Proof That I Do Cook

I don't talk about cooking too much on my blog. I assume everyone thinks we eat junk food all the time. However,  I do occasionally find the time to cook.

On the menu tonight was country fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy along with carrots.

It took three skillets full of meat to feed all of us, 5 lbs of potatoes and two large bags of baby carrots.  If you notice, none of the pots are small.

Gravy, thickened is a must.

No gravy boat for us, this is a large serving bowl.

Small steak for a kid.

Uh, I am also a messy cook and I strongly dislike the flat cooktop.

How do you make your country fried steak?  I dip mine in flour that has pepper, salt and garlic added.  Then I dip it in and egg and milk mixture.  I dip it once again in the flour mixture and then fry it.  I use the extra flour mixture for the gravy.

Waiting

I bought my plane ticket to Guatemala. Before I did that I rechecked the summer classes that I need to take were on the first summer session...they were.  One ticket cost me a little over $800.  Flying to Guatemala isn't too cheap!  Now I need to raise my mission money.

Yesterday I went to a meeting for student teaching.  I have a lot to do by the 15th of April to include finger printing...again.  I also got an unwanted surprise, one of the classes that I need to take got changed to the second session.  My trip is now smack dab in the middle of the summer session that I didn't plan on attending.  I was not too happy.  They said that maybe I should cancel the mission trip.  I said that I didn't plan on it, I would just have to take the class next summer (this class is only offered in the summer) and student teach in the fall of 2013.  I thought I was on track to student teach in the spring of 2013.  They are contemplating changing it back to summer session 1 and they will let me know next week.

So......now I wait to see if I should pay for fingerprinting at this time or not. 

My Kitchen

Uh, well.....slowwww going but I am still working on the kitchen redo.

Our laminate counter tops came in so we have slowly been putting them in.  We cut the hole for our sink.

We got the sink to fit great......it is very nerve racking to cut that laminate yourself!

Then John started his training position.  He came home from work to hook up the plumbing and realized that the line to the dishwasher needed replacing.  Trip to Lowe's and then it was too late to get it done.

After three days of no water in the kitchen I called these guys......

It was the best $109 I have spent in a long time!

Elder Care

Let me be honest, as a nation we don't take care of our elderly very well.  As a caregiver it sucks.

Next Monday is my moms recertification day.  She has been receiving OT, PT, nursing, speech and help with baths for the last 14 weeks.  Today they told me that they don't feel that she is progressing well enough to recertify for another 14 weeks.  They think that she needs residential therapy.  However, to receive residential therapy she has to be hospitalized for 3 days.  My other option is to put her in a nursing home.

My moms current level of care is very high.  She has gotten to the point where she can get out of bed by herself using a walker and she can get to her wheelchair a few feet away.  I have been working on increasing the distance to the wheelchair but she just doesn't have the muscle tone due to 18 months spent vegetating in a nursing home.  She needs someone to be at home with her all the time.  I am the only one who can change her depend which means I have to watch my time away from home.  She has to have her medications given to her and all her meals prepared for her.  She has to have help to dress and bathe.  Yep, the level of care that she needs is very high.

Some days I wonder how much longer I can keep it up. Without the extra help coming in it will be even more difficult.  I was able to time longer periods of time away with the bathing person coming.  That little luxury will be gone next week.

I will see how the next few weeks go and see if I can find other resources.  I feel as though I need to look into nursing homes and that makes me sad.  At least if my mom is in a nursing home here I can o and visit her regularly.  Sometimes being a daughter is hard.

Happenings

This is a very busy week in our household.  First, the fountain is not fixed.  Sadly what I used to seal it did not seal.  This will obviously require a trip to Lowe's and I just don't have the time right now.

Yesterday John and I had the pleasure of sitting in the basement of our courthouse for over 2 hours  for our teen.  The way court works is they tell you what time to be there and then you get to sit and wait until your case is called.  We waited 2 hours for a 5 minute court session.  The case did get changed to TPR so we are moving on to the next phase.  After court the teen's adoption worker came by our house to start that process.  Which reminds me, she was supposed to call me today, hmmm.

