Is this real life? Blog living v actual living

There has been some conversation between some friends about how much pressure we all feel to live in a house that is magazine ready at all times. The pressure seems to be worse when you love to look at home/living/organization blogs.

I grew up in a house that was neat only b/c my folks were never home to make it messy. Same thing goes for my cousin who I adored in high school - spotless house but her family was never in it. Then I see my neighbors homes and they all seem to be spotless, except for their kids' rooms. And it makes me feel like shit. Like I don't have my shit together, that I am living in filth and that cameras from Hoarders could show up at any minute.

But then I think I have to cut myself some slack. I have a three year old that has to be asked 10000 ways from Tuesday to pick up her room. I have a baby that is *still* not sleeping through the night. I go to bed at 8:30 for christsake.

In short, I think we all need to relax a little. To know that no one is perfect and that while I might talk a big fucking game about my house being clean and organized all the time, the fact is, life gets in the way.

And like standing in my underwear in front of a crowded bus stop, I present the current state of my home:

The blog version of my dining room:

and the real world version:

The blog version of my living room:

And the current state of destruction:

Nice, huh? Lived in. Normal, I would think. A house with two kids under the age of 4. The house of *gasp* a working mom.

There is a bag of dog food in the dinning room that needs to be put away. There is a box of Christmas wrapping paper under the coffee table in the living room. There are towels and toys everywhere in the living room.

And wouldn't you know that when the house is most often in this state is when my neighbor with the magazine ready home shows up to talk about a neighborhood yard sale. Or my other neighbor with the clean house stops in to drop off the casserole dish she borrowed.

I think for the next few years this might be my life. And it might just be ok.



Want to weigh in? Tweet with me and make me feel better about the current state of my house: @thegoodwifeblog

Random thoughts on pregnancy

I didn't post a lot about my last pregnancy since the focus on the blog was still 99% food posts with crappy photos. Plus The Good Husband was laid off. My joy was a bit tempered since I didn't want to write in The Good Daughter's baby book,  "Your Daddy thought of you all day while he was waiting in the unemployment line. We don't know how we are going to make rent this month, but we love you."

Thankfully things improved rather quickly and I was able to be excited and enjoy that first pregnancy in the wide eyed way that only first time moms can, thinking that sleepless nights and breastfeeding struggles will only happen to other moms.

Round two is markedly different. Whereas before when people would ask me how far along I was, I could name the week and day without thinking, now it's more like "23 weeks? I dunno." Gone is the excitement of baby showers and registries; replaced by the white hot panic of how I am going to handle a newborn all over again but this time, with the added bonus of a demanding 3 year old.

The excitement of making baby food and setting up the swing is now "I have to bring all that shit up out of the basement." I am scared the new baby smell won't last as long this time around. And since I am fairly sure this might be our last pregnancy I am trying to savor the last few weeks with a bittersweetness I might never have again.

I'm more than half way finished now and it still all feels unreal.

Noteworthy things about this pregnancy:

~It's a boy and a little weird knowing there is little baby junk just hanging out in me

~Pregnancy nightmares are the shit; in the last week I have dreamt my family was eaten by wolves, we were attacked by zombies (which is a fairly common, nonpregnancy dream for me, actually) and the baby is try to eat it's way out of my stomach

~I forgot how bad snail trail is

~I have gained 9 pounds so far, which is not bad but considering I am only "allowed" to gain 15 at the most, is depressing

~No flat, orange soda drink for me. I got to skip straight to a shot in my ass 4 times a day to control gestational diabetes

~The Good Son is going to get mostly hand-me-downs, including the nursery but I am getting a dresser for him since not having a changing table with TGD was a rookie fucking mistake. This means he will wear pink cloth diapers. But will be fabulous in them

~I have a very real and terrifying fear of labor and delivery since TGD was an unplanned and unexpected c/s

~My feet and my tits are having a competition to see which can get the biggest and most painful first. My feet are currently in the lead

~I forgot just how unique the feeling of being kicked in the vagina from the inside is. TGD always kicked my ribs and so far this boy aims below the belt.

~I haven't had any real heartburn or sciatic never pain, but I know both are just lying in wait.

