Got a couple minutes?? Make a breakfast sandwich – from scratch (under 3 min to make)

---- over the next couple of weeks I am going to repost some previous blogs that were on my Lifedomestic site which I have shut down.  I will repost many of my more popular posts so my readers will still have access to them.  Enjoy.  And please remember to comment @ the bottom of the post. 

My husband is not a breakfast eater when he first gets out of bed.  Getting him out of bed sometimes requires a crow bar or cattle prod.  He will lay in bed until the very last second possible, jump up, throw on some clothes, grab his lunch pail and out the door he goes. 
We’ve all heard how important breakfast is.  My husband is diabetic and he works outside in a highly labor intensive job so having breakfast is doubly important for him.  I am not a morning person myself but I would get up and make a big breakfast when we first found out he was diabetic only to have him bite two things and run out the door leaving the rest on the plate.  I had to get inventive. So I did. Over the last couple years I find myself getting more and more inventive.
First pop in the toaster, if need be, what you are going to use for the outside of your sandwich.  I have used toast, leftover pancakes, waffles, biscuits (I don’t toast these), bagels, croissants, French toast that is leftover from a previous meal.  Pancakes and French toast can easily be toasted to warm them through or you can microwave them.  The choice is yours. 



I use a Corelle cereal bowl.  It’s my preference for the size but I’m sure any glass microwavable bowl will do. (just remember your egg will be as big as the bow you put it in)  Spray the bowl with non-stick cooking spray or lightly butter/margarine the inside of the bowl (I use a cold stick of butter and just give it a few whirls around the bowl)  If you skip the spray/oil step you WILL regret it later.
Put an egg in and whip it up with a fork.  Make sure to whip it well, if you do not have the yolk whipped well it can pop and make a nice, big mess of your microwave. (learned the hard way)
 
Now, plop  gently lay your meat choice right in the middle of the eggs.  Hubby’s favorite is the sausage patties from Wally World.  They come precooked and frozen.  No need to thaw just put right in the bowl with the eggs.

Put bowl into microwave and zap it for one minute.  Remove and add a slice of your favorite cheese (of course if making for hubby use his favorite). Now, zap it for about 10 seconds more.

Use a fork to lift the egg up and make sure the egg is completely cooked through, if not zap it another 10 seconds.

Microwaves do vary.  I know that in order to cook the egg, sausage and cheese mine will take exactly one minute and 20 seconds.
Then put onto your choice of bread.  It took me WAY longer to compose this post than it did to make two breakfast sandwiches.  I made a ham, egg and cheese biscuit for my daughter.

Of course, she had to say “Geeze, Mom, you can make me breakfast when you want to blog about it!”  See if I do it again Ms. Sassy Thang!
Here are a list of different things you can combine.  Feel free to add onions, green peppers, mushrooms or any other thing your little heart desires into your eggs to make it your own.  I literally can make one of these in LESS than three minutes.  I put hubby’s in tin foil to keep it warm and he heads out the door with it.  This saves him from stopping at some fast food joint and spending money on breakfast OR even worse skipping it all together.

Meat Choices	Bread Choices
Deli Ham	Toast (any kind wheat, white etc)
Left over Ham	Bagels
Sausage	English Muffins
Smoked Sausage sliced	Biscuits
Cooked Bacon	Croissants
Leftover Hamburger Patty	Pancakes
Canadian Bacon	Waffles
Turkey Bacon (pre-cooked)	French Toast (use leftovers)

Some things not to worry about:  when cooking your egg in the microwave it WILL swell up.  As soon as the microwave stops it’ll deflate.  Perfectly normal.
I have made these in a small fry pan on the stove top.  It does take a couple minutes longer but it is worth it.  It is a ton cheaper than going to a fast food place or buying pre-made breakfast sandwiches from the frozen food section.
If you have a great combo for your breakfast sandwich please share it with us.
Enjoy!  

del.icio.us Tags: breakfast,breakfast sandwhich,frugal tips,save money,recipe,sandwich recipe

Technorati Tags: recipes,quick breakfast,cooking

So, is this a BAD thing?

So, my son decided to pull and all nighter again after two weeks of being on a semi-normal schedule. I crawled into bed at 4:33 a.m. (not that I was paying attention to the time or anything) I vaguely remember at some point in the a.m. getting up to get him to nurse. I KNOW I changed his diaper... do I REMEMBER changing his diaper... heck no! Is that a BAD thing to be in automatic mommy mode???

