Wordless & Wordful Wednesday ~ We Were Shot At

 Sorry for the poor picture quality...but all I had with us was a camera on our phone.  

I had planned on another picture for my Wordless/Wordful Wednesday post today.  But life gave me another turn.  Hubby and I needed to make a quick run to the local Wal-Mart (which is about 2 miles away) when we turned off of our street and P.O.W.  Two loud popping/cracking sounds rang in our ears.  We had been shot at!  After pulling over I looked up at where they hit as they were on the passenger side of our van which is where I was sitting and saw that if the first shot had come through it would have hit my head.  The above picture is where the bullet hit the passenger door. You can also see how much the window splintered and was still splintering as we took the picture.  The middle window of our van has a huge hole in it.  After calling 911 and having 4 policemen show up they determined that it was only a bb or pellet gun that hit us but that if it had gone through I would have been injured for sure.  As I type this I still can't stop the internal trembling.  I've had several good cries and might have more.  Don't know for sure.

But I do know one thing....GOD IS BIG ENOUGH!

If you would like to see more Wordless photos head on over to Wordless Wednesday, 5 Minutes for Mom, Live and Love...Out Loud, A Beautiful Mess and J. Leigh Designz. Now if you're like me and sometimes you can't stay wordless head on over to see some Wordful Wednesday photos at Parenting by Dummies.  Don't forget to sign the Linky below.

Tasty Tuesday ~ Mini Barbeque Pies

This weeks recipe I tried for the first time last week and it was a hit here and we had enough left over that I was able to freeze them for a future meal! So many possibilities with this little gem of a recipe.

Mini Barbeque Pies

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef (or ground chuck)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (or minced garlic)
1 1/2 cups barbeque sauce
2 cups red beans (or 1 can red beans, drained)
2 10 count packages of refrigerated biscuit dough
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease muffin tins.
2. In a large skillet cook ground beef with onion and garlic powder until evenly browned.  Drain off the grease.  Stir in the barbeque sauce and beans and let simmer.
3. Roll out each biscuit on a floured surface so that each biscuit is about 6 inches across.  Put each biscuit in the muffin tins and fold up the sides to create a cup shape.  Fill each biscuit with the beef mixture until almost to the top.  Top with Cheddar cheese.
4. Bake until the biscuits are baked, cheese is melted and the tops are golden brown...about 15 minutes.

 These would be great made with pulled pork, pulled chicken, or even a breakfast combination!  Give it a try and I promise that you'll be making them again.

Money Mondays ~ Week 13 in 2011

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It's Monday and time to link-up and join in on the Blog Hop for Money Mondays. To read how Money Mondays got started check out my Money Mondays Page.

So here we go! Link Up your Etsy Stores, Shop Websites, Photography Sites, ect. I'm enjoying hosting this blog hop every week and visiting all of yours as well. Grab the button above and place it on your site. Please remember to keep it family friendly. Explicit Sites will be removed.  Remember to grab the Blog Hop Code below to place on your blog so that we all benefit from this hop!  Let's all have some fun, promote our own businesses and check out every one else!

Spring Reading Thing 2011 ~ My List

It's time!  What time you say?  It's time for the Spring Reading Thing 2011!!  Woo Hoo!  I have participated in a lot of these reading challenges and I seem to get a lot of reading accomplished during them as well.  I love to read but there are times where I just don't read as much as I would like to. Which is probably why I like these challenges so much.

Here is my list of books in no particular order:

The Band that Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic  by Steve Turner ~ I'm currently reading this book and will have a review up for this one soon.

You Can Too by Mary C Crowley ~ This book was lent to me by my dear friend Wendy with instructions of...You need to read this! So I will.

The Gift (Witch & Wizard, Book 2) by James Patterson ~ I finished the first book in about two nights.  Had a hard time putting it down and can't wait to get this one from the library!

The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride, Book 1) by James Patterson ~ Thought I would give another series of his a try. 

An Object of Beauty: A Novel by Steve Martin ~ I will be reading this book to do a review on it. Can't wait to start this one!

Well this is my list for now.  As in past challenges the list will either grow or change....or it could do both!  What are you reading this spring?  Join in on the challenge by clicking the button above!  You don't need a blog to do so.  Have fun with it and get to reading!

