One Year Later - Well, Almost....

It's been almost a year since I've updated this thing.  I ended up going back to school myself and doing that while working full time and homeschooling my son with my husband, left me with little time to do anything else.  So, scrapbooking was neglected, photography was neglected (other than the photos that I took for work) and this blog was neglected.  We ended up canning the meal planning idea as neither of us had any extra time to devote to it.  My how things have changed.

Two days ago, I left my job of (almost again) two years.  It wasn't an easy decision, and it's not going to be easy at home, but it's one that needed to be done.  My family will always come first and we will sacrifice elsewhere if needed.  It's going to be tight, financially, but we'll manage, as we always do.  However, the silver lining of this is that I'll get to scrapbook again, and I'm going to start meal planning again so we don't buy stuff that's not needed when we grocery shop and stuff.  Finally, I'll start posting my projects and meal plans here again!  Yay!

So, there is a bit of an update.  Hopefully I'll post more later.  I'm going to be rearranging stuff and updating it as well.  I'll add some photos that I recently took when we were driving around downtown during the 4th of July.  I've also started working on some cards to sell at a friends Winery that's here locally and I finally picked up a scrapbook that I've been working on for a former co-worker's future adoption.

Talk to you soon!
Krissy

Meal Planning and Budgeting

We’ve started trying to plan our meals two weeks in advance, and only shopping for those two weeks at a time.  So far, it has been going OK.  It’s not easy to meal plan a variety of meals so that we don’t get bored with the same ol’ same ol’ but it’s working.  SO far, I have one week pretty much done, but need to do next weeks.  I have a few blogs that I visit that have great recipes on them.  I’m hoping that once I get a couple months of this under my belt, so to speak, I’ll be able to rotate in new meals and out old meals.  So far, we’ve done this for two weeks and it’s worked out pretty well.  No more “What’s for dinner?  I don’t know, what do you want?  I don’t know, what do YOU want?”  So far, the only thing that we have cooked that we do NOT like, is Tyler Florence’s Ultimate Lasagna.  I can’t really explain WHY we didn’t like it.  It has a unique flavor, but I think it was because there really wasn’t enough SAUCE.

Here is the menu for this week:

Monday - Tonight is the neighborhood potluck, we cheated and bought a Red Velvet Cake to bring with us LOL.

Tuesday - Flank Steak with Chimichurri Sauce; Roasted Potato Wedges; Sauteed Spinach.  This is one that we missed out on during our last meal plan, so I added it to this weeks.

Wednesday - Apricot Balsamic Chicken; Lemon & Tomato pasta; undecided veggie.  This is a new recipe for us.  It looks like it’s absolutely delicious and easy to make!

Thursday - Chicken Fried Steak; Lemon Garlic Brussel Sprouts; Rice or Pasta

Friday - Taco Bar!  YUM!

Saturday - Slow Cooker Chicken Cordon Bleu

Sunday - my friend Terry’s German Meatballs.  They are YUMM-O!

Stay tuned for next weeks menu!

A little late - but Boomsday Photos!

I’m a little late with this, as Boomsday was this past Sunday.  However, work and school have a nasty tendency to get in the way.

We had planned on going down early, but since this was our first ‘official’ Boomsday, we didn’t know how early we needed to be there.

Apparently, you need to be there very early. In fact, much earlier than when we arrived:

We have a plan for next year, since the youngest one will be a bit older, and more understanding of wait times.  He got a little restless the three hours that we were there before the fireworks.  Next year, we won’t ‘listen’ to the list of ‘Don’ts’ and will bring us some entertainment, snacks and drinks.  Everyone else did!  The fireworks were gorgeous though; well worth the wait.  I wish we had gotten just a touch closer so we could have seen the fireworks that rained down off the bridge a bit better, but we had a pretty decent view over all.  Here are some photos, straight out of the camera.

