Just have a relaxing Monday…
I’ll be dreaming that I am, as my baby screams at me for not doing something the right way…
Trying to talk, I guess is frustrating her…
So have a Just Monday. I will try…
❤️
And I tried to paint yesterday…I only got in about ten minutes before Eli started yelling at me “all done…”
But this is where I got…
This vacation was to visit the newest baby addition to my sister in-law’s family. All the way to Kentucky.
Our trip was a total of 5 days…
Day 1 Drive eight hours.Hotel. Day 2 direct flight to Cincinnati, drive 10min to Kentucky. Day 3 Kentucky. Day 4 Kentucky. Day 5 Fly plus drive the eight hours. 😩
Day 5 was the worst.
But enough of the depressing things I’ll post some pictures. 🥰
It’s funny how my mind and my hubby’s mind work differently. Haha 😂 Elizabeth wanted up. This was going to be a fun day, if we were only into the drive by 3 hours.
We went exploring because we got there a bit before we could check in. Next step swimming in the pool to get the wiggles out!!
Scratch that. The pool at our hotel is closed. So we went to the park and let Elizabeth get her wiggles out. The hotel was really crappy. In all our experiences, it was the second worst ever. The first being a weed smelling infested hotel that made me puke. So this one was just a smidge better because it did not smell but it was pretty bad.
I don’t know if you remember Elizabeth with her backpack…but man, was that a life saver! If you have a two year old, get one. It was amazing.
I would suggest wiping down things that claim to be clean. It never is. I’ve been doing this even before Covid. Just because my child has always been curious. She touches everything.
Finally to Kentucky. It is beautiful. It’s green! But wow it is humid!! It was 50 something degrees and I was drenched. Compared to home it felt like the air was giving me a sweaty hug. 🥵
Next, an outing in Kentucky.
It was truly amazing!! Except at this area they had fake thunder noises and Elizabeth got scared. She got some extra mama snuggles.
This last picture we had gone up to the third floor of the ark and was slowly making our way down. It was huge!!
Walking threw the ark made me realize something. Noah was the creator of the term rustic. Whoever claims otherwise is a liar. He started it all. Haha 😆
Elizabeth was Done! at around 2:00. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law do not understand because they have a 1 month year old. Their child is fine as long as she gets to eat and sleep. Not so true for a 2 year old. And I must say! Elizabeth walked almost the entirety of the day…except the first floor of the ark. (It was too crowded and the thunder). My fitbit said I did almost 10,000 steps by this point! But she did amazing. Also we got there around 9:30. So it had been 4.5hrs. But the grandparents and the new parents did not understand.
So around 3:00…the hubby and I were Done! We got the keys to the car and took back our screaming child. The instant we got in the car, she snuggled into me and slept. It was nap time. She probably napped for a good hour and a half. I probably got 30min.
Nap time plus waiting was a total of 3 hours before everyone else showed up…😕 it would have been nice to go back to the hotel before dinner.
Bedtime was interesting… Kentucky is 2 hours ahead of us. So when it was 10pm there, it really felt like 8pm. I feel bad for our neighbors because Elizabeth was finally falling asleep around 11:30 every night.
A park near their house.
The day at the park was day four. It was warmer, but with a warmer temp meant sweating from the humidity. If it wasn’t humid and the life pace was a bit slower this would be a wonderful place to live.
Day 5
We had to wake up at 3:50am. 😒 It was good because we still had the eight hour drive after the flight. But it felt like our 1:50am. I was still on our home town time….😵
Finally back home. There is no place like home!!
First vacation in over a year…so I might post or I might not…
Maybe it will all just be the story….
We shall see.
Enjoy your next week!!
I am so focused on packing that I forgot to post, forgot about my mom’s group today, forgot to go to the post office first thing…
I even had a schedule planned…
Oh well. Sorry. Tomorrow I will!!
I was going to draw a comic last night, but instead I decided to enjoy time with my family.
I was going to prepare another exciting post, but I have terrible allergies.
I was going to do a lot of things, but instead I will enjoy my time when my mama is visiting. And try to be rid of my allergies.
Enjoy your Saturday!!
You see me in the sunshine,
Especially in a sunset sky.
I sometimes peek through clouds,
Stretching to touch everywhere.
