Forgiveness, friendship, and the follow up

Going to make this one a little personal.

I'm a mom to two beautiful girls. They are the most precious thing in my life.
They are one of the main thing that drives the decisions I have made over the past 10 years.

A little over 10 years ago my life changed forever.  My decided path was not my own anymore but now my decisions  would shape another.  And not even two years after that I started making decisions for another.  The first biggest decision came about 5 years ago during Halloween time of 2009. My now first ex husband brought his mistress birthday with our girls. My eldest came home and asked if she should call her mother. He had been cheating on me with her for 3 of our 5 years of marriage.  I knew about it but was trying to work it out. We even moved two counties away,  but this was my last straw.  I have him an ultimatum. He chose to have me leave and us seperate.  This was the beginning of his down fall, the girls moved out and with my parents within a week.  I moved out two weeks later.  Moving to the opposite side of the state.  We cane up with child support arrangements,  visitation arrangements, and a game plan moving forward.  Everything went well.  I got a job quickly,  so we would have to redraw up the child support. He ended up working Christmas so he picked up the girls the next day in exchange for having the girls until 2 days before school started back up. 

I picked up my girls and everything looked wrong.  My 1 st ex husband looked haggard,  unkempt,  and skinny. He didn't let up that anything was wrong but I could tell something was up.  3 days later the calls from county jail started.  That is the day I became a true single supported single mom of two. 

Over the next 5 years I learn so much about soeverything.  Things about my ex,  his mistress, other guys in my life,  but mostly about myself. I'm not perfect but it is really not important,  what is important is that I never gave up. For if I gave up,  the two girls who look up to me where going to suffer.  I do it all for them. 

Raising my kids my way....being a Free-ranged Parent type in and Helicopter parent world.

My Daughters learned to ride there bikes last week. My older daughter took all of 30 minutes to be up and peddling with confidence. She still had a lot to learn but she now had more freedom. My younger daughter took a little longer but by the next day she was riding with confidence as well. Seeing this as more freedom for them, I was excited. They wanted to spend more time outside and I wanted that for them too,

We talked about where was the safe places to ride, How to listen and look for cars, what were there NEW boundaries, and bicycle safety. The both need more help with learning the brakes but that just made their boundaries a little smaller and that I need to see them practice more. My older daughter ended up braking her ankle in a bicycle accident the first day at the park (she was not following the rules we discussed, and yes I was watching, on the phone because of a car accident I was involved in earlier that day,thus I was not hovering over her or her sister).

On the way to the emergency room, I dropped Daughter 2 at home with supervision, and we talked about what happened. She knew she was doing something that I said wasn't safe, and she knew that she should have listened. I told her I was proud of her that she had confidence in herself to try and do something new and that now she would have to deal with the consequences of her choices. It actually lead to a very grown up realization for her. I do tell her to do things, or not to do things, for a reason. That reason was usually for her safety and not just because i did not want her, or her sister, to have fun. I felt like this really was a turning and defining point in her life. ( if you watched inside out yet, this would have been a core memory).

I was proud as a mother because she came to this reality all by herself. It also let me know that my little girl is not so little anymore. I've know for a while that she was growing up. She changed her interest, her new favorite color is black, she started to develop in places I wish she would not, and she comes to realization as stated before.

But I digressed away from my original reason to post.

My other daughter, she loves to go out s ride her bike. She ask almost on a daily basis now to go out and ride her bike in our neighborhood. We live in a suburban area within 1 mile of a school. She doesn't even leave our immediate neighborhood and is within 0.5 mile of the house at the furthest point. The last time she asked to go outside she also asked if she could go up an down the "big hill". I said yes but let me see how your braking is going. This big hill is not so big but to her it is a monumental difference from the flat, plain cul-de-sac's and paths she has been riding in thus far. I saw how she was braking and said yes she could. I sat down outside my house and watched her wizz by for about a half hour.

Then we came in, this when the "What if's" occurred from my father.He question me on my decision to let my 9 year older daughter ride her bike in the street. What if she goes so fast and crashes into a parked car? what if she gets kidnapped when she is riding around the neighborhood? You shouldn't let her ride because these things could  happen. Lecture, Lecture, Lecture! I feel like the kids we have today are so buffered from the reality of this world that we are not protecting them but preventing them from see the truth that the world can be unkind. How long do we hold our children hands? wrap them up in bubble wrap? or prevent them from exploring the world? You grew up in another country did you not play in the streets?

When did we, as parents, let this fear of the what could happen overrule our lives and prevent our children from experiencing the joys of childhood? I'm not saying to let our kids go out there unprepared. If you do have the what if's floating in the back of your head give them the tool to solve that what if situation. If you are worried about them not braking make sure you as a parent teach them to properly brake on that bike. If you are worried about them getting kidnapped, make sure they know what to do. For example, they don't have the right to go with anyone else, give them a watch and a time to be back at home, let them hold your cellphone while they ride and show them how to text and call out on that phone. With the technology today, GPS just for your kids, Cellphones, video nanny cams; why do we coop our kids inside away from the world? Why do we not hear laughter of children playing the street anymore? Yes technology is a cause but I would say that it is also because too many parents are worried about the What If's.

What I want for my kids

I plan on letting my kids have a lot of freedom. I want them to explore their world, discover all it has for them from the good to the bad. I want to help guide them through the entire adventure and prepare the future generation for a world that is vast and amazing, instead of dropping them into a world that they have been secluded from "for their protection." In my mind the best thing I can do for my children, is allow them to exposed to this world, not lie to them about it, and explore it by their sides at their pace.

