How Do You Make Ends Meet When What You Have is a Jumbled Mess?

As rewarding as doing housework is (cue laughter from the audience) it doesn't generate a paycheck! That part really sucks!!!!

Things I need to do today:

Clean both the 29 gallon fish tank and the 10 gallon fish tank
Clean all three toilets (whoever installed 3 toilets in a 2 level house didn't explore all the ramifications...)
Make something for dinner (possibly pizza tonight...I got nothin')
Fold 4 loads of laundry
Sweep and Mop the Kitchen floor
Empty dishwasher and fill it up again

That's going to take me like all day and its 12:30, the kids come home at 3:45, I need to go get my afternoon adult conversation fix at my friends house at 2, and ballet lessons for Fluffy #4 are at 5:00pm until 6.

LUCKILY I clean best under pressure!!! I just need to figure out how to put this baby down...

I am also trying to get my Etsy store up and running so I can try to generate a way to pay for some of my smaller monthly bills. I make jewelry (or, used to when I had time and less kids) and I also am an avid photographer. Since photography is a little easier for me to do and I have a ton of great photos stored on my various flash and hard drives I decided to concentrate on that.

I decided to charge $12 for each 8x10 print, and $5 for shipping/processing. Originally I said that each one will come matted in your choice of black or white. Yeah well little did I know that a mat costs on average $3.50!!!! The print itself costs about $3, and the packaging costs $3. Postage costs around $3 also. Lets do the math: Charging $17, costing $12.50. So I make only $4.50 and that does not count the driving time to pick up the photos or the postage for having them printed and sent to my house!!! I have sold a total of 6, but only charged for 2 mats out of those because I didn't think properly. Thinking properly is one of those things they don't teach you in school.

So this lesson in "Thinking for Dimwits" is: find out how much things cost such as materials, postage, packaging, etc. BEFORE you price any item that you may list. I know this sounds like common sense stuff, but this blog is for people like me who learn from their mistakes, or from reading crap on the internet!!! :) I usually learn things the hard way also.

Etsy.com is a great way to get your handmade items out there but its a game to play just like anything else, and it is HARD work for sure. It doesn't just happen. There are a lot of really talented people out there who are just like you and me, trying to make a living with what we have.

Another great place to make some money is Seed.com I heard about it on one of the national morning news shows (I know I know they are like gossip rags now) and I checked it out. If you are a writer or a photographer you can definitely make some money. Take a look!

Teriyaki-ish Chicken in the Slow Cooker

Since my kids said they are sick of beef and carrots I decided to try cooking chicken in the slow cooker. My friend Maggie gave me the basis for the recipe: put frozen chicken breasts in what I fondly now call the Crack Pot and dump a can of Swanson's chicken broth on them. Well I couldn't stop at that. I got the bright idea to put the only recipe for any kind of tasty thing in there: teriyaki sauce. Its the only thing my mother taught me to make and HEY I remember it 15 years later!! See Mom?? I WAS listening! You could have taught me more!! Ok enough angst.

So here is what my recipe ended up being for today's "Cooking for Chumps" lesson:

4 FROZEN chicken breasts
1/2 cup of brown sugar, give or take 1/4 cup
a bunch of olive oil (probably about 1/3 cup)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 chopped thingies of garlic (the small thingies that make up the big thingy)
can of Swanson's Chicken Broth
1/2 tsp Ginger I didn't have Ginger, so I used the closest thing I could find: Szechwan Spice.
1 lemon, sliced into circles not wedges. Probably doesn't matter but it looks nice :)



First, you are going to want to take the chicken out of the foam package its in, but you will most likely find the damn things are frozen tight to it. I asked Maggie what to do and she said to give it a warm bath. So I held it under warm water and then pried it off the foam. Then I had to break them apart since they were also stuck to each other! You may want to wear safety goggles for this hahaha


Dump them into the broth inside the cooker. Next add all the other ingredients except the lemon. Well, honestly I don't know if it matters when you add the lemon, but I waited until 2 hours before it was done and it was quite tasty. Hell, throw caution to the wind if ya want!

Turn it on High and cook for about 4 hours. I started it around 12:30pm. If you start early in the morning I would assume you would put it on Low!



As I said I put the lemon slices in around 3ish. That is because my lemon juice expired in 2007 and I had to walk to the grocery store and buy a lemon!! You can tell I don't cook often can you?

I also baked a batch of brownies for posterity, and boiled 2 bags of 10 min white rice to put under the chicken. I still have a sinus issue right now so I can't smell anything, but everyone seemed to think it smelled delicious.



We sat down to eat and everyone gave it a thumbs up! The chicken was smooth like buttah and pulled apart easily with a fork. The sauce in the bottom of the pot was good enough that my husband made more rice just so he could use it on something! He often eats 2 dinners so I wasn't too shocked. Somehow the man is 6'3" and 140 lbs and eats like a hogger. I learned long ago that such a metabolism does not run off on me just because I married him.

Simple Pot Roast

I grabbed a hunk of beef (about 2 lbs i think) that said "Great for Pot Roasts" on it, and was on "Manager's Special" which I don't even want to know what that means, which cost me about $6.

I then peeled 7 small Yukon Gold potatoes and dumped in a bag of baby carrots. I also cleaned 3 white button mushrooms (clean by wiping gently with a damp paper towel as holding them under running water kills the flavor) and chopped them up and threw them in.

