More Lucy Than June

So, I love to cook.  LOVE IT.

And I have not been able to really embrace my love of cooking for some time now. You see, we’ve had a busy few years…

…There was this baby that was born and she had reflux…and then when things finally calmed down with that, I got preggo again. And that was a CRAZY pregnancy (but it’s okay, it all turned out good and we have a cool story to tell about God’s graciousness…), and then we decided to move, and then I had back surgery, and…

So, after a few years of some crazy wild stuff, the littlest babe is almost 9 months now, and things are starting to settle into some sort of routine. Which means…

…I CAN START COOKING AGAIN!

Now, I’m thrilled about this. So thrilled in fact, that I have decided to try one new recipe a week!!

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a blog-browser. And in my browsing, I have found one of my fave new sites….

Home-Ec 101

Love it! Not only does it have all those cool little 50’s vintage images that I adore, but it’s a wealth of knowledge about “homemaking” stuff…

So, here’s the recipe that I decided I would try… Sausage Pinwheels with Sausage Gravy

Now, this is a pretty big recipe for me to take on, and I’ll tell you why.

It’s baking. Like baking YOUR OWN BREAD. Without the use of the BREAD MACHINE.

There’s all this crazy chemical reaction stuff with the yeast and the temperature of the milk and the salt. And the time/space continuum and stuff like that.

Not only am I thinking I’ll try making my own dough, but I’m going to make GRAVY.

My Southern fore-mothers would slap me for having never made gravy before. We had gravy 27 times a month when I was growing up. Cause it was cheap….and it was “Easy”.

Now if you click the link to the recipe above, she gives you beautiful pictures of her sausage pinwheel making process. I have pics too, only they’re not as beautiful.

My pictures involve Caia giving quite a show for you all.

Please…enjoy.

So, I made the dough. I followed her directions to every minute little detail. I did NOT want to mess up my dough.

And I used the dough hook on my stand mixer for the VERY FIRST TIME EVER. Impressive, right?

Meet Dough.

The recipe said to place my new friend Dough in a warm, moist place to rise.

I panicked.

What exactly was a warm, moist place?!!

I live in coastal South Carolina! Isn’t anything within 150 miles of the beach a warm and moist place??!

I settled for the microwave.

An hour and a half later, I went to check on Dough.

They grow up so fast.

This is where the fun began. Caia woke up from her “nap”.

And some sort of melt-down began. Over a Nutri-Grain bar.

A flippin’ NUTRI-GRAIN bar.

I will never again buy Nutri-Grain bars. Ever. They’re messy, end up ground in my carpet, smeared all over the kids clothes, and apparently incite Toddler Insanity.

I don’t know what she wanted. I unwrapped it when she asked for it. I took it out of the package. I put it back in the package. I put it on the counter. I put it in her hand. I put it on the floor.

Nothing was right in her little world where that *&%*$ Nutri-Grain bar was concerned.

I tried to post a video of it for you…but the computer was not cooperating.

It’s just as well. The minute I played it back, Stephen immediately told me that it gave him this tight, anxious feeling in his chest to hear it. I wouldn’t want to give any of you a nervous breakdown.

Just know that this tantrum goes on for AN HOUR. NON-STOP.

And I am right in the middle of the very delicate process of making homemade sausage rolls and homemade sausage gravy.

Those are tasks that, in my book, should only be attempted when all the stars and planets are properly aligned to begin with. Let alone having a two-year old screaming under your feet.

But I press on. Because, doggone it, WE ARE HAVING SAUSAGE PINWHEELS FOR DINNER TONIGHT!!

So, I plop Dough out on the “heavily floured” counter top.

I convince Dough to form into a somewhat rectangular shape. And Kenni pokes Dough for good measure.

Caia’s still workin’ the tantrum…

I fill Dough with sausage-y goodness. And cheese. The original recipe originator says she’ll skip cheese next time.

I am quite the lover of all things cheesy, so I’ll add MORE next time…

Now, the fun part. Roll Dough.

Then slice Dough and place in casserole dish.

At this point, I’m feeling pretty proud.

Then, I begin the complicated process of “proofing”. Well, it SOUNDED complicated, but I followed the steps with probably what could be considered a bit of an OCD kind of accuracy…

…and POOF!

Dough was PROOFED. Bam.

Then, I cooked Dough. (Thanks for hanging in there with me, Dough. We went through a lot together.)

