Preparing for Baby Pt. 1 - Bills

When my due date was on the horizon I started to get a slight panic.  My husband is a US Marine on recruiting duty.  For those of you that think his favorite past time is to pester your high school child and try to steal their soul for an hour and then go fishing...I am here to tell you it is NOT true.

First off he works 12-16 hour days, 5-7 days a week.  So...once my bundle of tears arrived, he would not be able to seamlessly take over paying bills and taking care of our household.  

Enter The Binder.  *Queue amazing super hero music here* In this binder I put everything to run our house.  Cleaning, cooking, bills, phone numbers, passwords, budget anything I could think of.  

If you have not set up a budget, I highly recommend it.  We have everything budgeted.  This was as simple as sitting down, and looking at what our income and expenses are.  We then set up a little table showing income and expenses for each paycheck.  

For example.  If you make $4000 a month, you make roughly $2000 per paycheck.  Subtract all bills first.  Rent, utilities, child support if you have it, car payments, insurance, gas, savings, etc.

Look at what your overflow is.  What is left over after all your bills are paid.  From there we budgeted out our "play" money.  Money for hobbies, coffee, lunch, movies, whatever it is that you like to do.

From this budget you can create a Bills Sheet:

We get paid on the 1st and 15th of each month.  I divided up our bills accordingly.  Under the 1st I have each bill we pay, the web address, username, passwords, account numbers, payment info (account numbers, credit cards, etc).  I also created a "bills" tab in my bookmarks on my browser and put every webpage we use to pay bills in this tab.

Bills

(all bookmarked under “bills” in Safari)

1st:

Rent: $775.00 

www.rentpayment.com  Username: ourusername  Password: pa$$word  

Payment info: account num.  1234567891011  routing num. 1234567890

Internet: $70.00

AUTOMATIC ~ Pays out on the 13th.  ~Web Address ~ Username ~ Password  ~ Account Number

~Payment Info

Phone: $50.00

AUTOMATIC ~ Pays out on the 2nd.  ~Web Address ~ Username ~ Password  ~ Account Number ~Payment Info

Savings: $100

Groceries: $250

Gas Money: $100

Hobby Money: $125

Coffee/Lunch Money: $40

15th: 

Gas: Variable

~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password  ~ Account Number

~Payment Info

Electric: Variable

~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password  ~ Account Number

~Payment Info

Water: Variable (Must know amount)

~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password  ~ Account Number

~Payment Info

Insurance:  $120

~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password  ~ Account Number

~Payment Info

Netflix/Hulu: $20

~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password  ~ Account Number

~Payment Info

Savings: $100 

Groceries: $250

Gas Money: $100

Hobby Money: $125

Coffee/Lunch Money: $40

DO NOT print this out at a public location.  Do NOT put this in an easily accessible location in your home.  

Page protectors are always a good idea.  You can also put a pencil pouch in the binder with "petty cash" how much petty cash is up to you. 

Since I was due ON Thanksgiving day, our binder included money for a hotel for family if needed, money for the Thanksgiving dinner I had ordered from a local market, plans, money, and instructions for our son's birthday party, (2 days after Thanksgiving).  

CousCous Stirfry

Like so many people I try to have a somewhat healthy diet.  As a chef turned mom-of-a-4-month-old I struggle with eating.  It's not that I'm not hungry...it's that I have a hard time juggling munchkin on one hip and creating a beautiful cordon bleu.

Lunches are the hardest for me as I'm generally alone and inevitably when I want to eat she also wants to eat...or cry...or poop...or all three.

So a healthy, fast, appetizing meal?  haha!  That is a good one.

But today I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself.  In fact it took longer to type this out than to make my lunch!

Garlic-Sesame CousCous

Equal parts hot water and couscous, I used 1/3 cup

1/3 cup couscous
1/3 cup boiling water
sprinkle of garlic powder
sprinkle of sesame oil
pinch of salt and pepper

Put couscous, garlic powder, sesame oil, salt and pepper in a heat proof bowl that can easily be covered.  Pour in hot water and swirl/stir just enough to wet couscous.  Cover the bowl and let sit at least 10 minutes or while you cook the rest of your veggies.


Stir Fry

ANY veggies in your house.  I used:

1 carrot
1 stalk of celery
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup cut asparagus

Can you tell tomorrow is shopping day?

ANY protein (Optional)  I used:

1 cup garbanzo beans

Oil of choice I used:

1 Tbs coconut oil

ANY flavorings of choice.  I used:

A few shakes of fish sauce
A few shakes of soy sauce
A few shakes of sesame oil


Cut all your veggies on the diagonal or about 1 inch pieces.

