Author: Lois Houston

I'm a sweet tea drinkin' southern gal who loves to cook, bake, crochet, and read. Check out my blog for posts about parenting, faith, books, crafts, planning, baking, cooking, and life in general.

Just hangin’ on…

It’s a wild ride around here –

I’m just hangin’ on – that’s about all I can do right now. Craziness.

Last week we wrapped up school for the year.img_1579

Last weekend we celebrated the holiday weekend with a trip to an arts & crafts festival on Saturday, some much-needed pool time on Sunday, and Monday was filled with gardening, shopping and more family time. It was so nice to have SuperMan home with us for three full days. 

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This week, Little Bit has dance recital rehearsals and recitals and then the girls and I are headed to Mom’s for “Ammi Camp” – which is where the girls will be while I’m travelling for work.

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I’m printing pictures today for my Project Life pages for last week- hope to have those on the blog later this week.

Other than that, It’s just the usual – work, packing, and sneaking in some pool time when we can.

Movin’ on Up

Sigh.

My baby’s not a baby anymore.

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She is now officially a sixth grader.

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And while I am so very, very proud of her and her accomplishments, I’m absolutely shattered that she got so big SO FAST and howintheworldamIamothertoasixthgrader?!?!

Please excuse me.

I must have a moment.

I am

I am so looking forward to the end of the school year, although I am not looking forward to the fact that my baby girl will be in Middle School next year. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

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But I am looking forward to spending time with my girls this summer. They’re at the age when they want to hang out with me and I’m going to make the most of it while it lasts.

I am finding myself in a rut, cooking-wise. I need to shake things up and find some new recipes. I think it is the combination of the busy schedule we’ve had the past month and the sinus infection I’ve had. When you feel rotten you don’t feel like cooking.

I am thinking about moving my blog to a self-hosted Word Press blog. I’m a little intimidated by the whole techy side of things. Wish I knew someone who could just set it all up for me. (anyone have any suggestions?)

I am trying to be a little forgiving of myself that I haven’t done better about exercising this year, although I don’t want to slip into giving myself the easy out – it’s something I need to do for my health and well-being. I need to focus on making it more of a priority.

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I am wishing I had more time for creative pursuits. Maybe after school is out I’ll find some extra time in my day to do some writing, journaling and scrapbooking. Lately when I have had the time I’ve been so tired I haven’t had the energy.

I am looking forward to seeing my brother in a few weeks. I have to go to my company’s corporate headquarters for some meetings and he will be there at the same time. I can’t wait to see him and spend a little time together. We used to have such adventures together when we were in college.

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I am also really looking forward to the trip to HQ. I have lots of old friends out there from the days when I used to travel back & forth across the country all the time and I rarely get to see them in person anymore. My once-a-year trip to HQ gives me a chance to reconnect in person, which I love.

and now, I am signing off.

Project Life Tuesday: 22 May 12

The Mom Creative

Hello and welcome to Project Life Tuesday!

If you are stopping by from The Mom Creative, welcome & thanks for clicking over! If you are not, you might want to click over there when you’re done here for some more great Project Life inspiration!

I’m using the Clementine Edition of the Project Life kitoffered by Becky Higgins, supplemented by some digital extras and using up the random bits I have from twelve-plus years of scrapbooking. Some weeks are more digital than others and some weeks are full of frills and furbelows. It just depends on my mood.

The past week was hectic with the end-of-the-year activities for school, lots of work projects and a sick big girl and mommy. Sigh.

Some of the pages are still in progress – I need to add some journaling but I just ran out of steam when I was working on them the other day. I hope to finish them this weekend.

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Here’s the two-page spread, which is actually four, because I used an insert, too. (you can click on any picture to see it larger)

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Left:

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and a close up:

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You can barely see it, but I included my grocery list in one of the pockets this week.

The front of the insert:img_1550

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and the back is from Sunday’s baptism – both girls were baptized together… I haven’t yet journaled about it – I need some time to process & reflect before I put something there.img_1559

I love the picture of the four of us together. Don’t get many of those.img_1544

and the right page: (which also needs some journaling)img_1560

That’s it for this week!