Wordless & Wordful Wednesday ~ Where Oh Where Is Spring?

No, it's not snowing here.  No, it's not cold here.  In fact about a week before Spring ever officially started we were up in the 80s!  Andy and I were remembering our first Spring here when we actually had Spring temperatures for most of the Spring season.  Last year we had a few weeks of Spring temperatures.  This year?  Forget Spring...let's go from Winter right into Summer.  Oh yippee....can you just hear the sarcastic tone in my voice? Sigh...wishing for Spring to be here now.

If you would like to see more Wordless photos head on over to Wordless Wednesday, 5 Minutes for Mom, Live and Love...Out Loud, A Beautiful Mess and J. Leigh Designz. Now if you're like me and sometimes you can't stay wordless head on over to see some Wordful Wednesday photos at Parenting by Dummies.  Don't forget to sign the Linky below.

Money Monday ~ Week 12 for 2011

Spring Break is officially over (sigh) and it's back to work here (bummer) and now the countdown to Summer is on (YES)! As I said last week I've been creating like crazy and have taken pictures but just haven't gotten them up on my etsy story as of yet. But I will work on that some tomorrow. For now....It's MONEY MONDAY! So link up!

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It's Monday and time to link-up and join in on the Blog Hop for Money Mondays. To read how Money Mondays got started check out my Money Mondays Page.

So here we go! Link Up your Etsy Stores, Websites, Photography Sites, ect. I'm enjoying hosting this blog hop every week and visiting all of yours as well. Grab the button above and place it on your site. Please remember to keep it family friendly. Explicit Sites will be removed.  Remember to grab the Blog Hop Code below to share with others!  Let's all have some fun, promote our own businesses and check out every one else!

Money Mondays ~ Week 11 for 2011

It's Spring Break here and I'm going to spend most of my time creating. I've written down a bunch of ideas and I can't wait to get to working on them. So make sure you come back here next week (or during the week) as I'll be posting them as I get them made. What are you creating?

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It's Monday and time to link-up and join in on the Blog Hop for Money Mondays. To read how Money Mondays got started check out my Money Mondays Page.

So here we go! Link Up your Etsy Stores, Websites, Photography Sites, ect. I'm enjoying hosting this blog hop every week and visiting all of yours as well. Grab the button above and place it on your site. Please remember to keep it family friendly. Explicit Sites will be removed.  Remember to grab the Blog Hop Code below to share with others!  Let's all have some fun, promote our own businesses and check out every one else!

Wordless and Wordful Wednesday ~ Books

I have to admit to you that I've already read most of these books and had this picture in my archives.  I'm sharing it here and being Wordful this Wednesday because...I LOVE TO READ! There is a blog that I follow called Callapidder Days and I'm so happy to find out that she is back and blogging and the fact that she is going to have her Spring Reading Thing 2011!  She has reading challenges twice a year and I look forward to them and was so happy to see that she hadn't disappeared. If you love reading as much as I do and would love to read along with her just head on over and let her know!  She's trying to see if there is enough interest and I thought I would help. You don't even have to be a blogger to participate. Basically you get a list of books that you would like to read throughout the Spring season and you see how many of them that you actually read.  There are no set limits but your own and there are no set books...you choose!  So...what are you waiting for? 

If you would like to see more Wordless photos head on over to Wordless Wednesday, 5 Minutes for Mom, Live and Love...Out Loud, A Beautiful Mess and J. Leigh Designz. Now if you're like me and sometimes you can't stay wordless head on over to see some Wordful Wednesday photos at Parenting by Dummies.  Don't forget to sign the Linky below.

Tasty Tuesday ~ Enchilada Sauce

Today is Tuesday so it's time for Tasty Tuesday! Today I'm going to share with you a Mexican Enchilada Sauce. This is a sauce that I found years ago once I realized that I could make it a whole lot cheaper than buying cans of it at the store.

Mexican Enchilada Sauce

Ingredients

3 tablespoons chili powder
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon oregano
3 cups water
1 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce

Directions

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a small bowl.
2. Stirring constantly, slowly add enough of the water to make a thin paste.
3. Pour into pan and add rest of water.
4. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens.
5. Stir in tomato sauce.
6. Use in your favorite enchilada recipe.