I REALLY wish I could have gotten a good photo of the sea of people leaving the event.  It was an amazing scene.  Unfortunately, my flash was just not strong enough, and I didn’t bring my speedlight, although I don’t think it would have done any good either.  There is a HUGE hill that you need to walk up to get off the water front, picture people shoulder to shoulder walking up this hill.  Wild sight.  Anyway, that’s it for now!  I have to get back to school work and make dinner.  Chili-Rubbed pork chops and I don’t know what else to make with it, probably mashed potatoes and gravy and a veggie LOL.  Have a great night!

Since I’m bored, here’s a recent project I completed…..

And it’s probably my favorite one to date.  I work at a vet clinic, and one of the Dr’s there is getting ready to have a baby.  Soon.  Very soon.  Her and her husband decided not to find out the sex of the baby until he or she is born, and they are still discussing names.  Therefore, I had NOTHING to go on when creating this project.  It took a total of 9.5 days.  I started the album about three days before my vacation, working on it for a few hours each night.  I sat at the table for all of my vacation time, working about 10 hours a day at least, and finished the album about an hour and a half before I needed to be at the baby shower.  She loved it.

Here are some pictures.  The book was originally a board book that I got on the cheap at a used book store in town.  Love that store!

Products Used:

• Paper - Basic Grey - Lily Kate line; Bazzill Cardstock
• Welcome - Quickutz - (Will have to find the name, it’s a retired font)
• Baby - American Crafts Thickers - Will have to get the font, it’s a vinyl sticker
• Ribbon - Basic Grey, Unknown, Fancy Pants (the thick blue lace)
• Metal Embellishments - Random, except the magnetic latch, which is Basic Grey and the rattle and word strip are Making Memories (Old stuff LOL); The metal ’staples’ are by EK Success for the Fastenator.
• Glitter Glue - Stickles by Ranger Ink
• Titles - Various Cricut Fonts (will add the names); Basic Grey Lily Kate Alphas
• Flowers - Prima and Fancy Pants
• Buttons - Autumn Leaves and DCWV
• Crystals - Prima’s Say it with Crystals
• Stamps - 7 Gypsies (Our Family); Autumn Leaves (will add the stamp name)

That’s it!  Thanks for looking!  If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment :)

Tradition Returns, Better Than Ever...

Yesterday was the first game of the season for my favorite college team, the Tennessee Volunteers.  Derek Dooley is the new coach after the disastrous exit of our former trader, I mean coach, Lane ‘The Joke’ Kiffin.  While he brought us a good year of football for his short term stay, he proved that his loyalties do NOT run deep.  Like a thief in the night, he was gone.  Good riddance.  We took the boys down to the traditional Vol Walk.  Where the players walk from one side of campus to the stadium, greeted by a sea of orange.  Dooley brought back some of the decorum that Kiffin took away, requiring the players to wear suits, state the Volunteer Creed and extended the length of the walk so that more fans can enjoy the tradition.  We were then entertained by the ‘Pride of the Southland’ the Tennessee Volunteer Marching Band.  Oh its great to be a Tennessee Vol!  Here are some pictures of our adventure yesterday (picture heavy):

Some of the beautiful architecture where I live.

Some more of the classic architecture found around town. I love the old buildings!

The Sunsphere from the 1982 World’s Fair.

The amphitheater and the Sunsphere from the World’s Fair Park.

The entrance to the University of TN.

A beautiful sea of orange in front of Neyland Stadium. They just finished a year-long facelift.

We take our football very seriously.

Here come the football players and Coach Derek Dooley!

After the players walked by, we had about 20-30 minutes to find a good spot to watch the band come by:

The Colorguard carrying our flags.

Here come the bands colorguard.

As a former ‘band geek’ the colorguard is my favorite part.

The Pride of the Southland

More of beautiful downtown

I guess I have a ‘thing’ for the Sunsphere :)

I hope you enjoyed these pictures!  I need to get my camera out more often.  There will be more pictures uploaded, probably tomorrow, of tonights festivities.  The boys are going to Boomsday, which is another Knoxville tradition.  It’s the largest labor-day fireworks show in the South east.  This should be a blast! (no pun intended).