) has not made this any easier. Nor has the simple fact that I have put myself into some pretty tough schools (student population). However, kids are kids, and I really believe that if this was my true calling I would be much happier than I am.

Eric and I are currently in the process of discussing another move (a big one). This move will take us closer to family, and hopefully allow us to purchase a home, and start a family of our own. With this discussion I have started to have the scary thought of changing careers. If I am moving and starting over in my personal life, maybe a parallel change in my professional life is also in order.

It seems that with my current career dissatisfaction, the chance to start again would be welcomed with joy and open arms. And it is... sort of. But I went to school to be a teacher, so trying to figure out what else I am qualified to do, or even what I am interested in is daunting. There are many career counseling programs, and Eric has even used Rockport Institute when he was questioning his career choice. But I cannot justify spending the money it would require to go through their program.

So, as a human living in the 21st century I naturally have turned to the internet for advice. So far I have read a few articles that made me feel ... better (?) about wanting to leave teaching. I also very much enjoyed "Leaving Teaching" from Word Press. But it is very challenging to decide what to do with the next step in my life, when I don't even really know the geographical location I am headed.

If you have ever gone through a career change, and you have any advice or wisdom to share, I am all ears. In the mean time, please enjoy these baby alpacas.

~C

Happy December!

It's my favorite time of the year, FINALLY! I love Christmas. There is something so magical about it that really helps to revive my soul. The music, the lights, the food, everything about the Christmas season brings me joy and makes me feel like a kid again (and we all need to feel that way sometimes).

In my house, Christmas cannot officially start until after Thanksgiving, and that is because turkey day is my husband's favorite day of the year. He also is part of the camp that feels each holiday should be celebrated before you move to the next. Unofficially, I have been listening to Christmas music since... sometime around Halloween. It is hard for me to keep track because Christmas music is what I use to help lift my spirits after a particularly challenging day at work. Currently I am listening to Christmas Radio on Pandora even though I have plenty of my own jolly tunes, it's nice to listen to all the different versions of the songs.

The weather here confuses me because it is December, and tomorrow it is supposed to be in the 60s for the high temperature. Of course, like in most places we have had our cold snaps and a few weeks ago on one of the chillier days we took Pippin on his first adventure to the beach. Eric and I go to the beach far more often during the colder months than we do in the summer. Traffic to the beach is more than Eric can handle. Anyway, here are a few of my favorite pictures from Pippin's beach adventure.

<3 My two boys <3 

Pippin was very unsure about the waves. He wanted to go in the water, but when a wave would come he ran away!

Me and my fur baby.

Pippin didn't actually dig this hole, but we thought it was cute to make it look like he did.

Family portrait (this is the picture I used for our Christmas cards from Shutterfly)

For now it is lesson plans and grading for the next three weeks. Then we are very fortunate this year to get two whole weeks off for Christmas break, and I am very much looking forward to that needed time off from my students.

Until next time, Happy December and I hope the Christmas season brings you as much joy as it brings to me.

~C

Restarting for M-E

Summer is winding down (this is extremely upsetting, and if you are a teacher you will understand), and as the fall (and school year) approaches I have been doing some reflecting and realize that I need to start doing more stuff for ME.

This summer Eric and I expanded our family with a fur baby:

While Pippin has been a wonderful addition to our little family, he has certainly kept me busy during my break from school. Taking care of Pippin, and of course, making sure that I am also taking care of Eric has resulted in me having less time for my hobbies.

So... what I want to do is get back into this blog, get back into my hobbies (crafting, cooking, etc), and get back to myself.

I recently suffered through a bout of food poisoning (?). We really aren't sure what it was, but it wasn't nice, and it really did a number on my body. Over the course of about four days I lost seven pounds, and it really took me almost an entire week after finally being "better" to feel back to myself. I am not happy that I was sick, but I am going to try and turn the negative into a positive, and use this weight loss to really jump start my journey to get to my goal weight and be fit. I am sure I have talked before about my desire to loose weight before Eric and I start having kids, and I am hoping that this next step in our journey will start sometime in the next 18 months. :-D

Here is tonight's dinner recipe (I have fallen off the meal planning wagon - hopefully I will get back on soon) for a Teryaki Chicken Casserole. And I am off to do some crafting while Pippin is taking a nap after our lunch time walk!

I will leave you with these amazing pictures from the Paul McCartney concert that Eric and I were fortunate enough to see at Firefly back in June.

Until my next (food) adventure!
~C

Welcoming May

With this being the first full week in May, it is a very exciting time in my household. Eric's birthday, my parents coming to visit, and the beginning of all the exciting activities that we have planned over the next four months (trips, festivals, etc). 

But even with all these exciting events getting ready to take place, I still am trying to stay true to my meal planning routine. This is the start of the fifth month that I have been doing this, and I am hoping it is saving us some money (I'm not really sure how to even check this). If nothing else, it makes my life a little less stressful during the week, and it also has been a good way for me to make sure that we are eating healthy (mostly).

This week has presented some new challenges because I am going to be trying something new with Eric's lunches. When he transferred to his new office, he went from having an official lunch break, to not having any kind of break at all. At first this was really hard for him, but there have actually been a lot of benefits (i.e. he gets home earlier!). I have been still packing his same lunch (PB&J sandwich, fruit, and a snack), but recently have been noticing that he really just eats the fruit, and maybe the snack. The sandwich stays untouched because he just doesn't have time most days. Rather than wasting money on sandwiches that don't get eaten, I am challenging myself to find "quick snack" alternatives so that he can still get some of the nutrition that he needs, but is able to eat quickly in between appointments.

This week my grand experiment is going to be to make these peanut butter protein balls. I hope that they will taste good, and get him the protein that he will be lacking during the day. We will see how this experiment goes. That will dictate what I do moving forward.

Now for this weeks meal plan!

Before I get into the recipe links, a few notes. First, I apologize for the spelling correction marks. I am a math teacher, also Word doesn't recognize a lot of names of places. Secondly, my parents are coming to visit this weekend (arriving on Friday) so that is why there is more uncertainty in regards to what is happening for certain meals. It will depend on when they arrive and what activities we are doing. You can't plan for the unknown, so I did my best.

Now onto the recipes.

Baked Honey Garlic Chicken - I have made this before. It is a really good recipe. I may have even talking about it in a previous post I will need to go back and check. It is super simple and quick, and most importantly tastes amazing.

Tacos - no recipe required. I just buy the taco mix packets (I know I can make the seasoning mix on my own, but I just don't have time this week). The only "change" that I make is using ground turkey meat instead of ground beef. It's just an attempt to be a little healthier but still enjoy tacos!

Pulled Pork BBQ - again another cop-out. I buy the pre-made stuff. I know this really isn't healthy, but it's pulled pork BBQ, how healthy can it be. This week there was a coupon for Lloyd's brand products and so that is the option I went for. Typically I just pick whichever is the least expensive.

Breakfast Casserole - this is a family recipe passed down from my Aunt. I have included the picture of the recipe here for you. It is easy and delicious!

Italian Drunken Noodles - another repeat recipe. I have written about this recipe before (picture here), but as they say "If it aint broke, don't fix it!"

I must sign off because I have lots to do for the rest of the day. Here is a glimpse at today's schedule:

Go to the gym

Meal Plan

Laundry

Grocery Shopping

Book Club (The House Girl by Tara Conklin)

Lesson Plan/Prep for the week

As you can see I still have plenty to do!

Happy cooking!

~C