Tried it Tuesday will be back next week

I am still attempting to get back on task after being on vacation for the past week and a half. hopefully by next week things will be settled back into a routine and get back to blogging. in the mean time I have tons of photos to edit, laundry, cleaning, and getting my behind back to the gym.

Tried it Tuesday - Crock Pot Orange Chicken

I have posted before that I love my crockpot so I am always looking forward to trying new recipes in it. My husband only lets me use it on the weekends when I am home, he is paranoid that it is going to burn our house down. So I never get to come home to a finished meal during the week but I put it to good use on the weekends.

I love getting orange chicken from the local take out place so when I pinned this recipe I knew I had to give it a try. Labor Day this year was predicted to be rainy and cool which = no grilling.  Since I was home all day and had had a taste for Chinese take out I decided it was a good day to give it a shot.

I read through all of the comments and decided to add some low sodium soy sauce and some ginger to the sauce. I served it with "fried" rice and broccoli.

The verdict was the sauce was good but the chicken was really dry. It definately did not take as long as the recipe indicated, closer to three hours. I think I may try it using chicken thighs or some other chicken with a bone in it so the meat is not so dry.

When it rains...

it pours

It never fails that when we have a big expense planned something unexpected comes up. My husband's truck needed a tune up and new tires which we had been putting off, but had come to a point where we just had to suck it up and spend the money. Well it never fails something was bound to happen because we just had a large expense...our air conditioner is not working. Surprise surprise.

Our house is 6 years old and i think that we have had issues with either our heat or air conditioning every season. It is so frustrating the unit is only 6 years old but we have had issues with it since the day we moved in to the house.

We had though that we were actually going to make it through a summer without having to have the HVAC company at our house but unfortunately not. At this point the days are still hot it is supposed to be 85 today and 89 tomorrow but we are at work all day. The evenings cool off so we open all the windows to cool down the house so we can survive without it for now. I just hope that the heat works and we can avoid having anything done with the unit until the spring but I am not that lucky.

Someone please light a fire under my.....

I have been so unmotivated lately to get to the gym. I used to get mad at myself if I didn't go and lately I don't care. I don't know what is wrong with me. I was doing so well for such a long time. I had really though that it was habit not something that I needed to talk myself into doing.

I was at the gym tonight for the first time in 2 weeks. I wasn't excited to go but once I got there getting a good work out in felt great. Now if only come one would light a fire under my rear end and give me the motivation to get there without having to talk myself into going that would be great.

Tried It Tuesday

Lately I have been feeling like we eat the same things all of the time and yet I have managed to pin over 100 different recipes over on Pintrest not to mention the others that I have seen on food blogs that I have bookmarked. I decided to try one every week and have a weekly post along with it to highlight the recipe I tried. I will let you know how we liked it, if I would have done something different, ect. I know I love to have some feedback before trying a new recipe so hopefully this will help those of you that are hesitant to try something new. In the prococesshopefully I will expand my recipe collection so we can stop eating the same thing all of the time.

Last Thursday I was home with the kids, they were both sick so I decided to try something new and the Recipe Over at Skinny Taste looked like it was a good one to try. I have tried several fro this website and have loved them all. This one was for Chicken Rollatini Stuffed with Zucchini.

We didn't have any zucchini in the house but I had to run to the store form some Tylenol for the kids so I picked on up. Shawn was excited to try something new. I served them with twice baked potatoes and corn. they would have also been great with a salad and rice.

Everyone loved it and this will definitely be added into the mix of recipes for dinner.

Southern Belle's Bakery Boutique

A friend of mine is working with one of her friends who started her own business, a bakery. Who doesn't love baked goods! I was lucky enough to win a contest on Facebook and got a lovely basket full of samples of many of the different goodies they offer. Their business is just starting out so they are trying to get name out there.

My basket contained :

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

Watermelon Jelly

Wedding Cookies

Sugar Cookies

Oatmeal Cookies

Peanutbutter Cookies

Vanilla Cupcakes &

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Everything was delicious and I can't wait to try some of the other things they offer! Go check them out over at Southern Belle's Bakery Boutique you will be glad you did. I am looking forward to visiting their stand next weekend at the Goldrush festival and picking up some more sugar cookies for the kids.

Ahhhh

I have posted before about the fact that we have two dogs and how great they are. Well lately the Lab has been treading on thin ice. Tonight marked the third time in less than a month that we have come home to diarrhea all over the family room carpet. The last time this happened was Tuesday. I spent almost three hours cleaning the carpets and it took me until Thursday night to finally get all of the stains up. We came home from swimming lessons tonight to the tell ta;e smell when we walked in the house.

This time it was worse, there were more spots and they spanned a larger area. I have had it. I ca not take cleaning dog shit up off of my carpet again/ I really want to get rid of her but my husband says no. Yet he is not tho one who has to spend hours getting the stains out of the carpet. He make some half a$$ attempt and then says that is the best he can do.

I know that we should take her to the vet and see what is wrong. We have not changed anything in her diet. No new food or treats. She does eat some of the crumbs the kids throw during meal time but never anything that should make her sick. We really can't afford to do all kinds of tests at the vet and then treat whatever is wrong.

I feel bad. she is part of the family but I don't know how many instances like this I can take.