The book I'm almost finished reading:

The book I'm reading next:

This week I finally put my Christmas gift to use. There are over 245 recipes to choose from, many of them on the gourmet side of things. Since I'm more of a church cookbook kind of chef, I wasn't sure how this was going to go. After searching through the recipes, I settled on Souvlaki. Souvlaki is basically a Greek version of a fajita. It involves lamb meat, a cucumber/yougurt sauce, seasonings and pita bread. I purchased the ingredients and began meal prep. The program has a hands-free feature that recognizes your voice so when you complete a step you can just say "continue" or "next" and it takes you to the next step. Handy, since I had garlic, lamb, etc. all over my hands. You can either read the instructions on the screen or listen to the voice instruct you.

I soon realized that this feature is intended for a quiet cooking environment. If you are at all familiar with my life, you'll know I do NOT have a quiet anything in this house. Picking up the whining, crying, screaming, playing noises from the kids, the personal trainer chef kept saying "What's that?" "Come Again?" ha!

I enjoyed the instructional video on how to cut a clove of garlic, loved the photos that assured me I was doing things correctly and found great satisfaction in serving a meal I would have never otherwise prepared. The best part? Everyone over the age of 3 loved it! Now...what should I try this week?

Well, you can see how well I'm getting things done. I really should listen to my own advice! It has been over a week since I've posted. In that week we've had two sick kids, traveled to Illinois to see my aunts/uncles/grandparents/cousins/etc, found beyond AWESOME clearance sales at JC Penney, signed Lauren up for preschool next year, survived an arctic blast and too many days trapped inside the house. I have well over a hundred pictures to upload, sort and file - but first I need to move a bunch of older pictures to CD and archive them on Picasa.

This week involves mor Dr. appointments for the kids, lots of laundry, the beginning phase of planning my sister's bridal shower, a show choir competition, search for a babysitter for Friday night, meal planning, grocery shopping, tackling the unpacking/organization of the basement, book club, dance class and many more things I will either forget to do or won't have time or energy to accomplish. So it goes.

I received THIS for Christmas and hope to pick one recipe to make this week. It's a little more gourmet than we are used to, but I'm thinking one recipe every week or two should be a doable adventure. I think we're going to start with modified California Rolls. (yea - toddlers outta love that one - NOT).

Ok - have to get busy with the to-do list. Pictures and better posts coming soon!

The snow melted last week only to have Mother Nature dump about 6 more inches overnight Friday. It's beautiful if the only thing you have to do is sit by the fire and read a book. Bundling and loading up two small kids in this weather is the opposite of fun. However, today the sun was bright and the temps tolerable, so we made the best of it. After church, Lauren and I bundled up and played in the snow. We took advantage of life on the cul-de-sac and went sledding down the driveway and into the street.

She had so much fun! She climbed the "mountain" made by the snow plow, tasted snow (NOT my recommendation) and made several snow angels.
Even Bailey took a turn on the sled before enjoying an afternoon of R&R at Grandma & Grandpa's house.
Lauren enjoyed showing off her snow angel skills to Grandma & Grandpa and then finished up her snow fun with a nice mug of hot chocolate complete with marshmallows.

I'm glad I was able to enjoy the snow today with my girls. More snow on its way tomorrow and then the arctic freeze blows in. Bring on spring!

DONE is often better than perfect.

That's my new motto/resolution anyway. The desire for perfection keeps me from a lot of things. It has kept me from this blog for quite some time now. I had so much to say - but didn't have the time to say it the "right way" - or post the pictures in the right way, etc.....so what happened? It didn't get done.

I wanted to do the Project 365 thing this year - where you do something each day of the year? Well - I wanted to take a stab at a photo a day again. Like I ATTEMPTED in 2007 here (trendsetter and didn't even know it - ha!)...but I haven't, because I want to have the PERFECT layout - and I can't find it....so it isn't happening.

I have thousands of pictures to scrapbook and catalog....but I haven't...because - you guessed it.

So today I realized that DONE has GOT to be better than perfect. So here goes. I'm blogging a very imperfect post. I'm going to start my new "Phlog" (like that term? Part photos/part blog? I invented it....I love making up words, btw). I am going to make up for not taking the perfect pictures Jan 1 - 9 by taking a few extras next week. It isn't going to be perfect...but it is going to be done.