The amounts on the ingredients are very flexible.  For instance, if you are feeding those that don't like "spicy" you can halve the chili powder and double the tomato sauce.  Experiment to suit your taste, but DON'T leave out the cocoa.  This recipe made enough for me to use it in a recipe for Chicken Enchiladas and have enough left over to save in this jar for the next time that I want to use it!

ENJOY!

Money Mondays ~ Week 10 for 2011

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It's Monday and time to link-up and join in on the Blog Hop for Money Mondays. To read how Money Mondays got started check out my Money Mondays Page.

So here we go! Link Up your Etsy Stores, Websites, Photography Sites, ect. I'm enjoying hosting this blog hop every week and visiting all of yours as well. Grab the button above and place it on your site. Please remember to keep it family friendly. Explicit Sites will be removed.  Remember to grab the Blog Hop Code below to share with others!  Let's all have some fun, promote our own businesses and check out every one else!

You Capture ~ Technology

This week over at I Should Be Folding Laundry the You Capture theme is Technology. I knew the perfect picture. You see our church has a theme that is going through this whole year and it is "God is big enough". One way I spread this them and remind my friends when they are going through a rough time is by texting it to them. So here is a picture of my phone with those wonderful words on it.

Wordless & Wordful Wednesday ~ Typical Week

Here is a typical week for Sam.  I take what's on his schedule and then re-do it for his week and usually add more lessons from the following week onto the current week.  At the rate he's going he'll be done with school by the first couple of weeks in May! For those of you that may not know he attends a virtual public school through Connections Academy and for the first time every he's a straight A student!  And he has been one all year!  WOO HOO!   

UPDATE:  I should add that he starts school around 9:00am and is usually finished around 1:30pm.

If you would like to see more Wordless photos head on over to Wordless Wednesday, 5 Minutes for Mom, Live and Love...Out Loud, A Beautiful Mess and J. Leigh Designz. Now if you're like me and sometimes you can't stay wordless head on over to see some Wordful Wednesday photos at Parenting by Dummies.  Don't forget to sign the Linky below.

Tasty Tuesday ~ Easy Meatloaf!

For this weeks submission to Tasty Tuesdays I thought I would share a recipe with you that I found a few weeks back. I was looking for a meatloaf recipe that would be quick and easy to do. I have one that takes a lot more prep time than this one but since I was going to be making this one for a friend who had just lost her father I wanted quick. And the bonus? It was AWESOME and it made two loafs!  I found the recipe here.

Easy Meatloaf Recipe with Oatmeal

Meatloaf Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
3/4 cup uncooked oats
3/4 cup ketchup
1 egg
1 envelope onion soup mix

Meatloaf Topping Ingredients
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon prepared mustard

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix all of the meatloaf ingredients (not including the topping) in a large bowl. Mix well, making sure to get the soup mix combined well with the rest of the meatloaf ingredients. Shape ground beef mixture into a loaf shape in a large baking pan. Glass baking pans are better, as the meatloaf doesn't stick as badly and you can see through the dish if the meatloaf is done. Place in oven for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix all of the meatloaf topping ingredients together in a small bowl. Mix well to avoid lumps in the brown sugar. A fork works best to mix up the meatloaf topping. After 30 minutes, remove the meatloaf from the oven. Spread the meatloaf topping evenly over the meatloaf with a spatula or pastry brush. Return the meatloaf to the oven at 350 degrees for approximately another 30 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Let meatloaf stand for about five minutes before slicing.

Serves 6
Meatloaf may be stored frozen for 3 months.

*Note: This meatloaf recipe uses more ketchup than most, so the meatloaf may have a reddish tinge. This is why it's important to use a meat thermometer to determine if the meatloaf is fully cooked.

MY NOTES:  I used two disposable loaf pans instead of one bigger glass pan as it said above.  Also...these disposable loaf pans are wonderful to bake these in if you are going to freeze one to use later.  My tip is that you freeze it in the pan you are going to cook it in...but first line the pan with foil before you cook it.  Once the meatloaf is cooled you can put it in your freezer. That way once it is frozen you can lift the meatloaf out of the pan wrap it up securely to put back into the freeze and you can have your pan back.  When you are ready to cook it again just defrost and slip it back into a loaf pan to warm it back up!  EASY!