Mom News
Spring Style
Having a conversation this morning with a friend made me think of High School.
I remember it was always a game of who spent MORE and the MOST on their look. Be it shoes, pants, tops……
As a parent and adult, I now see how stupid and crazy we all were. LOL! As a parent and adult, it literally scares the hibigeebees out of my wallet that I have 2 girls who will one day very soon (sooner than I would like) be entering that same type of High School where I hope that same game is no longer played. (One can dream, right?)
As adults, instead of bragging about who spent the most for stuff, we are (first of all) embarrassed if we had to, and now only boast about who got the best deal! I like this game much better.
That’s right you crazy kids! It is COOL to get things on the cheap!
So, I thought in honor of Spring and in honor of the fact that I knew there was a reason I didn’t care for High School (LOL!) , I thought I would share some of my favorite clothing deals going on right now!
Cute Jersey Top from Old Navy on sale right now for only $7.00.
Fun Boyfriend Shorts also at Old Navy for $24.94.
Pair it with a fun pair of Converse in Beach Glass for only $29.99 plus free shipping at the Website, 6pm. *Sale ends tomorrow night at 11:59pm, so hurry!
Love this Ruffled Tank from Forever 21 for only $14.80.
Pair it with this pair of Striped Khakis from Gap for $49.95.
I know this may seem like I am trying to give free advertising to Old Navy, but trust me on this top. I had a version of this when I was pregnant and I loved it! After I had my babies, I did the whole “I’m going to just wear my maternity clothes forever thing” , but even though it was considered maternity, it still looked good! I searched high and low for a regular non pregnant version of this and didn’t have any luck.
This top is SOOOOOO forgiving and flattering. Let’s be honest, we all want a top like that, right? It has ruching on the bust area that always works for a great look! Wanna know the best part???? HuH? It’s only $10! Some colors are even as low as $7! Check it out here, but please leave some for me! : )
Even if you don’t shop at Forever 21, they have some really cute jewelry and hair accessories you should check out for CHEAP prices!
This Pearled Headband and Hair Bow are only $2.80. FYI: I get a lot of my little girl’s hairbows from here and we even share them.
I hope this gives you a few ideas to get you started on your Spring look ideas!
Let me know what you think and if you see any more deals, share them with me!
XOXO,
Esther
Turkey Tenderloin w/ Blueberry Sauce
I am always looking for something different to cook for dinner. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes, I just want to fix spaghetti or order out a pizza, but I think we can all agree that we tend to get into a “dinner rut” from time to time.
Well, the other night, I had a Turkey Tenderloin that I had been wanting to cook. I new I wanted to do something different, so I started searching Eating Well’s website. I heart that site by the way. They have plenty of healthy recipes and the ingredients are not foreign sounding names that you look at and go , “HUH???”
Anyway, I searched Turkey Tenderloin recipes and this one came up: Turkey with Blueberry Pan Sauce
Now, before you go “HUH???” again, trust me on this one. It was REALLY good!!! Normally, I would put something like this in front of my kids and they would look at it…… sniff it…. and walk around it like a curious animal before pushing it with their nose over to the side, then eating the stuff they really wanted. *Did I just refer to my kids as dogs?
But NO! They ate it up. Even the little one!
It has the most subtle sweetness to it and let’s be honest. Cranberry Sauce goes just fine with Turkey at Thanksgiving, right?…….Cranberry haters, don’t answer that!
I liked this recipe so much, that I think I may just switch out the traditional Cranberry Sauce next Thanksgiving for something like this instead.
I did notice that the longer the sauce had time to sit in the pan, the sweeter it became. To tell you the truth, I preferred it that way.
I used frozen wild blueberries in mine because I didn’t have fresh on hand. I think either would work just fine. The recipe didn’t state whether or not they needed to be fresh or frozen.
If you want to look up the nutritional info, I have put a link to the recipe here. However, if that kind of thing doesn’t interest you, you could also just look below for the recipe. Notice the *’s . This is used wherever I substituted ingredients for the things I had 😉
Turkey Tenderloin w/ Blueberry Sauce
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- 1 pound turkey tenderloin
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup chopped shallots (*I used regular onions)
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (*I used what I had, which was dried ground)
- 2 cups blueberries (*I used frozen)
- 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 450°F. Whisk flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Dredge turkey in the mixture. (Discard any leftover flour.)
- Heat oil in a large ovenproof skillet over high heat. Add the turkey; cook until golden brown on one side, 3 to 5 minutes. Turn the turkey over and transfer the pan to the oven. Roast until the turkey is just cooked through and no longer pink in the middle, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the turkey to a plate and tent with foil to keep warm.
- Place the skillet over medium heat. (Take care, the handle will still be very hot.) Add shallots and thyme and cook, stirring constantly, until the shallots begin to brown, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add blueberries, vinegar and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt; continue cooking, stirring occasionally and scraping up any brown bits, until the blueberries burst and release their juices and the mixture becomes thick and syrupy, 4 to 5 minutes. Slice the turkey and serve with the blueberry pan sauce.
Enjoy! and let me know what you think!
XOXO,
Esther
Raised Vegetable Garden
Eeeeeek! Spring has Sprung and I am just tickled about it!
You know you are too! How could you not be?
