Semi-Homemade Holidays

I woke up this morning and felt the chill of the upcoming fall season. I cannot wait. Mind you, by noon today it will be 90+ degrees, but I can enjoy the morning chill while I drink my morning pot of coffee. Then suddenly, the chill brought thoughts of wrapping paper and spending WAY too much money on Christmas gifts.

The thought has crossed my mind several times to have homemade Christmas, or a limit on gifts. That is hard with kids. You love your kids and want to make them happy. And with that in mind, I am going to attempt a compromise. We are going to have a practical/Semi-Homemade holiday season.

What is that you ask? I am not sure, but my ideas are:

• Price cap on overall gift cost. My oldest is 8, and understands that if he gets 2 BIG gifts and the little ones get 8 small gifts that he was not shorted somehow by Santa.
• 1/2 the gifts need to be practical gifts. (Examples: Books, clothes, new bike gear, Scout gear, gift cards for roller skating rink, Sonic, etc... all places that my kids love to go all year round.)
• Limit the amount of toys. With an 8, 4 and 3 year old - we, as parents probably won't buy ANY toys since that is the go-to with Grandparents, aunts and uncles.
• My oldest (and I) will go at least once (hopefully more) to volunteer at a place in need. My youngest will pick out and take at least one gift to a kid's shelter.
• We will make homemade gifts for Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Teachers, Friends, etc. (Not Popsicle stick frames, but we will get Pinterest crazy and make cool gifts.

I do hope to keep this a tradition. I don't think we will ever be a completely homemade/material gift free family, because lets keep it real - Christmas offers some amazing sales and gifts are fun!  Anyway, wish me luck! I am going to be starting now, because the other thing about this idea - you can't wait till the last minute. Lucky for me, I work retail - so for me, Christmas starts in September anyway.

Merry Christmas!!! And all ideas are welcome...

Cupcake Pot Pies and My Issues with Chicken...

Chicken. I love chicken. But, I am picky with my chicken.

I don't want skin, and I sure don't want a bone. I don't do fried chicken. Well, I can cook some mean fried chicken - but, me eat it? No thank you! The texture of the skin - not my thing. I can't eat chicken off of a bone. In fact, I don't really like meat on a bone. I can eat ribs, but I am always told I waste meat. Something about maneuvering around a bone weirds this lady out! So, I have chicken on a bone with skin marinating for my family to eat tomorrow night for dinner while I work late at work. I don't want them to suffer for my weirdness with foods!  (Chicken rant over! Ask me one day about pickles...)

Chicken Pot Pies on my Birthday Bucket List to make. So here goes my attempt. I am going to make Cupcake versions for my kids for lunch. Wish me luck!

Ingredients

Prepping for the Pot Pie Cupcakes

• Canned Biscuits (I used my family's favorite & want I had on hand - Honey Butter Biscuits)
• Mixed Veggies of your choice (My kids love Sweet Peas & Carrots)\
• Chopped up chicken, cooked
• Can of Cream of Chicken coup (I had Cream of Potato with Bacon, so that is what I used - plus, you can NEVER go wrong with bacon)
• Cheese (which I omitted because we are a family who is 80% lactose intolerant, and the soup will be enough)
• Spices (Onion powder, garlic salt and basil)

HOW TO

Very simple:

• Take EVERYTHING, sans biscuits and mixed it up.
• Press the biscuits into your cupcake pans and press up the sides.
• Scoop your mixture in, and fill it up good.
• Bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes depending on your biscuits and voilà!

RESULTS

Final Product

And the results... The kids LOVED it. :) Bacon was a great addition. I had extra mix, so I also made a larger one for dinner! This will become a regular in my meal planning rotation!

The Mother of ALL rants... today, at least!

My blog is a lot of fun for me. I love finding awesome and FRUGAL stuff to do with my kids. I adore my husband, and LOVE my Crockpot. My books, they are like my boyfriend. And my husband occasionally gets jealous of the time spent with the books on my shelves. But, when he is gaming and I am reading... All is well in the Crook World.

THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE BLOGS! This is a WHAT IRKS me today blog... Enjoy!

1) Retail should be a REQUIRED class before graduating high school.

Call me crazy (I will answer!) I love retail management. I cannot do the same thing over and over. Drives me up the wall. You don't get that in retail. You get all different kinds of customers and all different kinds of employees. And I love it. Even the crazies. I have been called everything from a pregnant bitch to a racist, and yet I still come back. In defense of the lady who called me a pregnant bitch:  1)Yes, I was pregnant. 2) Yes, I was a BITCH after, and only after having to deal with you. (Ask my co-workers!) In defense of the lady who told me I would not help her because she was of a different ethnicity: 1) I tried to help. 2) Not that it is ANY of your damn business, but my husband and THREE kids share your ethnicity.

With that being said, I understand that you are the customer and I work to ensure you have a pleasant time in my store. I actually enjoy that fact. It is a controllable, and I love being able to control the controllables. But, you would never believe what else is a controllable? Your attitude! Your ability to treat us retail employees like human beings. I am constantly approached by people who don't understand why I can't help them THIS second. (I am helping someone else THIS second, and think for just a second how you would feel if I stopped helping you to help them!)

Just trust me, