Oh how I love thee... (2)

....let me count the ways.

#2 I love that Michael balances me out.  When I am being loud and extroverted, he is being my quiet support.  When I am being shy or quiet, he takes over the extroverted position.  When I am having a bad day, he is quick to pick me up.  He is cool, calm and collected when I am emotional or hyped up.  He is rational and cautious when I want to make a quick and emotional decision.  On the other hand, he helps me be more spontaneous and adventurous when I am wanting to be cautious or drag my feet.  He is my perfect match.

Here's a funny story for you.

Sometime during my college years, I took a spiritual gifts test.  The results didn't surprise me.  I know that I have leadership abilities.  That is what I was strongest in.  The one thing that did surprise me was how low my lowest score was.  My top three results were in the high 20's.  The list started to taper down into the teens.  It stopped somewhere around 14 or 15.  Then dropped dramatically to a 3.  A 3!  Thats a huge difference.  Do you know what I scored a 3 in?  Mercy.  Yep.  That's right.  I have none.  The pastors that were leading the group were discussing the gifts, sorting us all out by our strengths and talking about it all.  One of them said that leaders generally don't have mercy (phew! I thought I was defective!), and people strong in mercy generally aren't good leaders.  Then he said that those two types of people generally end up together in marriage.

Soon after that, my aunt was teasing my cousin about a boy she was dating.  She said she couldn't figure out why my cousin always married the criers.  I told her it was because my cousin wasn't a crier in the least.  My aunt said she had recently realized the same thing.  We discussed the spiritual gifts test and what I had learned.  (My cousins are a lot like me.)  I knew she was praying for my future husband and I told her that I would like to request that she pray for Mr. Mercy.  We all got a kick out of it, but it sort of turned into a long running family joke from that point on.  (Later, I told her that I wanted to upgrade to Dr. Mercy! :)

Michael IS my Mr. Mercy.

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for:

Michael

A job I love

My family

My true friends

A beautiful home

The ability to give to others

Paid off cars that run well

A church I can finally call home

Creativity

Generous people

Good health

Little Man

God's Grace

The ability to "keep it real"

Financial freedom

My country 

A solid marriage

People who take the time to know who I really am

The public library :)

Life

 

Pumpkin Fluff

Brace yourselves..........

I am about to share with you a little piece of heaven.  Can you handle it?  I hope so.

I found this recipe on one of the Weight Watchers online boards when I was a member.  It is like a pumpkin mousse of sorts.  If you love pumpkin, then you will love this.  (low calorie or not!)  It's so simple too!

Here's what you'll need:

8 oz Cool Whip Lite (thawed)

1 package instant sugar free/fat free vanilla pudding

16 oz. Pure Pumpkin

(Did you know there was recently a shortage on this stuff?  So glad it's back in stores!)

1 cup skim milk

1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

That's it!  You just throw it all in a bowl and mix it together.  I prefer to use a hand held mixer, but it would work just as well with a whisk or spatula.

It looks a little something like this

Yep, I could eat the whole bowl.  I make this numerous time around the holiday season, but truly it would be good year round.

Thoughts:  I use only about a 1/2 tsp of the pumpkin pie spice.  I like it, but 1 1/2 tsp is just too much for me.  My boss puts this in a graham cracker crust and calls it pumpkin chiffon pie.  Little man LOVES it.  I've also heard of people just sprinkling a graham cracker on top of it.  It makes about 4 cups.  1/2 cup=2 pts, 1 c=4 pts.  Yummy yum yum!!!!!!!!

Fruit Loop Turkey

Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  Can you believe it?  I kind of feel like it just snuck up on me.  Anyway, that means some sort of Thanksgiving craft with Little Man.  I decided to stick with the textured theme.  Here's what we did.

(NOTE: Sorry for not having more pictures.  My camera is having issues and erased some that were taken mid project.  It just might be time for a new camera!)

I took some fruit loops and sorted them out on these paper plates.

Little Man loves to trace his hands.  He has me do it all the time for him as well.  He was pretty excited when I told him he was going to trace his Crocs.

He did a pretty good job for a 3 year old.  The retracing was my fault because I was trying to get the picture because the first one got eaten.  Then he started to add feet and "write".

Next, we glued the body to a paper plate.  Then I drew dividing lines to make the leaves.  He put glue on one section at a time and put the fruit loops on.  (Darn eaten photos)

Little Man glued on the beak and wattle.  He added eyes with a marker.

 

The finished product....

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble!