The gravy was….not as great of a success. It’s a long story, but let’s just say, in such a humid environment as Charleston, I needed a bit more flour for my roux. (Dontcha love the word “roux”? Makes me feel classy just using it. However, I assure you that my gravy was anything but classy.)

And for those who don’t know, adding flour AFTER the milk has been added=flour-y tasting gravy. But throw that sausage back in and salt it up, and it KINDA fixes it a little…

But, to redeem myself, let’s look at that sausage pinwheel again…

Made with FROM SCRATCH Dough.

Sandra Lee and her semi-homemade antics would scoff at my homemade Dough.

Sandra Lee can take her Pillsbury can and….

…Oh, I’m kidding. I’m kidding.

I know that it’s been almost a week since I posted. Things have been a smidge crazy, and I have a lot of things to say…

…but the babe has been sick. And the antibiotic that Super Pediatrician called in for him gave him a diaper rash.

And we’re probably only hours away from popping through that first tooth that he’s been working on for WEEKS…

Caia has a pretty nasty cough that I’m considering having to find a pediatrician in town for, and she has been waking up every TWO HOURS for a few nights.

And Kenni had a knock-down dragout with me last night because she refused to eat her dinner (I made teriyaki prok chops, homemade mashed potatoes, and fresh steamed green beans. They weren’t even out of a can!! Not exactly a four year old’s dream dinner, but I refuse to make something special for her just because she thinks it’s “disgusting”!)

ANYWAY…. she threw a fit because Daddy was taking Caia to the park to see Molly and Neely after dinner. And Kenni didn’t get to go because she didn’t eat dinner.

This produced much screaming and wailing and thrashing.

Remember she’s hypoglycemic? Maybe I’ve never mentioned that. Well, we recently learned that she has blood sugar issues and when her blood sugar gets low, her behavior gets ridiculous. A shot of sugar and she’s all good. But until that point, it’s an all-out nightmare….

So Low Blood Sugar Chick thrashed around so much while I was trying to take her to her bed that she busted my lip with her head.

Which made me cry.

And that is just a small glimpse of our own personal nightmare around here these past few days.

And…I’ve been giving myself a GRAND Pity Party, complete with streamers, balloons, and party music, over a lot of things.

But I’ve felt guilty wanting to write about what’s really on my mind when all of my friends and family back home in Georgia are still digging out from under the flood mess. (For those who read my blog that don’t know me personally, we recently moved from Georgia to South Carolina…and all those crazy pictures that you’ve seen on the news and The Weather Channel of the Georgia flooding? Yeah, those are pictures of our former hometown.)

So, tonight I’m preparing for a girl’s night out while Stephen takes the kiddos. Then, maybe I can clear my head and write something that makes sense.

After all, I have a Friday Finals post to do as well.

Until then, here’s some pictures of some super-cuteness I picked last week on my girl’s night out. Girl’s Night Out has become a Friday ritual, and sometimes it’s just me that gets to go out. By myself. In the quiet. I LOVE IT. I crave it. I look forward to it every week.

So last week I went to the local Dollar Tree. OH WOW. It’s the best Dollar Tree evah!!!! Seriously.

So, I picked up this map for the School of the Kitchen. Kenni loves it! We can now locate: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Idaho. (Gigi’s sister is in Idaho…that’s why the randomness of Idaho. No offense if you live in Idaho. We just don’t have any other connection to it.)

And I bought these for the girls rooms. I don’t want to mess with painting since we’re renting and all that, but I do want to girlie it up for them.

Then I bopped over to Barnes and Noble and found these for clearance. Plus an extra 10% off because we have a membership card. So they were uber-cheap and uber-cute. And will help me get uber-organized with my coupons.

And then I discovered that I had a few dollars left on my Mother’s Day gift card. So I bought a book. The jury’s still out on it. Anyone read this one before?

Stay tuned for more interesting stuff…

Well, maybe.

I said I’d NEVER homeschool my kids.

Not because I have anything wrong with homeschooling…and not because I thought I couldn’t do it. (I was a teacher in both public and private schools in my former life…)

I just didn’t WANT to.

But guess what we’re doing this year? OH yeah. That’s right. We’re homeschoolin’. It’s a regular one-room school in my kitchen from 10:00-11:00 a.m. everyday.

Here’s the scoop on how we ended up homeschooling…

McKenna will not turn five until January, so we were looking for preschools in the area. (Originally, I had hoped she could test for early entry into Kindergarten…nope. They don’t allow that kind of “nonsense” here.) Being in the church-planter situation, the funds are limited for ANYTHING extra, so it had to be cheap or free.