Thanks for stopping by!!

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Saturday Sweetness: Lemon Pound Cake

As I was mixing this up on Friday afternoon, I thought I’d share this recipe with you again. It’s one of those family favorites that we go back to again and again… especially for special occasions.  And this weekend, we’re having special visitors and so I thought it was appropriate to bake.

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And I thought you should be able to enjoy it too! And since I can’t bake one for ALL of you – sharing the recipe is the closest I can come…

Grandma Achord’s Lemon Pound Cake

Ingredients

3 cups white sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 sticks butter
1/4 tsp baking soda
6 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp almond extract
zest from one lemon (optional)

Instructions

  1. Cream sugar and butter.
  2. Add sour cream and extracts.
  3. Add eggs, one at a time.
  4. Add flour and baking soda slowly.
  5. Beat only long enough to get flour mixed in well.
  6. Pour into greased tube or Bundt pan and bake at 325 for 1 hour 20 min.

We usually don’t ever get around to it because we gobble up the cake so quickly, but Grandma always made a glaze by mixing a few teaspoons of lemon juice with some powdered sugar (about 2 cups) and drizzled it over the cake.

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Sigh

We’re in the final countdown days to the end of the school year.

Teachers are cramming in all that they can —

the kids are trying to get away with as little as they can —

Moms are alternately looking forward to the alarm clock-less mornings and dreading the “I’m BORED!” that they know will not be far away —

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and my poor Big Girl is sick (as if all that wasn’t enough)

Fever, chills, sore throat.

UGH.

We’re off to the pediatrician this morning. Not sure if I hope it is strep or hope it is not.  At least with strep she’d have antibiotics.  But those are so hard on her system. 

I’ll be in nurse mommy mode today.

sigh.

Chicken Fried Rice

Yesterday was a crazy busy day. Last night when it was time to cook, I had no energy, a massive headache and no real “gumption” for cooking anything.

Big Girl suggested take out. or grilled cheese sandwiches. or cereal.

While there was a part of me that fully embraced her ideas, there was another part of me remembering the thawed chicken in the fridge and knowing we’d all feel much better if we had a healthy, home-cooked dinner.

So, I drug myself into the kitchen and tried to decide what to make.  I had planned to make my Asian Chicken Stir Fry, but for some reason, I just didn’t want to make that last night. No particular reason, but it just seemed like an insurmountable task.

Crazy.

Anyway, what I ended up making was sooo good that I thought I’d share with all of you.  I wanted an Asian-type of dinner, but just not the noodles in the stir fry. So, I decided to make my own Chicken Fried Rice.

Oh.my.goodness.

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So yummy.

This makes enough for four healthy servings plus some leftover for lunch the next day (which I am looking forward to!)

Chicken Fried Rice

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked, cooled rice
2 eggs, beaten
4-6 chicken thighs
sesame oil
grated carrots (about 1 cup, diced even more)
1 cup shelled edamame (you can get these in the freezer section)
2 cups broccoli florets
1/2 small onion, diced finely
minced garlic
ground ginger
soy sauce
2 Tbsp brown sugar
Houston House Seasoning
Chinese Five Spice Powder

Instructions:

