Agenda Today: Homemade Chicken stock

One Chicken, Three Uses:

I haven't had this blog active in years, but I'm starting back up and adding all the recipes and things I try on Pinterest on here, instead of updating my faceboook everytime. I also move all recipes I use from my Yummy board to my Things I tried and liked/didnt like once I try them. Ive already tried a whole bunch and when I make them again I will add a blog post. But some of my favorites are Cheesy Chicken TatorTot Hotdish in the Crock pot  This dinner is a hit and everyone seems to like it even better the Hamburger TatorTot Hotdish. The 3 ingredient Pork Chops are amazing and I made them Christmas Eve. I've had everyone ask for that recipe. I also like the desert Turtle Cheeseball, that one has also been a hit.
Follow my pinterest Here.

Today's plan: Making Chicken Stock.

Went to Walmart and purchased one of their family sized Rotisserie Chickens. Took off 1/2 the Meat and separated for lunch  paired with Roasted Parmesan Green Beans. The recipe is from pinterest and you can find it Here. I never follow the recipes exactly so that is the base anyway. 

The other 1/2 the meat is for dinner tonight: Chicken Mushroom Stroganoff over Egg Noodles. Recipe from Here  I also "pinned" this on my pinterest. I will be adapting that recipe, probably using fettuccine noodles today. I also dont have a lot of the herbs and seasonings mentioned in the recipe so I will just wing it with what is in my cupboard.  

Chicken carcass is being used for a Chicken Stock which I will use in the recipe tonight. 

I was looking for a recipe to do this and found plenty, all pretty similar, but cook time was ranging from 2 hrs to 10... Im trying the 2 hour time frame. Although l like to save money, I also live by the phrase time is money people. So 10 hrs is not worth the extra $ I save. So Im trying the 2 hr recipe lets see if it works. Stripped all the meat off and placed in big pot added my precut frozen veggies that I have in the freezer ( I pinned a "live on $14k a year" pin and one of her ways is going to the grocery store once a month: she has fresh fruit and veggies all month by cutting and freezing them as soon as she buys them and then throws the frozen veggies in her dish) Anyways, all the different recipes said just throw some veggies in so I had: Carrots, Mushrooms, Fresh cut garlic, green onion, I added Italian seasonings, onion powder, basil. Added water to cover, brought to a boil and then turned down and let simmer for an hour and half. Allowed to cool and Removed everything, strained and placed in fridge. Some recipes said you can freeze too. 

 Family Size Chicken from Walmart $7.98, was able to use the chicken for lunch and dinner and make stock. I havent finished with the stock yet so whether its good or not I have no idea and whether I can get enough for more than one meal is unknown. I will update. 

Picasa?

I love it! Have you tried it? Especially works great since I use a gmail accout.....

Did the working interview.... I dont know how it went and I dont know if I want it, they said they were still interviewing for possibly two more weeks... good, it will give me time to think.

Online Surveys

So now I have been getting a lot of survey opportunities... more like 6-7 week, mainly they are $2, but have been given a few $5 and $30! options... so all I can say is keep with it, eventually you start to qualify and they start sending you more.


I went on a job interview at Park Dental, Im hoping I get it, I like where I am at, but always having to worry if you say the wrong thing you'll get fired ( or the cold shoulder for weeks) sucks. Plus I have been there a year and no raise.... just the 25% paycut this job ended up being, the loss of my 401k, PTO, and not to mention my weekends. Everytime money is brought up we are told what a bad economy it is, but also Im not stupid. Its a small office I know every aspect of whats happening, I know they just purchased a building for another office at 1 million dollars ( must be bad economy if you are already able to open a second clinic after being open only a year) I know they take home 30G each a month, and I know production wise each month has been better than the last, with last month being amazing for a two doctor office. I also know instead of having four assistants for the four chairs they are running they only staff 2 or 3, which means we usually have 2 to 3 patients at a time and run our butts off. I did some research of average pay of dental assistants in the area, I was the bottom of the range, sad I barely got into the range. Another assistant just left our office... she accepted an offer that gave her atleast a 6 dollar raise from what she makes at our office, plus they give bounses off production.