Bubble Up Enchilada

About a year ago I signed up to do Weight Watchers online.  It went alright until the holidays hit (last year).  It was all downhill from there.  But while I was a part of the online group, I gathered many recipes to help me.  Some I made and some I just stashed away.  Cuz that's what I do.  Hoard recipes.  Anyway... I came across a recipe called Bubble Up Pizza that everyone was raving about.  I made it and thought it was alright.  Then I started seeing many variations of this meal.  One of those variations is the Bubble Up Enchilada.  I hoarded sent myself an email with the recipe, but that's as far as I got.  Recently I came across a site that had posted the Bubble Up Enchilada recipe again.  I figured it was time to give it a try.

So here you go...

You will need:

1 pound extra lean ground beef

1 (10 oz) can enchilada sauce

1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce

1 (4 oz) can sliced black olives, drained

1 can reduced fat refrigerator BISCUITS

(notice mine are cresent rolls--more on that in a bit)

1 1/4 cups Shredded Weight Watchers Mexican Cheese

NOTES: Ok, so I went to the store and I needed both reduced fat biscuits AND reduced fat crescent rolls.  Unfortunately, the store I went to do not have the reduced fat biscuits.  I figured I'd just pick up the biscuits at another store, another time.  Later in the week I went to make this recipe and didn't even think about the fact that I needed the biscuits.  I started taking pictures...crescent rolls and all.  It wasn't until I was half way through that I realized I had the wrong thing.  Oh well.  That's life right?  Some things don't turn out.  Some things turn out better.  Some things people quickly hide under the rug for no one to see.  Well, you know me.  I'm a keep it real kind of girl.  So here I am... posting on my blog for all the world to see... that I messed up the recipe.  It turned out OK though. :)

Also, I just used reduced fat Sargento cheese instead of WW cheese.  I also added onions.  You can add or take away whatever you want.

The steps:

Preheat the oven to 350*.

Brown the ground beef (drain if needed).

Mix in a can of enchilada sauce, tomato sauce, and can of black olives.  (Plus onions if you choose)

Cut the biscuits into fourths and stir them into the meat mixture.

Here's where I noticed I had a problem.  Because crescent rolls don't "cut into fourths", I just cut them and then rolled them up a little to resemble the size of a biscuit fourth.  You do what you gotta do! :)

They will start to get a little gooey, so don't keep them in there that long.  Just long enough to be covered by the sauce.

Then you just dump it all in a greased casserole dish and bake for 25 minutes.

Take the casserole out of the oven and sprinkle with the cheese.  Obviously if you are not concerned about the calories or "points" you could use the entire 2 cup bag of cheese instead of 1 1/4 cups.

Bake an additional 10 minutes to let the cheese melt.

Let stand for 5 minutes and serve.

It is 8 servings at 6 points a serving.  However, men (or women not so concerned about weight) could eat at least 2 pieces as one serving.  It reheats well and I've even heard it freezes well.

I didn't think it tasted too far off from the Bubble Up Pizza.  I also didn't think it tasted too much like an "enchilada".  I don't know if tomato sauce was used instead of more enchilada sauce to help keep the points low or what.  I may consider putting more enchilada sauce in next time.  Either way, it was still good.  I served it with a salad and sugar free jello.  The true test is whether or not Michael liked it, and he asked for seconds!

I want to be her......

For some time now I've been hearing about "couponing".  I'm not talking about just clipping a coupon here or there... I'm talking about being a serious couponer.  These people buy 4 or 5 Sunday papers a week if it's filled with good coupons.  They go to 3 or 4 stores to get the best deals.  I've heard you really have to take advantage of places like Walgreens and CVS.  I have all the info in my head.  I Michael even went out and bought a binder with those little baseball card protector pages.  I use the coupons.  I read the websites.  I try to stick to a budget.  However, I just don't have the time it takes right now to get into it hard core.  However, this video makes me want to rethink all that.  Check it out!

The Coupon Queen!

Craft Day!!!

I've had the last two days off and have gotten a lot done.  I am completely finished with my Christmas shopping, I have all I need to finish up a few Christmas crafts, I went grocery shopping, and I even cleaned up a little bit.  I decided a few days ago that since I knew Michael was going to be working today, my day was going to be filled with crafting.  It's gonna look a little something like this............

I am going to remain in my pajamas all day...

Drinking lots of Diet Coke

 

And using things like...

 

 

 

 

 and this...

 

(please excuse my chewed up thumb.  thanks)

And I'll probably have a little bit of this playing in the background just for fun...

Don't you wish you know all that I was making?  I can't wait to get started!!  You'll have to stay tuned to check out all of the finished products.

Happy Saturday!

GO BUCKEYES!