Taco Salad for a Crowd

For the past two or three days it has been over 90 degrees here in So Cal, just a hint of summertime coming our way.  The hot weather calls for some lighter and yummy dinners.  Tonight I made the gang a  Taco Salad.  I called my Mom to find out the origin of this recipe, and we came to the conclusion that I was a recipe that was passed around the neighborhood when we were growing up.  However, I have put my own twist on the recipe, with the help of my daughter Naomi.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. ground turkey or ground beef (whichever you prefer)
• 1 can of kidney beans (15 oz)
• 1 pkg of taco seasoning
• 1 bag of fritos (10½ oz)
• shredded cheese (we like the cheddar & monterey jack combo)
• shredded cabbage
• tomatoes
• green onion

Directions:

• Brown the meat, and drain off the grease.
• Drain the beans and add them to the browned meat.  I like to do this to heat up the beans.
• Mix in the taco seasoning and the amount of water that is called for on the package.
• Simmer this mixture until you have cooked off almost all of the liquid.
• While the meat is simmering;
• Chop up the tomatoes
• Chop up some green onions.
• Chop the shredded cabbage into smaller bite size pieces.
• Crush the fritos, in the bag, with a rolling-pin.  Open the bag a bit first though to let out the air.
  

  Salad Layers

For the salad assembly: 

• The layering effect is Naomi’s twist on the recipe.
• In a large glass bowl layer the ingredients like this:
• Fritos
• Meat and beans
• Cheese
• Shredded cabbage
• Tomatoes
• Green Onion
• Then repeat the layers for a second time.
• You can either serve the salad layered, or if your adventurous like me you can toss the whole salad and serve.
• For garnishments put out your favorite salsa, sour cream, and black olives (that’s ones for you Hilary!)

Variations:

• This recipe can easily be made with shredded chicken or beef.
• You could add additional cans of different types of beans (black or pinto).
• You could flavor the meat with your favorite salsa instead of taco seasoning.
• Any garnishments that you like can easily be put on top or served with your salad on the side.

This is truly a yummy recipe, and so easy to throw together.  Oh and I like using the shredded cabbage because it does not get soggy at all.  I put out the cabbage when we have just plain old tacos in the shell too.  For this twenty-something household, this salad makes a great big meal and is great for staying on budget.  If you’ve never made this before it’s a real treat.  If you haven’t made it in a while you’ve been missing out like me.  I’m definitely mixing this recipe in with my weekly summertime meal planning. 

Please stay tuned for my Mom’s Taco Salad recipe for Two.

11 Things I was Reminded of During our Home Improvement Week

If you are a follower of my stories you know that Travel Man and are near the end of a project remodeling the entryway of our home.  After a few marathon work sessions last week it reminded me that we almost always have a great time together with our projects,  and here’s a few reasons why we do: 

1. Projects with my Travel Man are fun.

2. We work well together.

3. It is important that I pay attention and know when to leave Travel Man alone to let him think and work.  It can be all fun and laughter.

4. Working a project and meeting our deadline is like a well orchestrated dance.

5. I’m a great “sous” carpenter- clean up is my specialty.

6. Planning is everything.

7. Changing the plan when you are actually in the middle of the project can be important.  Be flexible.

8. It’s ok with me if Travel Man doesn’t like to paint, because I love to paint!

9. Finishing all of the detail work gives you the greatest sense of accomplishment.

10. The detail work is what makes your project spectacular.  This one is still in the works as I am typing this post.

11.  I need more exercise, I am seriously out of shape.

As our entryway project comes to a successful close I have to give a big shout out to my wonderful husband.  He worked by hard to get a lot of work done in a short period of time.  And of course, this week he is back on the road.  That’s our life, planning and executing, and trying to get things done on short notice.   I will have pictures a little later this week, remember patience is a virtue my friends.

Home Improvement Projects

My wonderful Travel Man has had a few days at home in a row which has been  a rarity since the beginning of the year.  We decided to take advantage of this week, with him at home to get some home improvement projects rolling along.

For most of this week we have been texturing and painting the walls in our entryway, installing new flooring, and getting all of the trim work completed.  We are down to the wire and will be finishing up tomorrow morning.  Travel man is off to Canada on Sunday.  This project has been a long time coming, and it is just delightful to see it all coming together.  I will post a slide show of pictures once we are completely done.