2011 - A year I didn't shut the hell up

It seems like now is the time when everyone likes to recap the year and make a list of hopeful goals for the coming months. I do have some big plans for the next year but I will save that for upcoming posts.

So now, let's take a look back, shall we, in the same way that we watch the VH1 top 100 of the year and say," 'Sing' by My Chemical Romance came out a year ago? It seems soooooo long ago."

 In January I talked about my kid and how I am fat. Not spectacular.

In February I made a list of all the ways you can be environmentally friendly while having a kid.

In March I remade mashed cauliflower, with better success.

April saw everyone lose their motherfuckin shit in the face of the looming government shutdown.

In May I created a series of Household Binder, aka The Brains of the Operation posts which everyone seemed to love. I posted about Party Planning and Menus and Shopping Lists and Daily and Weekly Dockets and Important Account Numbers and Contact Lists and Cleaning Schedules and a Calendar and a Budget Worksheet and an Automobile Log.
 

Heading into June, I almost lost my motherfuckin shit as The Good Daughter turned two!

In July I made some kick ass pretzel bites. Thank you Pinterest!

August made my ass get fatter (you knew I wouldn't keep up with the fat camp, didn't you?) when I made twice baked 'tater casserole.

In September I coped with the stress of my last semester in grad school with a sweet grilled cheese. 

And I swallowed that bitch down with some copycat Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets.

In October I revealed that Target is crack for suburban chicks. 

In November I talked about my CSA. Again.

And finally, in December, I generally slacked off while finishing up school and posted about this mushroom and leek gratin.

It looks like 2011 was the year when I didn't know when to shut the hell up and to date, was the most post-whoreish. I hope that is a good thing. I can't make any promises that 2012 will be just as exciting, but I hope it will be. I have so much to post about if only I can find the motivation.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who has read anything on this little dog and pony show. Most of the time I imagine writing these words and sending them out into the great black void of The Internets. But the fact that I do have and continue to get readers amazes me everyday. Thank you guys for being awesome!

It's a universal truth

That a trip to Targét to get thank you cards, goes from this:

to this:

and the thought process that evolves a $6 trip into a $50 spree is:

"Oh! The Dollar Spot. I got to check this shit out. What can I not live without but don't want to spend more than a dollar on? Ah-ha! Elmo coloring book WITH FUCKING STICKERS!!!! Yeah, I'll put that bitch in the cart. The Good Daughter didn't see it, so I can hide that when I get home and give it to her later. Oh, a baby Big Bird book. I have to have that and there is a Cookie Monster one too! I can't just get one fucking board book. Throw that whore in the back of the cart.

"What's this? Finger puppets? Well, fuck me. Our house is sorely lacking finger puppets. Which one to get? The unicorn/frog combo or the wizard/queen? I love unicorns, so that's a no brainer. But I love wizards. Hmmm. Which to get, which to get? What! Did I forget where I was? This is the motherfucking Dollar Spot, slut! Get both those finger puppet bitches!"

and so it goes that way for 45 minutes while I throw a toy in the cart b/c TGD was being a good girl while her mom walked around the T, out of her ever lovin mind. And the line was too long in the check out lane, which got me gum AND a magazine AND candy AND FUCKING LIP GLOSS, b/c I'm like Ted Haggard when faced with meth and gay sex and can't turn that shit down.

View from a Country Mouse

Even though, as a kid and young adult, troublemaker, teen, I lived fairly close to St. Louis, my small town was still pretty rural. Less than 30k rural. So while not as rural as I am now - less than 10k - still fairly country-ish.

In my wild days I might have gone cow tippin' and been chased off some land by farmers with shotguns, and gotten my car stuck hopelessly in the mud. I might have dated boys that bailed hay and detassled corn in the summer. I might have gone to college that was literately in the middle of a corn field. And not in the "I literately died" way.


But as I have grown up and gotten older and learned to read Census Bureau stats, I have learned that only 16% of the country lives in areas 250k or less. That makes me feel...........small. How can I be only part of 16%? Everyone I know is rural too. *no shit*

But just as I have no idea what it is like to live in an urban area, I am sure there are readers out there that have no idea what it's like to live like a country mouse. So I offer the following:


That is about 3 minutes away from my house, on the way to town. And that's a good road. Notice the lines? Yeah, that means it's a main drag, or a two-laner (for two lane "highway"), as we like to call them. This is the pinnacle in the hierarchy of roads.

