Perspective.

To say that the last few weeks have been overwhelming would be an understatement.  

Brian has been travelling for essentially a solid 3 weeks and I've been holding down the fort at home.  It's not easy for either of us and I think we're both desperate for a little normalcy.

Last weekend my car decided to take a poop, and it's been in the shop since then.

Brian came home from Michigan last week limping around because his knee hurt.  Apparently he just woke up one night and it was throbbing.  At first I thought he was being dramatic, but after seeing him wince and hearing him cry out with the slightest graze to his knee, I knew it was serious.  This was not simply a man-injury that would blow over at the first chance to go do something fun and physical.

OK, that's not entirely true.  He did make one attempt to run through the sprinkler with Brennan on Saturday.  I caught it on camera, Brennan had a blast, and Brian hobbled back to the chair seriously regretting his decision.  Yep, not just a man-injury.

Uh oh. I think I have a new hobby.

I don't have time for new hobbies.

But oh mylanta have I been having fun making changes to my blog.  I'm kind of addicted.

We had a fun, relaxing day today.  Family trip to Target, nice nap for the brothers and some fun in the sun for Brennan, Daddy, & me.

After we put the boys to bed, I headed back out to Target to stock up on cereal since we discovered a good sale and I didn't have my coupons with me that morning.  I strolled around Target all by myself, which is always glorious, and refrained from buying the whole store.

When I got home, Brian told me to go write or do whatever I wanted and that he would clean the kitchen in the morning.  Halle-freaking-lujah.

So since then I've been changing and tweaking and writing and ohmygosh having way too much nerdy fun.

I love this look.  It's new and fresh and I did it all by myself.

I'm just a tiny bit proud.

ch-ch-ch-changes.

Well hey.  Remember when I was going to go do the dishes and then go to bed?

Dishes are done, but I've been battling a migraine-ish headache for a few days now and I couldn't sleep.  So I thought I'd get up and be productive.

Then I decided that I didn't feel like being productive, so I sat down and started to work on the ol' blog.

I like it.  I think I might still tweek some things, but I like it.

It feels fresh and clean and new.  And that's just what I'm in the mood for these days.

And while I was at it, I went ahead and splurged on my own domain name.  It was a whole $10 for the year.  I know, I'm a big spender.

The moral of the story is that you can now find me at www.imflyingsouth.com.  If you're not much for change, the old blogger URL should work just fine as well.  Personally, I'm all about shortcuts, so not having to type the "blogspot" part is exciting to me.  Laziness at it's finest.

If something is misspelled, hard to read, just plain ugly ... please feel free to let me know.  I'm still playing around with it, but at this moment I know that I can sleep, so I'm out for the night.

Sleep tight!

I'm still alive ... barely.

I'm just being dramatic.  

I'm fine.  

I've been working my arse off around my house trying not to let it fall down and keep it's occupants alive.  

The mister has been home for only 3 of the last 16 days.  He finally comes home tomorrow and has no more business trips planned for the near future.  That I know of anyway.  Hallelujah.

Being a single parent is hard ya'll.  And I only have to do it for a relatively short period of time and don't have to worry about that whole making money thing.  I just hand over the plastic for what we need and at some point somebody pays the bill.  

(And then that person complains about how much money we spend on food.  Dude.  We have 3 boys.  It's just going to get worse.  I'm sure I'll end up working 3 jobs someday in order to feed them.)  

Anywho, semi-singleparenthood sucks.  We get out and have friends over and keep busy and they do entertaining shit like decide that they hate clothes and love accessories and insist on wearing nothing but diapers, socks, shoes, and sunglasses.   My kids are awesome.  

Mom's Morning Out ... or lack thereof.

Today was one of those rough parenting days.

Not because the boys were hard to deal with.  They were, but that's just a day in the life.

It was one of those days when you start to doubt your decisions.  I really really hate those days.  I'll take hard to deal with kids any day over those days.

I have been taking Brennan to a Mom's Morning Out program at a church near our home since the fall.  It's a drop-in setup on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 8am and noon, so we use it as needed/desired, without having to commit and pay a fee whether he goes or not.  It's not a structured learning environment, just a place where he can go to socialize with other kids and get a little independent time away from Mommy.  He really seems to enjoy going to "school".  

When the brothers were still taking a morning nap, I dropped Brennan off at the church and took Beckett & Kiernan back home with me to nap.  The MMO ladies would often comment that I should leave them so that I could get some time to myself, but I knew better than to mess with naptime.  

Love grows.

I was just sitting here, missing my hubby, and got the urge to look back at honeymoon pictures.  

 

 

We were so young and carefree and in love.

Not so young anymore.  Definitely not as carefree.  But even more in love than we were then.  

Happy Valentine's Day my love.

3 can't last forever.

This one.

Oh, my Brennan will be the death of me.  

