i love...

early morning eyes, bedhead and dyed eggs.

Eggs hunts with mittens, galoshes and footie jambos.

$1 toys that keep kids busy for hours, and 6 year old granny panties.

Smiles even when he's sent to jail and matching Badger shirts on Easter morning.

I love them all...a lot.

Good Friday...well now it is.

No school today so the kid and I slept in.  That would be me and Sophia-who much like me, is a gifted sleeper.  Poor Owen has other less useful gifts, like reading at a high-school level and having a nearly photographic memory.

So when Sophia and I finally rolled out of bed at 9 o'clock, I was feeling great.  Another beautiful day filled with cloud cover, misty drizzle and cold temperatures.

(I just have to say a little something here ...who ever pissed Mother Nature off, could you please just apologize to her, I mean it's Earth Day for God's sake.  Make amends so she will stop torturing the rest of us with this weird weather.  I'm guessing it was some moron who was all like, "I don't believe in Global Warming"- but that's just a hunch I have.)

I go downstairs ready to dive into a fun day of laundry and playing Memory until I want to blow my brains out. First things first though, I go to the counter and open the egg basket cookie jar, where I keep my coffee making supplies, and guess what?  No frickin' filters....SERIOUSLY!

Well, here is one of the great things about living in The Compound, I can make my kids run to grandma's house and bat their eyes for things like eggs, milk, chicken gumbo soup, and babysitters! Since Owen had been dressed since like 5:40 this morning and was dying to do something I asked him to go, and this is the reaction I got from him.

I'm not kidding!  So I gently placed my camera in a safe spot and wrestled the gun from his puny fingers and asked him sweetly (at gun point) to go to Grandma's General Store for a coffee filter. Which he did without hesitation (at gun point).

Tah-dah!  Not just one filter, but a couple of weeks worth. Thanks Grandma Margie, and thank you Dunkin' Donuts Hazelnut for making this a Good Friday after all.

Happy Easter...

guess what we're having for dinner?

This is my favorite hunting trophy picture ever.  I love it!  The sun was just coming up and the fog was still kind of thick.  The combination of the colors of the bird, the frost on the grass and the hazy sky are awesome.  

A reminder...

Today alone I worried about things like: being out of shape, not reading enough, my bank balance, feeding my kids hot lunch more than I should, that funky smell in my car, the stupid huge cold sore smack dab in the middle of my lip, dental insurance, laundry & about 600 other things.

So tonight when I got home from my walk and saw this sitting in my living room, this quote from Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson, popped into my head "Will this matter a year from now?"

As Sophia and Trevor read about spring, it dawned on me - next spring, I will likely still be out of shape, not have enough money, have a pile of laundry and continue to drive around enjoying the fragrant blend of gym socks & sauerkraut with the subtle hint of wet dog that lingers in the Ford Focus, but none of that matters.

What matters is this-my family. We are healthy, safe, smart, happy and strong. We are together.  It's what matters now and that is what will matter then.

This photo will be a reminder to take care of the things that will matter a year from now.  That means the decaying animal in my car will have to take care of itself!

Saturday Supper Week 2...

Ummm...brrrrr!

Oh how one week changes everything.  Cold temps, blowing rain and snowy-sleet made today as yucky as last Saturday was gorgeous...stupid Wisconsin!  I was actually kind of on the fence about what I was making for Saturday Supper.  I narrowed it down to soup or stew, but this morning when I can downstairs Trevor had made the decision for me.  He had just dumped a jar of pickled peppers over a pork roast in the slow-cooker.  Comfort food on a cold, crappy day-perfect.

Pork Roast-This is a favorite at our house. It's quick, easy and uses up one of the jars of peppers we canned last summer. The peppers give it great flavor as it slowly cooks all day.  It's juicy, tender and delicious.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes-I decided to make the ultimate comfort food. I don't really follow a recipe, I just added, butter, garlic and sour cream to the skin-on boiled potatoes. Sometimes, I use cream cheese. Pretty much anything goes, and it's hard to mess them up.  The kids love them!

Whole Wheat Bread Sticks-I made these from the Wildtree Whole Wheat Pizza Crust mix.  So easy and really good.

Steamed Broccoli-I had some fresh broccoli to use up, so I steamed it.  I do this with ice cubes in the microwave for about 5 minutes. It comes out super green, still a little crunchy and really yummy.

Pistachio Pudding(sugar free)-NOT homemade. We have a birthday party on Sunday and we will be fed awesome cake made by the Cake Boss herself, Laura Busch, so I decided to skip a baked, rich dessert.  I wanted to serve fruit salad, but we have no groceries in our house and since the weather was total crap, I didn't want to go out. So I decided to skip the canned pineapple only fruit salad, and went with one of the kids favorites.

Birds' Eye view of The Compound...

if the birds were flying really low and had my camera hidden in their feathers.

Play ball!

Do you like our cheesy baseball photos? Sophia really got into the "cheesy" part.  She would rest her head on the bat, and try to look all tough.  It was pretty funny, until she took a swing, a little too close to my camera. Not cool! 

FYI: Owen's picture is straight out of the camera, no editing.  The light was so amazing last night!

Owen is getting pretty pumped for baseball season. He wore this shirt twice this weekend...yes, that means pretty much all weekend.  So we've moved from the Vikings t-shirt obsession, straight into the camo from head to toe phase, right on to the next chapter of Cardinals only clothing.

Look out Barry Bonds, this girl might break your hitting record!  She's probably got bigger balls too, Roider. Notice the killer shades, the wind was blowing dust in her eyes interfering with her slugging skills.