Two-laner > blacktop > country road > township road

Blacktops usually don't have the lines, are narrower and usually filled with tractors this time of year. Country roads usually aren't paved and township roads don't even have gravel and still make me nervous to this day. Telephone poles and corn and/or soybeans are the staples that dot the landscape. You can easily go 2 hours on a road like this and not hit a town.

Every once and a while, you will come to an intersection and get to gaze in the face of vast nothingness. Of miles and miles of gently blowing GMO corn and government subsidized land.

There are days when I wish for a better view. I would love to live in the mountains or on a coast, but I think the black farm soil of Illinois is in my blood and I would have to move back home. I would miss the small towns with one church, one bar, a K of C hall and one post office. I'd miss the view shared by only 16% of the country.

And now for something I never do

~UPDATED~ Thank you to everyone that took the time to vote for The Good Daughter. She didn't win, unfortunately. But I sincerely thank each and every one of you that took the time to vote for her. Thank you.



The Good Daughter is in a local cutest baby contest. She could win a $500 savings bond. At this point it is the only money she would have in her college fund, save our change we dump in her piggy bank when we break a dollar.

If you could just take a second and vote for TGD, I would love you more than I already do.

Voting ends Sunday night and you can vote as many times as you want.

Click this link to vote<

How to vote:
~Scroll until you find The Good Daughter's photo. She is number 73. (She is in the 19th row from the top, first one on the left. She is in a red shirt with white ruffles.)

~Click on the radio button under her photo

~Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the Vote button.

She has some stiff competition for actual cutest baby so she needs any vote she can get.

Thank you so much for taking the time to vote. TGD and I really appreciate it.

TGW & TGD,
SarahBeth and Abby

On raising a girl

is this the bane of my existence?

The Good Daughter has a pink play kitchen. My daughter has a fucking cotton candy pink play kitchen. How could I have let this happen and why am I getting worked up over a toy?

First of all I got it as a hand me down. If I didn't take it from a neighbor, she was going to throw it away and as a crazy, "green" hippy, I couldn't let that happen. So I told her I would take it. And TGD likes to play pretend anyway, so I knew she would like it.

So what's the fucking problem you ask?

I guess the most important is how obviously gender stereotypical this is. A pink play kitchen for a girl. A pretty common girl toy since the Great Depression and a hold over from the era of the most rigid gender oppression that is currently providing nostalgia through Mad Men.

By giving TGD a play kitchen I am subtly telling her, her place is in the kitchen. She might not know yet it is b/c she is a girl, her place is in the kitchen but she knows girls are in the kitchen most of the time. She sees me in the kitchen daily. She sees me cooking dinner and lunch and snacks and me cleaning. She knows there are Mamas and Dadas and that her Mama is in the kitchen most of the time.

But just as a play kitchen reinforces the idea that girls should be in the kitchen, the most powerful chefs or the ones most accessible through food network are men. Mario, Bobby, Emril, Morimoto, Wolfgang. These are the men that are making the most money from being in the kitchen. Yet there are no play kitchens marketed to boys. Or at least I have never seen a pink play kitchen marketed to boys.

Which brings me to another pain in my ass. Pink shit.

I hate pink shit. I don't hate the color per se. I just hate what the color implies. And I loathe the fact that makers of everything from tool kits to sports jerseys to board games (here, here, here, here, here and here) to guns think that women will only buy their product if it is pink. It also sends the message that the girl version is the "other", a deviation from the norm since scrabble is inherently nongendered. It wasn't until marketers thought of slapping pink on it to attract girls that it became gendered and that gender - girl - is not the default.

I won't even touch on the absurdity of the pink for breast cancer shit.

And I know I have pink on my blog. I do so ironically since I am also not a perfect or good wife.