Heat your oil on high heat.

layer your vegetables starting with the hardiest/slowest cooking.  I put carrots then celery.  I waited and put my garlic and asparagus in JUST before my beans, fish sauce, sesame and soy.

Stir in about 1/2-1 cup hot water and turn off heat.  Water should evaporate quickly and leave a nice sauce.

Mix with your couscous and enjoy.

This can easily be doubled, tripled, as much as you need to feed a small family or a crowd.  

The Great Oatmeal Scone Disaster of 2014

As a nursing mom I am always looking for new ways to get oatmeal into my diet.  Don't get me wrong...a big bowl of oatmeal every. single. morning. is great (insert sarcasm here) but it does get tiring.  I've added everything you can to oatmeal: fruit, nuts, seeds, peanut butter, honey, syrup, brown sugar, coconut oil, butter, milk...I haven't gone as far as sprinkling Reeses pieces in there...but I've considered it.

Anyway, Reeses oatmeal aside, I was on the hunt for a way to get in oatmeal without eating yet another bowl of warm oats.  Thus the Great Oatmeal Scone Disaster of 2014 (GOSD/14)!

By 'great' I mean 8 little scones in my small kitchen in the NW corner of Arkansas...and by 'disaster' I mean...not as pretty as I expected.

I grabbed a Scottish Oat Scone recipe off a site that claims to have ALL of the recipes...(like all of them in the world...?  On the internet...? who knows)  The recipe needs just a few tweaks.  I tried to leave a comment and some feedback but making an account that a year from now I'll have never used since and will have long forgotten my username and password...I did what any self-respecting person would do and decided to write a blog about it.

I was a little nervous and had some red flags when I read the instructions.  Preheat oven to 425.  425? Like 425 degrees?  That seems a little high...So I start reading the comments.  After the fourth comment of "I changed every single thing in this recipe and it was FANTASTIC" I decided to give the creator the benefit of the doubt and just preheat my oven to 425.

I didn't have currants and although I just flamed internet "chefs" everywhere for tweaking a recipe, I put some white chocolate chunks and some frozen cherries that magically appeared in my grocery bags one day.  (Honestly, I think they belonged to the person checking out ahead of me at WalMart a few weeks ago.  I wonder if they thought they were losing their mind when they got home and had no cherries.  Was it an "UGH I have to go back out for CHERRIES!  I could have SWORN I put them in my bag and they are the most important part of this Roast-Swallow-with-Cherry-Rum-Sauce dinner that I was cooking up for the Commandant and his wife tonight!" although the Commandant wasn't in NWA at the time...but I digress.)

Back to the GOSD/14.  As I'm finishing up the mixing and shaping I again check back with my trusty recipe.  "Score 8 wedges into each circle of dough..."  WAIT...Score?  Not cut?  And 8 wedges...?  How in the world am I supposed to get 8 wedges out of each circle?  Whatever...I score my circles into 4 wedges because well...there isn't that much dough.  "Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven until risen and browned.  Split wedges, and serve warm"  Uhhh...I'm pretty sure that if I do that the scones are going to be REALLY brown on the top (READ: burned) and doughy in the center.  But again...let's not doubt the obviously master internet baker that created this cutting edge scone recipe.  (Do they have a sarcasm emoticon...?  Maybe I should create one)

15 minutes later...Even used a timer!  Go me!  BAM!  REALLY brown on the top, completely raw in the center!  However, being the awesome internet baker I am, I cut my wedges, lowered the temp back to 350 like I had originally thought and baked for another 5-10 minutes.

The taste?  Not bad at all!  A little heavy, but hey, it is different than a bowl of oatmeal, and it's got white chocolate chunks!

Bottom line: not a bad recipe overall and I will probably make again.


See my completely revamped recipe below:

2 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbs and 1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1 stick butter melted
1/3 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla

1/2 - 1 cup Fruit, chocolate, nuts, anything you want

Preheat oven to 350 deg.

Mix the dry ingredients (oatmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) in a large bowl.  Mix your additions into the dry ingredients.  Mix all the wet ingredients (butter, milk, egg and vanilla) in a large measuring cup.  Pour into the flour mixture and stir gently until the mixture comes together and forms a dough.

Using your hands press dough into a ball.  Flatten it out onto a greased baking sheet and cut into 8 wedges.  Pull those wedges apart and arrange on the baking sheet.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the tops are golden and the centers are cooked through.



Original recipe can be found here:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/scottish-oat-scones/