I found a school in the area that was a private Christian “academy”. But at a price tag of more than $200/month, it didn’t look like something we could do. I found out that pastor’s kids got some kind of discount, and there was a scholarship program available.

I set out making phone calls to the secretary, but we just never connected. When I called her, she was not there. And when she called me, I was back in Georgia making preparations for my back surgery.

For whatever reason, it just didn’t work out. (Which was a total bummer because we had visited the school. And Kenni LOVED it.)

Well, while Stephen was out scouting locations for River Church to meet at, he was able to talk with someone at the elementary school that we are zoned for. Turns out, South Carolina has a pre-K program available in the public school. Sweet! We thought this was our ticket…

They informed us she would be “screened” for entry into the program. That’s fine, I thought. Girlfriend knows everything that an incoming KINDERGARTENER knows and then some. I wasn’t worried about her passing the screening.

Turns out, you don’t get into the program if you PASS the screening. It’s for children with “readiness deficiencies”.

There were 40 slots in the pre-K program. There were 55 kids testing. They took the lowest 40.

Aren’t I happy that McKenna tested in the highest number of kids?

Well, of course I am. BUT at the same time, it left us with no other option for schooling. She was too “smart” for Pre-K, but too young for Kindergarten.

It seemed to me, in my parental AND former educator’s mind, that the program was not designed for success for ALL children. How is it that the bright and young children get left out?

Well, I knew that I wanted her to continue her education and not allow her learning to reach a stand-still. (She had attended a private 3 three year old Pre-K last year. She didn’t learn a thing educational, but she did learn some social skills that she needed. And that was what we REALLY wanted her in school for.)

We were left with one option.

Homeschool.

And you know what?

We’re having FUN! BOTH of us!

Now, we’re still of the mindset that she will be going to public school next year, but we’re not ruling anything out.

So, for the sake of documentation, here are a few pics that show you we have been working and learning.

The Books We’re Using

Rather than buy a curriculum, I went to Barnes and Noble and picked out some things that I could tailor to her strengths and weaknesses. I also have some stuff left over from when I taught Kindergarten, and there are a lot of great materials that we found online.

We’re working with the Letter A this week. This is her pink and purple alligator puppet. Her name is Betty (or Betta, depending on the time of day…)

Apple Project

The one on the left is Kenni’s. The one on the right is Caia’s. (Caia had some help. Kenni found the supplies and started hers while I was in the bathroom…)

Part of the Letter A book she made. Isn’t her astronaut cute?

Apple Prints

She was very excited to learn that inside of every apple there’s a “star”.

Astronaut Craft

This craft requires an empty toilet paper tube. I didn’t have an empty one. So, I did this…

It’s all for the love of education, people.

And here’s proof that we are “working”. In our pajamas…

Now what’s great about this picture is….

CAIA TOOK IT. (Caia is TWO.)

She has recently become infatuated with my camera. So I let her play with it.

And we ended up with some gems when I downloaded the pictures!

Stephen and I are thinking of starting a new blog just for her pictures. We’ll call it: From Two Feet Up.

Here’s a little piece of life through the eyes of my two year old.

New show on PBS Kids, Dinosaur Train. The girls LOVE IT!

We found about 6 pictures of her feet. She must like her feet alot.

Maggie the cat, begging for food. Again.

Daddy coming home for lunch.

The Elmo Aquadoodle Mat

She likes Elmo. And she LOVED that Aquadoodle mat.

The Sippy Cup Lid

I thought this was actually pretty artistic.

And this is great. It’s me. In my pajamas and ponytail. Telling McKenna to get dressed because you can’t run around in your pajamas all day.

And that is just a little glimpse of how little Caia sees this life…

Ain’t it precious?

I have a good excuse for not posting my Friday Finals again.

Kenni and I took a road trip back to Georgia so that we celebrate a baby shower for our friend Laura.

I would show you pictures. I took some. But apparently I don’t take pictures WELL. I had it set on the wrong setting or something, because everyone looked like apparitions in a beige room with some pasta salad, cake and punch.

(Maybe my friend Melissa will send me some pictures. Hint, hint,wink, wink.)

So… Friday Finals!

Okay, I gotta say…I was super excited about this week’s deals!!