I do plan to follow up this post with more about my parenting style let me know what you think.

Water conservation

With the drought in California,  many families are switching to no water backyard and front yard arrangements.  Our first step was shutting off o or water sprinters in our backyard but due to having rules we can not in the front yard yet.  We get fined if or our lawn isn't green, so we are in a bind as we see our water bill enormously get more and more expensive we are left with being obligated to water to not get fined.  So backwards,  now we got to shell out more money to free landscape to a new water wise front yard.

Oh by the way this rant happened because my daughter's were in the backyard camping in a tent and at 4 am the sprinklers came on,  got to check or rotation apparently the wrong system got shut off.

Organizing for one shopping list per batched recipe making.

Now my grocery list is very extensive. I live in a 6 bed room house and on a nightly basis cook for 6 to 12 people. I strive for meals that feed 8. But as you can tell I like to do it in a organized way and a budget.

So i love my Pinterest . I scavenge the pages and pages of information for everything from my wire wrapping inspirations to recipes. So for today i have complied a list of Diabetic friendly meals. My father is Diabetic and others in the house want low carb. Luckily these are very similar.


Step 1. Gather your recipes.

• Crockpot-stuffed-green-peppers
• Diabetic Chicken Enchilada Casserole
• Diabetic Smoke Sausage-Lentil Stew
• Paleo-crockpot-chili
• Crustless Chicken Pot Pie

Step 2. Open up your spreadsheet. I use google docs on the internet so i can access it everywhere i go. I even have it on my phone so i don't have to print out the list when i'm done.

Sub step a: I choose a different color to label the ingredients from each recipe.

red =  green peppers

orange =  casserole

yellow = stew

green = chili

blue = pot pie

Substep b: for each recipe calculate how many serving you will need (i usually have to atleast double recipes, but you can half also...you just have to do math) Or if you are spreadsheet save then you can have it calculate that for you.

Subset c: set up your spreadsheet. in the first column I put how many I need of column b which is the ingredient itself. i then have the background colored changed to correspond to the recipe. 

So it looks like this:

Subset D:

Next Select every ingredient in column B. and sort your data alphabetically. my list for 5 recipes looks like this: 

 It is very colorful but Now i can condense the list and see what i need in cross recipes. Like many of my recipes called for Bell peppers, Chicken breast, carrots, and garlic. I know a lot of people choose recipes centered around seasonal food and this is a great method to make sure you buy enough of an ingredients to cover all your recipes.

Step 3. Shop your cupboards first. I keep my cupboards stocked with staples. Canned tomatoes, tomatoes sauce, canned vegetables, spices. Once that is off your list I bet your list is getting smaller.

Step 4: Go food shopping. If you are a coupon-er, this is where you can shine by now organizing your recipe list and coordinating with coupons. 

here is a copy of my final grocery list. I keep mine in ABC order but you can go further and separate it by department. The ones crossed off is my pantry shopping. Not to bad and now not overwhelming. 

Crockpot Wrangler Pie (my version of Shepherd pie)

Why oh why would I call it Wrangler pie?

Because how comforting is a good shepherds pie, but did you know that shepherd shepherd sheep. Therefore a shepherd pie should be made with ground sheep. Yeah, I don't know many places that sell sheep meat, maybe a specialty butcher in your area. Well many traditional recipes for shepherds pie call for ground lamb, however, that is still not readily available in you typical grocery store.

What is available for us in the grocery store? Ground beef! Therefore, people who take care of cows are called herders but they can also be term as a Wrangler. And Wrangler Pie, is less of a tongue twister then Herders pie. And sounds more fun, at least that is what my kids thought.

So, I modified my favorite Shepherd pie recipe and made it easy to make in your crock-pot. I am on a crock-pot bender right now. I have even started to take one day out every two weeks to make like 10 freezer crock-pot meals. But I'll leave how I shop for those meals and how to prep for those meal for my next blog post. Additionally, since I am currently partially employed I will sit down once weekly to blog. (as a New Years resolution 2015)

Crock-pot Wrangler Pie

Ingredients

• 2 pounds browned ground beef
• 1 cans drained diced tomatoes
• 2 cups mixed vegetables (I used Pea's, Carrots, and green beans mix)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed then minced
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce (I used a marinara sauce)
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoon, garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon, salt
• 1 teaspoon, pepper (I used white pepper, but any type of pepper will do, maybe a chili pepper for a bigger kick)
• 3 large potatoes(I actually used instant mashed potatoes, made according to direction and added garlic)

Equipment

• crock pot 
• crock pot liner/ or cooking spray
• pan for browning
• pot for boiling
• potato masher 

Directions

1. Brown the 2 lbs of ground beef. Drain all fat.
2. In a bowl, combine all ingredients except the potatoes. Mix well.
3. Either use a crock-pot liner, or butter or spray cooking spray to the inside surface of your crock-pot. (if prepping for a freezer meal, this is where you would pack it and freeze it)
4. Add mixture to crock-pot.
5. Set crock-pot to low for 6-8 hours (or if you are in a time crunch do 3-5 hours on high, but the results are not as well blended)
6. 30 minutes before dinner make your mash potatoes (Either traditionally, or from a box)
7. Best way to serve is to scoop out your meat on the plate and top with mash potatoes.
8. Enjoy

Makes 6-8 servings. Sorry I do not have the nutritional values for this recipe.

I had left overs and the next day I used the mixture to make wrangler burritos. Meat mixture, re fried beans, and cheese all wrapped up in a flour tortilla. These were a hit too.