I really have been alive...I promise!!! I seriously thought I would have more time last week, but I just didn't! My son had eye surgery and life was CRAZY for a couple of days! Then my sister came to visit and I had to do some serious cleaning!

Good News!!! Hubby finished putting up the shelves in my laundry room, so my project for tomorrow is organizing my cleaning and craft stuff on my shelves!

Okay... I'll at least show a before picture of my messy, messy, unorganized laundry room. The biggest problem I had was that the shelves were wire and things would tip and knock over other things. I am hoping wood shelves and a "nicer" looking room might help me keep it organized and cleaner looking!
This is my inspiration (you can view her entire post here):
REAL MOM'S DINNER: Chicken Cordon Bleu (so kids had chicken nuggets), french fries, garlic toast, and mixed veggies.

Painting Mistakes

I'm in the process of trying to finish some shelves for my laundry room. I was hoping to get them all done on Saturday, but we (Hubby and I) just weren't as on top of the project as I thought/hoped for. I made some mistakes though and am trying to figure out how to fix them. I painted the boards first (they were the right width, but not the right length) and then Hubby cut them to size for me. He cut them on them the horses (is that what they are called?) and I thought he had cleaned up the saw dust. I was putting a sealer on them when I realized that there was still lots of saw dust under the boards. But it was too late. Saw dust flew up and landed in the wet clear coat.
So now I have to decide if I should
a) do a 100% job -sand it all down, repaint, and reseal;
b) do a 90% job -just repaint black over the saw dust (which would leave bumps, but not visibly brown specs) and reseal;
or c) do a 80% job -distress the edges and reseal, hoping you can't really see the top and bottom very well since they will be high anyway.

Hum...decisions, decisions! Well, I need to decide quickly since I need to get the shelves hung up soon. I wanted Hubby to get them up by Wednesday. I would post pictures of us working on this project on Saturday, but my camera is sad and all the pictures taken turned out blurry.

Oh, my other painting mistake? My sealer has one of those dumb plastic lids so I was trying to hammer it back on and a little bit of sealer flew into my eye. How DUMB is that/I??? Anyway, I think I'm fine, but still...*big sigh*!!!

REAL MOM'S DINNER: We went to visit Grandma Great, which is a little drive so we picked up McDonald's. Whoopee! At least I had coupons!

Italian Breaded Pork Chops

Italian Breaded Pork Chops: This is my dinner for tonight. I made this for the first time last fall and Hubby LOVES them and gets so excited when I make them. They do take some a little time to prepare, but they really are delish!

Ingredients

• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1 1/2 cups Italian seasoned bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 4 pork chops

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a small bowl, beat together the eggs and milk. In a separate small bowl, mix the bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, and parsley.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large, oven-proof skillet over medium heat. Stir in the garlic, and cook until lightly browned. Remove garlic, reserving for other uses.
4. Dip each pork chop into the egg mixture, then into the bread crumb mixture, coating evenly. Place coated pork chops in the skillet, and brown abut 5 minutes on each side.
5. Place the skillet and pork chops in the preheated oven, and cook 25 minutes, or to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).

Here are a few things I have done differently than the original recipe.
*I only use 2 eggs...you really don't need 3. You could probably just use the egg whites if you were really concerned about cholesterol.
*I also pound out my pork chops to tenderize them a little and so they cook a little faster.
*Also, I don't keep fresh garlic cloves, I usually use minced garlic or garlic powder. The minced garlic burned a little when I used it last, so tonight I'm going to try to mix garlic powder to the olive oil before adding it to the pan.
*I use my biggest skillet to sear (fry?) the breaded pork chops, but I then transfer them to a cookie cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet to bake them. Yes, it adds extra dishes, but it also keeps the chops from getting soggy. But some people might like them soggy, I just don't. I figure if I'm going to spend the time to make a really good dish like this than what is a few more dishes!
*I often buy my pork chops in the big family pack since it is much cheaper that way and since 4 chops feeds my family just fine, I try to find a pack with 8 chops in it. Then I make all 8 at once and can freeze them for another meal or Hubby's lunches. You really don't need any extra breading as there is plenty of leftover crumb's if you only make 4 chops.

I would highly suggest this recipe if you have a rather slow Sunday to spend in the kitchen. If I were real ambitious I would have Little Miss help. But...

We usually serve it with some sort of potato, but I think tonight we are just going to have Pasta Roni and maybe some breadsticks and veggie...maybe I should be brave and finally make my kids try spinach. :)

REAL MOM'S SATURDAY DINNER: Chicken patty sandwiches, mixed veggies, and frozen french fries. I like to top the chicken patty with a little cheddar cheese and turkey bacon and a crisp piece of lettuce. Mmmmm....

