If You Give A Mom A Morning

If you give a mom a morning that she didn't plan to have, it can play out much like If you Give a Mouse a Cookie..

I was completely ready for church when Julia started complaining of a stomach ache. I woke up  Alei, that still wasn't feeling well, to ask if I could leave Julia home with her. She agreed, but then Julia picked up the complaining and asked for a throw up bowl; I decided to not leave Alei with that to deal with, so I changed back into my pajama pants and wished JD well as he headed off to church with the eight well children.

I headed downstairs to my freshly cleaned storage room to get Julia a ginger ale, when I noticed that the bins of extra cereal didn't get put away. I found a spot for them next to the salad dressings on the shelf; which led me to think that I should check their expiration dates and shift any that were getting close to expiring to the upstairs pantry. Well, we obviously have done a poor job of rotating the dressings because many of them expired last February. I took them upstairs to Google "how expired to too expired" and found out that they are good for a full year past expiration dates. (It's going to be tough to consume six bottles before the end of the month!) After my salad dressing fiasco, I thought I better check the can cabinet and verify their dates. By the time I was done, I had the really old cans warming for "dog soup" and another pile that needed to be eaten right away.

Looking at the canned veggies reminded me that there were also fresh veggies that really needed eating, so I cleaned out both fridges and was left with a second "needs to be eaten" pile.

Once I had my piles, I started cooking. The fresh veggies were turned into a veggie tray with dip (retired ranch) and a cabbage soup for the respectable adults. ( It's always nice to have something cooking that the kids are truly scared of; they look in, gasp, and ask "is that for us?" while they hold their breath waiting for an answer).

Since I had several cans of almost expired cream corn, I whipped up a big pot of Amish soup that everyone loves; the bonus was that it also used potatoes that needed eating.

In my pile was expiring canned apples, so they were turned into apple cobbler; but since it made such a small pan, I made some brownies to round out dessert.

Since the oven was on for brownies, I also whipped up some biscuits to go with our soup buffet.

Never mind the laundry and bills I was planning on working on. I had a happy family when they walked in to the good smells after church and I have a pantry (upstairs and down) with all the 2013 cans front and center. JD made a comment about me always staying home and my sister was happy because she likes about 30 servings of vegetables a day.

I could be a great home-maker if I could just stay home, but today I'm back in Richmond for Ben's three hours of learning disability testing. At least when I make it home, we have soup for lunch. I think next weekend I will clean out the freezers and create more meals from what I find that needs to be eaten. You really do save money if you are organized! ( I could also be more organized if I got to stay home all the time!)

My pantry is pretty organized these days due to the reality that anytime anything cardboard goes in, a mouse smells it from outside and moves in during the night to dig in. I currently have almost everything in see through Rubber maids and I have a pile that is awaiting more containers.

I have always been queen of the Rubber maids in the basement. These hold everything from Christmas decorations to the children's hand-me-downs. I've killed a few rolls of label maker tape on them also.

If you wondering about Julia, she decided after a pack of crackers, a ginger ale and a movie that she was fine. She then came and helped me cook. She does this to me pretty often; I'm not sure what to make of it really because she loves to go places, so I don't think she would completely fake when it means missing an event.