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Showing posts from October, 2010

French Dips and Burger Dips

Earlier this week I posted my Weekly Menu Plans for this week and I mentioned that I was making Burger Dips.  I’ve had a few people ask me about this different way of serving burgers. I wish I had taken pictures as I assembled them but alas I did not.  I’ll state right here at the beginning that I simply copied what I have been able to order here at a few local restaurants.   Nothing fancy and no special recipe.  But before I get to that I’m taking a walk down a bunny trail towards memory lane.  The Burger Dip is really a variation of the French Dip: thinly sliced roast beef piled high on a sandwich roll and served with Au Jus for dipping.   It was my daddy that introduced me to the French Dip sandwich.  I don’t remember how old I was but I was little girl.   He had taken us all out to dinner and he suggested I try the French Dip.   The French Dip is a sandwich that I have frequently ordered through the years. The Burger Dip is just a hamburger patty served on a toasted sandwich rol

TOS Review: Buckets-O-Fun

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If your family, church group or homeschool group likes messy, slimy fun, then I have just the product for you! As a member of the TOS Review Crew, I received a sample pack  of Yuck from Buckets-O-Fun .  The sample pack contained samples of Chunky Yuck,  Saucy Yuck, Snowy Yuck and their newest Yuck product, Sticky Yuck. What is Yuck ?     Turtlegirl defines Yuck this way: “Yuck is a slimy, messy substance that can sometimes be fun to play with.”   When pressed to define Yuck, Tailorbear contributed:  “Yuck is a substance that can be played with but sometimes is just plain ole gross.” Yuck is a polymer which means it is a “large molecule formed by repeated patterns of chemical units strung together.” (from the Yuck Science with Buckets-O-Fun handout included with our samples). Chunky Yuck : This is the first Yuck that we tried.  When fully hydrated, it resembles ice machine ice cubes.   The texture reminded me of finger Jello.  Buckets-O-Fun included a hand-out with some scienc

This week’s meals

I went radio silent again.   I’m breaking the silence of my blog with a short and simple list of what I’m planning for meals this week. Tonight (Sunday)—Burger Dips (a fancy way to do burgers) with some chips and fresh fruit.. maybe a salad if I get ambitious. Monday--- Turkey Soup.  I’ve got turkey broth cooling right now and tomorrow I’m going to attempt to recreate my dad’s turkey soup.  My dad made the absolute best soup.   Tuesday--- I’m making a ham and potato cheesy casserole type something or another.   I’ll take some frozen diced hash brown potatoes and mix them with bite size pieces of ham and cover it all with a creamy cheesy sauce.   I’ll serve it with a salad and some veggies. Wednesday--- “Sloppy Joes”   I’m planning to rehydrate some TVP and mix it with a can of Manwich sauce.  Wednesday is Piano day and we get home very late in the day and I need something quick and easy.   I’m thinking of serving it with some veggie sticks and some chips. Thursday--- Something Mex

The “Perfect” Day

Let me start off by saying that the day was not really perfect.  We planned to get some school done but I’m pretty sure no formal academics were achieved.   We’d planned to go to the post office to mail a package to a dear friend, but honeybear left the card with the address in the kitchen and the girls couldn’t read daddy’s writing when we called.   We’d talked about going to the park to feed the ducks again but time slipped away from us and we didn’t make it. So what made it the perfect day?   Well it was a lazy day of relaxation that I desperately needed.   It was a relationship building kind of day that my honeybear and I needed.   We had noticed that we were being grumpy and grouchy and that we’d really not had a date in ages and with the girls so much older now we’d been having them fairly often.  We had looked at our schedules and decided that we needed a date.   We set a date and told the girls but we hadn’t made concrete plans.  But the date we set was not for the perfect day

TOS Review: LanSchool

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Through the Review Crew, I’ve been introduced to companies, vendors and products that I have never heard of before.  LanSchool is one such vendor.   I will confess that when I saw LanSchool on the list and first looked at their website I was a little less than ambivalent.  Classroom Management software?  How would that apply to me as a homeschooler.  My first thoughts were “oh I hope I don’t end up on the list cause I wouldn’t know what to do with it.” I spent a little more time looking at the website and looking at what the product offers and I moved to a more ambivalent position of “well if I get it, that’s fine and if I don’t get it that’s fine too”.   After seeing that I could limit web browsing for a certain young lady in my home, I moved to a warmer position of “I think I’d like to be on the list.” Today?  I am so thankful that I was on the list.   There are some things in life that you think you can live without, then you experience them and you wonder how you would live wi

Chloe’s Virus Killing Chicken Soup

A few days (week or so?) ago I posted on Facebook that I was making Chloe’s Virus Killing Chicken Soup .  Not unexpectedly, I was asked for the recipe. Chloe is an amazing woman and I am so blessed to have “met” her on a couple of forums and to be “friends” with her on Facebook.  I’m linking to Chloe’s recipe on her blog:  Chloe’s Virus Killing Soup .  You’ll want to read her original recipe because she includes veggies that I haven’t used.    I did a swagbuck search to see if anybody else had posted Chloe’s recipe and I found this and this . So now that you know where it came from let’s talk about where I took it. Tess’s Variation of Virus Killing Soup: Step One: One chicken Appx 20 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped 1 Tbs salt Cayenne pepper (to taste.Chloe says she uses about 1 tsp.  I don’t know how much I use.  At least a tsp maybe a tsp 1/2 to 2 tsp) Fresh ground pepper In a large soup pot place whole rinsed chicken, garlic and seasonings. Add water to cover chicken complet

I need organization to keep my sanity!

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  I am the kind of person that needs some type of structure to function, but I am also the kind of person who rebels at too much structure.   I picture it like a horse in a pasture.   I need the fence to keep me where I am supposed to be, but I need the open space within the fence to move around and explore. I guess I’m a jumble of chaos on the inside because I need some order on the outside.  One of my pet peeves is not being able to find what I what I need when I need or having things fall out at me when I am looking for something.   I really hate trying to pull something off a shelf and have other items come out with it, or opening a cupboard to look for a pencil and the 3 hole punch falls on my foot. (Ouch!) I am a perfectionist though and so many times I have been so hard on myself because my system was “perfect”.   I’m learning to relax though and I’m learning to find the fence and give allowance for my open space. If you haven’t guessed by now this week’s Blog Cruise questio

Breaking Radio Silence

Gasp!   Here it is the beginning of October and I realized I have not posted since Sept 22 with my Salem Ridge Review. I’m breaking the silence of my blog to announce that I do have a couple of blog posts up my sleeve to post this week.   You’ll want to look for a posts about: organizing your homeschool for the Blog Cruise, a review for Lanschool Technologies,  our staycation time with daddy at the end of September. I have some follow up posts planned for conquering laundry (or not!) and my personal experience coping with homeschool burn out. Oh and maybe I’ll even get chatty about my birthday.