I always said that 16-20ish months was my least favorite age span.  While it's a fun time because they learn so much, they're also caught in this struggle between GET AWAY MOMMY I CAN DO IT MYSELF and DEAR GOD MOMMY WHY DID YOU LEAVE MY LINE OF SIGHT?!  

Going dairy-free in the name of eczema.

This guy.

Cute right?  

He's also itchy. 

Dairy-free deliciousness {Spinach, Bacon, & Goat Cheese Pasta and Crockpot Bacon Ranch Chicken}.

Since Kiernan's dairy allergy diagnosis, I have been working really hard to think outside of the box when it comes to dairy free recipes.  We are I am a big fan of cheese.  And butter.  And milk.  In a pinch, I can always whip up an easy meal involving cream of whatever soup.  

That isn't an option anymore, so I've been trying to think differently about how I prepare dinner.  We've done a lot of the obvious dairy-free staples - roasts, pork loin, tacos, stir fry.  But I've really been jonesin' for something hearty and creamy.  Especially because it's winter.  So I feel the need to fill our bellies with warm yummy foods before the temp dips from the 70s during the night into the 50s at night.  Brrrrrrr.

It's fine to hate me.  I'm a total smart ass.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a few of our favorite successfully dairy-free recipes from this week.  Both were huge hits with all 4 boys, and I like anything with bacon.  So it was a total win.  

First up, is Crock Pot Bacon Ranch Chicken from Six Sisters' Stuff.  If you've never visited this website, do it as soon as your done reading this post.  They have soooo many awesome recipes.  

This recipe was very clearly not dairy-free, but I found some Tofutti Sour Supreme (sour cream substitute) at Publix the other day and was anxious to try it in a recipe.  I was nervous as I think that even using fat-free sour cream can sometimes make a recipe taste weird, but this was a big success.  

(I forgot to take a picture of mine, so I'm borrowing theirs.  It's way prettier than mine would have been anyway.  Mine looked a bit different, but not much.  You can find the original recipe here.  )

Crock Pot Bacon Ranch Chicken

4 strips bacon, cooked & chopped/crumbled

2 tsp minced garlic 

1 packet dry ranch dressing mix

1 can creamed corn 

1 cup Tofutti Sour Supreme

1 whole boneless skinless chick breast

8 oz pasta (I used elbow macaroni since it was in the pantry)

Cook and crumble/chop bacon.  Mix garlic, ranch mix, creamed corn, Sour Supreme together.  Place chicken in crock pot (I put it in frozen since it was a last minute dinner choice, but I think you're really not supposed to put frozen chicken in the crock pot).  Pour mixture over chicken.  Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 5-6 hours, depending on your crock pot.  When cooked, shred chicken with 2 forks and mix with cooked pasta.  

I mixed in a can of peas before I served it to add in some more veggies.  Check out the original recipe for the dairy-lover version if you're not sure about the creamed corn or the Sour Supreme.

The next recipe was a direct result of my lack of menu planning lately and my need to use up random things in the fridge.  The rest of the bacon that I didn't use in the crockpot chicken needed to be cooked and used, I had a half package of spinach that only had a day or 2 of life left in it, and a wedge of goat cheese that I knew wouldn't last much longer either.  

When I have items that I need to use but don't know what to do with them, I type them into a Pinterest search and gather some inspiration and wing it.  My biggest inspiration for this dish was found here, but I changed it quite a bit.  This was a HUGE hit with all of the boys.  It's a little creamier than Brian generally prefers his pasta to be, and I could have thinned it a bit, but I like things creamy.  So there.  

Spinach, Bacon, and Tomato on Goat Cheese Pasta 

adapted from Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice

8 slices bacon, chopped/crumbled

1 onion, diced

1 tbsp minced garlic

3 cups packed spinach

1 can (28oz) diced tomatoes (I like the kind with basil, oregano, & garlic)

4 oz goat cheese

8 oz linguine

Boil water for the pasta and begin to cook the bacon.  Once the bacon is cooked, dry it and chop or crumble it.  Set aside.  Drain some of the bacon grease if you'd like, but reserve enough in the pan to saute onions, garlic, and spinach.  Saute onions and garlic until tender, then add spinach and stir until spinach wilts.  Drain the can of tomatoes, reserving the liquid in a separate bowl.  Add tomatoes and bacon to spinach and onion pan.  Cover and simmer on low.  

Meanwhile, drain cooked pasta in a strainer.  Melt goat cheese in pasta pot on low heat.  Add the reserved tomato juice and stir into a sauce.  If it isn't thin enough, use a spoon to get more of the tomato juices from the tomato, spinach, and onion pan.  Add until satisfied with the consistency of the sauce.  Return pasta to pan and toss to coat with sauce.  Serve tomato mixture on top of pasta, or mix all together.

Delish.  You could use turkey bacon and whole wheat or veggie pasta to healthify it up a bit.  Either way, I'll definitely be making this again!