Im really upset with housing market, for me it sucks. Matt and I built our house before the bottom fell out, we had good credit, got a good loan, good interest rate, stayed within or means ( had to move to Isanti to do it, but we did) and now we are stuck. Houses like ours are selling anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 up here.... we owe 196,000. Which means we are stuck, stuck, stuck. We started to finish our basement ourselves, little by little so we can attempt to bridge the gap, but that is still really expensive. I get sad because we didnt do anything wrong, but we are the ones paying the price. I didnt plan on staying here forever and now I will be required too. I look on the MLS and see the houses down in the cities that we could buy and I get soo jealous, I could seriously buy my dreamhouse right now and be able to afford it, but cant. Maybe we can sell before Camryn is in Kindergarten.

After years of bothering Matt for a vacation we finally booked one, yeah!!! We went on a weekend to Vegas for our 1 year anniversary, but really it was only a day and half. Before that it was our honeymoon in January 06 so we are most definitely due.... anyways back to where we are going.
The Whole Family is headed on the Carnival Dream for a 7 night vacation visiting, Nassau, Bahamas, St. Maarten and St. Thomas. The Dream is a brand new ship ( doesnt even start sailing till September) We have a balcony room on the second to top floor, we leave out of Orlando on January 2nd, but plan on flying down on New Years Day to make sure we dont miss the ship due to flying delays... Very excitied. Not a bad price either... I didnt want to take a cruise ( I loved our last one, but didnt want to take the kids yet) but financially it was our best option, Im very excited to visit the ports.. This ship has a waterpark and minigolf on it too.

Camryn is doing well starting to talk, almost crawling ( she goes backwards really well) She is still happy happy happy ( unless she is teething)

Zack is doing well, swimming lessons at Foss started again and he doing well this session and I will definitely be signing him up the rest of the year so he ready for vacation in Jan. He passed Littles1 and next session is Little2 ( already has been in Little2 a year ago when we stopped, but came down with sudden fear so we took a break went a session back and started again)

Thats all for now.

Online Surveys

Anyone considered online surveys?
I joined a group after a little research and found a company that was actually pretty good, they pay anywhere from 2-20 bucks per survey. Sometimes its a little difficult to qualify for them, but I have now started too and have some money in my account that I could request payment for. It also has a referral bonus, you refer people and they make money you do too and then they can do the same. I read the reviews on the internet for it too, most just say its hard to qualify for the surveys, and I agree, but now that I have qualified for some Im sending it out to anyone interested.

Surveysavvy.com

My personal id is: 3649746

My personal referral link is:
https://www.surveysavvy.com?id=3649746&action=join
Use me as a referral and then start to refer people you know.
The best way to get sent invites is to go to the My portrait tab on website and complete the mini surveys which basically tells them who you are, what you do, and what not so they know what to send you. The surveys are sometimes boring, but a little extra money never hurt.
Ive been sent about 2 invites a week. Let me know if anyone joins and if they have any questions.

Life has been busy, with the extended families we had a total of 8 Christmas Parties and 2 birthday parties. Zack had the Stomach flu, Camryn was completely congested for 3 weeks with one doctor visit, and I had Strep throat. So its been busy. Matt was laid off on the 19th and we are hoping he goes back to work next week, but it is still an unknown. He hasnt had a paycheck in about a month. That hurts. The total for copays with Zacks surgery, Camryns Birth, My infected toe, and doctor visits since August is in the thousands. Insurance about 25,000 and us about 2,000... which is a lot with no paychecks! Work is rocky,but what are you going to do? Bite your tongue and put a smile on your face and be glad youre employed.
I feel like we are drowning and if something doesnt happen soon we are going to be in trouble, but as long as we keeping holding on hopefully we will make it through these crappy times.
Camryn is great she is a very happy baby, content, goes to sleep well at night sleeps 9 hours straight. Zack is zack wild and crazy, smart and funny. Recent Zack ism.... ( he loves those mini ads on tvs for like the steamers, and cookers, and magic putties)
Zack comes running into the livingroom.. "Mom, Mom, when it gets warm out and Grandma Barb and me plant carrots again, I dont want to lift a finger, so we need to get Aqua Globes so it waters the carrots for us!"
He is so funny.