We have also been putting together a plan to landscape our front yard. Our house sits on a corner lot, the first house on the south side of our street.  So we have a lot of front yard going on.  We had the front yard graded probably two years ago now, and have just been keeping the dirt free of weeds and in check since then.  Putting a plan together with a blank slate is somewhat of a daunting task.  You want the grass and plants to look nice, and you don’t want to make a mistake with your plan.  This is why we have waited to spend any money on our front yard.  We had to have the time to get a vision, agree on that vision, and put a plan in place to execute.  That sounds so “Corporate world” doesn’t it?  

Anyway, we have been doing so much planning for the front yard, and supply purchasing for the entryway I told my husband one morning this week that I had a dream we were planting in our entryway!!  My thoughts were a little mixed up don’t you think?  All of this planning an executing has been making my head spin.

The entryway project is coming along so beautifully it is already creating “the domino effect”.  You know what I’m talking about.  You make an improvement in one area of your home, and it pushes the domino into the next room that needs to be painted or remodeled, which in our case is our living room.  And we all know the “domino effect” creates a never-ending “to-do” list.  But I love lists so that’s ok.

Watch for my entryway pictures in the next few days.  I’m excited to get this project off of the “to-do” list and work on the front yard before it starts to get too hot.  Happy home improvement weekend everyone.  How’s your “to-do” list going?

It was History in the Making.

My love of history and my passion for following the game of baseball all converged on one center point last night. It was one of the games that is every baseball fans dream to witness.  Last night Travel Man and I, along with our oldest son and his friend attended a baseball game at Angels stadium in Anaheim.  It was a great night for baseball.  The Angels are our home town team, and have been for over ten years now.  It was a Wednesday night game, so the crowd was not huge.  It was a crispy, chilly Southern California evening.  Travel Man and I had a great view of the field, on the first base side.  The boys were sitting  field level by the left field, foul pole.  We waved to the boys across the stadium crowd a few times, when  there was a great play.

Now remember, my description of the game and my experience will be completely different from anyone elses who was there.  (That’s why I like to blog)  We got to see a bit of history last night.  The Angels ace pitcher was on the mound, Jered Weaver.  He is in his 6th season with the Angels, and his 2012 record before the game started last night was 3-0. Weaver was dealing with his pitches.  By the end of the game he had  9 strikeouts (that’s k’s in baseball lingo).  He is a smooth operator on the mound.  I just love watching his command of the game.

This game was a hitting fest for the Angels.  15 hits, and 9 runs scored!  A great night for the team.  But an even better night for Jered Weaver.  At the  top of the 8th inning Weaver comes out to the mound, with a score of 9-0, the Angels are in the lead.  I’m thinking, oh cool he’s going to finish this game out.  He had around 98 pitches before this inning started.

He deals the batters once again, three up and three down.  This is the moment I realize that Weaver  has a no-hitter going.  The Angels stay at 9 runs for the bottom of the eighth and at the top of the ninth out charges Jered Weaver.  At this point I remember looking at the scoreboard and Weaver started the inning with 111 pitches.  For every pitch of the ninth inning the crowd was on its feet.  Cheering for each and every strike and out.  At the end of the game the Angels had won, and Weaver pitched his first career no-hitter.  It was the first no-hitter we all had the good fortune to witness at the stadium.  The energy of the crowd was insane.  It was the first solo no-hitter thrown by the Angels since June of 1975, that one was thrown by Nolan Ryan.

We will always remember being at this game, as we got to witness a part of the Angels history in the making.  Kind of like when you saw Neil Armstrong step foot on the moon, or remembering where you where on the morning of 9/11.  This was a completely awesome experience! Congratulations to Jered Weaver, and go Angels!

 

 

Does your family have any birthday traditions?

I am a traditionalist.  I love traditions, and creating memories for family members.  There are a  few birthday traditions that we have so much fun with I thought I should share them with you. 