I shimmer around children’s smiles,
And even color their hair.
If you think of happy,
You will probably find me there.
…
Elizabeth’s outfit yesterday was my inspiration for the poem. Just a happy poem for a happy day.
Yesterday was the day to pick up Grandma!! So I decided Elizabeth would wear her new yellow dress.
I am so jealous because I love the color yellow, but I am unable to wear it.
But as I see Elizabeth in her dress, I think about a poetry book I used to read in my younger days…Ride A Purple Pelican. If you do not know this book, I definitely recommend it.
I sadly do not own it myself, but I will soon now that I remember.
Elizabeth is my very own Molly Day today. (Reference to the book)
Just a post of remembering memories. Watching my daughter’s childhood and remembering my own…❤️🌸
Have a great Thursday 🌼
I’m sorry about today. I think because of lack of sleep, is the cause for my painful headache. I will be taking a day.
Thank you all for staying updated on my blog. Knowing people are reading my post gives me a boost of enthusiasm every day. 😊
Planting a garden here is difficult. If you live anywhere where it snows you understand. You have start your garden inside.
So I started with the green beans plants. I always put them in moist ziplock bags and hang them on windows. If you ever did that green bean science project in elementary school…that is what I do every March.
I forgot to take pictures, of course, because I didn’t think I would post this. But I did an entire package of bean seeds. So about sixty seeds.
But this post is about the transplanting from the starter seeding to the main pots. We were going to build big garden boxes this year but the snow would never go away, and the building materials have become unreasonably priced…so we opted for Home Depot buckets. Also for all my romaine lettuce, that I started from tiny seeds, I will be using various pot sizes that we already have. Because I originally planted seventy-two lettuce plants.
Back to the topic of transplanting…
At this time I only have about fifty-six green bean plants. And some more will probably die after the moving of pots…
Well once I began, I realized I forgot to buy more soil, and Walmart is too far away to only spend about sixty dollars in soil. So I checked online to see difference of price.
Ace. Ace is closer and only two dollars more. Ace it is!
Elizabeth was helping me fill buckets. She will probably be bored soon.
They look so healthy!! But man does it take a lot of time.
We only have one tomato cage. So I am putting the big plants together. We will go buy some more at another time.
Do you see the roots…most of the plants were like this. It shows me that it needed to be transplanted maybe a week ago.
It’s about 12:30pm now so I have to feed my hungry thing…
Well I took a long lunch break. Elizabeth was over heated. She over heats if it is over 60 degrees outside. It was almost 80 today. So It’s 4pm now. I had to make sure Elizabeth was cooled off completely. She is watching a movie inside and I’m outside again with the baby monitor.
Since the lettuce plants are so fragile I just quickly finished. Everything is in its new pot and all watered!
The transplanting was Saturday. Today this is a current photo.
It is super tiny, but I have little green beans growing!! I feel like a proud mama of my baby plants. 😂
The potato plant is sad but still alive. The lettuce plants are still thriving. After moving pots, I’ve lost about ten more bean plants and about twenty lettuce plants. I don’t think the lettuce plants are too happy with the purple lighting. I think they prefer sunlight.
Hopefully the cold weather is gone and I can leave them outside soon… we shall see.
Enjoy your Friday!
Mwahahahaha!
I have to admit. It is difficult to stay within just three cookbooks. There are only so many ground beef recipes…and we have a lot of ground beefs to go. So I turned to google again.
So I guess I renounce my statement of number of cookbooks. But I will be continuing to share my cooking stories. Let’s begin.
The longest part was defrosting the beef. I always forget hat it takes almost 30min to defrost.
Next I was to add all the other ingredients and let simmer. But I forgot to take a picture. But it was garlic, soy sauce, ginger powder, beef broth, various spices, and a whole cup of brown sugar…😳 but I realized why that much sugar later on…
The next step was to add watered cornstarch. I don’t use cornstarch. For no other reason than I never have any and I always forget to buy some. So instead you double the amount and use flour.
I’ve decided to listen through my iTunes music….it’s all the music I bought when I was a teenager…so most of it will probably be weird now…but maybe a few gems. Maybe…
As the meat is simmering for 8min you should also be cooking the noddles. It even suggested the spaghetti noodles. It was not a random decision. 🤓
Hopefully it is good. It smells devine!
