Genna Lake's Flowders

Genna turned 5 this year and she really wanted her very own flower garden.

So ... Mr Saucy, aka The Daddy Person, aka My Honey, aka Patrick made her her very own flower bed, and we asked family and friends who came by for her party to bring flowers rather than toys to fill her garden.

She LOVES it. 

First Bed. Also has blueberries. 

Second Bed. Also has grapes. 

Both Beds with clematis growing between. 

GG watering her flowders. 

Inspecting the hose and faucet. 

Watering from the bucket. 

Happy Girl!!

Keepin' It Real, Yo!

This mornings two-hour delay meant fun in the kitchen involving pancakes, red food coloring, and an assortment of eatable creations that in no way resemble hearts. 

See. 

This one I call "The Creepy Ultrasound". 

See the little dude inside smiling and waving?

This one has a slight "splat" from flipping before it was fully set. We shall call it the "Don King" Face Plant".  

This one Conner told me kinda looked like I heart who's butt exploded. We'll leave it at that. 

And finally we end with "The Double Mammogram". 

Enjoy your Pinterest Breakfast Fails my friends. 

For no matter how strange and disturbing our REAL LIFE creations turn out looking, they're just as delicious as the fancy ones. 

See. 

Ps... I was referring to the pancakes being eaten by my favorite girl-creation. Whom I don't think is disturbing at all, but  is a little strange. 

Chickizza

Possibly my best invention his far.

Chickizza. 

Ingredients:

Olive oil

Butter

Chicken breasts

Pizza sauce of choice

Pizza cheese of choice

Pizza toppings of choice

Heat oven to 400

Put the chicken breast into a large heavy plastic bag, and pound out the chicken breasts until they are very thin. These will be your pizza crusts, so make them even and very thin.

Stack them on a plate next to the stove so you can season and cook them without having to drip chicken all over your kitchen.

Put a big heavy skillet on the stove on medium high heat and warm ypur olive oil and melt your butter.

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and place the salted side down. Salt the other side once it's in the pan. Brown the chicken breasts in the pan, on both sides, putting one or two at a time, based on how big your skillet is.

Place the browned and cooked through chicken breasts on a foil lined baking sheet.

Now you have your zero carb and gluten free pizza crusts.

We put on typical red style marinara pizza sauce, shredded mozzarella, and pepperoni.

Oops... I forgot a pre-cooked picture with pepperoni.

They went into the 400 degree oven for 8 minutes. We thin key could have stood a full 10 to really melt the cheese, but we were too excited to try them, so we pulled them out at 8 minutes.

As you can see, I made 6. Conner ate 1, Mr. Saucy and I had 2 each, and he took one for lunch today. The girl had leftover Mac-N-Cheese, and we were all totally ok with that, because it meant more Chickizza for us.

I honestly took one bite and fell in love. I then took a second bite and knew I had to run a taste next door. I put another bite on my fork, put on my shoes, ran out of the house, scared he wee-hawkin out of my neighbors husband who was working on the car in the driveway in the dark, rang the doorbell, shoved the fork into my neighbors mouth, high fives her when I saw her eyes light up, yen turned and ran back hime to finish my supper. 

It's totally going in the regular rotation of The Saucy Dish family dished. Our Friday night pizza movie nights will no longer involve heating a frozen pizza or ordering delivery.

Hello Chickizza. I love you.

Stay Saucy, and Dish.

Gross

Mr. Saucy and I have a joint New Years Resolution. 

Along with the ever popular Lose Weight, Eat Healthy, Exercise Daily ... we have ... a secret one.

"Don't Be Gross"

Because ... we're gross. We are. I mean, we're fat and lazy and gross. We don't always do the dishes at night, we let the trash can(s) fill up to a balancing act that would make a physics professor proud, and we step over dust bunnies the size of rhinoceroses. 

I finally got fed up and decided to clean the kitchen. Like really CLEAN the kitchen. And I was so grossed out, I thought I was going to gag.  

We had a bunch of decorative things up on the top of the cabinets that were coated in cooking grease residue that had floated into the air over the past several years and just clung to items in the kitchen that aren't used regularly. 

The layer of yuck on top of the cabinets was just as disgusting. We used a powerful degreaser, a plastic scrubbie, and a mixture of hot water and Palmolive dish soap to scrub then wipe up the yuck.

Once everything was cleaned up, we organized the cabinets to make space for these things to live inside the cabinets and not on top of the cabinets. 

I know that as the full-time at-home parent that I "should" be able to get everything spic and span every single day. I mean, Beverly Cleaver did it in heels, pearls, and with a 24" waist, so why can't I manage in an age of convenience, ease, and technology? I don't know. Ok ... I don't know. 

So ... yesterday while I was writing out this week's meal plan and exercise plan, I added a cleaning schedule too. It includes which night is which kids turn to clean the table, which days I dust, sweep, mop, clean bathrooms, change the sheets, wash the towels, etc.

This may seem second nature to you, but to me, it's just not. I have a super-human ability to overlook clutter and crud. So ... when it gets to the point that I think it's nasty, it's probably closer to toxic for the neat-freaks out there. 

