Casualties of War

 You ever have one of those days when no matter what you try, everything just seems to go wrong? I’ve had one of those…ok, I’ve had half of one of those. It started out pretty good. My sweetie doesn’t usually work on Fridays, so he was home. When the kids got home from school we decided to take them all on a short adventure (since we had football practice to worry about). We piled them in the van and headed to the athletic store to pick up the Dog Walker’s brand new letterman’s jacket.

Then we drove up to Cookies by Design to get our free sugar cookies on a stick that we earned because we read some books this summer…like they have to reward us for reading…we love to read! Those eleven cookies retail for something like $75. Then we drove back to Chick Fil A and fed the entire family for $3.99. I know, I’m cool like that…I can show you the receipt. Six kids meals, two chicken salads, two large drinks, two 8-piece nuggets and two large fries. So up to that point all was going well, fantastic, really.

But things went downhill fast. I have an embroidery machine and occasionally I take on some small jobs that bring in a few extra dollars. My sweetie spent half of last weekend digitizing a custom pattern and I had 8 shirts that needed this logo. So my sweetie and the kids all waved goodbye as they headed downstairs to watch a movie so I could work in peace. They even brought me a little bag of tootsie rolls as a consolation prize for my good responsible behavior.

Things were rolling along just fine. Each shirt takes about 20 minutes to embroider, so sometimes if I’m not too paranoid I can multi-task a little. I had just gotten my serger back from the repair shop after five weeks and $120.00, so I decided to check it out to make sure it worked. I hemmed a few pairs of pajama pants for Sport while randomly watching the logos appear on the embroidery machine. I enjoyed a couple of tootsie rolls and then re-hooped the machine for the next shirt.

I stitched all of Sport’s scout patches on his vest. This was pretty frustrating because the thread kept breaking and I started over at least a dozen times. The embroidery pattern completed, so I re-hooped the next shirt and turned back to the sewing machine. Suddenly the needle broke! I pulled it from the patch and tossed it in the garbage. Then I put in a new needle and proceeded to rethread. After about a dozen stitches, the entire post holding the sewing foot detached itself from the machine! I’ve sewed for many years and never had a calamity like that. I helplessly studied the pieces. I guess that meant another trip to the repair shop.

That’s about when the embroidery machine decided it was tired and wanted to quit for the night. It stopped right in the middle of the pattern and refused to go further! (I guess I know how it feels…) I gave it a breather for about 20 minutes and then got it to sew a few stitches before I ran out of bobbin thread. I pulled off the hoop, re-threaded the bobbin, then the machine, and got a few more stitches.

Forty-five minutes later, I finally coaxed the machine to finish the design. Sadly, I’ll get to miss the fun tomorrow too because I still have two shirts to finish. See what all this frustration can cause? Besides that, I pretty much ate the entire bag of little tootsie rolls. Casualties of war, I guess.

Food for Thought - Sparkling Strawberry Jello

I’m from Utah, so you knew it was only a matter of time before you got a Jello recipe! The Dog Walker has been dying to get this one posted for over a week now. I think he really just wants to eat the Jello, but I’m not complaining since he made it himself. He also took the pics himself on his cell phone, so sorry that they aren’t very good.

I took this first pic from our camping trip on my phone of Curly that I really wanted to share with you, but it doesn’t have anything to do with this post. My sweetie grew up in small-town Utah just like me only not the same town, one down the road about 14 miles. His dad was a plumber and sometimes they were rolling in money and sometimes not. My sweetie remembers a few times when they lived mostly like squirrels, eating whatever they had stored up for winter. He says they ate potatoes and apple and carrot salad over and over and over…. When we go to Chick Fil A he likes to buy a little cup of it, just to reminisce about his childhood.

This recipe I’m sharing today is not the apple and carrot one, although you might like it too. It is a recipe they ate during good times. I’d never had it until after I was married, but when we googled the recipe (just for fun), we found about 30 different versions of it. Since my sweetie is diabetic, we use sugar-free soda and sugar-free Jello to make it a little more healthy, but it can be done either way. This recipe makes a full 9x13 pan, so you might want to cut it in half if you have a smaller family. My family can devour the entire thing at one meal. I hope you enjoy it! Leave me a comment and let me know.


Sparkling Strawberry Jello

32 oz of applesauce (30 will do if you have two 15-oz cans)
2 12-oz cans of cold Sprite, 7-up or lemon-lime soda
2 large boxes of red Jello (strawberry is best)
sliced strawberries (if desired)
whipped cream for garnish

Pour the applesauce into a microwave-safe bowl and heat for 4 minutes. Stir. Then heat for 4 more minutes.

