the good, the bad,....

...and the disgusting!

Oh, let's start with the good!
+THIS IS MY 100th BLOG POST!!!! Can you believe it?! Who knew I had so much to say? Well, my husband knew because evidently I talk a lot. You don't mind my yammering on and on do you? I mean, that is what blogs are for, right? As we head back into the swing of things with homeschool this year there will more "meat" in my writing. I must say, I have enjoyed blogging so far. And there are some really great, talented, wonderfully nice bloggers out there that I have "met". Woohoo! 100 posts!
+The girls have really been enjoying their swimming lessons. So they're not as comfortable in the water as I would like them to be, but they have certainly come a long way. And...tomorrow is family day so I get to join them in the pool-yippee! I may help them a little with overcoming that fear of being submerged :o) They'll never be able to race me in the pool if they don't relax a little and learn.
+My friend Kim was sneaky the other day while we were at the pool. She got a picture of me and E trying to convince O to go under the water. I promise, I'm not making a mean face. It's my 'come on you can do it, just give it a try' face. Funny that E is making the same face while adding in her 2 cents to the pep talk....she wouldn't put her head under the water either. Little stinkers!! So as I was saying...the picture is great, then Kim added some nice details...thanks Kim!
+My blog friend Zoe gave me an award! It's a blog award. Pretty exciting really...it's my first one! She's so sweet! You should really go check out her blog. She's always got some kind of sewing or craft project in the works. Thanks so much Zoe...I promise I'll follow the rules...soon!
+Finally the beads are dry! We got to string them yesterday. The girls really enjoyed choosing which beads they wanted to use. Of course they whined and bickered over a few of them, but after all was said and done, they were happy with the results. Oh, and by the way, play-doh beads are a lot heavier than polymer clay beads.

Now, onto the bad.
-Is it just me or is there a lot more whining going on these days? There really is no excuse, it's just sin nature...but I loathe seeing it in my own children. Don't get me wrong, my girls are really well behaved the majority of the time. But every once in a while it's like the floodgates are opened and I have to remind them of what it means to obey, refocus their hearts, and realize that they aren't perfect..and neither am I.
-Okay, this is more annoying that bad, but our Walmart is in the midst of remodeling. I can't find anything! When I do find the general area of the items I need they are usually out of stock (or the stockers can't find where anything goes so they just don't restock the shelves) Either way, it resulted in a really disastrous meal!

I can't think of anything else bad (yippee) so now we're on to the disgusting.
~It has been a really long time since I have made a meal that is bad enough to throw away. It has probably been 6 or 7 years really. I'll admit, right here and now, that I am not the greatest cook in the world. Quite frankly, I used to be a really bad cook. I'm not sure why....I just was. I've never been one to whip up a meal without some type of recipe or framework to follow. I'm a recipe follower, I can't help it. After I make something once, completely by the book, the next time I make it I might tweak it a little, but never on the first go round. So last night I made chicken enchiladas. A recipe that I have used many times always with delicious results. Oh so yummy! It's a staple on my menu. We hadn't had it for a few weeks so it was time. We were all craving it. Oh wait, let me back up a little. When I went grocery shopping there was no enchilada sauce left...the kind that I like anyway. I bought a different brand thinking...it's enchilada sauce, they should all be kinda the same. But, oh I was sooooooo wrong!!! Okay, so I make a big pan of enchiladas, all the while thinking the sauce smelled different, a little funny. But it was a different brand, so no big deal. Whilst that was baking and getting the cheese all melty I made something new. I made polenta. Polenta? yeah. It's a corn meal side dish that was supposed to be good...oh man, I was wrong again! So I get the enchiladas out of the oven and the sauce looks like tomato paste. Weird, the other brand never looked like that. Okay, so now I have to taste it...it's weird, gross, indescribable. Maybe I'm just paranoid. So now I taste the polenta that has cooled and...eewww, that's pretty bad, too. What is up? I followed the recipe. Okay so maybe the enchiladas are salvageable. We wait for Tim to get home and taste them...not even he can hide his dislike, distain, disgust. Believe me, after almost 14 years he has gotten good at pretending that something "isn't really that bad". But not last night. The time in the kitchen...wasted. The food that I purchased and baked...wasted. The money spent on ingredients for a normally anticipated dish....wasted. Ughhh. It was really, really, really DISGUSTING! Into the garbage it went. So what did we eat? Tim had leftovers from a much more successful meal, the girls enjoyed a delicious sunbutter & banana sandwich, and I had a delightful bowl of raisin bran. Let's hope tonight's dinner is more edible successful!