Holding on to Magical Moments

 

I've been having Christmas light envy.

 

You know - when you drive around town and see everyone's houses all decorated, lights twinkling across their rooftops, beautifully decorated trees peeking out of window panes when you haven't hung a single strand of lights.

 

 

Yeah, I was itching to get at least a strand of lights hung but I've been busy with work and Jason has been training for a little 5K that we're doing this weekend.

 

 

But we set out this weekend with my brother and sister in law to find tree #1 (you might remember that we get two trees each year).    As a side note - my brother-in-law is Jason's brother -- who has become another coupon cowboy.  My sister-in-law Shannon and I are the lucky ladies who have shelves and shelves of hair care products at our disposal.  (Sorry I didn't get a picture of Joe and Shannon and my niece Kendra but I swear they were all there with us!)

 

It's a family tradition for us to go out and cut down our trees every year and this year, Noah got to walk the fields right along with us.




 

 

 

He was fascinated by everything, including this pine branch his Uncle Joe plucked from a tree for him.

 

 

 

 

 

He quickly discovered that he liked the way it smelled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a while of searching, we found just the tree we were looking for:  tall but not too fat.  We have a tendency to get really bushy trees that take up our whole living room.  We tried to avoid that this year.  We kept thinking the tree we found might not be tall enough.  If you've ever cut a tree down, you know the feeling of thinking all of the trees look small once you're out in the woods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But based on how difficult it was for Jason and Joe to get the tree up to the car, we figured it must be bigger than we thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was certainly tall enough. Jason couldn't even reach the top when he was standing on the ladder and we had to put the tree where the skylights are to give it extra room!

 

 



 

 

We made a big pot of chili (a tradition each year) and got to work decorating.  Noah needed a little help at first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But he quickly caught on, and joined his sister Imani, who is a pro at decorating trees now.

 

 

 

 

 

There's something magical about decorating the tree each year.  I wish I could hold the feeling in my heart all year long.

 

 

 

 

 

But the busyness of life goes on . . . Monday comes and I go to work, doing my very best to work my hardest and my perspective changes -- if only for a work day -- what's important shifts to job, bills, errands.

 

And only one night after the decorating started and that magical feeling begins to fade, I come home from work and see this.

 



 

 

And I'm reminded of the magic of the season all over again.

 

 



Charting Chores

I think my kid is spoiled. Not spoiled in the sense that she's ungrateful or rude, but spoiled because I haven't given her any real responsibilities on a regular basis.

I mean she's been getting $20 allowance every month just 'because.' She's supposed to sweep the stairs . . . You know- the stairs I so geniusly had Jason paint black a few years ago?  You can read about it here.

On a side note, do NOT paint your stairs black if
 A.) You like to hide dust

 B.) You have forced-air heat 

C.) You have children

 D.) You have pets

 E.) You want to stay sane.

If you ignore these rules and go ahead and paint your stairs black, do not think your 11-year old will sweep them.

Even if you're paying her $20 per month to do so.

So it was Imani's job to sweep the stairs every day and she'd get $20 in return every month. I will say that she is expected to give 10% to a charity of her choice every month and she has to deposit 10% in her bank account.

The problem was, even though Imani rarely did her expected task, she had her beautiful little brown hand stretched out to me each month for the cash.

Somewhere along the way . . . (probably when Imani was in diapers and I was a young, single mom reading every child-rearing book possible to assure myself that I wouldn't mess up my child) . . . I read some financial advisor's advice to NEVER link allowance to chores.

Clearly I didn't listen.  In fact, not only did I link sweeping the stairs with allowance, but I was paying even when the job wasn't done consistently.

So Jason and I decided something had to change.  As much as we love that sweet little Imani with those big brown peepers, every month we were teaching her that she didn't have to work for money.

So we're revamping allowance . . . I'll post more about that later. 

And we've decided that there are certain chores that are non-negotiable. They need to get done every day by all of us (without pay).

There are mainly three things that we decided to split up:  Combing Maggie (and brushing her teeth), Setting the table (with drinks), and cleaning up the table (which includes putting everything away and loading the dish washer).

As you know, I love Pinterest.  I found the cutest idea on there to rotate these chores so that no one gets stuck doing the same chore each night.

I bought printable magnetic sheets that look like this
 

 

 

 

I printed a picture of each of us on the magnetic sheets and cut them out so they looked like this.

 

 

 

 

 

Then, I made a chart listing each of the three chores.  I put our pictures under each of the three jobs and they just get moved over to the next column when you finish your chore.

 

 

We've been doing this for about two weeks and so far, it's working out great!

How is Ms. Imani making money, you wonder?  Stay tuned . . . I've got all the details for you (and she loves it, and so do we!)

Thanks for stopping by!