The air is warming up and once in a while you get that perfect day that allows you to dream of those beautiful flowers and veggies you have wanted to plant and grow forever.
Then you grab your car keys……….. run out the door without hesitation………… and then RUN back in once you realize you have forgotten your children (don’t judge me) …………..
then you RUN back out the door and drive to your nearest Home Improvement Store and go WILD!
Right?
NO?
Well, I didn’t do that exactly, but I WANTED TO SOOOOOOOO BAD!
Instead, I was very patient ( which is completely UNLIKE me) and I waited and planned and built a Raised Vegetable Garden Bed with the hubster.
We did it without a plan and SO CAN YOU! Very easy. We were first time DIYers with this and it turned out great!
I have to say I am very Proud of us.
Here is what we did:
We knew that we wanted the garden bed to be 4ft. x 12ft., so we bought 12 ft. pieces of cedar. We figured for the sides, we could just cut them to 4 ft.
We also bought short 4 ft. pieces of wood that would act as support boards and also an area that the screws could adhere to, in order to stack the boards. We had a few pieces of cedar siding that we improvised with and used so that we wouldn’t have to buy as much cedar.
Don’t mind the ladder. It’s just there for moral support. 😉
We attached the first 12 ft. piece of cedar to the sticks. This top piece split a little on the car ride home, but it wasn’t a concern.
This is what it looked like afterwards.
Then we attached the second piece using the same method. We just lined it up under the top one.
Now, we had (2) 12 ft. pieces of cedar attached to the 2 wood sticks at each end.
We had 4 screws on each side.
We knew we would need more support, so we added an additional board in the middle and attached the boards to it.
Afterwards, we trimmed the length on the support sticks.
This is what they looked like after being trimmed.
We repeated those steps with the boards for the other side. Then, instead of doing it again for the shorter 4ft. pieces, we decided to just attach them to the ends.
This is the 4ft end piece. We attached the two screws for it to the support stick that we had also attached the adjoining side to .
Z even let me get in on the action. Then, he went behind me, removed the crooked screw I attached, and reattached it correctly. Oh well….
Here is a shot of the bed after one board.
Now the finished side.
Then, to keep burrowing pests out, we attached a heavy duty plastic chicken net to the bottom with “U” shaped nails. We didn’t use wire netting b/c I have before and it toar up our hands during the process. I know you could just use gloves, but I’m lazy and I looked it up and the pests shouldn’t be able to chew through the heavy plastic. I might be updating this later if I find that not to be true.
We made sure that it was secure by nailing every ft. or so along the wood.
Since the netting wasn’t wide enough, we had to overlap some of it and then we just trimmed it off at the end with a razor blade.
Buster kept a watchful eye out just in case any rabbits tried to eat our veggies. How do I know I have rabbits? By the piles of “unpleasantries” I found left for me in my yard. (Is that a word?)
The great thing about gardening in general is it seems to awaken something within children. All 3 of my kids love to go out with their Nana and help her with the garden.
Heck! They will even help her pick up Doggie Poopoo at her house. I haven’t mastered that art here yet, but I’m working on it.
My oldest was beggin me to let her plant the veggies. I wanted to make sure they were done correctly the first time, so instead, I let her plant the marigolds around them.
I CANNOT wait to see how these turn out. I have wanted to plant Heirloom Tomatoes for a while. Z asked me if I thought we would get our money back out of the beds? As soon as I went to the grocery store and saw that tomatoes were $1.99 / lb. , I quickly answered , “Ummmmmm Errrrrrrrrrr Yup! ”
We planted 3 Crookneck Squash , 1 Zucchini, 2 Cherry Tomatoes, 4 Homestead Heirloom Tomatoe, 4 Marion Tomatoes, 2 Cayenne Peppers, and we will be making a seperate 4 x 4 ft. bed for our Cucumbers.
We also planted the Marigolds throughout the bed and will be doing the same thing with the Cucumber bed. Marigolds help keep the bugs off the plants. That is why we plant them. Plus, they look Purrrrrrrrty in there!
I should add that we used to have a garden back where we are from. We were so excited the first year we did it. We had a pretty big backyard, so we planted just about a 1/4 acre of it with all sorts of things. Well, I really had no idea how much it was going to yield and let me tell you , when it started ……….. it didn’t stop!
I couldn’t give it away fast enough before it started to go bad. I think this smaller modest raised bed is much better for us, though my friends might wish we had the larger garden so that we can share. 🙂
Happy Gardening!!!
*I’ll update as we go and show the progress of the plants, as well as give helpful tips on vegetable growing.
Smiles are Contagious
Every morning when I take my girls to school, I see this boy. He walks alone behind another group of boys always hanging his head down and never making eye contact with anyone. My heart breaks everytime I see this boy. He probably has other friends that he sees when he gets to school.
Even though this is probably true…. still, I silently pray everytime I see him that God will bring him a friend to talk to. Or, even better, if God would make one of those boys walking with the group in front of him, wise up and include him.
This morning, I saw that same boy walking with another boy. They were talking, smiling, and laughing. I didn’t recognize the new boy he was talking to, but all I could do was smile myself.
*It’s amazing what a simple conversation can do. Smiles are BEAUTIFUL and CONTAGIOUS . Why not try and make someone smile today? You might just smile too! ; )
Love,
Esther
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