Goals linky, a new recipe and a sassy boy

Today I'm linking up with my favourite doodle artist, Aimee from Artsyville.

Her moxie print that I bought last year to inspire me in the way of COURAGE is still very proudly displayed on my desk :)

She has a linky party for LISTS. Gosh, how could I not link up? Some of you may remember when this blog was called leighloveslists :)

1. This week's theme is goals you still want to get to in 2012.

Here is my list:

taken with the iphone

Then I want to share two things with you and then I'm getting on with that 2nd book :)

2. Kendra called D for something arbitrary (excuse to not go sleep) and he said, "no, Kendra, it's time to sleep".

So she starts WAILING as she does.

Connor says, "Kenna (i love how he says his sister's name), stop crying. I'm trying to sleep. That's irritating"

LOL

3. And then my latest quick recipe.

Cheesy Butternut Pasta

300 g butternut
half a packet of pasta (I like rigatoni or elbow macaroni)
2 blocks of Kiri cheese (cream cheese) (add more if you like it cheesy - I'm going for still healthy so that's all I add)
some milk
dab of butter or margerine
lots of pepper
cinnamon

Liberally sprinkle cinnamon on the butternut and microwave with a few mm of water for about 10 minutes (1000 W microwave oven).
When soft, mash.
In a pot, add dab of butter/ marg, Kiri, butternut and some milk. Mix all together until smooth and creamy.
Add pasta and mix gently so the pasta doesn't break. Add lots of pepper and some salt if you like (I don't like salt)
Tonight I also added in about 100g cooked chicken for some extra protein.

We LOVE this recipe. I love the sweetness of the butternut (and who doesn't like cinnamon?!) with the pepper - yum!

Try it this week and let me know if you like it too :)

Thanks, Aimee, for reminding me to move my butt with this. This time I only plan to make it available as a Kindle book.

Which goals do you still want to get to this year?

PS start collecting your pics for Sat's linky :)

we went here with Tom and Heather

So my kids are growing up

I think this was week number 9 or 10 (of course I'm counting) and the kids just run into the children's ministry now.

Bliss.

When my MIL and I collected them they looked like this:




Apparently they had a face painter who made them look like lions.

They looked adorable.

The pics were taken hours and hours later as my camera's battery was flat so I couldn't capture the cuteness at the time and had to send D with a charged camera later.

I took a quick cell phone pic after deleting almost all my messages but don't have the cable here to show you.

Anyway....

D transferred car seats and off they went with MIL, Connor screaming.

Lovely.

Just the start to the afternoon.

The two of us did a quick pitstop at Mr P Home Greenstone (to buy a green chair) and then home.

We had a lovely afternoon making food and got through half a movie before D left to fetch them.

I would have gone with him but decided to clean the house, cook and organise. I even had time to do the budget.

Do you know how much fun I had?

It is BLISS without people around when you want to get things done.

Honestly, it felt like Christmas :)

So he took their supper and bath stuff, and he and MIL fed and bathed them.

He arrived home THREE hours later with two sleeping babies.

OH SO CUTE!

And even cuter is seeing your husband carry sleeping babies in from the car to bed.

Melt!

Apparently the kids were PERFECT angels (!) for my MIL and they all had a fantastic time.

I know it's good... but I feel a little sad like they're growing up and doing stuff apart from me! *sob*

We then had supper and finished watching The Back-Up Plan with JLo and the Australian guy.

You could see it was a movie because those two were far too happy and blissed out after having twins (and having s*x!).

I must tell you about supper. Which was Chicken and cashew nuts.

I found the recipe here and for the sauce I used a sticky chicken sauce with tamarind and something else I found at Pick and Pay for R26,99. It's enough for two meals.

I used 100g onion, 400 g chicken and half a bottle sauce with some garlic and ginger. Served over rice with broccoli.

DIVINE - better than a restaurant. And so easy it's almost criminal.

We're having friends over on Sat and I'm making it again!

(my plan is to eat the worst things closer to Sat and then eat properly a la Weigh Less from Monday)

So what is your current most favourite food to make? And how was your weekend?

7 Saturday Snippets

1. I gained 0.4 kg at Weigh-Less this week. I get so annoyed at people who MOAN that they ONLY lost 0.2 or 0.4. Any loss is good for me and even to stay the same would be good at this point.

2. We've just had the most delicious soup. Gosh, I couldn't believe how yummy it was. Recipe below. I'm blogging it as much for me as for you as somehow this combination of ingredients was PERFECT! And I've been slacking on my veg portions because I didn't have enough soup.

Marcia's delicious soup :)

120 g onion
80 g broccoli
200 g carrots
200 g butternut
200 g red lentils
1 can of chopped tomato (400 g)
2 chicken stock cubes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
About 1.5 - 2 L water (I just add until it's the correct consistency after I puree all the lumps out)

That's it - I needed no other seasoning - it is PERFECT.

