Today was fairly busy but busy doing simple things to make our lives peaceful.  Now that I am over whatever it was that made me sick, I've been spending time reading, dreaming, and being.  Unfortunately, dh has been sick this week and has actually driven the dc a little crazy ~ we homeschool and they aren't use to him being home more than 2 days a wk and he was doing a lot of sneezing and rambling, at least that's what they tell me.

I picked up my new glasses yesterday, but can't see really see out of them. LOL  I must wear them when using the computer, heavy reading ~ you know before bed  and at night when I am tired.  Now, don't misunderstand, I don't have to wear them all the time and I am not losing my sight yet, this has been the story of my life since I was 11yo.  I haven't had a pair of glasses since 2001 and was starting to have some blurring issues, so off I went to the eye doctor who gave me some glasses that make seeing things funny at times.   Anyway, I am wearing them now and the screen is clearer, but it keeps fading in and out and I don't think that is suppose to happen. 

Anywho, I have been the designated driver since dh is not well.  Today, I took him and our oldest dd to work.  He needed to send some emails or something and so off we went.  After about an hr we left and he was feeling rather yucky and I offered to get him some juice, soup and a box of tissues ~ so we headed to Walmart.  On the way, I decided to make him some homemade soup instead, stating it probably will cost less and last longer, he agreed.  So this is one of the simple things I did for my family today, I purchased a whole fryer for $1.69 and made a pot of Old Fashioned Chicken Noodle soup.  I only used about 1/4 of the chicken, so I am planning more meals for the rest of the week with the rest ~ Herb Chicken, Curry Chicken and Chicken & Dumplings.  I'll post the recipes later.

*Here are the other things I did today:

I browned about 5 lbs of the ground beef I purchased the other day and will freeze it in 1lb packages for later meals.  I actually got about 8lbs of beef, which the family used about 3lbs making hamburgers.  Even Poochie got himself a burger or two ~ that's our puppy.  We don't feed him brought food, only what we cook.  I also saved the meat juice to make him some treats using the recipe from Simple Treasure.

I took a box of Vanilla Thin Cookies and Honey Graham crackers and split them out into serving size snack bags.  This will help greatly with making sure that everyone gets some and that snacks are ready.  This is a tip from Dining on a Dime.  I didn't put them in a basket yet, but back in their boxes ~ I need to find that lovely silver wired basket I bought at Garden Ridge for $2 last weekend.  I also did the same with the potato chips, which always gets eaten before everyone gets any.   There are five of us and sometimes I wonder where the food goes, this should help.  I plan to split up the chocolate and pb baking chips, peanuts and the fiddle faddle this weekend along with some fruits and vegs like raisins, carrots, celery and broccoli.  I think its time to break out the trail mix recipe too.  Ummm, maybe I should do this to the cereal too. 

I made up a batch of our favorite pancake batter on Saturday for our sleepover guest but made the recipe incorrectly somehow.   I put too much baking powder in the dry ingredients.  I realize my error while I was creating a database on my computer for our favorite recipes (I'm so glad I hadn't added the liquids yet).  I corrected my error but ended up with 6 batches of mix instead of 2.  Problem solved ~ since it is the dry ingredients, I put the remainder in a 2qt container with a label of instructions ~ 1 cup of mix, add 1 egg, 1 cup milk, 1 tbsp vanilla and 2 tbsp cooking oil.  This will make apprx. 12 - 24 cakes depending on size.

I  purchased 2 btls of ginger ale soda and a btl of grape cranberry juice so they could make Cranberry Cocktails.   I found a recipe for making ginger ale but can't find it at the moment.  I'll look when I get home from work tomorrow and post it.  I will add the ingredients to my grocery list for next week and make some.  Yum!

I also filled up the ice container and refilled the ice trays so they will have lots of ice while I'm at work tomorrow.

It has been a very productive day.  I look forward to future days of productive on this wonderful journey.