Zackisms

Favorite sayings lately
" Youre wrong and you have to apologize man"
" These people are so beep shameless, so shameless' ( he actually says beep)
"Im Norm Coleman and I approve this message"
"Im Al Franken and I approve this message"

Also questions posed to me:
"Mom why was Al saying that guy was wrong"
"I dont know Zack"
"No what was he wrong about"
"Zacky I dont know"
"No what did he do wrong"
" He was republican thats why"
" ( humphs and walks away) you dont know"


"Mom whats the name of this song"
"Like That by Mims"
"Like what?"
"The song is called Like That"
"But what is it like?"
"nevermind"
" I want to know what it is like"
"That Zack its like That now drop it"

"What movie did we see there?"
(pointing at East Bethel Theatre which we havent been too for atleast 9 mos)
"Um I dont remember"
" But I want to know"
"But I dont remember hunny"
"Tell me"
"Zack I dont know.... Horton hear's a who"
"Um,no."
"Well I dont know then"
"I saw Horton at Grandma Barbs Theatre ( referring to Showplace)
"Ask Dad he was with"
"he wont know"

Car rides now consist of drilling my memory and asking me a series of 10,000 un-win-able questions.

Oh the difference a month makes

Been awhile, well Camryn has arrived! 8lbs 4 oz on August 29th... the labor went really well. I was induced, I did keep that a secret, which irritated some people, but oh well. I just wanted to go in and have the baby and not have 20 million calls, and thousand text messages... and how many "surprise" visitors. It was really nice experience doing it that way and would recommend it to anyone!
Camryn is doing well, she is the little chunk chunk we thought she'd be, lots of brown hair, but its hard to tell in pictures because she is bald in front (except the mohawk) area, but her hair in back is super long. So far she has Daddy's blue eyes and I am tickeled pink to have my princess.
Im a little down, I hate being soo tired, I hate looking in the mirror right now, I hate the thought of dieting, and I hate getting dressed ( especially since no clothes fit). So yeah a lot of fun right now.
I did get a Wii Fit for my birthday, but trying to find the time to do it, Camryn either content and or sleeping, and when Zack will actually leave me alone. (never)
Zack loves his baby sister, kisses her all the time. He loves to ask whether or not he is the best big brother ever, of course I say yes. Hes very loud when she sleeps, but hes loud all the time so what are you going to do. Ever since shes been around hes quit taking naps, not by my choice, but it just happend that way. So he is extremely whiny and cranky, all the time. Partly I think due to jealousy.
I start back to work the 13th. I was a little irritated with them, but its been dealt with ( kind of) the doctor wants a set schedule and I couldnt do that, but was basically forced too. My hours since have been cut to 25 a week. I should work more than that, but cant afford any daycare so I have to pick my poision. I will work Sundays from 730am to 1230pm and then 10 hr Monday and Tuesdays. This leaves wed, thurs, fri, and saturdays open. Id like to find a part time job for those days that either lets me takes the kids with or an evening job to earn extra money, but we'll see.
I need to clean, becasue my in-laws are coming over tomorrow ( :/ )...

Weekly Update

So I had my 38 wk appt... same old same old
Actually no weight gain! Ive been weighing within the same 1 lbs either side for the last three weeks!
BP good, as always.
Baby's Heartrate in the 130-140 range.
Only measuring 38 and 1/2 weeks though, but her head dropped one station from last time so that could be why...
1 full cent. dialated, -2, and 50% effaced
So based on that he said I will see you next week... ahh, another week.
Which is good I guess because I work Fri, Sun, Mon, Tues and then have dr. appt on Wednesday and we really need that money. But next week I think he will strip my membranes so hopefully I will go before my due date ( 27th) I also asked since he doesnt think I will go, "Can I go to the fair?" and he said I could as long as I only drank water and lots of it, I might sneek one glass of lemonade though... other than that I can stick to that rule. So the plan is to go Sat. 23rd if the weather is nice otherwise we could go Sunday too... if I havent popped.

Zackary is doing good, but someone told Matt at work there friend got some type of infection like that and he took all the antibiotic and thought he was fine then, but really it hadnt gone all the way and needed 7 inches of intestines removed.
I know, there I go thinking again, but I was thinking after the completion of the antibiotic to have him tested again to make sure its gone. ( and I was thinking this before I was told that stupid story) The stomach cramping and diarrhea are done, but Im thinking he is still going more often #2 then normal and I dont think appetite has returned 100%.
Stitches are out, My mom and I had to pin him down to do it, but it got done. We still cant even touch his foot without him screaming. I know its not hurting him, but the fear is still there and he will not let us get a good look. Im suppose to check to make sure the wound doesnt pop open, but my small looks, and the steri-strips they put on, make it next to impossible.
Nikki was given about 72 hours and that was Tuesday so she has until tomorrow... Im thinking she is going on Mom's Birthday though, Monday 8/18/08