Look what the wind blew in...

a lovely end to a lovely weekend. Oh, nice weather, how I've missed you!

Saturday Supper Week 1...

I devour food blogs.  I love to see what other people have going on in their kitchens. I love seeing the play by play of how a dish was prepared, and most of all I love seeing the finished product. Unfortunately, seeing is all because I've tried licking my computer monitor for a taste and that doesn't work...stupid technology!

I also love photographing food. It combines my two passions, eating delicious food and wiping melted chocolate off my expensive camera! So in an attempt to 1. blog more  2. look for fun dishes to try and, 3. try to bamboozle people into believing this nutrition educator serves healthy, delicious foods every night, Sophia and I are going to start a little Saturday Supper blog post.  We will prepare a delicious meal and let all of you peeps see what is cooking in The Compound.  Sophia is a part of this because she LOVES to help in the kitchen.  Oh and I'm also trying to go all 1950's on her ass and teach her how to cook for the men of the...WOW, I almost typed that entire sentence without dying laughing.

I think it would be fun to make this a social time for us too.  A night we have friends or family over to enjoy the food...or at least to choke it down with us.  Tonight, we invited The Busch Family to join us.  Brian brought me a Diet Pepsi ♥ & Laura made homemade buns.

So here it is, Saturday Supper Week 1...

Grilled Brats.  We bought and processed a pig a few months ago and these are the last of the brats. We only had a few packages made, and Piper ate one of them...dumb dog!

Coleslaw.  I officially make the best coleslaw ever. Seriously, more than 2 people have asked for my recipe...so that proves it. Oh, yes those are hard boiled eggs on top.

Fresh Mushrooms & Baby Carrots with Ranch Dip. Miss Annabelle dipped her mushrooms in ketchup and chowed them down; while the rest of us tried not to vomit.

Fresh Salsa & Chips. I could eat nothing but fresh salsa and chips ever again, and be totally happy.

and for dessert...Fudgy Brownie Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches...yes let me repeat that...
Fudgy Brownie Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches.    They were amazing!

I hope you enjoyed the first installment of Saturday Supper. If you need me I'll be the one sitting on the couch with the Tums.

Sophia and I would love to hear your comments. She is totally cracking up about the vomit sentence.

Primal Scream Therapy...blog style

I’m irritable today!  Why, you ask?  Well I don’t know for sure, but I have some ideas…

• I’ve only had 20 minutes of facebook in the last two days.  I know it sounds crazy, but I think that I’m so used to knowing lots and lots of useless shit, like what went on at someone’s killer super bowl party or how much weight that girl I never see has lost, my body is jonesing for some nothingness!  I feel out of the loop, lost, but mostly I feel like a freakin’ loser admitting - I’m that asshole who got addicted to something as worthless as facebook!  What a joke.  I think the stayfocusd software will really help.  It is set at 10 minutes a day and it is staying that way!  I can’t facebook from work and looking at facebook on my phone doesn’t suck me into the endless abyss of facebook, so give me a few weeks and hopefully this crazy facebook junkie will be clean again. 

• I went on a long walk yesterday and my calves hurt like crazy when I move!

• I have a love/hate relationship with my job; the job I’ll be losing soon. I have a bunch of mixed emotions. I’m excited about the opportunity to move on, scared about my family’s future and security, pissed that my job is going away and what that means for the people who really benefit from what I do, sad that I have to leave an office full of people I’ve become friends with, and mad at people and organizations who can’t seem to think outside of the box for 3 seconds to find other options for saving money.  Having these emotions constantly twisting and turning inside is making me freaking nuts. Unfortunately, I have about 6 months left to stew in this turmoil, but on the other hand, my family is insured for the next 6 months.

• I’m trying to not drink Diet Mt. Dew and I would sell one of my kids for some of that sweet, chartreuse-colored crack right now! 

• I live in Wisconsin!  There I said it. Wisconsin has been pissing me off for a while now. Hey Mr. Farmer down the road, yeah you, the one who gets fists full of money every year from the federal government in subsidies, you’re an asshole for blaming teachers for our state budget crisis! Oh and hey Mr. Teacher across the street, yeah you, the one who has an assistant do most of your job while you sit at your desk filling out your NCAA bracket, you’re an asshole for accepting a paycheck and benefits while somewhere a good teacher is unemployed or working as an assistant for a much smaller paycheck!  Guess what, you’re both right! STOP with this cut and dry, right and wrong bullshit. STOP generalizing that all teachers/public workers are over-paid slackers, and that all Republicans are corrupt businessmen who like to see poor people suffer. Both sides to this freaking argument have valid points, but we are all going to lose if we don’t figure this situation out in a responsible & respectful way.  Let’s move FORWARD!

• Sometimes my husband is a jackass, and today was one of those days.

• Some dude in a Honda Civic, smothered in pro-life bumper stickers, nearly ran me off the road today, because he was reading a newspaper while he was driving.  Pro-life, really?!  So, your right to check your horoscope while operating a motor vehicle outweighs my right to decide what I do with my body.... how about a big F.U. for Mr. Pro-life.

Good day sir.  I said good day!

Spring has sprung...

and the kids are jumping for joy!  Who says white kids can't jump?  I added some awesome Jump songs to my playlist for those who like to kick it old school.

PS...I'm playing around with the monochrome setting on my camera to see if I like the black & white straight from the camera is better than those in photoshop.  So far, I do, but these pictures are hard to judge.  Action photos are not ideal for black & white, but the kids didn't wait for me to switch my camera settings....jerks.

Attention residents of Iowa County...

A&W is open!  Root beer floats for everyone.