Surviving At Home

I was in a quest this morning to find a chicken recipe to make for dinner. Amazingly enough, I did some meal planning this week so I already had the chicken out of the freezer but was searching for a scrumptious recipe.

Lately we’ve been in such a rut with our meals and I keep saying it’s because my other family members are picky eaters. Or I blame the fact that I can’t seem to find 15 minutes each week to plan out my dinners. It’s difficult to make decent dinners when you’re pulling meat out of the freezer at 5pm and scouring the pantry for non-existent ingredients.

So I revisited my favorite food site, The Pioneer Woman. I’ll admit, I’ve been a bad fan and haven’t visited in many months. But lo and behold, the very first post I saw there was for Parmesan Crusted Chicken that made my mouth water. Amazingly enough, I already had most of the ingredients so I was psyched.

Let me just say…I heart Pioneer Woman!! From the beauty of her site design to the scrumptious recipes to the exquisite photographs to her fun writing style; I could have just stayed there all day long browsing and reading.

So I made the Parmesan Crusted Chicken tonight for dinner, although I ran out of Parmesan cheese and didn’t have the 2 sundried tomatoes. Unfortunately I used too much garlic salt so that significantly diminished the deliciousness of the dish.

BUT hubby said he liked it and I was “allowed” to make it again, minus some salt. Good news!

Is it completely wimpy – or a sign of old age – that my arm is sore from 2 days of playing Wii tennis and bowling?

Pitiful…time for some weight training…or I need to start using my left arm to play.

Now THAT would be funny!

During Christmas break our girls decided they wanted to get the Wii. I was really annoyed when I heard this because I had thought to buy it for them as their one big gift for Christmas but back at Thanksgiving my oldest had said that they changed their minds.

Never mind the fact that this was barely a week after Santa had come and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t appreciate their new gifts.

So, we made them a deal: they could get the Nintendo Wii once they earned enough money for it. That would be tough for our youngest but they scrounged and scrabbled for extra jobs to do around the house. Of course, they wanted to get paid $5 for emptying the dishwasher (no way!) but they got the idea that they had to E-A-R-N that game.

We were impressed because they didn’t keep asking, “When can we get the game?” We counted their money two weeks ago and hubby surprised them by taking them to the store yesterday. We had to give them a small advance so they’ll be working to pay back that “loan” but we’re all enjoying our new toy.

Even our youngest mentioned, breathlessly, how you have to keep moving to play the sports games. I won’t count it as “real” exercise but at least they’re moving and learning how to play new games.

So now I need some ideas for game titles suitable for a 12 yr old and a 7 yr old. Suggestions please!!