Search Results for: blog calming the cooking chaos

Keeping House When Life is Busy

You know you are busy when you forget to eat. I come from a long line of Italians. Eating is ranked just below breathing. Someone is considered too skinny and near death if their pants size falls below two digits. So you can see that things have come to extremes in our household. My husband has a full time job with several important projects. He is also working on finishing our basement work as a freelancer and have taken on many extra hours in the last two month, partially from the needs of my clients and partially from our goal … Continue reading →

Canned Chicken Casserole

This very economical recipe was created as one of my desperation dinners. In fact, I prepared this dish last night and wrote up the recipe as I went along. It was way past dinner time, and I need to get something good on the table. The wonderful thing about casseroles is that they can be both creative and simple. You can use a few easy ingredients or throw in whatever you have on hand to create a full meal. We found ourselves needing dinner after a long day out at church and the township’s pumpkin festival. There is no fresh … Continue reading →

Our Cheap Picnic Dinner

How can you put together a cheap picnic dinner at the last minute? Just get a bit creative and see what you already have at hand. The other night our family had a parent teacher get together at a local park. The instructions were to bring a picnic dinner for your own family and some extra desert to share. The picnic was on a weeknight, which meant that there would be some scrambling to do, since we also had school and work to deal with that same day. I thought that putting together a homemade picnic was probably not high … Continue reading →

Coffee, What Coffee?

What is that delicate coffee-colored ring peeking out from under my notes? Perhaps it is the work of tiny aliens, who tired of all of the work of creating large crop circles have moved on to coffee rings in order to have a better chance at grabbing our attention. After all, how many more of us sit at a desk staring at a screen versus walking though a corn field on a daily basis? Why do you think I drink coffee? Have you ever seen it happen? Do you think that I’ll grab a cup in the wee hours of … Continue reading →

Mom’s Little Helper

If you work from home and you have children, you may often find yourself torn between spending time with the kids and working alone while the kids entertain themselves. Depending upon what your work consists of and the ages of your children, you may be able to combine working time and family time some of the time by involving your kids in your work activities. Kids often enjoy helping out, and it may help them to feel good about your work instead of viewing it as something that always takes you away from them. I only have one child, and … Continue reading →

Getting Away With The Girls

Do you know what you are getting for Mother’s Day? It may seem like a strange question, especially if you are used to being surprised with spectacular gifts on your big day. However, if you are anything like my sister-in-law, you know exactly what you are getting for Mother’s Day, because you put in your requests right around Easter. Don’t get me wrong. My brother’s wife is very sweet, but her son is not even two yet, so that means my brother is left to do the Mother’s Day gift shopping. Being the wise woman that she is, my sister-in-law … Continue reading →