Recent Posts

A while back I did a review here on my blog for PopCorners popcorn chips.  My family really enjoyed them and they have been seen in my grocery cart since I did that review.  So I was quite interested in tasting the new product line that PopCorners has introduced featuring 100% Whole Grain Sorghum. 

Homeschooling was not a path I had ever imagined I would take when Amber started Kindergarten.  What led us here was a series of incidents both academic and bureaucratic.  Looking back over the past 5 years we’ve done it as we head into our last year of homeshooling, has me feeling mixed emotions.  Things I could have done better, things I’m proud she’s accomplished and things I wished we would have had time to do but that never got done.

I can hardly believe how fast this summer flew by, between packing and moving and unpacking…well yeah, I blinked and it’s the end of August!  The older I’m getting the faster time seems to go.

Some of you have already been posting your “First Day of School” pictures on Facebook (and boy are your kids cute with their new backpacks & sneakers!), others get to soak up the sun for a few more days yet – but regardless, I’m sure whether you’re already back at school or are heading there within the next couple of weeks, the days are getting more hectic. 

My first recollection of Publishers Clearing House is sitting with my Grandma at her kitchen table separating the little perforated magazine stamps and sorting them all out in rows according to color.  Good times.  I dreamed of winning the prize and promised Grandma I would pay for her once-a-week hair salon visit if I did.

Fast forward 30 some plus years, and the famous prize patrol still surprises screaming winners on their doorsteps.  I’d love to be surprised like that!

As parents it’s our duty to protect our kids and that includes giving them sound advice and being good examples for them when it comes to driving.

You don’t want to be getting a call from the police with the worst case scenario.  Ever. 

Whether they’re fresh out of the DMV with their learner’s permit or they’re first time drivers at seventeen or eighteen, chances are your teens (especially girls) are distracted by peers and cell phones in the vehicles they’re driving.

I hope you know what I’m talking about when I say every once in a while, cooking for my family gets frustrating.  Their palates are limited and they each have a few favorites that they want me to make over and over again.

I’m constantly getting creative and interesting recipes in my inbox from companies and brands that want me to make them and share them on my blog.  You should see my family’s faces though when I mention ingredients like radicchio and gorgonzola.  Yeah, like that.

I’ll admit it, taco night is usually pretty boring around here.  My family isn’t very adventurous when it comes to new flavors, and we stick with the basics.  Ground beef, shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, and some refried beans just for me. 

So when Old El Paso® challenged me to put a twist on tacos, I had to think outside the box on something that would make our tacos a little more unique but so that the family would still eat them.

I love this kid.

And I can’t believe next year right about this time, I’ll be sending her off to college.  But the process is starting already really, and at 17 ½ she’s writing scholarship essays, making appointments to visit with admissions deans and taking the campus tours.

She’s never been a girly girl, and while I admit that I missed the pink bows and tutus when she was little I have not at all missed the fuss that most teenage girls make about clothing, hair and makeup.

Phew that’s a mouthful of a title for a blog post isn’t it?!  I used a roast beef and rice noodle salad recipe from Woman’s Day as inspiration for it, but felt that the apples and avocados were as much a piece of the whole dish as the meat and noodles were, and thus a very long winded (much like this sentence!) recipe title it became.

When’s your next oil change?  We just had one done on my husband’s car.  Since Texas requires a car inspection before you can title and register it, we headed over to a local auto service center to have those done.  Good timing too as it were, since just before our appointments my husband’s engine light happened to go on.

It ended up that he need some repairs done to his car on the air injection system, but since it was just about time he had an oil change done on it, we had them do that as well.