I had everything prepped and ready for a Wednesday morning grocery store run. The grand plan was to be out the door at 7:00 a.m., so I could get back in time for Stephen to leave to get some work done before noon.

Yeah. Well, when you stay up till 2:30 the night before grocery day, you will NOT be leaving the house at 7.

9:45 became the new 7:00.

I hit up Harris Teeter first. Now, back in Georgia, we didn’t have HT’s (I don’t know if they do in other parts of GA, but they don’t where I lived). I gotta say…LOVE Harris Teeter. They double coupons that are $.99 or less and they often run “Super Doubles” or “Triples”! Love it.

Harris Teeter is my trade-off for not having a Kroger anymore.

Miss you, Kroger, and your 10 for 10’s.

Okay, enough of the blah, blah, blah.

Here’s the HT goodies…

You like Caia examining the “boo-bewies”?

Okay, here’s the list…

• 6 bags of Martha White muffin mix
• 2 bags Pampers diapers (two diff. sizes for my two diff. babes!)
• 5 cans HT peaches (in pear juice NOT heavy syrup!)
• 5 cans HT pears (in, yep, pear juice!)
• 3 cans HT peas
• 3 cans HT corn
• 4 cans HT green beans
• 1 Herbal Essence conditioner
• 2 pkgs. of blueberries
• 1 Sara Lee Honeywheat bread
• 2 gallons HT milk

Total OOP (that’s “out of pocket” for all you non-coupon peeps) = $30.62

Total savings = $34.04

Next stop…Food Lion. Little side note…I DO NOT like Food Lion. I mean, I’m sure as a chain it’s fine. But, the one near me is dirty and…well, the cashiers were not very “in the know” about their sales. And they weren’t very nice to me. (I’m a stickler for customer service!!)

But, there were a couple of items that were cheaper there this week. So I overcame my fear.

• 1 Cascade
• 6 cans Chef Boy Ardee

Total OOP = $7.60

Total savings = $5.78

I would have saved more, but I couldn’t find my savings card. And she scanned my coupons BEFORE she scanned someone else’s card, so they didn’t double. Boo.

And here’s the best part…

…My savings card was on my keychain. Yeah. That’s right.

Don’t you wish you could be me sometimes? Sheesh. (Even I laugh at myself. Go ahead and snicker at me…)

Moving on….

Saved my favorite for last. PUBLIX!

• 6 boxes Duncan Hines brownie mix
• 4 All Free and Clear
• 2 boxes Quaker Instant Oatmeal
• 3 cans Progresso soup
• 2 Huggies baby wash
• 1 Chex Mix bars
• 4 pkgs. Lender’s bagels
• 2 bags Planters Trail mix
• 1 5lb. Domino sugar
• 8 cans cream of mushroom soup
• 4 cans Skintimate shave gel
• 1 3lb. bag apples

Total OOP = $30.37

Total savings = $72.55!!!!!!!!

I have no one to thank but Southern Savers. Really.

You know those kind of days where you wish you could have a do-over?

Where everything seems to be running against you? Including your own offspring?

Here’s my post for yesterday’s Facebook status update:

Ever have one of those days where you’re pretty sure that aliens have implanted probes in your children’s brains while they were sleeping, and every five minutes or so they decide to put the kids into hyper-overdrive? And there’s probably a sensor that notices when mom has reached her max and so they just keep ramping up the energy to see how long it will be till the mom explodes???? Yeah. That’s today.

I know you’re wondering what all that is…. It is laundry that has not been put away. They have emptied out what I have folded, and used the packing boxes as their “houses”. The clothes are their “rugs”.

And WHY would I post a picture of THAT? Because this blog is about my journey…and that picture shows REAL LIFE.

Real life gets messy.

Thanks, creative little ones. Thanks.

The day goes on and on and on…

• We have one of our community cook-outs with our River Church folk, and of course, we all have  a great time and arrive home sweaty, tired, and bug-bitten.

• I spent several more tries with the printer and that cursed coupon installer. No luck. I get frustrated.

• Decide to go get in the hot tub. I miss my garden tub, but this does okay…

• Finally decide to transfer my efforts from the nasty blue screen that teases me with “INSTALLATION FAILED”, to just clipping what coupons I might have from the paper.

• Finally crawl in bed at 2:45 a.m. (Thus, the lack of yesterday’s post…)

I couldn’t have been any happier to see my pillow last night.

Except, of course, if it had spit out all those coupons I couldn’t get my computer to print…