Pour the boxes of Jello over the applesauce and mix well. Microwave for 2 more minutes. (Please note that this recipe does NOT use any water. I was a bit confused by that the first time I made it.)

Add two cans of cold lemon-lime soda. Mix well. Stir in 2 lbs of sliced strawberries if desired. (We usually add the berries, but the Dog Walker couldn’t wait for me to go to the store.)

Chill for a couple of hours. Serve with whipped cream.

Friday Freebies: Coupon Night

 
I am still so new to this blogging thing that I have to call Bossy every time I need to understand the rules.  She would love it if I would spend hours every day promoting various blogs and reading examples from others.  I prefer the writing part and I truly don't have time to spend more than a few minutes a day while Baby Doll is nursing, Curly is climbing on my back and kicking my chair, and Scout is pestering me for just one more book. 
 
That said, I have read some of the blogs she forwards to me and one of my favorites is "The Meanest Mom."  I want to be more like her when I grow up.  Today Bossy forwarded me a contest on her blog I couldn't say no to. The Meanest Mom, Walgreens, and BlogHer are teaming up and one lucky reader of her blog will win a $100 gift card to Walgreens. 

Since there are about 100 Walgreens in a 2-mile radius of my home, I've had plenty of opportunity to shop there.  I love their rebate program where you can go in and buy some weird thing you've never tried before and then get all of your money back.  Check out her contest here.  Be sure to tell her twelvemakesadozen sent you.  

Don't forget to enter in my giveaway.  I have enjoyed reading your emails and comments.  Don't forget to enable your email on your blogger account or leave an email in your comment so I can contact you if you win!  Submissions close TODAY Friday, Feb. 25th the winner will be contacted on the 27th.   Onto the Freebie Friday:

We love to eat out! To us, it means no dishes and no clean-up. The only problem is that it’s expensive! Although I haven’t come up with a cost-free method of eating out every night and twice a day on weekends, I have figured out a way we can eat out about once a month with very little cost. It’s called Coupon Night, and my kids think it’s great (mostly because we usually get at least two desserts). In most of our public schools, teachers give out lots of coupons. Our kids have received coupons for kids’ meals, chicken sandwiches, frozen yogurt, ice cream cones, cookies, movies, water-parks, and plenty of other things. We also cut out coupons from the local newspapers for free candy bars, buy 1 get 1 free dinners at fast food places, and other things that we can share. Then we find a night on our busy calendar when most of us are home, and we map out our strategy. 

It is important to plan our stops so that we actually have a meal before we get any desserts. We also want to make sure that everyone gets a share of our collective booty. Sometimes we have to supplement our coupons with a few dollars, but we try to keep our cash outlay at less than $10.00 for the night not counting gas. I have a large manila envelope on my desk where we stash all of these coupons until the chosen day. First, we gas up the van and get our free car wash. We’ve got to look good, even if we are being cheap! We might start at Fat Jacks pizza where three of our kids had earned free small pizzas. After getting their pizzas we head to Chick Fil A where we pick up four free chicken sandwiches and then stop in at Sonic and grab some buy 1 get 1 free hamburgers. We share and munch on our way to Smith’s. 

At Smith’s, we usually stop at the bakery and get free cookies. Then we grab a cart for a few more goodies. I have a couple of buy 1, get 1 free coupons for two-liter bottles of soda pop, so we pick up several kinds for later. On our way out of Smith’s, we head over to Menchis and everyone gets a frozen yogurt (free, with coupons, of course). We stop by the RedBox on our way home and pick up a couple of free movies. After we arrive at our house, we pour everyone a free soda, pop in one of our free movies, and sit back to relax and digest with no dishes, no clean-up, and no financial guilt.

Speaking of free food check this out: http://www.chick-fil-a.com/FreeFryDay.html 

Eat Mor Chikin

I know you were all looking forward to the rest of my dog story, but it will have to wait for a couple of days. I want to tell you about something fun that happened to us yesterday. My kids like to enter contests (you know, like my doctor story contest that ends tomorrow), particularly writing or art contests. So our local Chick Fil A sponsored a writing contest. It was open to grades K – 6 and the rules were pretty loose, you just had to write a story about the Chick Fil A cow. The prize was 52 free kid’s meals! And since we love Chick Fil A, that sounded like a pretty fun prize. 

