recipe disclaimer

first off, i am, by no means, a gourmet cook, or even a 'foodie'. i do not watch cooking shows or have any aspirations to become a 'good cook'. i have crappy knives and most of my pots and pans are not stainless steel. BUT, i have a family to feed, and i want to do it right. i try to do 'homemade' as opposed to packaged as often as possible. i like things to be relatively simple, have less than 100 ingredients, have mostly ingredients that i can pronounce the names of, and can find at my local grocery store. i like soups and casseroles and good old fashioned farm food. i try to find things that my whole family will eat, but with a 'chicken nugget and hot dog kid', that's hard to do. that said, i DO NOT make more than one meal per night. if my kids don't want to eat perfectly good food that is in front of them, oh well. they will not starve.

but i digress.

i am NOT a “by the book” cook. i have trouble following a recipe exactly and usually feel the need to ‘fiddle’ with it a little. if you have trouble with terms like “a bunch”, “some”, “a few good shakes” and the like, you might be frustrated by my recipes. i’ll try to be as clear as possible when it really matters!

for convenience, i have a list of links to recipe posts on the side bar.

vomit phobia

most people who know me relatively well are aware of my ridiculous fear of vomit. so essentially, the last year or so has been the embodiment of my worst nightmare. we have now embarked on stomach flu episode 4 of the last 13 months. is that not ridiculous? is that not excessive? what's the deal? should i be concerned? or maybe i'm just paying my dues. shane never had the stomach flu until he was 6, but now we've got it all the time. since may last year, he's now had it 3 times. between january and november of last year, layla had it 3 times, and now we're just waiting to see when she's going to come down with this latest strain. WHAT THE HECK! i never had it this often as a kid. maybe i was just lucky. i don't know. is this normal? how many times can you get this stuff in a certain amount of time before you should think that something is wrong? and how can you prevent it, if at all? i don't really think we have weak immune systems. th

hello again

my mom actually complained the other day about my lack of posts lately. REALLY. i told her that i’d had nothing to write about. at any rate, here’s my update for now, in relation to recent things. we did decide to trick or treat. it was fun. shane’s mario costume actually came together pretty well, thanks to a little help from my friends. layla’s flower costume also happened, barely, also with a little help from my friends. (are you detecting a theme here?) micah’s monkey costume was borrowed from a friend. (for some reason, i have a beatles song wandering through my head right now, do you?) here they are: as i’m writing this, it’s reminding me of just how blessed i am to be a part of this community, family, neighborhood, etc. let me expound that part about a little help from my friends: we’ll start with shane. he got the idea to dress up as mario after his friend, sean, mentioned that he was going to be luigi. so i chatted w/ trudy about what she’d gathered so far. she mentioned a g

what to eat?

warning: this may turn into a rant. I’m confused. I don’t know what to eat! I know, that sounds really stupid. but honestly, I’m so confused right now about the whole what to eat thing. I’m not an idiot, and I’m certainly not ignorant as to nutrition concepts and the science of how the body uses food. and yet, I am so confused. there is so much conflicting information out there as to what is actually good for you . some say no carbs, some say no sugar, some say no red meat, some say no dairy, some say no eggs, some say no grains, some say no alcohol, some say no caffeine, etc. etc. etc. so obviously, you can’t ascribe to all of that or you would eat NOTHING. I also know that cutting out carbs is the most idiotic thing you can do. your body needs carbs to function. wonder bread, however, is not a good source of the carbs your body would prefer. as far as red meat goes. hello, protein and iron! but hard to digest. a lot of red meat puts a lot of wear and tear on your digestive sy

week 20 in pictures

sunday: our friends, kat and cole, and their boys came for a visit on sunday. the kids played, kat and I chatted, cole and dave went for a long bike ride around the lake. they’re both training for STP in july. monday: typical micah – taking a break from his trains to play some mario kart. tuesday: with the weather nice, our indoor cat is just dying to get outside. he crouches by the slider, waiting for an opportunity to escape. so one day, I put his harness on him and took him out to spend some time in the back yard. I looped the end of the leash over one of the knobs on the climber and let him be. wednesday: sophie’s 15th birthday! FIFTEEN! holy cow, that is old for a dog. especially a lab. she had a vet appointment that day, for a check up and to see what was going on with this cough she’s been having. unfortunately, the news on that wasn’t great. thursday: layla has been desperate to make a water slide. you know how it is around here. as soon as the sun comes out, people st

project life–week 14

okey dokey, here’s week 14. I have a new little thing I’m doing that I’m really excited about, but we’ll get to that in a minute. the start of the week: monday’s and tuesday’s pictures are both collage types w/ text. I think monday’s is a little stupid and cheesy, but it was oriented vertically and it would drive me too nuts to put it in sideways, so I put it on w/ the text. oh well. we’ll just call it cheesy in a cute way… okay? the 8x10 of extras: notice the top of that sheet – that’s what I’m talking about. I’ll explain after the rest of this is done. the other side of that sheet: normally I think coloring pages are kind of silly, but micah is really just kind of getting into them and coloring purposefully now. this one he did in sunday school and he was very excited about his red and green apples. I think it’s cute. the latter half of the week: no pic for thursday. layla, micah and I were out ALL afternoon w/ our realtor looking at houses. we saw SIX! kinda crazy, but fun.

rachel's continued ramblings

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