Just as I struggled with how I can enjoy domestically as a feminist, I am struggling with how to raise a girl in a sexist and very unfeminist world. I will admit that I didn't want to have a girl as my first born. I worry about her growing up oversexualized. I worry about her only finding her worth in a man and I worry about her trying to cope with the pressure of being skinny and beautiful and vapid surrounded by media that holds up Taylor Momsen and Paris Hilton and Britney Spears (who both will be 30 this year, mind you, just like I will) as enviable instead of Gabby Giffords or Sonia Sotomayor or Hillary Clinton.

So do I ban all pink and girly things?

Clearly I haven't since she has a pink play kitchen and barbies and princess crap and pink clothes. I also dress her in dresses.

I'm just tying to find the line where she can play with a pretend kitchen and a pink princess tea set but also with trucks and tools and not know there is a difference between "boy" and "girl" toys and just see toys.

But can she just see toys when I am hyperaware of the difference? Can I limit her exposure to pink and princess and girl things without making them forbidden and thus so totally desirable? Can I teach her to be a lipstick feminist?

I wish I could say with 100% certainty I could. I wish I could say that pressure from media and society and friends will not have an effect on her if The Good Husband and I can be strong role models. But I just don't know.

And that scares me more than an entire room filled with fucking cotton candy pink play stoves.

My addiction

All of that is lip gloss.

I've gotten all these - expect for the almay gloss - in the last 3 months. I think 5 of them were in my purse.

I usually buy them on Target or Walgreen runs. I think I am always out and buy one, use it until it falls to the bottom of the purse to be seen only when I make a blog post.

When the zombies come, I will take comfort in the fact that I can probably fashion some sort of explosive device from all the beeswax I have here.

I'm going to fat camp!

Yay! I wonder if it will be a camp like Salute Your Shorts?

Probably not, since I'm not going to an actual camp. What I am doing, along with The Good Husband, is participating in a 90 day weight loss challenge sponsored by TGH's work. We have been assigned a group and the group that loses the most weight at the end of the challenge will win $50 each.

I bet I will spend more than $100 in the next three months on healthy food. ::sigh:: Eyes on the prize, fatty and enjoy any weight you lose.

The challenge officially starts tomorrow but I have been warming TGH up all week by making smaller and healthier meals, packing his lunch and making him eat breakfast. We plan on following Weight Watchers, walking when the weather permits and doing P90X (yes, because we are crazy).

So far the menu has been:
Breakfast - one whole wheat english muffin, 2 oz reduced fat cream cheese, 1 medium banana and 1 8 oz glass of milk

Snack - granola bar

Lunch - Sliced turkey sandwich with onion, 1/4 avocado, lettuce, light mayo on whole wheat bread, 2 celery stalks with peanut butter, 3/2 cup grapes, 1/2 baby carrots and 1 gram cracker

Snack - 8 oz V8

Dinner - 4 oz salmon fillet, 4 peel and eat shrimp, 1 cup brown rice and broccoli

I haven't totaled the WW points on all this because, frankly, I am not stressing out too much about it at this point. I will save all the point counting for the next 90 days. At the end of the 90 days, I get to go dress shopping so I can watch my BBF from high school marry her boyfriend of the last 5 years. Hopefully I won't have to shop in the Woman section for that.

Wish me luck.

Summer of Change

I cannot wait for this summer. There are so many things I am looking forward to, so many things I want to accomplish that I really do hope this summer will be one of a permanent change.

The Farmer's Markets will soon be opening, allowing us to eat fresher and seasonally.

The Good Baby will turn one

I will have finished my first semester in graduate school, hopefully with a 4.0 GPA

I will have completed my mind/body stress reduction class

I will be able to stop pumping breast milk for TGB

And finally, but most importantly, I will be able to exercise again.

Everything I have read about breastfeeding (and I read a ton and attended several classes and still not all my questions were answered - but that is a separate post) says to not exercise because an acid can build up in your milk and your baby won't eat it. That seems a little strange to me but hey, any excuse I have to not move my ass is good with me.

Did you also know that while you are nursing you HAVE to eat an additional 500 calories a day? Hot damn! Pass me the cookies.

You see where this is going?

