Timing

Life has been different at our house lately.
My mother in law had some complications from surgery and went to rehab from the hospital. Not 'rehab' rehab but rehab where you go when you can't quite go home alone.
A big thank you to Medicare who limited that stay to 23 days and made my house the next stop on the recovery tour.
Now, you're probably thinking I'm not a very good daughter in law saying things like this BUT I really am... She just really doesn't want to be at our house.
She's a wee bit demanding and a lot passive aggressive. Here are a few of the things I've learned this week...
My dining room has terrible lighting.
I really should own a card table.
My girls both talk too fast.
She doesn't understand that our dvr is the kind we all share and the 80ish programs she deleted weren't just on the tv in her room,
She's never had teenage girls.
Our family is too busy.
They weren't this busy when Mike was young.
She has a completely different interpretation of any conversation than everyone else that hears it.
Especially if it was a conversation with one of her dr's..,

So a quick weekend trip to Dallas to help a friend with something was a much needed mini vacation with my family and old friends. As usual I made the most of my time and fit in as much visiting and Mexican food as possible!  Jennifer has a good discription of my trip on the way there...

And nothing says 'thanks for visiting Dallas' like a homeless man at the exit for the airport urinating in plain view... And as usual, I'm glad to get back to my peeps!

The First Cool Snap

We had our first cool snap this weekend. 
I live for this time of year! 
I kept waking up very early Sat. morning because I knew it was going to be really cool and I could hardly wait to get up and open all the windows!  As soon as the girls got up I made them open their windows, which here in Lubbock means cleaning all the dirt off the window seal too, so they weren't very excited and pretty much just gave them another reason to thing I'm weird.
They'll understand one day...

Saturday was a great day. 
One we don't seem to have often. 
Cool weather, everyone was at home all day, we all watched football together, I got all the fall decorations and cooked a big pot of soup for dinner.   My favorite kind of a family day!

                                     Here is Kellie having her very first Pumpkin Spice Latte...



Today at church we had a great lesson on prayerful consideration vs. sinful worry.  What a great reminder it was and food for discussion for the girls and I this afternoon...

This afternoon I even found my girls lying in bed together watching a movie! It was like a little miracle! I had to bite my lip to keep from telling them how sweet it was!

It's been a great weekend!  What about yours?

Lunches

One of my goals for this school year is to get us all to take our lunch more often.
Remember last week when I mentioned the salads in a jar...
Well, the were great! 
Thank you Pinterest and The Big Red Kitchen!
They stayed so fresh and were yummy so I made a new batch for this week!

I made southwest salads and oriental salads...

Southwest Salad

I layered:  Spicy Ranch in the bottom, chopped chicken, chopped tomatoes, black beans, corn, cheese and lettuce on top of all of that.  Then I remembered the chopped bacon and threw that in...
I have a little bag of spicy tortilla strips to add in when I eat it.
My friend Kim was the creative idea behind this one.

 

Oriental Salad

 

 

For the dressing:  1/3 cup Rice vinegar, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 cup oil, and one seasoning packet from Oriental flavor Ramen noodles.  Put all ingredients into a jar and shake well.  Makes enough for 3 pint jar salads.

 

Layer:  Dressing on bottom, chopped chicken, chopped cabbage, chopped green onions, and Mandarin oranges.

 

Toast slivered or sliced almonds along with the noodles (broken up) from the package of Ramen noodles.  Divide these into three baggies to top salad with.

 

 

I'm not sure which salad is my favorite!  But glad to have lunches already made and handy. 

 

We enjoyed our long weekend!  Now, remind me why don't we have Monday off every week?