3. We went to visit my friend, Nat, today. Both families were supposed to meet at Jhb Botanical Gardens but it's been hellishly cold here and would not have been pleasant, so we went to their house instead. The last time we were all there was Jan last year. Nat and I get together often by ourselves and have long lunches (if I drank alcohol, it would be like having long, boozy lunches :)) and talk about deep things :) and some nonsense.

But what a difference 16 months makes! We could actually have a conversation while the kids played alongside one another :) and chased the cat. Her babies (even though D1 doesn't think he's a baby anymore) are gorgeous! I can't believe we have 4 babies between us, less than 3 years after meeting! Crazy.

4. I was quite distraught last night. When I checked my email, D had received an "application unsuccessful" email from a place he'd been shortlisted for and we both thought he'd get a job offer from. He is SO disappointed. He really needs to get out of his current place of employment but there are not many jobs going. I would still like to know why as I know he is brilliant (he really is! I'm not just saying that) and they both liked him (from the two interviews). Grrr.

5. I will start showcasing some blogs next week since you all want to see. Warning - your reader is going to become very full as I read TONS of truly excellent and inspiring blogs :) The giveaway is still open. Add your comment and enter.

6. Guess what we're doing tomorrow? My MIL is taking the kids to her house after church (straight from church) and we're coming home to have the house to ourselves. This is D's bright idea because my MIL always says it doesn't matter where the kids are and we say it's easier taking care of them at our house. But as D says, one way or the other we'll find out tomorrow. I hope we don't get a frantic phone call saying, "come fetch them!"


7. Look at this pic. It's the flower each of the ladies got at work for Mother's Day. We also got gorgeous photo frames - mine holds one of my JV photos :) My company is brilliant - they give EVERY woman a gift whether you're a mother or not. It really helped to not feel left out those 4 years we were trying. Anyway, this flower only died today after 3 weeks - I'm very impressed.

See the blurry background? I don't quite know how I got it like that (because I have a point and shoot) but I love it. If I could do it for pics of people I'd be one happy person.

So what are you up to this weekend? If you're in the US, what are your plans for Memorial Day?

I know Heather's preparing for her boys' 2nd birthday party tomorrow but what about the rest of you?

PS I'm still reading my Sophie Kinsella. It's a very strange book - best I go see on Good Reads what other people thought of it.

I lost a follower talking about church

On one level I hate it... even though I'm being authentic and on another level, I'm the teeniest bit tickled.

Because this means I'm being the slightest bit controversial.

Poor me - I so enjoyed seeing 70, a nice round number :)

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So yesterday I went for my personal training session and the PT announces that that was our last session together.

Freak out!

Since I'm now starting to enjoy it - I like being pushed and challenged by the PT. Who knew?

Something to do with him getting into an argy-bargy with the gym manager over having to take unexpected time off because of his modelling.

Hate it!

And first thing this morning (well, for me, that's 9.15-ish) I get a call from a new, very perky personal trainer.

I don't do very perky - it exhausts me.

She already doesn't listen as I said twice that I train at 3.30 and she phoned me back a 2nd time to ask again.

On the bright side, I am really, really sore today and can barely walk.

I realised yesterday I'm getting stronger - it only took me 2 minutes to first feel some pain on the rowing machine and usually I feel pain within 10 seconds (no joke).

And I did "the plank" - where you prop yourself up on your elbows and your body is raised from the floor in a straight line - for a whole 30 seconds yesterday.

It's the small things, isn't it?

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Right, the macaroni cheese.

Remember this is me - I don't measure, I just throw things in. I call it being creative.

Some margerine, flour, salt... make a paste.... add milk, stir, stir, stir and then I added 3 carrot cubes, pureed (I follow The Sneaky Chef so I always have green and orange cubes to make something more healthy) and about half a tub of low-fat cottage cheese (about 125 g/ 4oz), and then at the end some real cheese, I think cheddar. Salt and pepper to taste.

Hope that helps.

And Julia, I use chickpeas the same as I use kidney beans. I cook (too cheap to buy canned) about a cup of dried chickpeas/ kidney beans (a legume is a legume, right? :)) make a sauce with about 2 cans tomato, onions, mushrooms, something green (I like Swiss Chard), lots of garlic, salt and pepper, and a bit of sugar for all that tomato. A dash of worcestershire sauce and you're good.

We then eat this over pasta or baked potatoes and it is yum. I "invented" it after I had such a lot of veggies to get in me every day. One portion is easily 1 low fat protein and 2 - 2.5 veggies :)

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It was this etsy seller's blog that had me up til 11.40 on Sunday night.

Can you guess what I bought from her shop?

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And then, these are the little bags I bought from this shop.


And now, back to work :)

How's your week going so far?

P.S. I get so frustrated when people leave cryptic messages on FB and when you ask about it, they're all "oh can't/ don't want to talk about it". Then don't say it. Or is this just Curious George Marcia?