I was able to keep my pregnancy weight gain to 15 pounds and the day I left the hospital I weighed less then my first OB appointment. Now before you want to glass me, keep in mind that I was a member of the fatties before I got pregnant so I was advised to gain NO MORE than 15 pounds. But I know how easy it is to say "I am growing a freaking human here people, pass me that bacon double cheeseburger."

But I was lucky like a case of herpes to get gestational diabetes. I had to test my blood sugar seven times a day and I was placed on insulin. My blood sugar levels were so high when I failed my glucose test it set an office record and even after 2 months on insulin I had to be placed on a second dose of insulin my blood sugar levels were so bad.

So that is the only way I didn't gain 55 pounds during pregnancy. I couldn't drink milk, I couldn't touch a carb and fruit was out of the question. I didn't even have a piece of my baby shower cake.

Both my OB and my endocrinologist speculated I might have been borderline type 2 diabetic before I was pregnant. But there was no way to prove it.

With gestational diabetes you have a 2 out of 3 chance of getting it again with each pregnancy. So most likely I will have this again. But with diet and exercise I should be in a better place in two years when we try to conceive again.

So why didn't my fat ass get out and walk after I had The Good Baby? Postpartum depression and anxiety.

Yeah.

Like a case of herpes with hemorrhoids.

Any new mother will tell you that the first few months are about survival only. I was lucky to get sleep or a shower or brush my teeth, so eating the diabetes diet every 2 1/2 to 3 hours was not happening. By Christmas TGB was six months old and sleeping through the night. But it was the middle of winter and I was packing on my winter weight.

I told myself that my feelings of depression and anxiety were normal and everything would be better once TGB was sleeping in her own room, once she got over teething, once I am able to stop pumping breast milk. I stupidly enrolled in graduate school thinking I needed a distraction.

So the weight slowly crept up. Depression over my new life, my new role and coping with my new body did nothing to ease the pain that the life I knew before TGB was no more. So I ate that cookie and the bacon double cheeseburger and I now weight 15 pounds more then I did at my first OB appointment.

But I feel for the first time in almost a year like I have a grasp on my life, that I am able to control it in a way I couldn't before when every moment seemed to be slipping though my fingers as gently as razorblades.

I feel confident that I can change my body. I can be a great role model for TGB. I can teach her to love food but to not be a slave to fat or calories. I know there will be roadblocks along the way. I know there will be setbacks. I know there will be days when I want to give up and wish everything would just go away. But I know I can do this. I can face this challenge.

And I hope I will kick it's ass.

You Are What You Eat

I came across this post today and it was very thought provoking. What does your fridge say about you? Are you a reflection of your fridge or is your fridge a reflection of you?

http://www.good.is/post/picture-show-you-are-what-you-eat/

What does my fridge say about me? If you could, could you guess anything about me from the contents on my fridge?


Working Mother | IL | 3-Person Household | Enjoys PBS and America's Next Top Model| 2009

Introducing The Good Baby

You may have noticed that I have been absent for the last few weeks. Don't I know my blog turned a year old and there was no comment? Where have I been? What have I been doing? And what is so damn important that I don't update the blog?


This little thing came into my life a little over a month ago.

I am finding that newborns like schedules, just not your schedule. I am finally getting some sleep and hope to be blogging again soon.

In the meantime here is more Good Baby cuteness.

Baby Shower

I was lucky enough to have two baby showers. The first one was thrown by my cousin and was a low-key affair with the typical (for my family) menu of chicken and tuna salad on dollar rolls, pasta salad, relish try, chips and dip and veggies and dip. Everything was delicious but I forgot to take pictures.

My second baby shower was hosted by The Good Husband's family and I was able to help out with the food. My not so cutesy theme was baby sized foods, aka finger foods.

The menu (with recipes included):

Boiled New Potatoes with Sour Cream, Smoked Salmon and Chives (modified from this recipe)
Spring Mix Salad with Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette in a Parmesan Cup

Assorted Fresh Fruit with French Cream
Turkey, Apple and Butter on Wheat Bread Tea Sandwich
Crab, Avocado and Vanilla Mayo on White Bread Tea Sandwhich

Crudité Platter with Roasted Garlic Aioli

BBQ Kettle Chips
Salted Kettle Chips with Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

Everyone seemed to love the food and there was more than enough to go around, which makes me happy. I want everyone to be full and happy whenever there is a party. I had an amazing time and got some great gifts for The Good Baby.

