Day 19, Disrespecting Your Parents

It has been a while since I have done any of the 30 day challenge posts and since my sweet baby girl has gone down for bed I thought it would be the perfect time to post the next one.

When thinking about the topic of disrespecting you parents the first thing that came to mind was of course the ten commandments and how one fifth one is “Honour thy father and thy mother”. Plain and simple right? Not always. No one is perfect and believe me I am not perfect and was even less than when I was a teenager!

Above is a picture of myself with my parents before my wedding reception. I love them so much! They have taught me so much and have given me everything I needed and a lot of the things I wanted, even though I probably didn't deserve a lot of it.

Along with saying those things I also want to give them a public apology for the many many times I disrespected them as a child and especially as a teenager. Words were said, screaming happened and doors were slammed and I wish I could take it all back but since I can't I will just say that I AM SORRY!!

To me respecting your parents means different things through out your life. As a child and teenager living under your parent's roof you respect your parents by obeying them, by helping them without having to be asked and by showing love and thanks for all that they do for you. Now that I am an adult the honoring of my parents has not stopped and will not but it is different than the honoring of them that I did when I was young. Now I can honor my parents by going to them for advice, talking to them often, and telling them that I love them as much as I can.

I really do love and respect my parents and the people they are and I hope one day I can become strong just like them. I also am glad that I will have them there for me when one day my daughter, even if she does not mean it, might disrespect me. It will make me sad and so I am glad I have my parents there who can comfort me during those hard times that I once put them through.

Of course the reasons I listed above are not the only ways you can respect your parents, there are many ways you can. List some of the ways you like to honor and respect your parents in the comments!

Braided Garlic Spaghetti Bread

This dinner is carb overload but if you are starting up a new week and need a meal to give you lots of energy for the days to come than this is the perfect meal for that!

Ingredients:

• One container (one of the cylinder ones like Pillsbury has) bread dough
• 6 oz spaghetti
• 1 C spaghetti sauce, homemade or from a jar. I got lucky cause I had some leftover sauce in the freezer so all I had to do was defrost it.
• 1 egg white or some melted butter
• Parmesan cheese
• Garlic Powder

Directions:

1. First roll out the dough into as wide and long of a rectangle as you can. This part was pretty tough because the dough I used was very tough and didn't want to stay spread so I got some help from the hubby!
2. Cook the spaghetti. Follow the directions on the box. Also make sure you sauce will be ready pretty close to when the spaghetti will be ready.
3. When the spaghetti is done lay it down in the center of the dough. When the sauce is ready pour on top of the spaghetti.
4. Cut the dough on the long sides from the edge almost to the spaghetti.
5. Start crisscrossing the cut dough pieces. You can get a pretty good idea of this if you look at the left of the above picture. After those few pieces were crisscrossed the rest of the pieces were too short to do that same.
6. With a pastry brush, brush on the melted butter or the egg white on the top of the dough.
7. On top of the butter or egg white, sprinkle parmesan cheese and garlic powder.
8. Bake in at 350 degrees for about 30-35 minutes or until the top starts to brown.

This was so delicious and something that can feed a lot of people because it is very filling! Also don't forget to like my facebook page by pressing the like button at the top of the side bar so you can keep up with all of the posts I share!
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Chinese Lemon Chicken!

Ingredients: (Marinade)

• 2 1/2 lbs. chicken
• 2 TB soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt

Ingredients: (Batter)

• 2 eggs
• 1/4 C cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch pepper
• oil (for frying)

Ingredients: (Sauce)

• 1/3 C sugar
• 1 C chicken broth
• 1 1/2 TB cornstarch
• 2 TB lemon juice
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3 slices of lemon
• 2 TB oil

Directions:

1. Mix chicken with the marinade ingredients and marinade in the fridge for 30 minutes in a covered bowl.
2. Mix the ingredients for the batter, except for the oil, and coat the chicken.
3. Heat the oil in a wok to 350 degrees. Add the chicken to the oil and fry until lightly brown, you can check to make sure they r done by cutting one in half if you are not sure. When they are done frying set them aside on paper towels that have been placed on a plate.
4. Mix together the first five ingredients from the sauce ingredients. When it has all be mixed together well add in the slices of lemon.
5. Clean out your wok and place back on the stove. Put 2 TB of oil into the wok and heat, then add the lemon sauce and stir until it has become clear.
6. Pour the sauce over the chicken and toss making sure to coat well. Serve over rice.