 

InstAddiction

Lately, I've been liking Instagram much more than Facebook. Have you joined yet? It's so much fun to see everyone's photos. Some people use Instagram as a way to preserve memories and share photos of their families while others use it to capture artistic shots of everyday objects.

 

I enjoy it so much, and it doesn't take up as much time as Facebook.

 

Last month, I attempted to participate in FatMumSlim's photo a day challenge.  Have you heard of it?

 

There is a topic each day and you take a picture to go along with the theme and use the hashtag #fmsphotoaday.

 

It's pretty cool to look back and see the month in review.  Although I missed a few days, I wanted to share my month's photos with you.  I'm joining in again this month if you'd like to join too!

 

If you follow me on Instagram, sometimes I add a little explanation. If you'd like to read any of them, you can click on the pictures at the bottom right of my blog and it will take you directly to my Instagram page. There are a lot of other great photos there too that don't go along with FatMumSlim's challenge -- just random shots of my life.

 

September 1 was "You, Now" and I missed that day.

 

September 2 was: "Father"

 

I  joined on September 3, and the topic was "Distance." I didn't know how to add text to my photos at this point in the game:

 

 

 

 

 

September 4 - "In My Mailbox."  I missed this day too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 24: "3 Things" - I missed this day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you'd like to join in this month, here are the October topics. It's not too late! Grab that smart phone and start shooting! You can share on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or all three; just use #fmsphotoaday as your hashtag!

 

Have fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salsa Party

This weekend I was invited to my friend Hallie's salsa party. Before you start to conjure images of me swinging my hips and having fancy foot moves, this wasn't a dance party. (Have I mentioned I have no rhythm and can't dance AT ALL?)

Every year Hallie gets a group of people together to make salsa and can it. Originally it started with just Hallie, her husband, our friend Claire and Claire's two kids. But each year Hallie has invited more people and she's increased the number of jars she makes.

I've wanted to go to her party for several years but every year there is a conflict. I've had the pleasure of eating Hallie's famous salsa at several parties but this was the first year I was finally able to attend the party and see the production.

This year there were about 14 people. Hallie asks you only to bring hands willing to work. She supplies all of the ingredients, canning supplies, pizza and drinks.

She set out this year to make 120 pints of salsa but we ended up making 164 pints!

First, we were all assigned jobs. There were buckets and buckets of tomatoes to be gutted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomatillos to be peeled and cored

 

 

 

 

 

 

onions to be peeled and chopped

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

garlic to be peeled and chopped

 

 

 

 

and limes to be juiced

 

 

 

Everyone set to work on their assigned jobs, taking breaks where needed. 

 

 

 

 

 

Imani moved to a few different jobs. She started out juicing limes and then moved on to coring tomatillos and finally, gutting tomatoes.  She was one fantastic little worker!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I was one of the only people who doesn't get watery eyes from peeling onions, I spent most of my time peeling and chopping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I was happy to see lots of buckets for composting (especially after finishing "Garbology.")

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once everything was prepared, the tomatoes and tomatillos would be grilled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After they were grilled, the would be placed in a measuring bowl and delivered to the food processing area

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here, they would be chopped up in the food processor and placed in a pot, along with the onions, garlic, chipotle, lime juice, and salt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then the pot would be cooked and placed in sterilized jars, lidded and sealed in boiling water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was quite a production but Imani and I had so much fun helping out (even Noah joined us later and helped by pushing the button on the food processor to grind up the grilled tomatoes and tomatillos).

And I could do a whole blog post on how awesome Hallie's house is. She lives in a log cabin in the woods about 10 minutes outside of town. It's like a little retreat . . . Fully equipped with a giant aquarium that had Noah mesmerized for hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until he discovered a little something he found even more fascinating

 

 

 

The party's was a fun way to reconnect with old friends, meet some new friends and learn a new recipe! Hallie gives everyone several jars of salsa as a 'thank you' for their hard work.

Here's the recipe in case you want to have a little salsa get together of your own (or if you want to make a batch without the socializing, I won't judge you - even though I am a very social person).

Hallie's Grilled Salsa

1/2 gallon of tomatoes

1/2 gallon of tomatillos

1 Tbsp kosher salt

1/4 c pureed chipotle in adobo

3 Tbsp chopped garlic

2 cups chopped onion

1 cup lime juice

This recipe yields 7 pints

(we canned 164 pints!!)

Enjoy!!

 

 

 

 

And here is my little Instagram vignette of the party.  Are you following me?  If not, join in the fun.  I'm participating in FatMumSlim's photo a day challenge, and you'll get to see lots more pics of Imani and Noah! 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and in case you're wondering where Jason was - as much as he LOVES salsa (anybody remember the Mexican Fiesta party I threw for his birthday?!), he is busy at work on this project at our house. Stay tuned!