dirt don't hurt

The world of Pinterest is a good one, although I can see what was once an online place for your favorite things can turn into a bunch of garbage with people being mega-pinners. (If this stuff doesn't make any sense to you, ignore it and head down to the recipe!) But there are wonderful things to learn from Pinterest, and here is one that I found, tweaked, and instantly found crock pot bliss. The beauty of meals like these is that the ingredients are realistic, simple, and quickly go together. So when you wake up one day and the sun is shining and you just want to head out to enjoy what's there, plug this in and come home, adventure-worn, and walk into a house full of deeeelicious smells. Very grateful for the original post, here is my take on this "I can't believe this was made in a slow cooker" fajitas... Slow Cooker Fajitas 1 good sized onion, sliced 3 sweet bell peppers, sliced (those packs of yellow, orange, and red? perfect.) 1 1/2pound

I have a rather hokey nightgown that sports a bear with half-open eyes holding a mug.  “Bearly awake before coffee” is what it reads, and it’s been a needling point for my husband, a genuinely morning person.  And by morning person, I mean he can wake up and not stomp around and it doesn’t take him 20 minutes just to be able to function enough to make coffee to be able to drink it without spilling it all over his pajamas. But I am not so lucky.  I don’t want to be talked to, touched, looked at, or even near anyone except the droning sound of the local news station. And then, maybe then, I’ll make you breakfast. Before I was blessed with motherhood, this sort of anti-morning-person phenomenon didn’t bother many people.  My husband knew to keep his distance until the caffeine set in, and things were fine.  Then, having babies in the house throws off the schedule so much that while you may be a morning person, your morning had just been dedicated at 4:30 AM.  Full nights of sleep

All it takes is a day of sunshine and I start to get spring fever.  And for whatever reason, spring fever for me inspires me to eat real, wholesome, from-scratch food.   I usually make granola in the oven, in huge batches and it takes all day.  I tried a new recipe and with a few alterations found a great combination of flavors for my kids.  And me.  It’s sinfully delicious.   Ingredients: ▪    1 Tbl olive oil ▪    2 cups rolled oats ▪    1/3 cup butter ▪    1/3 cup brown sugar ▪    1 Tbl honey ▪    1 tsp vanilla ▪    ½ cup chopped pecans ▪    2 graham crackers, broken into pieces ▪    milled flax seed (optional) Directions: 1. Heat olive oil in skillet.  Add oats and cook until oats are toasted but not burnt, about 5 minutes.  Remove oats to a cookie sheet to cool. 2. In skillet, melt butter.  Add brown sugar, honey, and vanilla.  Heat and stir until bubbly.  Turn off heat. 3. Return oats to skillet.  Add nuts, graham crackers, and flax seed.  St

“See a penny pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck.  See a penny let it lay, bad luck you’ll have throughout the day.” I am not one to tempt fate or superstation, so when exiting my car at the grocery store this week I was astounded to find not one, not two, but three pennies.  Oh, the luck!   But what’s unlucky is looking like a goofball crouching down in the parking lot to pick up dirty pennies, and then having to deal with the road sludge that usually covers each one. I was faced with a decision. My husband, who hates pennies, would leave them.  In fact, he may have even been the one to throw them down because he doesn’t like puny coins weighing down his pockets.  “I’ll just leave it for someone else, send them a little luck,” he admits.  But like I said, I didn’t want to tempt fate.  If I didn’t pick them up and then went on to have a really lousy day, whose fault would that have been?  Exactly.   Truthfully I didn’t really want the grimy pennies, either, so r

There’s no denying it, that the older we get the more we complain.  I don’t I’ve had a conversation with my grandparents or parents lately that doesn’t involve some aching knee joint, a change in the barometer, or how the weather is always better somewhere else. We “youngins” sit back and laugh and promise to never get like them, and if we do, we have written permission from our bestest of friends or siblings to send us away on a ship, never to return.  We laugh and joke, but deep down we’re honestly hoping to not turn into a whiny old person. But the funny part is that we mothers are just as bad.  (Before I get started here, if you are a mother who has never once been low on energy and never moaned and groaned about diapers or the drop off line, the rest of this article does not pertain to you or anyone else on your planet.  Please don’t take offense.) I, for one, am always telling the world how tired I am.  Mostly it comes out in three words, “large coffee, please