Early Morning Bedtimes

My son is continuing his pattern he set before he even entered this world.  His "awake" time is from around 11:30 pm till around 2 or 3 a.m.  Once he finally goes to sleep he will sleep for about six hours or so, get up and nurse and sleep another two or three hours.  This is great that I can sleep IF I have nothing else to do in the a.m.  The next three weeks, however, I have to be up and driving my daughter to school to take a driver's ed class.  We have to leave no later than 7:30 a.m.  It is now 2 a.m.   I just got Aiden into his crib and am praying he stays asleep.   I usually give him a few minutes before I go crawl into my bed because I hate nothing more than getting comfy and cozy and having to get back up, I'd rather stay up. 

If anyone knows any tricks on getting kids to change their patterns when they have their days and nights mixed up...please, by all means, share your wisdom.  I might even be willing to pay!

He's so darn cute I can't complain!  :)   This was taken the day he turned six weeks old.

 

Here is one of him and his niece who is now only two weeks old.  Kiarra Amaya.  Her tiny lil self makes my six week old look six months old! 

Budgeting

So.... my unemployment has run out... my son will be graduating and we will loose the money from his father's disability for him next month. Things are getting tighter and tighter. We have never really sat down and made a budget. Sad, I know, we have been married 8 years! My husband is HORRIBLE (yes it deserves the caps) with money. He thinks nothing of going and grabbing a breakfast sandwich when I packed him something to eat for his breakfast. It would KILL him to get up a half an hour or so early and eat here. He is a night owl and stays up so late then drags himself out of bed in the a.m. He thinks nothing of stopping at a mini-mart and grabbing a 1.49 bottle of soda when I have put cans in his lunch. These things add up so much and you just can not get him to see this.

So, I bought the book America's Cheapest Family and have been reading and and learning how to budget. 'Bout time since I am 40 years old! I know this is going to be difficult and I know there are arguments with hubby to come over this but it has to be done. We CAN live on what he makes but every penny has to be accounted for. No more eating out just because, no more grabbing things left and right because he wants them. He has to be helpful and plan ahead with me. Getting up a bit early to eat in the morning wouldn't be a bad thing. It would be nice to enjoy that time together, maybe do our daily text together.

So, do you have a family budget? Are you able to stick to it and what methods work best for your family?

A Week That was a year long....or so it seemed

Ugh!  What a week!!!  I figured it would be a pretty normal week.  We had our groceries all bought, menu planned out.  

 

Tuesday my 1 year old grandson was admitted to ICU with pneumonia.  Hubby and I went up. We had to be back in order to take my son to the college for his senior presentations.  These started at 6 pm.  We did not get out of there until 9:30!  We ended up eating at IHOP.  Got home near 11 pm.

Wednesday, I dropped son off at college and went to hospital to be with daughter and grandson for a few hours then had to leave there to pick my son up from college and get home so he could change so I could take him to work.

Grandson was released from hospital late Wed. afternoon with meds to take and a follow up appt. for Thursday at 4.

Thursday I dropped son off at his car pool site then came home and went to bed.  At this point I needed some rest.  I got up about 11 and showered so I could leave the house at 11 to go pick him  up.  I had to get him early as I had a doc appt. scheduled at 4 pm with my doc in Eustis.   Within minutes of getting in the van to drive over contractions began.  By the time I was almost home I had had contractions every five min for two hours.  I called hubby to come home and drive me to doc as I was unsure what was going on.

They put me on a monitor and saw four contractions in 15 minutes.  Doc checked me and found no dialation so she scheduled an ultrasound for Friday.  On the way to the doc our daughter (oldest) called and she was on her way to the hospital b/c she woke up with a leg swelled and couldn't walk on it.  After getting home we find out they are admitting her and are sure she has a blood clot in her leg. She is 24 weeks pregnant so that adds to the issues.

Doc wanted a blood test done and ultrasound on Friday but by the time all the stuff was done at her office the places were closed but she assured me they would call me to schedule.  I got up at 8:30 am Friday and began calling them.  They couldn't find the order the doc had faxed.  Finally 45 min later I had an appt. scheduled for noon.  We also had to take the elderly lady's dog to the vet at 10!!!  UGH... so we made it to the ultrasound after having a flat tire on our van and having to take our friends car.  By the time I got out of the ultrasound it was way after one and hubby nor I had eaten at all.  We decided to do the blood test on Monday and go eat lunch before heading home to fix the tire on the van and head up to the hospital to see how our daughter was doing. 