So Crafty and Sport got right on that (ok, not really, it took some poking and prodding from their mom), but eventually they came up with some amazing stories. I ran them out to the Chick Fil A a couple of hours before the deadline. Then last Saturday we received an e-mail informing us that Crafty’s entry had been chosen as a Finalist. So we were invited to come to Chick Fil A for an awards ceremony and two of us could have a free dinner. We arrived at the restaurant about 10 minutes early and placed our order. I brought a bunch of us along to cheer her on so I had to buy dinner for everyone else. (Thank goodness for coupons! There were ten of us and I paid just over $16.00 and that even included drinks.) I was glad we were there early because by the time we got our order the place was packed. 

Anyway, after everyone was seated, the kids were called up five at a time in four different categories. Then they were invited to read their entries. Did I every mention that Crafty is shy and quiet? It became evident rather quickly that she was expected to read her entry out loud to this room full of people. She fidgeted in her seat. "Mom, you can read the story for me," she suggested. Some of the Kindergartners had their parents do their readings. "No," I said firmly. "You are perfectly capable of reading your story all by yourself." She shifted uncomfortably. "Dad?" He shook his head. "How about Princess?" I asked with a grin. Now the only person more shy and quiet in a crowd than Crafty is Princess who shook her head vigorously at the very thought of standing up in front of all of those people by herself. She is my girl who at 14 still cries when I make her go to a door to sell Girl Scout cookies. Finally the third/fourth grade category finalists were announced. 

Nervous Girl by ~themedusa

We sent Crafty to the front of the room by herself. She was fourth in line so she had to stand there while three other kids read their entries. When it was her turn at the microphone the lady in charge handed her entry to her and smiled at her expectantly. In fact, the whole room was waiting rather impatiently for her to begin. We had already sat through 13 stories and we were all ready for them to announce the winners so we could go home. Even the Chick Fil A cow mascot had gotten bored and walked out. 

 Crafty put her hand over the mike. "I don’t want to read it," she whispered. The room breathed a sigh of relief. One less story to listen to.  The lady took the mike back. She smiled her benevolent smile and glanced around the room. Obviously she wasn’t feeling our collective relief. "OK if I read it?" she asked Crafty sweetly. Crafty turned a little red around the ears and nodded her head slowly. She had one line in there about stapling the bad guys mouths shut. Hmmmm….. 

It took another half-hour for all the kids to read their entries. Sadly, Crafty wasn’t the grand prize winner, but she did get some fun prizes…a chapstick, bumper sticker, magnets, a pen, and a tiny stuffed cow. Oh yeah, and 2 free kids meals. Looks like we’ll be going back soon! (Eat mor chikin!)

Register with Chick Fil A for access to contests.

Cow Appreciation Day

Have you ever heard of Cow Appreciation Day? Neither had I until a couple of years ago. We don’t eat out very often for obvious reasons. There are a lot of us and even McDonalds dollar menu costs about $30.00 for a lunch that won’t keep them full until suppertime. So we weren’t that excited when we heard that they were building a new Chick Fil A in our hometown.

I had no idea how often we’d enjoy their yummy chicken sandwiches and at very reasonable prices, sometimes even free! Chick Fil A is very supportive of the schools by handing out coupons at various activities, often for free sandwiches or ice cream, but nothing is as good as Cow Appreciation Day.

It falls the second Friday of July (this year it is on the 8^th). When Bossy first told me about it, I thought she was crazy, but like her, I just can’t pass up the thought of a free meal even if it means I have to make a fool of myself. If you show up at the Chick Fil A dressed as a cow on the appointed day, you get a free meal! If they think your costume is only a partial cow (like a hat), they will give you just a sandwich instead of a sandwich, fries, and a drink. The first year we participated in this ritual, we got white t-shirts and I sewed black spots on them. Then we taped white spots to dark pants and headed to Chick Fil A. We were winners! We all received free food and a great time playing their carnival-type games and jumping in the bounce house.

Last year we decided this was something we wanted to be involved with each and every year it was offered, so I headed to the fabric store. When I got to Hancock Fabrics, I knew just what I was looking for, black and white cow print in something heavy enough for shorts. I was so excited to find exactly that on the clearance rack! I paid $1.15/yard for enough fabric to make shorts for just about everyone. With the cow shorts done, I needed to find something to give us a complete outfit. I had purchased some white painter’s caps several years ago from the Oriental Trading Company. With a black sharpie, we turned them into cow hats. All that was left was a white t-shirt and some black felt spots. (The shirts from the previous year had all frayed out.) Bossy came over and took the scraps of fabric home.  She returned with cow-tails some with yarn for hair for everyone.  We looked amazing! Or should I say "amooozing"! And if you start early, you can visit one Chick Fil A for lunch and a different one for dinner. It really makes me appreciate cows, coupons, and Chick Fil A.