Today I got to travel to the big city to take the two little ones to a visitation.  The dad came but the mom was a no-show.  She came one month which was just enough to confuse the kids terribly.  The dad asked to talk with me and I did.  He wanted to know how the girls were doing and I gave him a brief update.  He also thanked me for taking care of the girls and gave me too much information about biomom!  I also got to meet the girls new adoption worker and ask the SW about the TPR filing which was supposed to be done months ago.  The dad brought the girls books instead of candy which I really appreciated.  Those books will be around a lot longer then the candy would have been.

Actually I would have preferred to not have visitation today because Dimples has been on a bad run.  Ever since we had the therapy appointment she has been acting up.  I am not sure what it is.  My guess would be that she actually had a problem being in a small room with only me and having me in charge.  She deflected most of the time by concentrating on food which she never mentioned once we left the room.  Either way, we are back a few months in the behavior department.  I will be curious to see how this type of therapy goes.

Then I got to go see the doctor this afternoon.  I have been having headaches and am just so tired.  He thinks that I am having tension headaches from too much stress.  Ah, I don't think so.  I think that I have some type of virus.  That is what I get for seeing the male doctor instead of my usual female doctor.  On a good note my blood pressure was 114/70 so the headaches aren't from high blood pressure.  My mom had a stroke from high blood pressure and every other relative (dad, brothers, grandparents) have high blood pressure so I keep expecting to get it. 

Tomorrow I will be taking Anthony to the big city to see a psychologist.  Which reminds me that I need to gather some of his testings.  I will rush home from that to get him home and head to class. 

Thursday I have a meeting about student teaching.  I am losing focus on school and am struggling to do my class assignments.  I need to take two classes over the summer and really don't want to.  I need a break.  However, the classes aren't offered in the fall so I have no choice.  In the fall I will have only one class to take and certification tests to do.  Then in the spring I will do student teaching and be finished.  The next logical step would be to find a job.  Right now I worry about that.  At least by then Dimples will be going into 1st grade.

Well, I am off to bed to fall asleep with my book in hand.  Perhaps I will get a few pages read! 

Have a great evening.

Someone Loves My Yard

I guess our yard isn't the most beautiful to our neighbors. However, there are many others who love it.

The bees love it and are all over my many flowers. (Can you see the bee?)

The cats love it.  Lots of moles, voles, squirrels, birds, lizards and even butterflies to catch.

The kids love it because there is so much dirt that can be scattered everywhere......even in places where I don't want it.

My Neglected Yard

Our neighbor told my husband that our yard is in sad shape.  Yep, it is.  Between my duties as a mom, wife, daughter and student my time is pretty much taken up.  I don't have time to go out and do yard work.  I pretty much have the philosophy that if I plant something it has two options, grow or die.

Unfortunately, the weeds seem to  plant themselves and grow with great abandon.  I would like to know who determined that the green stuff that likes to grow is weeds and the green stuff that doesn't like to grow is grass!  Also, why is the weed barrier not called a weed attraction?  Weeds love to grow into my weed barrier making them difficult to pull out.

So much neglect.  I even had two lights broken.  None of the lights were working.  Tiny light bulbs fixed the lighting problem and I was able to use parts from the two broken lights to make one light.  I need to see if  I can get a replacement for the one light.  I imagine that the style has changed.

They know us personally at Lowe's.

I took apart the fountain and put in a new pump.  I had to seal the hole where the plug goes through so I won't know until tomorrow if I got it set up right.  The fountain hasn't worked in over a year.

I took a break and fed the kids a nutritional dinner.

Does it look better?  I sure hope so because I may not be able to move tomorrow.  I got nothing else accomplished today.

I didn't get all the plants in the ground.  I am bad about that....keeping plants in their containers too long.  Hopefully I will finish them this week. (I really want that hose hook up moved!)

Afterwards I had to take a trip to Walmart.  John was planting a tree and put the knife into his arm.  The kids used up all the band aids so we were challenged to stop the flow of blood.  He probably could have used a stitch to close it up but he made do with a butterfly closure. 

I hadn't taken a shower yet so I tried my best to avoid anyone I knew at Walmart.  Small town means everyone shops there.  I was lucky enough to only see one person I knew.  Our Walmart plays Christian music.  It can be calming after a long day.  Does your Walmart play Christian music? 

Tomorrow we have a court date for the teen and an adoption worker visit.  This entire week is going to be very busy so I don't expect to get much accomplished.

How does your yard look?