The traditions that go with the birthdays at our house are numerous and fun.  We try to have a theme for the birthday parties, whether you are young or old.  Iron Man, Batman, Transformers are some of the recent favorites.  My oldest son works at Party City so we get great discounts on the party decorations.  This makes for lots of fun decorating the house, which is at the top of my “I love to do this” list.  We always hang up some sort of “Happy Birthday” banner.  Last summer Evan and I made a pretty cool birthday banner that had lots of construction paper and glitter.  We are still using this one for some of the birthday celebrations.  Once in a while we get some funky birthday hats to wear.  This is mostly for the girls in the family.  Lots of fun to wear a crown and be the queen for the day.  Oh wait that’s right I’m the queen of my house everyday!!!

Once our theme is in place then it’s just a matter of planning the menu.  The birthday person gets to pick their favorite dinner, and what kind of cake they like. A few years ago we had quite a few “Taco Bar” birthdays right in a row.  Everyone wanted tacos and nachos for their birthday dinner!! 

For my own kids, I have always had some fun traditions.  On your birthday morning we wake  everyone up early to rush into the birthday boy or girls bedroom for a rousing wake you up rendition of “Happy Birthday to you”, sung as loud as we possibly can.

For a few years Travel Man and I would take all of our kids out on the birthday persons’ actual birthday, and then we came to our senses because it was getting way too expensive.  After that we started taking out just the birthday honoree by themselves.  That was  a fun thing to do.  It was great to get some alone time with just the birthday boy or girl.

On my kids’ sixteenth birthdays I gave each of them a journal, and in the first few pages of the journal I wrote my memories to them of the day they were born.  I think this tradition started because the kids would always ask about the day they were born, either on or around their birthdays every year.  I wanted them to have the memories to last a lifetime.

For the 21st birthdays I make a picture collage for the kids.  This is a birth to adulthood collage, a wonderful walk down memory lane.  And this year will mark my last collage, as Zach will be turning 21 in July.  Oh boo!

We have so much fun when the whole family is together singing happy birthday at the Party House.  First we sing a chorus of happy birthday, and there’s always some sort of harmonizing going on.  Then we do a second verse where we sing like this;

Happy Birthday to you cha, cha, ca (with synchronized clapping)”, “Happy Birthday to you cha,cha, cha.  Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday to you, cha, cha, cha!  The cha, cha’s are always accompanied by hand clapping.

I have to check with my mom or my brother and find out how we started singing this way as I just don’t remember.   We’ve been doing it this way since my kids were very young.  It’s just so much fun.  If you’re a newbie at one of our family birthday parties, when we start on the second chorus it’s definitely a surprise!!

Lot and lots of fun traditions can always be expected at the Party House.  I have always loved starting up traditions new and old, and look forward to keeping them going strong.  The traditions are a great thing to be able to share with your kids, and now the grandson too.  And as any Mom would, I hope that the traditions that I have started with my kids are handed down for generations to come.

My Domestic Goddess Status – Just an Update

It is almost the end of April, and it has been just about a year since I quit my job in the Corporate arena!  My how time flies!!  I was crowned by my beloved Travel Man as the Domestic Goddess of our household shortly after I decided to stay at home for a while.  Little did I know how much I would love this title.  If you follow my stories you know I left my job a year ago to pursue other interests.  Here’s a link to my post from last April about my life change-Our Girls Vision Luncheon.

In the past year I have had the opportunity to spend time with my grandson, do lots and lots of baking, do a little bit of sewing ( I want to get more of this done soon!), start and finish some little home improvement projects,  take a few trips with Travel Man, try some new recipes, add to our list of family favorite recipes, read more books, and generally have the luxury to just come and go as I please.  This has all been so personally rewarding for me.  Getting to discover what I love to do again, and who knew that I had a passion for writing.  I always felt that I had some stories to tell that people would relate to, but I did not realize how much I would enjoy sharing them.

My Domestic Goddess title was given to me by my loving husband.  It is because of his encouragement and support that I am able to do what I want to do.  Thanks Travel Man for all that you do.

One of my biggest perils in my new-found title is getting side tracked when I am working on things around the house.  Does this happen to anyone else?  I have had a few discussions with my sister, who works from home, about this, and she tells me the same thing I am already feeling.  If you don’t stay focused on the task at hand you get sidetracked to some other task, and then you have to re-focus to get back to the task at hand.  Was that statement too confusing, it made my head spin just typing it.  That’s why I am really focusing on my lists everyday.  To stay away from the “side tracks”.

