This is an exercise in accountability. Tag, you’re it! It being my new accountability partner. For today at least. I have a long list of things to get done, and in hopes of actually getting them done, and making myself look good… I am posting them here.

1. Be up at 4am. (does 4:10am count?)
   
2. Do dishes.
3. Cook birthday breakfast for husband. (Lets not talk about the burnt bacon and hashbrowns. It’s 4am!)
4. Celebrate said birthday with pre-work activities. (FAIL)
5. Send husband off to work around 6am.
6. Sleep for another few hours. (FAIL - Instead I called Comcast and tried to get the cable fixed. They’re coming out between 1 and 5 on Wednesday.)
7. Shower & dust the bathroom, take out the bathroom trash. (Partial FAIL)
8. Snack & coffee while cleaning up breakfast mess.
9. Start ribs in crockpot.
10. Re-arrange office BEFORE getting on internet.
11. Set up new printer.
12. Spend time online. While online, e-mail the receipt, call insurance company, and file the boot receipt.
13. Put away laundry. (FAIL)
14. Wash sheets & make bed. (FAIL)
15. Quick lunch & bake birthday brownies.
16. Celebrate birthday with post-work activities. (FAIL - I am a SUCKY wife, geez!)
17. Make dinner.
18. Clean up dinner.
19. Strong arm Kelly into the room.
20. Sleep.

We’ll see if I get any of it done. No taking bets now.

Oh, and Happy Birthday PimpDaddyPain. I love you.

You asked, I listened… here is yet another boring video blog. Hee. Enjoy. Oh, and this was recorded a week ago, Kelly will be home soon, YAY! We’ve had way more than 25 inches of snow, more like 50, I think… and Linda’s blog is right here.

Meatloaf Originally uploaded by Shiny (aka Rachel)

Until tonight I’ve made a total of one meatloaf, two, if you count the disasters wrapped in bacon and stuffed in a muffin tin. Cheeseburger meat muffins or something like that… the recipe was good, but I didn’t care for the bacon, or the cheese, or the mess the grease made of my muffin pan. The other time was at PDP’s Grandma’s… I made it, everyone said it was great, but I declined due to the type of crumbs I used.

I like meatloaf, in fact, when I’d come home from Job Corps for the weekend, it was one of the first things I asked my Mom to make. But I’ve never really tried to make it myself. When I realized I had several pounds of hamburger in the fridge that desperately needed to be used, I resorted to my old standbys… mexa slop, and hamburgers… but there was still leftovers, so PDP begged for meatloaf.

I couldn’t resist this face, he buried himself in the snow this afternoon… just for fun. His excitement was unbearably cute. I caved.

After eons spent browsing the internet for recipes and ideas, I finally made my own. It’s good, really good. I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit to keep things from crumbling. This time around I used 80% ground beef, because PDP picked it up on sale… normally we eat 93%, I think it would have worked much better in this recipe.

I’m sure there is something similar to this out there, everyone has a meatloaf recipe, right? Never the less, here is mine…

Rachel’s Meatloaf:
*yields two 1lb loaves

Ingredients:
2lbs of 93% ground beef
2 cups gluten-free corn flakes
1 medium head broccoli
1 large green bell pepper
1/2 cup sliced carrots
1 medium onion
2 eggs
1 cup ketchup (divided)
2 tbsp gf soy sauce (divided)
4 tbsp A1 Steak Sauce (divided)
2 tbsp Montreal Steak Seasoning (divided)
1/3 cup Sweet Baby Rays Original BBQ sauce (divided)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350%
1. Using your food processor, grind the cornflakes up finely.
2. Dice all your vegetables.
3. Mix the hamburger, crumbs, and veggies together with half the ketchup, 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce, 3 tbsp A1 Steak sauce, 1 tbsp Montreal Steak Seasoning, and the two eggs together.
4. Mix remaining ingredients with the BBQ sauce and set aside.
5. Form into loaves, place into bread pans.
6. Brush on BBQ sauce mixture.
Cook for 1 hour, 30 minutes… draining away fat and basting with additional sauce as needed.

I served the meatloaf with risotto and green beans. It was hit, I went back for another piece and Chris had polished off the first loaf. Good thing I made two!

PimpDaddyPain completly spoiled me this Christmas, he hit all the right notes, things I needed, things I wanted, thing I would have never bought myself… and he gave me the day off. We had a very low mantience meal of frozen pizza and peanut clusters. Later in the evening we went to see family, and he enjoyed turkey and excess there… The best gift I got this year though, was the ok to go ahead and quit my job.

The snow kept me house bound for days, and we both got used to me being home again. He liked coming home and not having to wait for dinner. I liked not having to worry about making so many sales a day. Not having to worry about getting back and forth to work is a blessing. I tried to take the car out the other night and got stuck right away. I’m not good in the snow. We sat down and looked at our income to expense ratio and realized if we cut down on our extra spending by just a little… I don’t need to work. So he told me to quit.

And it feels good. I am going to be looking for part time work (less than 20 hours a week), just so we can pay off some debt and put money in savings… although right now I am talking to a friend about doing in home childcare for her, two kids at $3 an hour (although one is in school)… and maybe another little boy. I used to do this, and loved it… so I am hoping it works out. Even if it doesn’t, I already have several other jobs in mind just to pass the time a few days a week.

I did promise to put more effort into my art. He wants me to do something every day.. be it crochet, make a card, think up a recipe, or use Photoshop. Keeping the house clean, cooking, and making art… oh yeah, Merry Christmas to me!

More snow, originally uploaded by Shiny (aka Rachel).

Every year PimpDaddyPain fills Christmas cups with candy and hands them out to his coworkers. We were at the Dollar Store a while back and he noticed the pre-filled cups, and decided to get them instead… and then I found this recipe, and knew I had to make some to put in the cups.

So I ended up buying the cups, filling them, and wrapping everything up. I feel used. No worries though, for every peanut cluster I put in a cup, I ate one. Or two. PDP took a little baggy full into work today for breakfast, and his boss absconded with them all, so I made sure and packed extra in the boss’ cup. Maybe the Christmas bonus PDP gets tomorrow will be bigger too. Hee.

The peanut clusters were ridiculously easy to make, and a huge hit with everyone I’ve passed them out to so far. Even my landlady, the queen of homemade candy declared them delicious. She about died when she learned I made them in the crock pot. Sooo good.

As soon as Christmas inflation wears off and baking items aren’t so outrageously price, I’m going to make a double or triple batch of these to send off with our late Christmas presents.

Christmas 2008 by Micheal, originally uploaded by Shiny (aka Rachel).

The weather and mix up over the studio turned out to be a good thing, I love how having the pictures in the house really gave everything a homey feel. PDP’s Uncle and his girlfriend came over tonight and we exchanged gifts… they printed off their favorite three, framed two, and gave us an extra frame (the 10 x 10 ring shot didn’t fit the frame they bought)… so we finally have pictures of ourselves up in the house! After a year together, we’re finally getting it together. LOL

The first three (coincidentally, the ones they had printed for us) I’m sharing are edited by the photographer, the rest are as is, pimples, duct tape, and clutter included.

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