At the ultrasound we found out our SON is doing great he is definitely a he!  We also found out he is over 3 pounds and is measuring two weeks earlier.  So, he with either come in early May or be a large baby like my other son was. 

We got home and tried fix a flat.  That seemed to do the trick.  Hubby went to return our friends car and pick her up a few items at the store.  It took him an hour and  half but I did take a nap.  We then headed to the hospital.  Our daughter was in quite a bit of pain and aggravated that she had to be there and not home taking care of her other kids.

We got home Friday night around 11.  I said to hubby "let's just stay home tomorrow.  I am beat."  He said "well, we need produce at the flea market but I guess it can wait."  Our daughter's hubby was supposed to visit Saturday with her kids so we planned on going back up on Sunday.

So..... we stayed home Saturday morning.  Headed to the flea mkt. for veggies.  At this point my doc has told me to take it easy so we took a wheel chair to minimize my walking.  We ended up hitting the flea market, a resale shop hoping to find pants for me, the maternity store, the shoe store and walmart.  While at Wal Mart daughter called all upset because hubby didn't come with kids.  We decided to go to movies we had planned on the day before.  While at movies she texted saying she was having more issues.  We got home about 10 and talked to her on the phone to get her a bit calmer.

Today we got up and ate breakfast and headed back up to the hospital (it's an hours drive) for a few hours and came back to drop son off at work! 

I am so sick of running but tomorrow I have to take son to college then go an hour away to get my blood test done.  It is an hour glucose test so it will be close to noon before I make it home.  IF I can I am going to nap!!!!

I feel like the last week has lasted forever. 

Technorati Tags: family,craziness,busy,life,motherhood

Preparing for a New Arrival

I just want to address some things that have come up in my life i the past few months. 

Upon learning that we were expecting a baby and then shortly thereafter having a few complications hubby and I discussed what this new arrival in our life would mean.

I have been laid off since last March.  I had put in many applications and have several interviews to no avail and in August switched to looking for part time work and going to college full time.  In Sept. when we found out we will have a new arrival coming in May we knew our lives would change.

My unemployment would be running out reducing our income.  I would more than likely skip at least one semester of college and if I do go back to work later on it will be something that will be opposite shifts as hubby so as to keep our child from being put into daycare.

The first thing we decided to tackle was all the "stuff" we would need for baby.  We had some money saved from left over financial aid so when we could find a good deal on something for baby we jumped on it.  With in a month we had gotten a beautiful crib with the mattress that was very gently used for only $125.00.  We did splurge and get the matching changing/table and dresser new but it will be a much used piece of furniture for many years to come. 

When we found out we were having a boy my daughter volunteered to loan us all of our grandson's clothes (he is 14 months old now).  So, we picked those up along with a swing, baby seat, diaper bag, and bumbo seat.  I then found a travel system on craigs list like new condition for $60.00 less than we would have paid brand new.  A friend of ours gave us some money to help pay for this, she also paid for a high chair which I got a great deal on at Big Lots.

Now, you may think, "wow, she's doing great! what's the issue."

Many people have complained that I have gone over board and there is nothing left to be purchased for a shower.  Well there is a ton we still need.  We can always use diapers etc. but I want to explain my reasoning on getting prepared early.

Today's economy is hard on everyone.  We know that once my unemployment runs out things are going to be VERY tight around here.  I didn't want to have a shower a month before I am due, not get a ton of stuff I need and have no money to purchase said stuff.  So, we agreed to buy what we could when we could.  I have visited resale shops and got great deal on blankets, a hamper, diaper pail and maternity clothes.  I know now that even if I don't have a shower we will not have to 'break the bank' to pick up the other necessities we will need when our little one arrives. (unless, of course, he's a she... then there will be some pink shopping to be done.)

I think it very wise for anyone in this day and age to think ahead when they have a baby coming.  Differentiate between your wants and your needs.  If there are things you want but can live without, take that money and use it for baby stuff.

This past week we got a tax refund.  Not much but helpful.  We have caught up on many bills, I have to pay for my son's senior stuff, everyone got new socks and undies that were badly needed and hubby got much needed jeans for work and boots.  The rest, if any is left, will go to bills and maybe a few more items to have on hand for baby. 

You can never be too prepared for a new arrival.  Showers and gifts from friends are great and wonderful blessings but I don't want any of my family or friends to feel obligated to have to help us out.  Small gifts such as a bottle of lotion, a bag of diapers, a box of wipes are just as appreciated as the big ones are.  Everything will be used and it will be one less thing we have to worry about purchasing later on when we are broke.

