Tackle It Tuesday

It is Tackle It Tuesday. I decided to tackle the kitchen and living room this week. I forgot to take before pics but I searched through some pics that I have to give you an idea.

And now after some hard work and finally convincing Prince Charming to take the deep freeze out of my kitchen, I love how bright and spacious and pretty my kitchen looks. Well as pretty as it can look with all my old furniture and stuff, but you get the idea.

And as for the living room, I put it back to the way it used to be. I figured that if Prince Charming didn't like it any better than the way it was before then I was going to put it back to the way I liked it. These are older pics but it looks almost the same, minus the clutter that is in these pics.




Here is one from today, still a little clutter. Little Princess's toy is on the couch. I know these couches don't match anything, and I don't like the wall color. But I am working on it one day at a time, one little bit of spare money at a time. Well the spare money that I don't spend on groceries. LOL:
Little Princess wanted to wear a dress to school today. Since she is only five and keeping her panties covered is more like a dream than even a suggestion of a possibility, I put a little pair of shorts underneath. She was so excited. "Take a picture of me watching my show mommy!" she called out. And I, ever with the camera close at hand, was happy to oblige.

Vegetarian Soup

Avocado Spinach Soup
Adapted from Better Food for Babies and Their Families

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado, peeled and cut up
3/4 cup fresh, raw spinach
1/4 cup parsley (opt.)
1 cup vegetable broth
3/4 cup unsweetened milk (soy, nut, etc.)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Place all ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth. Eat as is or warm up on the stove in a pan. Enjoy!
Note: This soup is super creamy and delicious. You won't believe it's good for you! I garnished with a few sliced grape tomatoes which were really delicious with the soup.

Monday Memories

Monday Memory

I have a little obsession I would like to share with all of you. When I feel like money is about to get real tight, I become obsessed with getting groceries. Every little bit of money we happen to get, I poke into my purse and I trot down to the store to get more groceries. If we are doing fine and we are having no financial issues, it is not a problem, I get them every pay day like a normal person, but if we are having money issues, (like now) I can't help but get groceries every chance I get. I thought about it and I think it stems from the combined impact of several incidents in my life.

When I was a teenager, my father did seasonal work. One year, he didn't get his seasonal job and that meant that by the middle of winter we were out of money, low on food, and he was too proud to go to get help. We had gotten a LOT of caplin (little fish) earlier in the year and my father had smoked some, and my mother had frozen and bottled some. By the middle of winter, that was all we had left. For breakfast, lunch and dinner, we had caplin. My mother, bless her heart, was creative and tried to do different things with the caplin but after a while a fish is a fish. I hated them. To this day, I hate them. But I remember being that poor and having no food in our cupboards.

When I moved in with roommates in my twenties, we all had the same employer, who was a friend of ours. He started having financial troubles and as a result was having difficulty paying us. I remember the constant phone calls from the bill collectors, I remember pleading with our landlords to wait until we had money for rent, I remember everything being piled up on our shoulders and there was NOTHING in our cupboards. Nothing. Not salt and pepper, not bread, butter or milk. NADA. I opened our pantry and it was completely bare as was our fridge. I remember sitting together and counting out our pennies together and being thrilled when we came up with $5 so we could go to the store and try to buy some food for two or three days with it. A friend gave us one bag of moose steaks (because they were too tough) and another friend gave us 1/2 a grocery bag of potatoes. We sat down and cried. It was food. We had something to eat. But I remember being that poor and having no food in our cupboards.

When I went back to college, it was because I wasn't making enough money to get by on. I was working and working and only getting further and further behind. My older brother and I moved in together and went back to school to better our lot in life. However, for the first 2 months we lived together we had no income at all. It came down to a big 20 kg bag of rice and a bottle of soya sauce. Every day we went to school and had rice with soya sauce for lunch. Then we came home and had it for supper. Every day. It wasn't all that nutritious but it was filling and we got by. But I remember being that poor and having no food in our cupboards.

I think that is why I am the way I am today. As long as we pay our rent and we have food in our cupboards I feel like we will be okay. When I get groceries and I fill our cupboards, I get a sense of satisfaction and a feeling that no matter how bad it is, at least we won't be hungry. At least my family will be fed. At least my little girl won't be stuck eating fish, or rice, or moose. At least we will be safe. I look at our full cupboards and I feel a a sense of calm. And when money is tight, I feel this insane need to buy more groceries, to stock our already full cupboards with more food, just in case.


Easter Bunny


When we were in the mall the other day, we passed by the Easter Bunny. Little Princess was beside herself with excitement. She had never seen him before and she was thrilled. When I saw how excited she was, I had to take her to see him. It was only $10 and we did get just a little extra money on Friday, so over we go and she sits in his lap. She chatters away, telling him about her her plans for the day, and her sparkly pink running shoes, he gives her a big hug and shows her his big fuzzy feet. He was so taken with her that when we were leaving he reached over and grabbed a CD of High School Musical and gave her. (he did not give it to the person before or after us).

Tough Girl Pose

Little Princess picked up her daddies hat today and looks at me and starts posing like a gangster. I don't know where she got it or her poses, but it was so cute to see her trying to be tough. My dainty little Princess being a gangster was more than I could handle and I had to grab a camera.

Decision

Little Princess has been giving me a hard time lately about eating meat. She has started refusing more and more meats and just eating parts of her meal. I have decided that from now on, I am going to give her a choice between my vegetarian meal and her daddy's omnivore meal. At least I know I make my vegetarian meals with enough nutrition for her and that is so much better than her just eating bits and peices of her daddy's meal. I can plan her nutrition a little better.

Here is her admiring my vegan pancakes yesterday. (which she shared with me)

Btw, this POST is about the cutest thing I have seen in a long time.

Sunday Stuff

Our Day Out
We went out yesterday and took Little Princess to see The Robinsons. She loved the movie! We made a day out of it. We took her wandering around the mall. She loved visiting the Pet Store. The fish are her favorite part.

She got a big kick out of looking down through the rail to the lower level. She planted herself

with her snack and watched the people below.

She sat on the bench and snacked on leftover popcorn while waiting for daddy to come out of a store.

This is her just standing talking to her daddy before we left.

Alfredo-Style Fettuccine





Ingredients:
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1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1/3 cup cashews
6 oz. lite silken tofu
1 1/2 cups Fat Free soy milk
1/2 tsp. salt or more, to taste
Dash ground nutmeg
Dash cayenne
1 lb. fettuccine
2 Tbsp. minced fresh parsley
Grape tomatoes chopped
spinach
mushrooms


Instructions:
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Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, and mushrooms cover, and cook without browning,

until the onion is tender, about 5 to 7 minutes.
Finely grind the cashews in a blender or food processor. Add the reserved onion mixture and purée until

smooth. Add the tofu and miso and process until blended. Add 1 cup of the soy milk and the salt, nutmeg, and

cayenne and process until smooth. Slowly add as much of the remaining soy milk as necessary until the desired

consistency is reached.

Transfer the sauce to a saucepan and heat over low heat. Taste to adjust the seasonings. Stir in chopped
Spinach and grape tomatoes. Keep the sauce warm until the pasta is ready.

Cook the fettuccine in a large pot of boiling salted water until it is al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain well

and place in a shallow serving bowl. Add the sauce and toss to combine. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve

hot.

Makes 4 servings