  1. In a small bowl, beat the eggs and set aside.
  2. In a large skillet, heat some of the sesame oil until it shimmers. Add the chicken thighs, seasoning with sprinkles of the Houston House Seasoning & Chinese Five Spice Powder.
  3. Cook, turning over once or twice, until the chicken is browned.  Remove from skillet to a plate. Wipe skillet out with a paper towel and return to low heat.
  4. Add the eggs to the skillet, scrambling them and cooked through. Remove to a paper plate and wipe the skillet out again.
  5. Return the skillet to medium-high heat and add about another tablespoon of sesame oil.
  6. Add the broccoli, onion, edamame, carrots to the skillet & sauté for about five minutes, stirring frequently.
  7. While the veggies are sautéing, dice the chicken into bite-sized pieces.
  8. To the skillet of vegetables, add about 1 heaping teaspoon minced garlic, another sprinkling of the five spice powder and about 1/2 tsp of ground ginger. (I just sprinkled the five spice and ginger over the vegetables) Be careful not to burn the garlic.
  9. Add the rice to the skillet. The skillet will seem “dry” but you want to brown the rice, so this is OK.  Sauté for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  10. Add the diced chicken to the skillet.
  11. In a small bowl, whisk together the brown sugar with about 1/4 cup of soy sauce. Once your rice is browned, pour this over the rice and stir well.
  12. Add the eggs. Mix.
  13. Drizzle the entire thing with 1-2 teaspoons of sesame oil for a finish.

Serve hot. Enjoy!

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Project Life Tuesday 15 May 12 (or the best laid plans)

I have had my blog writer program open for three days – three days in which I’ve been PLANNING to write a post. And, somehow, life got in the way.The Mom Creative

Which seems to be happening a lot lately.

Like with my Project Life album.

I sat down to work on it and realized I was THREE WEEKS behind.

Talk about overwhelming. and confusing. and daunting.

I don’t want that to happen again. It was not much fun trying to sort everything out and figure out what happened when.  Thankfully, I have everything written down in the family calendar so it was a little easier.  And, I finally decided that it really didn’t matter if the pictures from one week were on a page with pictures from another. Twenty years from now I doubt we will care which week we went to the eye doctor.  Right?

Anyway, sit back and get comfy – I have a LOT to share this week:

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Lots of inserts – samples of schoolwork, smaller pocket pages for the extra pictures…

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new car shopping!

And a closeup of the text messages with my brother:

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another close up – I grabbed the logo from the web because I forgot to get a business card to add to the page.

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Moving on to the next week:

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Love the cartoon – so true about life Smile

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another insert:

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Field Day – I may go back and do a digital page on these pictures after things calm down around here – not sure yet.

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And,finally, Mother’s Day weekend!

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If you made it this far, thanks for stopping by!

I have made a vow to myself I won’t get that far behind again – too hard to get motivated to catch up. It would’ve been so easy to just quit, but I’m glad I made myself sit down and do the pages – I feel so much better being caught up!

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Field day = Hell?

I didn’t think I would be back this soon, but as this is my outlet, my place to let the silly thoughts in my head roam free, I guess I need to be here.

Today the girls have field day – I remember hating this day as a child. I mean, truly loathing it.  I would dread it as the day would arrive. It was what I imagined as a child that Hell must be like.

I mean, seriously – Field Day in the South – in MAY – when the temperatures are already hovering near 90 degrees, the humidity is 90% and they want you to stay OUTSIDE and RUN AROUND!?!?

Yeah, hated it.

The only thing I was remotely good at was the tug-of-war. And that was because of my strong legs, thanks to dance classes.  Everything else was just misery to me. I mean, why are we RUNNING AROUND A TRACK? No one is trying to kill us. There are no bears or tigers chasing us? To me, that is the only justifiable reason to run – especially in the South Georgia heat.

My girls, however, love this day.

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Crazy.

I think they must get that competitive, athletic streak from their dad. I am pretty darn sure they didn’t get it from me!  He, however, is not only very athletic but extremely competitive. (one day, remind me to tell you about how “interesting” it gets when the three of them play games together. Uh, yeah.)

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So, they’re looking forward to the tug-of-war, the relay races, the water sports (don’t remember those from MY field days) and the other activities they’ll be doing today.  They even asked me to make them a breakfast that would give them “lots of energy and speed” for the day.

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I’m glad they like it.  It’s certainly better than knowing you’re sending your kids off to be miserable for an entire day.  I’ll be there in just a little while, snapping pictures and cheering them on.

And of course, I’ll share those pictures with you next week!

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So, off to slather on the sunscreen and get my camera batteries charged.

Make it a good day, folks.