Subway orchard chicken salad sandwich

is back. It's less than 400 calories and 8 grams of fat. That makes me happy. It was yummy! That is all!

Tornadoes

are the worst. You can't plan for it. You don't know where it's going. You can't outrun it. Ugh. I hate tornadoes. I would like to move to Florida. At least I can drive away from a hurricane. Praying for all those in Alabama who went through hell yesterday. Thankful that the temperatures here in Tennessee stayed in the 60's which kept a lot of tornadoes from occurring yesterday.

PS I can not wait for the wedding to be over. I'm so tired of hearing about Kate and Will. Do I know them? no. Am I going to the wedding? no (and I'm not bitter, I swear) Do I want to hear about it over and over on tv? NO. Get a life media. nuff said. :)

High school class picks and children not cleaning their room...

How is it possible that I am going through my son's schedule for high school? Wasn't I just in high school? Where does the time go? I'm so excited for him. The school has helped him pick honors and advanced honors classes. He's picked orchestra and criminal justice pathways. The next thing I know he'll be driving and then in college. Wow. I love my son. He makes me so proud. All my children do.  Well except for one...


lol. I am just kidding. My lovely daughter is having a fight with her room. It's been going on for a few days now. She doesn't want to clean it. So, if we tell her to, she goes into her room and sleeps. OK, well no tv until your room is cleaned. So, then she proceeds to draw, color, play outside and swing. What am I going to do to get her to clean? She has told me on numerous occasions that she wants her toys all gone. She would rather not have toys than have to keep her room clean. Really? Wow. Now this same child works her tail off on the day we went and cut the hedge down at my mom's house and hauled it to the street. This took quite a few hours and she was on it. I guess she does better at doing one thing and knowing what to do than having to do lots of little things and make decisions. She cracks me up. She is in her room right now just sitting in the floor. Le sigh. How do you motivate your children to clean their rooms?

Happy Earth Day! 10 little things you can do to live a tiny bit greener:

1. Don't take a receipt at the gas station. We use so much paper and it's not always necessary. I mean, really, are you going to return the gas?

2. Buy reusable cups and make your coffee/drinks at home to take with you, she says drinking her iced coffee in a bpa free cup with straw bought at Ross for 3.99. Love it!

3. Use the cfc bulbs. Pretty soon you will not be able to get the other ones so go on and begin changing over.

4. Use a timer on your heating and a/c to turn it down at night when everyone is sleeping.

5. Read your books from the library or on your kindle/ipod/ipad/etc. Then pass them on to friends.

6. Take your own bags to the store or if you're not getting much do not take a bag.

7. Do not purchase paper towels. We waste so much just drying our hands off. Use a kitchen towel or hand towel...that's what they were made for.

8. Grow your own veggies. Every year we garden. It's not much usually. Tomatoes, okra, peas, beans, broccoli, cilantro, etc. But it saves you many trips to the store and it saves you money! Tomatoes are so expensive and we love them all summer long. I should have a tomato plant going indoors all through winter!

9.If you have a baby use cloth diapers. If I ever get a grandbaby that will be the first thing I buy. Gosh, they are so stinkin cute.

10. Walk or ride your bike to places within a mile of your house. We are trying to do better about this with the grocery store down the road. There is no reason for us to drive. We should be using our legs to get exercise and do something good for our waistline.If you're not willing to walk/ride than it is really necessary to go? Wait til you're out another day.

What kind of things do you do that I've not thought of? Share here!

Healthcare in this country sucks...

My dh im'd today to find out if we wanted to go with regular healthcare offered by his company instead of the HSA. They will be taking 340 out of each paycheck two times per month. Really? This is someone's idea of healthcare. That is more than my first house note and yes it's actually more than my housenote now. Who in the hell can afford to pay that for healthcare? It's no freaking wonder people are choosing to not have healthcare. They really aren't choosing it they don't have a choice and can't afford it. That is freaking ridiculous. That great price got us a 3500 dollar deductible per person and 7500 per family. Really? Why bother?

We went with a HSA. Guess what we've already met the deductible this year for the family at 7500. I love this country but what the hell is wrong with the healthcare system and how do we fix it? Ridiculous. STUPID. NOT AFFORDABLE. There is something wrong in this country that this is an acceptable amount to charge a family that is very definitely middle class. Other words to describe how I feel right now...pissed, angry, wondering how the government can be so mindless that the drug companies/insurance companies/hospitals can get away with charging this amount of money. Your house is supposed to be 25% of your income. What the hell do the people do when their house is 25% and their healthcare is 26%? Yeah, sorry, about the cursing but I'm pissed.

We cut cable this year. I'm not sad at all about that. However, we cut it because of healthcare and hospital bills. To me that is wrong. I have no problems paying my bills. We are already paying  $450 for useless healthcare. I guess in their minds what's paying 680 for absolutely nothing when you are already paying 450 for nothing.

Please don't post about how Obama was trying to help that. You can't mandate that people have to purchase healthcare at these stupid, ridiculous prices. Why bother having healthcare at all? Let's go back to when doctors didn't take insurance and charged reasonable fees. If there was a doctor in my area that offered healthcare and did not accept insurance that is who I would be seeing right now.

We had the best night one evening this past week...

I wasn't in the mood to cook. However, my dh and I managed to pull an amazing dinner together. He made deer tenderloin (like a very good steak) with onions and mushrooms. I was in charge of green beans and leftover macncheese (see made this about food). After dinner all 5 of us went on a bike ride on the greenway. So fun. We have a 5 year old who doesn't ride fast. But she's so cute in all her gear singing while she rides. So he and I took turns not getting any exercise on our bikes and riding beside her. We would then ride back to give the other person a chance to ride and get some exercise. It was amazing.