 

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Snowman Winter Craft

I wanted to post this before Winter was over. It is actually a gift I made for a Christmas exchange that the women in my family do on Christmas Eve but I think it is something that could be put on display or given as gifts all throughout winter since they are snowmen and it snows on more than just the holidays.

I'm sorry for the blurry picture above, it is the only picture I have that really shows all the parts of each snowmen but I will have a clearer picture below, it just doesn't show the tops of the snowmen as well as I would like to show you before the instructions.

For the ones I made, I did one with hot chocolate and marshmallows, black buttons, red fabric and black ribbon. The one in the middle was for my aunt Tina, she is allergic to chocolate so I wanted to make one that she could enjoy and we had a lot of candy left over from Savannah's party. I found enough to make this one with lemon heads, broken up pink and white candy canes, pink buttons, striped fabric and yellow ribbon.

Supplies: (To make one snowman)

• 2 baby food jars
• 2 hot chocolate packets (or lemon heads or anything sweet)
• mini marshmallows (or something that will go with what you want for the other jar like another candy)
• fabric (any color, this will be for where the red is and the striped fabric is on the above snowmen)
• ribbon (A color that will look good with the fabric and food you choose, the above have black and yellow ribbon)
• Two buttons (ones that will go with the color scheme that you have going on with the ribbon and fabric)
• Hot glue gun
• Orange and Black paint
• Small paint brush

Directions:

1. Take one of the baby jars, make sure you take off the label and remove the sticky residue from all the jars. I did this by dampening a paper towel a little bit with olive oil and resting it on the residue for a few minutes. Then the residue will be loose and easy to rub off with the same towel.
2. Fill the jar to the top with hot chocolate, mine needed exactly two packets.
3. Cut the fabric into a circle that will be able to drape over the top of the lid.
4. Hot glue the circle fabric onto the top of the lid. I put hot glue on top and on the sides and pushed the fabric down.
5. Cut off excess fabric. This gave the fabric on my snowmen as draped look to it.
6. Glue the two buttons onto the front of the jar and put the lid back on.
7. For the second jar you will paint on a face with black paint for the eyes and smile, I did dots for all of these, and orange paint for the "carrot" nose. I did the nose by dipping a corner of a paper towel in the paint and dabbing it on the jar, it gave me the shape of a nose that I was looking for.
8. Fill this jar with the mini marshmallows.
9. Cut out the length of ribbon you will need to make it around the lid. I found out what length I needed by wrapping the ribbon around the lid and then cutting the ribbon to the length I needed.
10. Glue the ribbon around the edge of the lid. I liked how mine ended up looking like little Russian snowmen!
11. Now I cut out small pieces and glued it on the top of the lids to cover the labels and silver.
12. Put the lid back on and glue the marshmallow jar on top of the hot chocolate jar and you are done!

Of course there are many ways you can make these snowmen. You can even add other layers and have a three layered snowman with hot chocolate, marshmallows and candy canes or anything you want!

