Getting Caught Up: Challenge Days 12-15

Summer time has caught up with me.  I have been spending time doing swim meets, baseball practices, swim practices, crawdad catching, swimming, going to birthday parties.....you get the idea.  All fun stuff, but the kind of stuff that makes an extremely dirty house and very tired kids.  It is the stuff that memories are made of.  So, I guess what I am saying is that I don't feel too bad getting a bit behind.

I think I left off last Thursday.  On Friday we tried out something I have been dying to do, especially during the summer.  How many of you hear..."I'm bored" so many times during the summer that you want to gouge your eyes out.  I am not saying I am like that (I am totally like that) but I am sure some of you can relate.

Day 12:  I saw these fun idea on Pinterest.





So, I set out to make our own Bored Jar.  I found a jar we had laying around the house and put some ribbon around it and printed a sign that said "Bored Jar" and stuck it on.  It all came from stuff I had around the house.  I also used the leftover Popsicle sticks from this project.  So this one was FREE!

Then we set out to figure out some boredom busters.  I had the kids help me with this so that they were invested in the project.  I thought I was going to have to go to my Pinterest page to get some ideas, but the kids were full of good ideas.

We came up with 40 different things.  We had 10 chores, 7 educational ideas, 8 outdoor activities and 14 other ideas.  Not bad.  The kids had so much fun coming up with ideas!  As soon as we were done, they started saying "I'm bored" just so they could reach in the jar and get out an activity.  We have been pretty busy so we haven't had to draw from the Bored Jar.  But I can't wait for the day....especially if they pull out a chore!  It was a fun activity and I think it will serve us well over the summer!

You can find this on my "Summa Time" board.

Day 13:   A new hairdo.  I get stuck in a rut when it comes to my hair.  My hair is pretty long, but I get tired of just pulling it back in a bun all of the time.  In the summer it is too hot to dry it and then if I do dry it is SO HOT on the back of my neck.  So, pony tails, braids and buns are my status quo during the summer.  So I was pretty excited when I found a new kind of bun to try.  Here is the picture from Pinterest.



Here is what it looked like on my hair.  Sorry for the terrible picture!!  But it is hard to take pictures of my own hair.

I want to try this again sometime soon.  I only looked at the picture one time so I didn't realize that I had to have the "end pieces" in the front and not the back.  I like how it turned out, but the ends stuck out funny.  If I would have had the end pieces on the top and then looped it to the back it would have looked much better.  However, I was trying to make my "usual bun" look more presentable to go out with the adults for my sister-in-law's birthday.  I didn't have much time to "wash the mom off" so this is how it looked.  I think it worked well, but I need to tweak it a bit next time.  I also think that the longer your hair is, the better.

You can find this pin on my "Just for Me" board.

Day 14:  Recipe Time!!!!
For the most part, I have loved the recipes I have found on Pinterest.  And yesterday....I found another one. I just might possibly be the best new recipe I have found in a while.  It is super healthy, vegetarian and DELICIOUS!!!

Have you heard of quinoa (pronounced keen-wa)?  It is a superfood!  It is a whole grain, but has a ton of protein in it too.  I have a couple of good recipes that use quinoa, but I am always on the look out for another good one.  If you have ever tried quinoa plain....I am sorry.  It is terrible.  You really have to add some stuff to it to make it worthwhile.

Here is what I found on Pinterest: (note- once you click on this within Pinterest, you have to scroll down a bit to get to this recipe).


I didn't totally have all of the ingredients for this recipe, so I had to improvise a bit.

Here is what I put in my dish.

1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup of vegetable broth (boil it and then cook covered on low for 15 minutes or until almost all of the water is absorbed, then remove from heat and set aside for a few minutes).
1 can of cannellini beans (I didn't have garbanzo beans but I bet that would have been really good)
A large handful of cherry tomatoes halved
Fresh Cilantro
Fresh Basil (her recipe calls for spinach, but I didn't have any so I used Basil and it MADE the recipe)
2 avocados diced
Garlic (I always use lots of garlic and I use the fresh bottled minced garlic)

Dressing:
2 tsp. Dijon mustard (I used spicy brown...is that the same thing)
2 tsp. Olive Oil (I used grapeseed oil)
A dash of Cumin (she called for 1/2 tsp. but cumin is pretty strong)
The juice of one lemon (she calls for 2 but I only had one and it was really juicy)
The zest from one lemon
(whisk this together and put over the above ingredients)

It was so delicious.  It is my new favorite.  It is a perfect summertime recipe.  It is light and refreshing and pretty easy to make.  It would make a great side dish (however we ate it for our main dish and it was nice to have a vegetarian meal that was really filling).

Lisa Version

This is on my "Recipes" board and I would HIGHLY recommend it.  By the way quinoa can get pretty expensive but they sell it at Costco and it is SO much cheaper.  A big bag will last you a long time!  I only used a 1/2 cup for this recipe and it made 4 large main dish sized servings.

Day 15: Recipe....again.

I am a sucker for a good recipe.  I am always looking for good, easy recipes that my allergic family can eat!

This one looked delicious (and easy) so I decided to try it out today.

  

The best part about this recipe is that you make most of it in the crock pot.  I know you think of crock pot meals in the winter, but they are perfect for the summer when you don't want to heat up the kitchen.  I found my stew meat in the freezer and I just dumped it in the crockpot.

The only bad thing about this recipe is that there wasn't enough of it!  Next time I will double this recipe.  It was so tender and delicious!

I didn't take any pictures.  Oops.  Forgot and we had to eat in waves tonight due to overlapping baseball and swim practices.  Plus their picture is so much better and mouth watering that you don't need a mediocre picture (see previous post) from me.

This is definitely a keeper!

You can find it on my "Recipes" board.  And now I am caught up....until tomorrow!