Today's economy makes it difficult to raise a family.  We were very surprised by our blessing of a sixth child for us.  (he has two I have three this is "our" first ... and also our sixth)  I was told six years ago that with out invetro or some such intervention a child for us was pretty much out of the picture.  This child is coming to us at a difficult financial time in everyone's lives but he will be loved beyond measure.  He will be cared for and fed.  We will teach him about Jehovah God and to appreciate everything. 

To one friend who repeatedly told me I have everything I need for the baby... I sent her a list of all the stuff we are still in need of.  :)  I also registered at Target and Walmart so that others can see what we need.  If I do find a great deal on something (like the fisher price glider we got a month or so ago that was 79 bucks marked down to 18.) I log on to the sites and take them off my lists. 

Preparing ahead must be part of my having been a girl scout.  It's wise in this day and age to think that things will not just be handed to you and to do all we can to be ready for the new arrival.

Technorati Tags: baby,big family,prepapring for baby,organizing,motherhood

Baby it's Cold Outside!

Yikes is it ever chilly this morning.  It's supposed to be worse tomorrow.  NPR radio local station said 17 degrees in the morning with a wind chill of 8 degrees!  That is just not something you hear much of in Florida, single digits! 

It didn't seem too bad when I first came out at 6:30 this a.m. to start the van to warm up but by 8 a.m. the wind had picked up and it is down right bone chilling, even to a a pregnant woman with extra layers.  :)

 

I am, once again, setting in the van waiting on Lew.  He has only two classes this a.m. and by the time I got home would only have to turn back around and go get him again.  I have, however, been able to get wi-fi signal so I am not too bored.  On days I can't get it or that it takes awhile to connect I have my Bible and some other reading with me to do.

 

Yesterday after dropping him off I went home because I had to complete all the paperwork for social security!  That took almost five hours.  I had to dig out and make copies of bills and pay stubs for the last two months!  What a pain but hopefully it will pay off.  One thing it did make me realize is that hubby and I need to set down and make a budget and he needs to learn to stick to it.  Things are going to be WAY tight with the 300+ a month cut in social security for the kids AND my loss of unemployment.  In June things will go from tight to holy crud when Lew graduates high school and no longer gets social security payments. 

It bites that all this  happened.  With child support we would get it until he graduates college and that would help us be able to help him with gas money etc.  I don't know what will become of the back money my x owes me from the nine months he didn't pay a single penny before he got disability set up.  I'll probably never see it I'm sure. 

 

This week we are using $115 dollars and getting the stroller/car seat travel system.  We are buying it used.  A girl offered it on craigs list and it has only been used for 3 months.  The same set up at wally world is on sale for 169.99.  This will be a great thing to have as when Aiden is just over a month old we will have our district  convention in Gainesville, FL.  My kids, as most of you know, are all older.  25, 21, 21, 17 and 16.  I have never been to a convention with an infant so any of my sisters or brothers out there that would like to share tips and tricks for getting through with an infant... :)  it would be greatly appreciated.

Technorati Tags: Jehovah,District Convention,babies,budget,tough times,cold weather

First Post About My Crazy Life and Family

So, I have been blogging for years... over four now at Xanga.  I need another blog like I need a hole in my head, however, my life is taking a turn I never expected at almost fourty and I think I shall start anew here, blogging about how life sure can sping you in a whole new direction.

I have three kids.  Kait is 20, Lew is 17 and Em is 16.  I have two step kids.  Shannon is 25 and Ryan is 21.  My hubby and I have been together for eight years and married seven.  (this March it will roll over to nine together and married eight).  Hubby is 47.  

We are expecting a baby in May.

We have moved a lot over the years.  With five kids you are always trying to find a bigger place.  Once they started moving out we started down sizing.  We are now in a small three bedroom mobile home.  At first we thought:  time to find a bigger place.  Then, in today's economy we thought, we can make this work.  HOW we are going to make this work should be interesting.  

This blog is going to be about our learning to get on a strict budget.  I am no longer working.  I was laid off in March and unemployment is about out.  I want to stay home with this baby for at least the first five years.  A month before I found out I was pregnant I started college.  Due to some complications I am now doing classes from home.  This is not what I had planned but it will work out.  I am hoping next semester to do online classes from home then in a year I will pick up and finish my last year of my degree.

I will also post recipes, funny stories, and mom stuff.