Ain’t No Place To Put A Sticker

Easy Recipes

Today at Rocks in My Dryer it is Works for me Wednesday and the challange is to find 5 ingredients or less recipes to help get us out of the kitchen fast in the summer.

I wanted to play along today in hopes of finding some recipes for me as well as share with you.

The first is a family favorite and easy for me as well as quick to throw together. Unfortunatly I do not cook with recipes and just put it together by looks. Please take that into consideration as I give my recipe!

Tuna Noodle Salad

1 lb or so of elbow, shells or other noodle of choice, cooked according to your way of cooking

2 cans of tuna, drained

1 small onion, diced

Mayo

vinegar and seasonings

In a bowl combine the noodles, drained tuna, diced onion and mix together.

put some mayo in a pile on the mix, add salt, pepper, a tbsp. of vinegar and mix.

Add more mayo if not the way you want it.  That is it!

Cucumber Salad

cucumbers, I use about 3 but use what your family will eat

1 large onion cut into rings

vinegar

sweetner

seasoning

slice the cucumbers across, not lengthwise

put in a bowl with the onion and add vinegar to half cover. Let set in the vinegar, stirring once in the while. I usually do this an hour ahead if I can and just stir every so often.

add water, sweetener to taste and salt and pepper.  let cool and you are done!

For more recipes check out Rocks in My Dryer!

Look Who Has Come For The Summer!

I am happy to introduce you to our oldest granddaughter. Ivy has come down from Maine to spend the summer with us and I am thrilled. Isn’t she beautiful?

Since Ivy is the oldest of 5 I know she needs some spoiling and who but grammie and grampa are best suited for doing that? We can send her home at the end of summer and let mom and dad handle it!

Actually, she has been a big help already and has only been here about a week. Scout loves her and looked for her the minute she walked in the door this morning.

Ivy is a sweetheart and as a little one I had her at my house all the time, she even went on a week long camping trip with us at the age of 2, how many kids would do that at that age? I think here mom and dad were a bit upset that Ivy would just go, but we sure enjoyed her!

This summer is going to be fun with her, and I feel she is  God sent for us. With all that has been going on here and as stressed out as our lives have been, it is great to have family.  She brings pleasure, help, a desire for creativity and is truly a blessing.

Now, if I can get her to turn out lights behind her and pick up her papers and dishes we will really have it made!

A Moose?

Anyone who has read my blog knows I came to Texas from Maine. Maine is beautiful and when I get back there I want to see a few things. First, I love the ocean and the variety of shore lines.

You have the sand.

The Rocky shore line:

The pebbly beaches:

Lighthouses:

And MOOSE:

Now, I have this thing about moose. I love them. People think they are ugly, I think they are wonderful. When I saw mu first huge bull moose I was so impressed. He seemed to be with me also as I stared at him and he at me. It was up in some back woods near Bingham and we pulled over the car and got out and watched him. He was gorgeous and had some rack on him. I had seen yearlings before and a Cow with some young, but that was my first bull. (The above is not him, obviously. I am one that has to have cameras and have them with me, except when I really do not want to miss a picture!

Yes, moose are a passion. However, I never wanted to be called a moose, which is exactly what happened today.

I was on a site and it said “What kind of animal are you”. I was dumb enough to click it. There was a number of questions, and finally they began to get into trying to sell me something, get me to sign up for all kinds of things and I decided to leave the site without finding out what I was. It would not let me!

When I clicked to leave it, and not fall for any more of their pages of junk, it brought up a page with what kind of animal I am. Here it is:

Moose = Despite of your size, you are a good swimmer and is comfortable near bodies of water. You like spending time with your friends but you’re silent and contemplative as well. You find dawn and dusk to be the most beautiful time of the day.

Can you believe it? Despite my size? Yes, I like to be near water and like friends, but how could I be called a moose?

The things that are on the internet, and to think there are people dumb enough to do these stupid quizzes. Oh, wait….

Trouble in three’s?

Don’t believe it, trouble does not come in only 3’s. Today proves it.

Granddaughter one arrived at 5:45 AM. I usually do not have this granddaughter to watch and was so excited to be able to have her today. Her mom dropped her off and pulled out of the driveway. Apparently when she turned on the key to start the car to leave it also started the tears up in Shelby. She cried for mommy and daddy. She did not want grampa, but would sit on my lap and cry.  Finally the tears stopped when she saw the little goat.

Granddaughter two arrived at 7AM. Her mom brought her up the stairs and was all upset. Scout’s one eye looked really bad. We talked about it and wondered if she got a bite since her poor little butt is full of chigger bites.

Mom leaves and I now have two crabby kids, I mean children, the kids were fine.  I go to dress Scout and have no clothes. No bottle, no medicine for all the bites either.  Mom forgot to take it all out of the car! I do have extra’s here, so did not worry too much until I realized I did not have the medicine, so I called her mom.

She left work, brought all here and made an appointment for me to take Scout to the Dr. about the eye.  I left for the Dr. Grampa had Shelby.

Pink eye and ear infection were diagnosed and medicine given, picked up and we returned home. On the porch was grampa, Shelby and Jack (the kid).  Shelby had screamed the whole time I was gone!

We ate lunch, changed diapers and then put them down for a nap. I had to lay down with Shelby and we all fell asleep. Phone rings. Mom checking up on Scout. We all wake up.

They are now gone, my house is a mess since they would not share a thing and had to get everything out and dump all they could. There is a big spill on my couch and we have no idea when that happened, my plastic containers are all over the floor and my email is piled up in my inbox.

How can an 18 month old and a 2 year old do all this?

I would not trade having these kids today, but sometimes I feel very old.

As I look at the day and all that transpired I am really feeling blessed.

• I have step daughters that think enough of me to allow me the privilege of watching their children and even trust me to take them to the Dr.
• I have a home that they can come to
• God made me able to tolerate more of a mess than many people would be able to, I guess giving me four kids in five years and then another 5 years later is good training.
• I have a wonderful husband who helps when he can
• I have a bed to climb into, very soon.

Someone please invent child proof diapers!

This week has been a diaper challenge.  I put them on her, she takes then off. I put clothes on that should be hard for an 18 month old to remove, she gets them off and then the diaper. I could describe the mess I found in her bed when she woke from her nap, but someone may react and ruin their computer.

Here is a conversation from Friday when she walked up with fist clenched and said “here”

I opened my hands (mistake one) and she put something like a marble in my hand. I could not tell what it was so I asked her what it was. :(mistake two) Her reply? “PeePee from my hinney.”

I, very cautiously, said do you mean poopy? She shook her head and said “yah yah, yah, poopy”, with a big grin and happy face.

I looked at my hand, there is sat. I said “And I am holding it in my hand?”  Wide eyed and full of wonder she replied “Yah,yah, yah” with a huge smile.

It was then I realized she had no pants on, again.  I asked where they were and she took me to the kitchen.  Poopy returned to diaper and diaper to trash and an explanation of why we do not touch the poopy and why it should stay in the diaper and the diaper on till I can get her changed.

Yesterday we had the diaper off more times than I want to say. She pulls it off and thinks it is fine.

Today she woke from her nap and called me. I went in and the room smelled.  Sure enough, there was nothing on her bottom, her clothes were on the floor and under the pile was a poopy diaper.

I picked all up, cleaned her up and put on another diaper and threatened her.  She is now in for another nap, with packaging tape holding the diaper on!