This weeks menu

Thursday, February 28, 2008 @ noon
ham, scallop potatoes, sweet potatoe fries and coleslaw

Friday, February 29, 2008 @ 5pm
homemade pizza, carrot and celery sticks

Saturday, March 1, 2008 @ 5pm
tuna melt, salad and green beans

Sunday, March 2, 2008 @ 5pm
lentil burgers, mashed potatoes with white sauce, baked spagetti squash

Monday, March 3, 2008 @ 5pm
taco salad

Tuesday, March 4, 2008 @ 4:30pm
soup (still looking for a recipe) and fresh bread

Wednesday March 5, 2008 @ 5pm
turkey lasgna and tossed salad

we'll see how we fair, it is always better to have a plan.

Home Days

Today is a home day. I love home days. There is something about staying in and getting to all the work that I have been putting off. I seem to have a lot of trouble getting back on task after going out to run an errand, that is probably why I make all my appointments in the after noon, and you thought it was so the boys wouldn’t be asked why they weren’t in school every where we went. (That too, but that is a different subject.) Today we spent the morning doing school, which amazingly we finished before 1 p.m. and had already had our lunch break. I can’t tell you what a good feeling that was, Wallace was so excited he had the whole afternoon to do with as he pleased. Right now he and John are out side playing in the melting snow, I am sure when they come in they will be a mess.

Today on my “To do” list is:
1. Wash Bailie’s bedding, I walk into the laundry room this morning an something was really stinky, so I thought I better wash it. (This is done and it does smell better. I am going to have to add this to my list of weekly chores.)
2. Ironing, yes it is still on my list. (I am happy to report that it is done, at least for now, I just seem to get it done and there is more to do.)
3. Wash the kitchen and laundry room floor. (Done)
4. Clean kitchen counter and microwave.(Done and what a job that was. Not sure exactly why...oh yes I am, it hasn't been done in a while, and I am very picky about exactly what clean is, can you see a vicious cycle here?)
5. Clean stove top (in desperate need of a good cleaning)(Done)
6. Clean out refrigerator and freezer.
7. Shopping list/ menu planning (tomorrow is shopping day) (Done)

I’ll have to report back later to see how good I’ve been. I have lots of other things I’d like to be doing but I also love a well kept home, even if housework isn’t my thing.

Monday

Today has been filled to the brim with things to do and will continue as far as I can see. It is wonderful to have Michael home, it somehow add normalcy to our lives. He is pretty tired, was travelling for 18 hours yesterday and crossed 3 times zones. I was busy yesterday trying to prepare the house for his return, I had kinda let things slid while he was away so yesterday I made up for it. I got everything done except the ironing and washing the kitchen and laundry room floor, can you guess what is on my list for today. I also need to make bread, John's bedding and plan for school, that too should have been done yesterday too.

For supper tonight we are having Taco Salad, one of Michael and Wallace's favourites, I even have avocado and grape tomatoes to go in it. Wallace will pick out the avocadoes though. I was going to make it vegan but since I want Michael to really enjoy his first home cooked meal in a week I'd give him a treat. Now I just need to menu plan for the rest of the week, guess I should add that to my list of things to do.

Michael brought us all back treats, earrings for me, and t-shirt for the boys. Wallace got a Steve Nash Phoenix Suns t-shirt, proud to be Canadian. John got a Phoenix Coyotes, Wayne Gretzky hockey team, t-shirt. Cool that they both have a Canadian connection. It also goes with my taste in souvenirs something that I don't have to dust.

Cooking 101

I love to cook and I especially like to bake but I have to admit I have never been very good at teaching my boys to cook. John loves to pull up a chair and watch and is a little more insistent on helping than Wallace ever was or is. I was feeling bad, I think I have too much of my grandma in me, she loved to be in the kitchen and she always wanted to do it for you, not real condusive to learning. So I thought I would take a step back and try be a little less like my nature. Last night Wallace was reading the cookbook Loney Spoons and decide that he wanted to try a recipe for sweet potato fries, so today at lunch he took his first cooking class. He used a sharp knife, cracked an egg and put things in an out of a hot oven. The result was quite delious if I do say so, and we learned a lot. Wallace learn new techiques and I learn how much he has yet to learn and how much of cooking is second nature after all theese years.

Well we are off to grocery shop and go to swimming lessons.