After this we came home and played basketball on the driveway. My dh and I were making baskets. He was complaining about how bad he played. I said, hey look we didn't all have basketball goals like I did growing up. Not all of us can be as good. (I know, so humble, right?) It was on like donkey kong after that. lol He showed me up. A. has her own baskeball goal but she's not impressed and thinks it is too big for her. Right....

After that we threw the ball to the goofy dog. Then came inside got the kids in bed and watched a movie. Unstoppable is a really good movie. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. It was truly one of the best nights for our family. I dare say it was better than date night. Although oddly enough it kind of felt like a date night. Weird. :) Hmm, maybe a family date night should be on our list of things to do.

My 10 favorite dinners to make:

1. Spaghetti (I know it's not unique but it makes my kids happy) wine, fresh garlic and parmigiana cheese, homemade sauce, whole wheat noodles...Yum).

2. New Pasta Dish It varies every week depending on what I have on hand. This week it was peppers, onion, fresh garlic and parmigiana, spinach, squash, and zuchini over whole wheat penne in a cream sauce. Uh yummo! and yes my kids eat all these weird veggies.

3. A crockpot meal of some sort. Usually chili, soup, or a roast.

4. Deer tenderloin grilled by my dh. OMG he makes the most amazing steak with this.

5. Tacos (many different kinds, rice and beans, ground turkey, or shredded pork)

6. Breakfast for dinner. Homemade waffles, quiche or one of those skillet meals. Yum.

7. Pork shoulder. OMG if you've never made one of these you have to. It makes so much food that my family of 5 can eat off of it 3x (minimum!). We will eat it plain on a plate with veggies the first day, as bbq sammies the second day, and then in a casserole or as tacos the third.

8. Pizza We love homemade pizza. I went from making my own dough to now using flour tortillas and letting everyone make their own...they add their own sauce, veggies, pepperoni, etc.

9. Stir Fry This is a great way to use up your leftovers. Throw in veggies (onions, peppers, broccoli, cauliflour, carrots etc) that need to be used or are left overs, add liquid amino, ground ginger, sesame oil, rice and eat. You can add meat. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. I'm trying to lower our consumption of meat. Shhh don't tell my family.

10. Baked or grilled salmon, roasted asparagus and a salad. Or we might have shrimp, roasted asparagus, and a salad. Jeez now I'm hungry with no plan for dinner tonight. :)

What do you make that I can add to my list? I need fresh ideas. What's for dinner?

It's family movie night here

at the Demarest home. Last week we watched Tangled and A Bug's Life. Tonight we'll pick something to stream off netflix. What kind of weekly family nights do you have? Game night, special food, other traditions, I need more suggestions. Comment below!

Dealing with cancer again...

my dad, the man with 9 lives, has cancer again. We think it's in stage 2 and he will begin chemo and radiation next week. We are feeling pretty good about him beating this one as well. I, will always worry when he has surgery, but do believe this will not be what ends his life. We are taking this one step at a time. Yesterday he had a pet scan. Today he meets with his kidney doctor to make sure his kidneys are doing their job. Then Monday the craziness begins. I'm glad that I can be there to shuffle him around to appointments. I can't imagine having to do all this with 3 kids and work full time. I know it can be done I'm just grateful I don't have to do it.

Here's my thought for the day and a great way to start everyday, in my humble opinion.

Sting Brand New Day

Prayers are always welcomed and cherished. One more stumbling block that we will overcome. Look, I made a post that had nothing to do with food. Last night for dinner we ....

Children, potty training and hair pulling dilemmas...and then pizza.

I have a child who it took a very long time to potty train. This child has been potty trained during the day forever. However, once this child falls asleep, accidents happen. I thought, for a long time, that it was laziness. Then I thought maybe it was attention seeking. After I pulled out some hair, I finally came to the conclusion that this child can't help it. It's not their fault that their bladder isn't growing as fast as they are. See, when you have a child and then have another it's very hard to not compare them. I've never dealt with this before so I couldn't wrap my brain around the fact that this isn't about potty training. It's a growing problem that this child has to just grow into. Well, this child is almost 9 and finally has grown into it. Most nights dry pants. I don't know what I would have done had they not made goodnights before. I used cloth diapers for years and for years this child slept in them. I'm so glad I figured this out without driving myself crazy. I hope this helps other parents to see that the child can't help it and it's not your fault. Thank you God for children who love me despite my flaws!

Ok, I can't write a post and not make it about food. On Sunday I had big plans to make homemade pizza and had what I thought was a great recipe. I make homemade pizza all the time. So, this dough wouldn't cooperate and would not roll out without completely sticking to my rolling pin. No amount of flour or corn meal would make it not stick. Frustrated, I threw out all the dough. Wanted to wash my hands of pizza. So what's a mom to do? I went into my kitchen dusted off my flour tortillas and we had pizza. The kids made their own. We used tomato sauce, mushrooms, peppers, onions, turkey pepperoni and cheese. These were the biggest hits. The kids loved making their own pizzas. Here's the kicker, I used less cheese and they were less fattening than the pizzas I usually make. I'm done with dough for pizza. I bought a huge thing of flour tortillas and we will probably make them all summer long for the kiddos. I love pizza. Oh, in case you're wondering, we baked them in a 400* oven for 10 minutes on a cookie sheet. They were yum! Kind of like a very thin crust pizza and very crisp. Try it.