Also, I have had the good fortune to just pack my bags and take a few short trips with Travel Man.  We went to Reno to visit my parents, and last year I was able to take a long road trip with him from Franklin, Kentucky to home.  Lots and lots of fun being on the road with someone who travels for a living.

For awhile Travel Man’s days off were falling during the week, so our “weekends” would be happening on a Tuesday/Wednesday timeframe. No worries for us, we are just able to do what we want to when he is home. Sometimes at Disneyland, maybe out to dinner, a visit to the parentals, some time with the grandson, and hopefully a dinner together with the twenty-somethings.

This has been a great year of re-discovery for me.  A big hug and thank you to all of my family for your loving support and guidance.  I’m looking forward to more and more new discoveries in this next year, and hope to share the stories with each and every one of you.

Enough of this Coughing Already

Raise your hand if your house is suffering from the dreaded “Spring” colds.  We do live in sunny Southern California, but when our weather changes so quickly from hot to freezing (anything below 60 degrees in this neck of the woods), we inevitably get some colds.  My house has been under the cold and coughing siege for over 10 days now.  First the boys got sick, and now Travel Man is under the weather.  The cold and sinus part does not seem to be so bad, but the cough that this cold brought into the house is not good.  It’s one of those coughs that is annoying, incessant, non-stop, and just drones on until you have a headache.  The Momster here (that’s me) had to pull out all of the stops to help the boys get through the coughing.  We were using Throat Coat tea, cough drops, sugar-free cough drops for Zach (as he is diabetic), juice, water, and the humidifier.  Zach was coughing so bad one night it kept him awake forever.

And now my Travel Man has “the cough”.  He is traveling a lot right now, and he was driving to his destinations for a few weeks and then last week he got on a plane to fly to Northern California. He usually goes through a routine of wiping down the airplane seats and trays with Clorox wipes, but he did not do so on this flight.  I told him that he let his guard down, because he hadn’t flown for a while and was off of his routine,  and then he got “the cold”.  Luckily he has a few days of down time to get over the coughing.

For myself, I am running around the house disinfecting everything; remotes, light switches, faucets, bathrooms sinks.  I refuse to get sick!  I’m doing my Emergen-C, staying hydrated, and getting my rest.  This Momster will not be getting “the cough”.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.  I will keep you posted on our coughing progress.  Now I’m off to get more cough drops!

Kreativ Blogger Award

A big huge thank you to Diane at Pleasant Valley Sunday.  She kindly nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger award today.  Diane left me a nice comment on my List-o-holic post today, which made my day so much brighter.  I enjoyed reading Diane’s stories about baseball.  That’s how I originally linked up with her blog.

I have been blogging regularly since last August, and am just giddy at receiving my first blogger award.

So in the spirit of the award here are 7 things you may find interesting about me:

1)   I just discovered how much I love writing in this past year.  So far it has been a pretty eye-opening experience for me.

2)  Chocolate is one of my best friends.

3)  Becoming a Grandma is one of life’s experiences that you can’t really explain in words to someone else.  You just having to experience it!

4)  I love trying out new recipes from Pioneer Womans’ website.

5)  There is no one word to describe how incredible it is to be able to help your parents with anything they need, when they have ALWAYS been there for you.

6)  Painting any room in my house is a hobby I love, love, love.

7)  I once won a trophy for a sewing demonstration.  It was a 4-H thing!

 

These are the top five blogs I enjoy following:

 1) Meg Travels- Meg has great pictures of her travel adventures, and I love reading her tips and tricks for great travel experiences.

2) Creative Noshing- Great variety of recipes, easy to follow, and wonderful pictures.

3) Grandma’s Briefs- Lisa’s intriguing stories of the Grandma life are very relatable, as I have one grandson, and another grandchild on the way.

4) The Suburban Cook- Kim has an amazing way of writing about her cooking, and intertwining her life happenings with her food experiences.

5) Joan on the Road – This is my Mom’s blog page.  My parents live in their RV fulltime, and my Mom has a wonderful way of drawing you into her stories. 

 

Here are the rules for those nominated:

1. Copy the Kreativ Blogger Award logo and place it in your post.
2. Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog.
3. List 7 things about you that people might find interesting.
4. Nominate 7 other bloggers for their own Kreativ Blogger Award.
5. Leave a comment on the blogs you nominate to let them know about the award.

