New Years Resolutions

It has been a crazy month.....At the beginning of the year I started thinking about the year ahead. I told myself that it was going to be a good year. I had so many plans. I had a monthly budget all planned out. We were going to get out of credit card debt, I was going to declutter my house, I was going to plant a garden in three of my friends back yards (my back yard was so small and had little usable sunlight space), I was going to go to Bass Lake California, and we were going to go to Disneyland! Now I'm not saying I have given up hope on doing these things, but let me tell you what started happening....January our new old car broke. It cost $900.00 to fix!!! Now I am ok with having to fix the car. It is just the price you pay for not having a car payment. The problem lies in the fact that in December, November, and October the car also had to be fixed. $400 here $500 there starts to get to you after a while. Humm my budget was toast.
I started to declutter the house (see Monday motivation), but something happened while in the middle of the decluttering process....(this one's my fault) I was just on the internet looking at houses (I kinda do this as my hobby) I found the cutest little 100 year old Victorian house on 1.7 acres of land in the heart of Grantsville! I had to go see it. (every once in a while I drag Mike and the kids out on a "drive" to go look at a house I found) We took a picnic and went to Grantsville. It was, and is the cutest house I have ever seen. I fell in love with it and Mike did to(or so I thought). He told me we could look into selling our house. I prayed about it first to see if it was right for us to move, I couldn't believe I got a good feeling about it, that had never happened. I have prayed several times once for Roy, for Eagle mountain, and for Logan. All NO! I was surprised that I got the go ahead for Grantsville.
We did our research on Realtors, and house prices, started shoving things in boxes to get the house "show ready", painted, and basically wore myself out. The house went up on the market and the next day. We had two or three showings. This continued all week and by the end of it we had our first offer! No go. He didn't want to budge and neither did we. The next day or so we got our second offer. We accepted. It took them a week to back out, so up it went again! Another week, more showings and another offer! We took it! All went well. We packed up, moved and now......we are homeless with no garden! Two of the neighbors were not happy because they were two of my garden helpers! (I felt bad because this was so not in my plans for the year and I felt like I backed out of a promise to them).
Back to the cute little Victorian! Well we went back to look at it and my husband noticed the foundation had a crack in it and the chimney was about to fall off. (I don't get the problem but whatever) He told me he had the feeling we should build a new house! It took me a while to warm up to this idea, but after much internal turmoil and finally taking it to the lord again, I got the distinct feeling to listen to my husband. That out of the way we picked a lot and the house and we are now on our way to getting a new house!
I'm sorry to have messed up Monday motivation, and well, We'll get out of debt sometime right?
One more thing...we are definitely going to Disneyland because I need a vacation!

Out with the old in with the new

I have been neglecting my duties as a blogger, but I have a good reason for it. Not just the fact that I have three kids, I babysit four days out of the week, clean someones house every Thursday, try to keep my own house from looking like a pig sty, and that I'm a cub scout leader for a pack of wild wolves. No I have something else going on that I think justifies my lack of recipe writing. The main reason for the lack of posting is that we are in the middle of "fixing" up the house to sell! This is my first experience with selling a house and there is so much involved. I am now in the process of putting everything in boxes to shove under the house so the house looks decluttered to the point of being sterile. And painting the walls, (I have to make a note that EVERY single wall in my house has some form of art work painted, colored, penciled, or penned on them and I'm talking little people level here). I am trying to get everything ready to start showing the house for next month, so until then I am cooking lots of great food and will post them when I have a chance. Tonight we are having some friends over for dinner. I am making scalloped potatoes. I will post the recipe soon because I have SERIOUS issues with people making them from a box. It shouldn't be done. Ever.
Happy cooking everyone!
Jo

It has been crazy at my house since Christmas. First the car broke right after thanksgiving, then I was sick for the three weeks before christmas, the week in between christmas and new years we gutted the bathroom in order to lay tile, which we also did, then the car broke again. And in the middle of it all the batteries died in my camera. I Have new batteries now and have calmed down just enough to start cooking again! yeah. There is a catch.....We are living on our food storage right now because we spent all our money on cars and bathrooms and doctor trips! Ok enough about me lets talk about food!
The first time I had a grilled peanut butter and jelly was when I was in kindergarten! My dad was in charge of getting me lunch. Usually mom only made regular pb&j but that day I had it grilled (dads are so cool) with a large glass of milk! It was the best lunch a five year old ever had!

I ate a whole lot of these when I was pregnant, for some reason I just craved them. So pick your favorite jelly and have yourself a grilled pb&j sandwich! they are soooooo good!