Here is the other picture I wanted to share:

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Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

 Ingredients:
-1 lb. cooked broccoli that is broken into pieces
-3 C. cooked chicken broken into pieces
-1 1/2 C. grated cheddar cheese
-2 tubes Ritz crackers (I did not like the ritz, I would not include this next time or I would substitute something else for the topping.)
-1/2 C melted butter
-1 TB poppy seeds

Sauce Ingredients:
-1/3 C melted butter
-1/4 C cornstarch mixed with 1/2 C water
-1/3 C chicken broth
-1/4 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp pepper
-2 C milk
-1 1/2 C cheddar cheese (this is separate from the cheese from above)

Directions:

1. Place the chicken and broccoli in a pan.
2. In a saucepan mix together all the ingredients for the sauce except for the cheddar cheese. Stir until sauce thickens.
3. Turn heat to low and stir in the cheddar cheese for the sauce and stir until melted.
4. Pour the sauce over the chicken and broccoli.
5. Top with the rest of the cheese, 1 1/2 C.
6. Melt the butter, 1/2 C, and mix in the poppy seeds.
7. This next part I loved how I could get my daughter to help but as I said above I would substitute the Ritz with something else that won't get soggy so quickly. Put the Ritz, or whatever you use, into a bag and mash it up into crumbs. I let my daughter do this, well at least begin the process!
   
8. Add the crumbs of the crackers to the butter and poppy seed mixture and stir well. Then put the mixture on top of the cheddar cheese.
9. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

 
This was really good and really easy, the only thing I would have changed was the Ritz but besides that I liked it a lot!
 
 
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We Moved!

Hey! I feel like it has been way too long since I have posted anything to my blog, I was getting in such a good habit of posting everyday and then all of a sudden life caught up with me and I can't seem to ever find the time to post but I have a lot of saved up content, mostly recipes, to post in the upcoming months.

The purpose of this blog post is to update my family and friends on some recent news. Ryan, Savannah have moved from Waterbury,CT to Alpharetta,GA. It was sudden and it has been a bit change but we are all excited.

My husband had been working for Macy's for about a year 1/2 and about 6 months ago he started applying to new jobs because he is going to be graduating soon and he knew he did not want to stay with Macys permanently so the sooner he could get a new job with another company the better. He first found a job in Sandy,UT with Etrade doing something he knew he would love to do but after he submitted his application the process seemed to be taking longer than expected so he started to look instead of at specific states he just looked at other similar positions within Etrade and he found the exact same position but in Alpharetta,GA and he applied.

A few days after he applied to the job, he was contacted by email by someone from HR saying they were worried that he would be a full time employee and a full time student and maybe he should try applying again in June when they would have more positions opening up. He replied letting them know he had been a full time student and employee for over a year and he was able to balance those things along with a family and the next day he got a phone interview.

His phone interview was quickly followed by a plane ride down to GA on a Sunday, on Monday he looked at apartments and on Tuesday he took a pre broker's test and had an in person interview with the managers and he could tell that they liked him so it was no surprise when he got a call on Thursday morning with the news that he got the job. When he found out it was about 3/4s of the way through January and he was told that he would be starting his new job on February 10th so that gave us about 2-3 weeks to contact an apartment complex for a new apartment down in GA, find movers and get out of our lease up in CT.

We have one of the corner apartments with the wrap around porches!

We were able to get a great deal with the moving company Swift Movers who loaded our stuff in CT and took it to New Jersey so it could be stored until we called them. When we called them we only had to wait two days before they told us that our stuff was on it's way down and then two more days to get our stuff where they unloaded it all! We were also able to make an agreement with the manager of our apartment complex in CT and find a great new apartment in GA for almost the same amount we paid in CT but with 400 more sqft and hook ups in the apartment, my top priority when looking in GA, a pool, top notch gym with free personal trainers and other classes, car washing station, playground for Savannah, a small room for an office, wrap around porch, two bathrooms and garden tubs! It has been and will be a great place to live for next year or however long we end up staying here... I hope it becomes permanent because 1) I hate moving and 2) we both really love it here so far!

Ryan is loving his job so far and the people he works with and he can tell that it is something he is going to enjoy and will put him in a good place for the future. I feel so blessed right now to have the family I have and to be able to experience this new move with them and get to experience new things and meet new people.

In a couple days I will have to post about what it has been like to live in Georgia so far but for now I hope you enjoyed our update and if you have something new and exciting going on let me know in the comments I would love to hear all about it! =)