Stay tuned. This blog might be changing

In light of this being my 101 post, as well as some other life changes I have been going through, I have decided that I might shift focus a bit here on the blog.

The majority of my posts have been about the food I cook and how I learned to cook it. But The Good Wife is going to be The Good Mother soon so a few baby posts might creep in here and there.

Also, The Good Husband and I just bought our first house. So while there is still a lot of unpacking to do in preparation for The Good Baby, I am settling into home ownership nicely and have had to modify the way I cook, clean and otherwise adjust.

So along with all the food I cook and the way I cook it, I can't help but think that some of the things I do to keep the house clean, to stay organized, to become more environmentally friendly, to save money and time and to be a better good wife, might be of some value.

So, what would you like to see more of on The Good Wife? You can answer in comments or by filling out the new poll I posted.

Thanks.

Exciting News!

I, The Good Wife, in about 6 months will be The Good Mother!

That's the little bean in there. I am so scared and nervous and happy and excited all at the same time.

This is defiantly life-changing.

I've been tagged

I was tagged by my friend, Brooke from Artfully Disheveled.

The rules of this tagging are to name seven weird or strange things about you. Here goes:

1. As a kid I had an unhealthy paranoia about natural disasters, especially earthquakes. I watched a made for tv movie about earthquakes as a child that predicted the New Madrid Fault, near where I lived at the time, would have a 9.9 earthquake in the next 10 years. I was so unnerved by this that I made my mom setup an earthquake disaster plan, I learned how to shut off the gas lines if need be and we made an earthquake preparedness kit.

This year was the first time I was in an earthquake. It happened in the middle of the night and I thought it was just the wind blowing.

2. I now have an almost unhealthy paranoia about zombies. The said earthquake preparedness kit has since been dubbed the "zombie attack survival" kit in The Good Household. The Good Husband and I joke about escape plans and survival tips when we get bored.

3. My mom has only cooked for me 4 times in my entire life and she has given me food poisoning 3 times. Never again will I eat egg salad.

4. I collect hippos. My collection consists mostly of stuffed hippos but I have clothes, picture frames and salt and pepper shakers.

5. On our honeymoon in Hawaii, TGH and I swam with sharks. In order to get the best pictures of the sharks with the underwater camera, I stuck my entire arm out of the protective cage but I wouldn't stand on the cage for fear the sharks would eat my toes.

6. I cannot allow my foods to touch each other on the plate. I make separate piles for each food and then I eat them one at a time. So typically, I have to eat all my potatoes before I eat my beans, before I eat my meat. If there are two food items in a dinner that have a sauce with them (mashed taters and gravy and broccoli and cheese) I can only have one on my plate. The other I have to have in a bowl.

7. The only pet I have ever own was a sea monkey. TGH was in charge of feeding them and overfed them until all but one died. We name him George. One day we woke up and George had giant balls. I mean, in proportion to his body, they were like 25% the size of him. I always got a kick out of him swimming around the tank with these giant balls. Then one day we woke up and the tank was filled with baby sea monkeys, so we figured George was not a boy. I still have no idea what the balls were for then.

I am not tagging anyone since everyone I know with a blog as already been tagged.

Blogging might be slow in the future

The shitty economy has hit The Good Household. I will try and keep the blog updated at least once a week but other things might keep me away. Life doesn't come without challenges and I hope this is only a bump in the road so please don't abandon ship. I will try and be at it again soon.

My 100 Foods List

There is a lot of 100 list floating around on blogs lately. The 100 things you should eat if you are an omnivore, the 100 things you should eat if you are a vegetarian, the 100 things you want to accomplish in 1001 days.