A Sharpie Tip

I really have been doing a lot the last couple of days. But I've been very tired.

Here is a really cool trick I heard a couple of months ago that I just put into use. If you need to touch something that is black up or cover a silver screw use a Sharpie and color in what's showing.

So here's what I did yesterday.

I spray painted this bowl, but didn't let it dry all the way when I flipped it over to spray the underside. So the paint had come off the four corners.

I simply took a magic marker and colored in the corners. The flash makes the Sharpie shine, but you really can't tell in person. I also did this on a plate I had sprayed black. I'm lazy. And coloring in with a Sharpie is much easier than respray painting.

I have been working on a laundry room make over, which hopefully Hubby will help me finish tomorrow! I can't wait to see how it turns out!

REAL MOM'S DINNER: Chicken Fajitas -LOVE these! I use to buy the seasoning packets (which I still think are really good), but found I could make the seasoning from what I had in my cupboard and it is still really tasty and probably cheaper.

Easter Egg Wreath

So I saw this Easter egg wreath idea here. It looked easy and cheap ($4). So I told myself that if I got my desired rooms cleaned that I could reward myself with a trip to the dollar store to purchase the items for the wreath.

Well, I mostly got done what I set out to do. As in, good enough to reward myself.
Toy room *check*
My bedroom *mostly checked*
Laundry room *not checked, but saw some great inspirational blogs on laundry rooms and hubby is helping me redo shelves this weekend so I should have some awesome photos next week!*

Here is my wreath. Not sure I love it in person. Wish they had the plain glittery eggs instead of the funky striped ones. But it brings in some bright cheery colors for spring. Which I'm so excited for!

My other big accomplishment today? I finished the crossword puzzle in it's entirety (it was actually yesterday's puzzle.) This is only the 2nd time I've completed an entire newspaper crossword puzzle...after several years of doing them! Am I getting smarter or old? Hummmm...

REAL MOM'S DINNER: Frozen Pizza...yes, again...but this time it was the more expensive stuff. It was that or Little Ceaser's.

Say What?

Did I say I hoped my toy room would stay clean for at least a couple days? Obviously, my kids didn't listen.

Ya, it's Easter grass and Easter eggs strewn all about the toy room...*big sigh*!!!

Did I say that I wasn't going to do much crafting this week? Today I had NO energy. I think I've been staying up too late. I cracked the Diet Coke by 10:30 a.m.! So during nap time I thought of all the hundreds of things I should be doing and what do I do?

I end up crafting. I figured it was that or take a nap and crafting is more fun and productive than napping.

I finished these mod podge books. I had it mostly done a couple weeks ago, just needed to "put the finishing touches" on. Here's a link on how to do it. (I've seen several tutorials, but this is the first one I could find. I might try it different if I were to do it again.)

REAL MOM'S DINNER: Ham slices (leftovers that I had froze), Au Gratin Potatoes, and peas & carrots.

This Week's Priorities

It is probably pretty evident that I have been spending a lot of time crafting the last couple of weeks. But this week my priorities are not going to be on crafting, although I hope I can still sneak in a project or two. I really need to get some major cleaning done!
I have been keeping up on the basic every day stuff, but some of the less seen rooms in my house are getting out of control!!!

So this week I'm going to focus on cleaning:
-the toy room
-the laundry room/mud room
-and my bedroom

Sounds easy right? Ha ha ha!!!

I'll give you three reasons why these rooms are a disaster and don't get picked up.

1. Little Miss
2. Mr. L
3. Mr. S

The kids destroy the toy room within a day or two of cleaning it. The laundry room is too tiny for more than just me in there...thus I have to do it during nap time. And my bedroom is the most kid UN-friendly room in the house! The twins get into WAY too much trouble when I let them come in...so I have to clean that during nap time also. There is just always SO much to do during nap time to get it all done!

This is what the toy room looked like before we cleaned...you seriously couldn't walk across the room!
After Little Miss and I working hard for an hour, this is now what is looks like and will hopefully stay like for at least a couple of days!

REAL MOM'S DINNER: Tonight we had fish sticks and baked french fries with/ mixed veggies. I hate fish sticks. But apparently my family LOVES them. I couldn't believe how many Little Miss ate! I haven't made them in about 2 years and this was the first time the twins ate them. They actually both ate several! Who'da thunk?!