Finished!!
….Wow! It is delicious. Even the hubby said he thinks this is his new favorite ground beef noodle recipe. Mine too. I wish I could post the video of Elizabeth eating it….it is definitely her favorite too!
So…
Look Like Picture: Maybe an 8. Just because it looks like they used a different option on the noodles. The more authentic version. We might have to get some next time.
Taste: 10! 100% 10!!
Easiness: 10! Another put it all together and then enjoy! I sent this recipe to my family. It is definitely a dish my brothers and nephews would love.
Also…
The hubby made his chocolate chip cookies earlier so we already have dessert. It’s the normal nestle cookie recipe but somehow his cookies always come out amazing. One recipe I will not make; the hubby will always be in charge of chocolate chip cookies. And this time around he tried something new…
Nick’s friend gave us some fancy butter…if you love chocolate chip cookies, try making it with this butter….you will never be able to eat other cookies.
I’m usually good about not eating too many cookies… these ones I had 8 after dinner. I gained back all the weight I worked so hard to lose… 😩
Enjoy your night. I wish it to be filled with delicious food! But if it is filled with cookies…be strong…don’t eat too many! 🤣
So I choose a meat first. I decided on beef…but for some reason I was having trouble finding a simple ground beef recipe that we haven’t had yet in the cookbooks…
Nothing…well that’s not completely true. I found a few in the casserole cookbook but none were sounding appetizing.
So I opted to one of my previous simple recipes…
So it says Korean…but since I didn’t have the right ingredients, when I first made it, I kind of Americanized it….so I apologize to the Koreans or foodies in the world that may cringe at some of my changes. Sorry. 😓
So first things first…defrost the beef…
This is from the cow we bought…the meat doesn’t truly taste different to me, but when I cook it, it has a nice smell to it.
Funny story about our rice cooker. My brother didn’t end up wanting this rice cooker when he went back for his second year of college…so I took it. 🤓 And it still lives!! It’s about 4 years old. When it eventually dies I will be very sad…😞
Anyways back on topic. Rice is cooking!!
Can you guess what I decided to do while I waited for the meat to cook?
It is not my blog unless doing dishes is mentioned at some point…
You know when you cook something so often that you no longer measure…that would be my green beans. Some butter, green beans, some salt, a little pepper, a lite sprinkle of garlic powder…and a five finger pinch of brown sugar. Mix it up and let it simmer until you are done with everything else…
Yeah it means one more dish…but to be honest it was the same pot I used to boil Elizabeth’s noddles for Mac n cheese…so it was already used. Another confession…I just wiped it with a paper towel after lunch…But all it had was a couple stuck noodles. 🤪
Now I’m hungry. I wasn’t really hungry when I started. But now I’m a HUNGRY THING!!
We get a sushi rice. It’s the best! Costco!!
Green onions just add that extra yum! to certain foods. I usually add them to anything hat sounds remotely good.
I’ve been trying to be better at my rice consumption. I now measure out my rice. It also makes the plate look pretty and professional…but honestly it’s just for measuring purposes.
See this was a normal cooking process before I got the cookbooks. My google inspired cookbook is huge. I gave my siblings a copy for Christmas this last year.
Even though it’s a bit simple it was delicious!!
I guess I’ll rate them since this is a recipe after all…
Looks Like Picture: 10! I do remember the picture. It always looks the same.
Taste: 10! I always love this meal. It’s a little sweet, spicy, and salty. Everything you usually crave rolled into one recipe. In case you try it…if you do not like spicy don’t add the red pepper flakes. Or maybe just half… also my hubby wanted seconds but again I said no. Just because I knew ice cream was in the near future…
Easiness: 10! It’s pretty much an add everything together and wait. Also since I use a rice cooker it makes this meal extremely easy!
Also to give you an idea of amount of beef mixture it makes… I had about a small heaped 1/2 cup. The hubby…3/4 cup?? I think. And there probably 1 cup leftover. So for two people, it’s a one dinner and one lunch kind of meal.
Hopefully this recipe made you hungry. Usually I won’t post the recipe but since this one is a recipe I tweaked to work fo me I shared it.
Have a great dinner tonight!!
emily2jane 