So in that zeitgeist here is my 100 Foods I Want To Make:

Yeast Breads
~French Bread - completed
~Italian Bread - completed
~White Sandwich Bread - completed
~Parker House Rolls
~Popovers
~Donuts - completed
~Sourdough Bread - completed
~Bagels - completed
~Croissants
~Brioche
~Focaccia

Cakes
~German Chocolate
~Layered cake - completed
~Boston Cream Pie
~Cheesecake
~Flourless Cake
~Yellow cake with Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting - completed
~Cake with fondant

Cookies/Bars
~Dish Pan Cookies
~Peanut Butter Cookies - completed
~Snickerdoodles
~Brownies - completed
~Oatmeal Cookies
~Shortbread
~Palmiers
~Biscotti

Desserts
~Crème Bruleè
~Vanilla Pudding
~Chocolate Mousse
~Ice Cream - completed
~Coeur a la Crème
~Semifredo
~Sorbet - completed
~Truffles - completed
~Petit Fours
~Tiramisu - completed
~Marshmallows
~Fudge
~Caramels

Pastries
~Cheese Danish
~Éclairs
~Cream Puffs
~Turnovers
~Baklava

Pies
~Peach Pie - FAIL, will attempt again
~Double crust pie
~Lattice topped pie
~Cream Pie
~French Apple Tart
~Pecan Pie
~Tarte Tatin
~Mixed Fruit Tart

Ethnic Food
~Pad Thai
~Homemade noodles
~Canoli
~Refried Beans - completed
~Gyros
~Paella
~Summer Rolls
~Hummus
~Chicken Curry
~Sushi
~Potstickers
~Aioli
~Egg rolls
~Crab Rangoon
~Chicken Satay

Seafood
~Live lobster
~Clams
~Oysters Rockefeller
~Shrimp Scampi
~Smoked Salmon
~Crab Cakes

Entrees
~Beef Wellington
~Rack of Lamb
~Ribs
~Eggs Benedict - completed
~Homemade Sausage
~Chicken Condon Bleu
~Chicken and Noodles
~Liver and Onions
~Soufflé
~Pasta Carbonara
~Beef and Noodles - completed
~Lasagna - completed
~Quiche - completed
~Shepherd’s Pie
~Pizza - completed
~Whole Turkey
~Roasted Chicken
~Turkey Burgers

Soup and sides
~Minestrone
~Potato and Leek Soup - completed
~Stuffing - completed
~Beef Broth
~Vegetable Soup
~Gratin - completed
~Twice-Baked Potatoes
~Potato Skins - completed
~Cheese Straws

Updated: What good is it to have a list without a deadline? Well, this baby is good for one year, give a take a day. By Sept 1, I want to have finished everything on this list.

I'm a winner!

Joelen of Joelen's Culinary Adventrues hosts blogging events throughout the month and encouraged me to enter August's Tantalizing Tomatoes blogging event and I WON!

Woot! Woot!

This is like the time I won tickets to Sesame Street Live and a backstage pass to see Bird Bird, but because the usher sat us in the wrong section, we didn't get to go backstage. But this was way better than that.

Thanks Joelen!!!

I've been tagged!

This is the first time I have been tagged. Elizabeth at Elizabeth's Cooking Experiments tagged me. So, now, I have to share a little big about me. Here are the Tagging Rules: Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What was I doing ten years ago?
Ten years ago I was a junior in high school. The drama llama was the mascot for that year. But overall, I was just having fun at my no responsibility job and trying to get good grades in high school.

What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today?
1. Call our realtor
2. Wash the dark clothes
3. Make dinner
4. Balance the checkbook
5. Make our lunches for tomorrow

Five snacks I enjoy:
1. Good cheese with thick white bread
2. Grapes
3. Baby Carrots
4. Hummus
5. Pringles

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Visit every state in the US
2. Visit Italy
3. Donate a lot of time and money to women's organizations
4. Donate money for our town improvement
5. Donate time and money to our local schools

Places I’ve lived:
1. Near St. Louis, Mo
2. Near Springfield, IL
That's that only places I have lived. I don't get out much, I see.

Jobs I’ve had:
1. Ice cream server at Dairy Queen
2. Grocery store check out girl
3. Cashier at Panera Bread
4. Bank teller
5. Business Manager

I will be tagging:
1. Annie at Well, that would be telling
2. Meghan at Joy Through Cooking
3. Mel at Little Ms. Foodie
4. Amanda at Click. The Good News
5. I need to start reading more blogs!