Thanks again Diane for including me in this nomination.  Happy writing everyone!

 

I think I’m a List-a-holic!!

How do you keep track of your to-do’s?  Are you using Outlook, Evernote, an old-fashioned tablet and a pen?  I have what I will loosely call a passion for making lists.  Sitting down with a cup o’ coffee in the morning and putting together my list for the day or the week, just gets my day and week going on the right foot.

I like to keep myself fairly organized, and feel like I am accomplishing things each and every day.  I have lists for groceries, sewing projects, household projects, gifts ideas, recipe ideas, etc, etc.

I am always trying new and improved ways to organize my lists, with the hopes that the things on the lists will get done just that much sooner.  Ha!  As we all know the only thing that helps move  your lists along, or get things checked off of your list is just by digging in and “doing”.

My lists were bugging me recently, because a few assorted tasks were sitting on the list idly and not getting done.   So,  I decided to keep track of my time for a few days to see where I was wasting time, or not making an efficient use of my time.  This is kind of like writing down what you eat every day to keep track of your calories.  As soon as I started keeping track, in writing, each day of what I was doing I started getting more things done.  More productive time spent on things I wanted to accomplish each day.  My to do lists started getting the items on them checked off in a more timely manner than normal.  Boom!  This principle also applies to stalking your calories each day.  When you write down what you are eating, Boom!  You stop snacking so much because you don’t want to write it down on the list and add it to your calories!

My favorite list / project tool right now is using Evernote.  Evernote can be used for project list or shopping lists and if you have a smart phone you can sync your lists with your smart phone to your pc.  In Evernote you create a notebook for your “project”, and then within each notebook you can create a list of to-do’s, and the notebooks can be shared.  I find this to be a great way to keep track of ongoing projects, that are longer term items.

For my daily lists,  I am finding that the old-fashioned paper and pen method is working   best for the moment.  Just taking a few minutes in the morning to write down what I want to accomplish each day helps me to get on track first thing in the morning.   There is some kind of sense of accomplishment for me to check things off the list!  Oh and I use a red pen for this part!  A good way to feel good about getting things done.

How do you keep yourself organized?  What’s your favorite way to make a list for the day?  Do you work a list each day or week?  Do lists make you cringe?

I’d love to hear from you about how you keep track of your to-do’s.  Leave me a comment!  Happy listing everyone.

Milestone Events and the Decades

My life has had a lot of major “milestones”, as I’m sure most of you have had too.  And for some kismet-ish reason most of them have been life changing, and have happened when my age was transitioning from one decade to the next.  Interesting huh.  So,  I thought since this is my birthday month I would share my milestones with you.

1991, I’m age 30- A working mom with three kids; ages almost 10, 4, and almost 3, and number four on the way.  Zachary Gene was born on July third of that year.  He was a big 10 lb. 10 oz. baby boy, and so mellow, Mr. Mellow.  Oh and in case I haven’t shared this with you previously, Zach’s name starts with a Z because he was the last child to grace our family. Ha!

Now move ahead to 2001- I’m now 40.  My marriage of almost 20 years came to an end, and then Zach was diagnosed with leukemia.  Both of these events happened within 60 days of each other.  I have shared with all of you before, the only way we got thru this was absolutely, positively one day at a time.  So incredibly thankfully for my great family.  For some odd reason I remember that my Mom gave me a Barbie themed birthday party this year.  Just her way of reminding me to smile and have fun.

Fast forward to 2011-  Last April I turned 50, can you believe half a century old.  Where in the world did the time go!  At the end of April I resigned from the company I was with for 5 years. My career in administration and bookkeeping that had kept me busy and stressed for the last 25 years needed a little rest.  The main thing about this change at age 50, is I had the choice to make the change.  I chose to resign, I chose (after much discussion with Travel Man) to become a Domestic Goddess, and I had to choice to choose.   My 50th birthday party was so amazing.  Surprised by my baby sister who flew in from Montana for the event.   Surprised by the entire family with my own bagpiper, a personal concert.  The most amazing musical experience I have ever encountered.

At this moment in time, I know that my next decade with be filled with adventures, happy times, sad times, and much, much more.  But,  more than ever I finally realize that I am completely in control of my destiny (or as I like to say “density”), and will continue to explore new avenues, and fun-filled times.