Next Quarter.

Well, Friday I got my schedule for next quarter. Should be a nice and easy quarter! Hopefully I won't be as stressed? I have a computer class (talk about an easy A!!!!) and another communications class on top of my law classes. Should be a nice and relaxing quarter.

Hard to believe that my first quarter is just about over~ there's only three weeks left! Talk about time flying! There were times I didn't think I'd make it.

It's tough raising a family, maintaining a house and getting school work done. I've hardly slept. I've barely worked out. I haven't cooked. In fact I feel like I have barely left my dining room table! But, I'm making it. One day at a time I'm getting things done. One day at a time our family is surviving.

I'll be honest, I'm looking forward to my break that starts on September 17th!!!! I'll officially be on break from September 17th to October 4th and I can hardly wait! I'm hoping to catch up on sleep, catch up on some workouts, catch up on all my DVR'd shows and maybe even get away for a night or two with Marty and the kids.

Oh How I Wish......

Oh how I wish I was this organized where everything for back to school coordinated and was labeled with an actual label instead of a hodge podge mess with my kid's name written with a Sharpie pen! As much as I would love to have a label maker, I cannot bring myself to spend $20.00 on one right now. Oh, I'm sure I would use it, in fact, I'm sure I would use it a lot, but at the moment it just seems so frivolous for some reason. Anyway, I saw this post the other day and immediately decided I needed to step up my parenting talents~ label maker or not!

Pillow Pets.

I think every mom in the world knows how hot Pillow Pets are right now. These things are so in demand that stores can hardly keep them in stock~ totally reminds me of the whole Cabbage Patch craze when I was a kid. And poor poor Addison. She wants the LadyBug one so badly. But I refuse to buy her one on the grounds that (1) she's only 2 and (2) they're a $25.00 fad. I know, I'm a horribly mean mom. But moving on.......

A couple weeks ago I signed Noah up for VBS at our old church and one of the projects they made during the week was fleece-tied pillows. Well, the second Addison saw it she tried to claim it as hers. Poor Noah~ she's always taking everything of his.

So me, the ever thinking mom, thought if she thinks that that pillow is a pillow pet, why not make her one?! Definitely less expensive than the real thing. I figure I can get some fun fleece fabric and have a pillow or two completed while I catch up on my tv shows for far less than buying a true Pillow Pet somewhere. Besides, this is just way more practical, and you know me~ I love practical!

Easy Solution.

With school, the kids' schedules, life in general and Marty's schedule, dinner time has become quite the challenge the last couple of months. So to combat our lack of time, and with the intent of keeping more cash in our pockets and not McDonald's bottom line, I got smart about pre-making meal starters.

My current fave? Shredded Chicken. It's easy. It's foolproof. The chicken has decent flavor and it makes quite a bit. I usually use 6-8 chicken breasts because that's all my crock pot can hold but I generally end up with three good size packages of chicken to freeze and use for BBQ Chicken Pizza, Chicken Salad, Enchildadas~ you name it.

The recipe is below......

Crock Pot Shredded Chicken Breasts

6-12 Chicken Breasts either boneless or bone-in

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 garlic powder

1/2 tsp pepper

Make It!

Place chicken in crock pot. Combine water and seasonings. Pour over chicken and cook on low for 8-10 hours. When chicken is done, remove from crock pot and shred. Place in freezer bags, label and freeze!

Of course it's just as easy and just as inexpensive to buy the already made rotisserie chicken's from Costco and cutting it up, but that requires time........!

Week 06 Update.

All right, I just finished week 06 of school so I thought I would give an update. I am still sitting at all A's. Not bad for an over-35-mom-with-three-kids-on-summer-vacation-and-hasn't-stepped- foot-inside-a-college-in-20-years!

Dedication. Determination. Accountability.

I know I haven't been real good about keeping my blog up to date. I wish I could promise to post daily, or even just every other day, but I can't.

See, I made a deal with myself before school started......to keep myself focused on school I made a rule with myself that I can't blog during the week. Nor can I even read blogs during the week. Heck, I even told myself I could only pick two tv shows to watch during the week~ anything else had to be DVR'd to be watched at a later date. I currently have 6 weeks worth of Drop Dead Diva to catch up on.....

But because I can't focus on school 24/7/365, and because I think everyone needs to have something to look forward to at the end of a long week, I told myself if I had all my assignments submitted, I could take Saturday night as my blog reading-blog writing-catching up on tv while I have a fun snack-night. So I usually spend Saturday night writing my blog posts and setting them to post periodically throughout the week while I peruse Funky Junk's Saturday Night Special and get inspired. However........

The past couple of weeks have been huge weeks at school and I didn't have all my stuff done~ plus Marty was on call and that always throws a monkey wrench into everything we do~ so I was right down to the wire for submitting assignments. (they need to be submitted by midnight Saturday night) Since I didn't have my work done, I couldn't blog. Or read blogs. Or do much of anything, really.

How's that for dedication, determination and accountability?!