The "juice" is Campbell's Onion Soup with Beef Stock and half a can of water.

I turned the Crack Pot on High from 8:30am to 2:30pm and then put it to Low from 2:30 to 5:00pm.

The meat was like buttah.

Even my picky 5 year old daughter liked it.

The mushrooms turned black but my son insists they were delicious and ate them all...he's a sweet boy.

The Transformation Begins

So after much waffling back and forth about what to do my husband and I decided to trust in God and I quit my job. It was very difficult for many reasons, but I feel pretty good about it. I think. My husband is this close to getting a full time job that has health insurance. We haven't had insurance for me and 2 of my kids for about a month now. Scary. And in the course of that month those two kids have managed to get sick and/or fall down the stairs several times requiring sick visits and an ER run, all uninsured. I have indeed applied for State benefits concerning health care and food stamps but its absolutely insane what they make you go through. I applied a month ago and still have not gotten them every piece of paper they need to cover their asses when they finally help me out. I also am trying to get help through the hospital which is more expeditious than the Quest for the Holy Grail would be. Paperwork I didn't even know existed is needed for these and they let you know that if ANYTHING is left blank or missing a freaking cross on a "t" they will instantly reject you.

And so, beside all of that, I am now making the leap (and its quite a gap mind you) from Busy Worker Bee to Susie Homemaker. Wow what a different world. Yes, it is nice to not have to hear an alarm going off every morning (curiously I sleep right through Kris' alarm). And I can watch all the daytime TV I want (LOL furiously), and I have several hours during the day in which I can go where I want, do what I want, and eat what I want. I do feel like I'm playing hookey every single day. Like I'm not supposed to be here and that I am screwing off while everyone else is working hard.

BUT I am also doing dishes, laundry, vacuuming, nursing a baby about 8 times a day, changing diapers, cleaning up cat vomit, and TRYING TO COOK. I am going to be turning this blog into a place I can log my adventures in Cooking for Dummies and Housecleaning for ....Chumps? Dimwits? I entered "Dummy" into the Thesaurus.com search and came up with lots of not nice synonyms...sorry about that!!

Breastfeeding News--Metabolic Syndrome

Breastfeeding Protects Women from Metabolic Syndrome, a Diabetes and Heart Disease Predictor

ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2009) — Breastfeeding a child may lower a woman's risk of developing metabolic syndrome, a condition linked to heart disease and diabetes in women, according to a Kaiser Permanente study that was published today online ahead of print and will appear in the February issue of Diabetes, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

Breastfeeding a child lowers risk by 39 to 56 percent (depending on the duration of breastfeeding) for women without gestational diabetes, and 44 to 86 percent (depending on the duration of breastfeeding) for women with gestational diabetes, researchers said. Investigators looked at durations that included 0-1 month of lactation up to greater than 9 months of lactation.

Previous research has shown that lactating women have more favorable blood levels of glucose and lipids within several weeks after delivery than women who were not lactating. Other studies have reported much weaker protective associations of breastfeeding with the presence of metabolic syndrome and diabetes in middle-aged and older women.

Read the entire article here!

My PostPartum Wishlist

So I spend a lot of time watching TV as my 8 week old likes to nurse constantly, and also doesn't get good naps anywhere else but my lap. I see a lot of commercials and shows that recommend a lot of exercise equipment for in-home workouts. My compiled list of things I want to try:

Sketchers Shape Ups

Mini Trampoline

SAM-e supplements

Bender Ball

Five Fingers Shoes

I hope my husband gets a job soon lol

Sling Me!

Autumn sleeping in the Star Sling

Because I seem to have a very cuddly baby who loves to be swaddled I have been looking for a few good slings.

My friend Astrid let me borrow the Peanut Shell (www.thepeanutshell.com). It is not like any I had ever tried before. It is made of fleece and basically reminds me of one of those Turtle Fur neck bands only way bigger. You put it over one shoulder (almost fits like a shawl) and there is some extra fabric up front to make space for the baby. I was able to nurse her in it while walking around TJ Maxx and also had dinner at Moe's when she was 9 days old very peacefully! She's getting a bit too heavy for it already though, at least to lay in it the traditional cradle way. I think when she can hold her head up firmly and is more stable over all she'll be able to ride in different positions in it.

My friend Jamie's friend Rachel (hehe) gave me a sling from Star Slings (www.starslings.com) that is made of a denim type material. Its stronger, not flexible like the fleece one, and is shaped more like a regular sling. This one hurts my back less but it was hard for me to get Autumn in there in a position that she was comfortable in as well. There are no adjustable parts on this one either, so it was a matter of spinning it around my torso until it was just the right angle. She is now sleeping happily in it as I type. I can see this one being one I will reach for while doing housework and doing anything that requires 2 hands! I don't think I can nurse her easily in this one just yet. She is 5 weeks old today and I would estimate weighs about 11-12 lbs or more. She is growing fast!

I also have a Baby Bjorn that is on its 4th kid and a Snugli which I really wish I could use more often but they KILL my back. The Bjorn is best, and perhaps when Autumn is ready to face forward I will find it more comfortable but for now it has to be so high up on my chest that I need a massage after wearing it for more than 15 min or so!