We're not about to be on an episode of Hoarders, not even CLOSE, but it is time to realize that 4 humans, 2 huge dogs, and an indoor/outdoor cat can generate a lot of dirt. And we're gross. Just gross. 

So, let's stop being gross. And here's how I hope I can make this happen during the week so I can relax on the weekends, not feel guilty about relaxing, and not be upset that other's aren't helping.

Here's the cleaning plan for this week...

Monday = Dust everywhere and Vacuum Downstairs
Tuesday = Sweep all hardwood and tile, Mop, Laundry
Wednesday = Vacuum bedrooms and clean the bathrooms
Thursday = Laundry, Sheets, Towels
Friday = Wipe cabinets, sweep, mop

Here's the meal plan for this week...

Monday = Pork Tenderloin and Carrots
Tuesday = Fish and Spinach
Wednesday = Venison Stuffed Peppers
Thursday = Chicken and Broccoli
Friday = Pizza for the kids, Venison steaks and spinach for Mr. Saucy and me.

And, here's my workout plan for this week...

Monday = Walk and Pump
Tuesday = Pump and Treadmill
Wednesday = Walk and Pump
Thursday = Pump and Treadmill
Friday = Pump and Treadmill
Saturday = Walk and Pump
Sunday = Walk

For my work week, I need to get into Wordpress to work on a project for a friend's web page, I need to get more blog posts written for my Dad's blog, I need to tweet more, and blog more for my own blog, and I need to get more active in my BeachBody coaching.

For my peace of mind week, I want to get some sewing done, some pictures taken, some film developed, some prints made, some books read, and some clutter tossed.

35 mm Camera

I received a real-live 35mm camera for Christmas this year. I'm kind of a goof, and asked for the 35mm instead of a digital, so Mr. Saucy was very upset with me that he had found the EXACT thing that I asked for as my big surprise present, only to see my face fall as I realized it wasn't also digital, which was what I THOUGHT I was asking for.

But ... the truth is ...

I LOVE IT!! And I'm so happy for this little mistake, because it's even more perfect than I had thought it would be.

I LOVE taking REAL pictures. I love focusing on what I want to focus on. I love getting right up onto a leaf to get the detail of the veins in it, or getting the light to come through a twisting vine just right. I love clicking the shutter release and it actually TAKES the picture right then and there without having to wait for all it's automatic settings to figure out what it thinks I'm trying to take a picture of.

I've taken it all around the yard, playing with the focus and zoom, adjusting for the light, getting right up on a huge blob of sap oozing from a tree, getting beautiful shots of different plants, trees, and shadows, and making the kids stand perfectly still for minutes on end while I focus, then get them to both look straight ahead, stop fighting, quit trying to get the sun out of their faces so I can get a good shot.

After every picture each kid wanted to see. They still don't get it that they can't see the picture that I just took. This makes absolutely no sense to them what so ever. And to my horror, I realized I didn't know how to explain to my 6 year old how the guy at CVS was going to know how to color the picture. 

See, when I learned about photography, it was in the 1970's and my Daddy had a dark room in the basement. I would go down there with him, develop the film into negatives, then make contact prints, then we would pick out the pictures we wanted to print, then we'd use the projector and make them whatever size we wanted. 

I'd help pour the solutions, slowly and gently swish the developing chemicals, wait for the timers to tell us when they go into the next solution, sue the wooden tongs to move the paper from one tray to the next, slowly swishing in that one, then the next one. 

I'd see the image come to life on the page, watch it deepen and emerge from a blank page of white paper into a glossy black and white photo. We'd rinse it off, then hang it to dry.

I still remember the smell of each tray. I remember the way the photo paper felt when lifting it with the wooden tongs. I remember the slightly slimy, slick feeling when I got the solution on my fingers and Daddy made me rush to wash it off. 

I also remember that we kept the developing trays in a shallow shelf that was pretty close to eye level for me when I was 5 or 6, but counter height to adults. In that shallow, low shelf, I would reach in to get the trays out for Daddy, and there would be a few dozen cave crickets in there looking back at me. I never minded them. That's just a part of what was in the dark room.

I don't think I'm going to set up a dark room here at Awesome Central. I'm not even sure you can find the at home solutions anymore. I'm sure it would be a much bigger investment than I'm willing to jump into right now.

But man oh man ... 

I miss those smells and the time spent with Daddy and I miss watching the images come to life. 

Magic.

Taco Soup

Sometimes the most simple dish is the most delicious. Today, for instance, I wanted soup. A warm, hearty bowl of rich soup. So, I thought of chicken tortilla. I have taco seasonings, corn tortillas in the freezer, frozen corn, chicken, and a can of refried beans. So I headed to the kitchen to whip it up.

But then I saw the leftover taco meat from Tuesday. And the leftover chicken stock from the latests batch that didn't get frozen.

So, into the pot went:

3 cups of chicken stock

2 cups of leftover taco meat (this week was beef and chicken)

1 can of refried beans

Frozen corn (I used the now empty can from the beans and filled that with the frozen corn as my measure)

1 cup of salsa

If I hadn't been so hungry, I would have toasted a couple of tortilla's to have a crunchy element with my soup, and if I had it on hand, I would have garnished with fresh cilantro. 

But for a quick, "Oh My God, It's 3:00 Already" lunch, this was awesome.