This week.....

This is a tough week for me. Michael is away on training. He is spending the week in Phoenix, Arizona doing his DRE certification. DRE is a drug recognization expert, that basically means that he will be able to do a battery of test on a driver if he suspects that they are driving under the influence of something other than alcohol. It is a tough course and he has to do 6 practical assessments too, but it is hard to feel sorry for him, after all he’s swimming and longing around in shorts when he isn’t working. (edit: I just talked to him and he said he hasn’t really been out all day, he’s been studying and is nervous about doing his first practical tonight.)

He works odd hours I will give you that but at least he is usually at home sometime in the night and I know that I can call him at anytime if I had an emergency. This week however he is not, well he is reachable.

They boys and I are doing fine, better than I expected actually but we are only two days into it. Wallace is being extremely helpful which shows he is growing up. John on the other hand is oblivious that anything is going on or at least he doesn’t seem to notice the difference. I have had trouble going to bed at night time, I must check the doors 2 or 3 times before I go up stairs. Wallace is sleeping upstairs on a mattress at the foot of my bed. He was in John’s room but for some reason the other night John was extremely tired and threw a hissy fit (he doesn’t like change and if he’d have been less tired I probably could have talked some sense into him) so I just moved Wallace into my room. Meals are a lot easier when it just the three of us, I don’t feel as though I have to prepare anything big or complicated, John wouldn’t eat it anyways.

We are of course looking forward to Daddy coming home.

Look what I got....

Michael is away on trianing this week. He brought me this beautiful boquet of tulips to cheer me up throughout the week....ain't he sweet.

Top 100 movies

Here is a list of the Top 100 Films of All Time.
So, here's what I've seen . . .

1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. The Godfather
3. Casablanca (1942) my fovourite all time movie
4. Raging Bull (1980)
5. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
6. Gone with the Wind (1939)
7. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)
9. Vertigo (1958)
10. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
11. City Lights (1931)
12. The Searchers (1956)
13. Star Wars (1977)
14. Psycho (1960)
15. Sunset Blvd. (1950)...oh I like this one too
16. 2001 : A Space Odyssey (1968)...boring!!!
17. The Graduate (1967)
18. The General (1927)
19. On the Waterfront (1954)
20. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
21. Chinatown (1974)
22. Some Like It Hot (1959)
23. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
24. E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982)
25. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)...really like this one too!!
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
27. High Noon (1952)
28. All About Eve (1950)
29. Double Indemnity (1944)
30. Apocalypse Now (1979)
31. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
32. The Godfather Part II (1974)
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
35. Annie Hall (1977)
36. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
37. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
39. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
40. The Sound of Music (1965)
41. King Kong (1933)
42. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
43. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
44. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
45. Shane (1953)
46. It Happened One Night (1934)
47.A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
48. Rear Window (1954)
49. Intolerance (1916)
50. Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
51. West Side Story (1961)
52. Taxi Driver (1976)
53. Deer Hunter, The (1978)
54. M*A*S*H (1970)
55. North by Northwest (1959)
56. Jaws (1975)
57. Rocky (1976)
58. The Gold Rush (1925)
59. Nashville (1975)
60. Duck Soup (1933)
61. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
62. American Graffiti (1973)
63. Cabaret (1972)
64. Network (1976)
65. The African Queen (1951)
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
67. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
68. Unforgiven (1992)
69. Tootsie (1982)
70. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)....really like this one too!!!
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
74. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
75. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
76. Forrest Gump (1994)
77. All the President’s Men (1976)
78. Modern Times (1936)
79. The Wild Bunch (1969)
80. The Apartment (1960)
81. Spartacus (1960)
82. Sunrise (1927)
83. Titanic (1997)
84. Easy Rider (1969)
85. A Night at the Opera (1935)
86. Platoon (1986)87.
12 Angry Men (1957)
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89. The Sixth Sense (1999)
90. Swing Time (1936)
91. Sophie’s Choice (1982)
92. Goodfellas (1990)
93. The French Connection (1971)
94. Pulp Fiction (1994)
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)
96. Do the Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
99. Toy Story (1995)
100. Ben-Hur (1959)

Ok, now that I've read through the list and I'm not sure of its source I can't seem to figure out if its top 100 money makers/ or critically aclaimed or some one just made up the list...any way the ones in bold I have seen...only 33. How did you do?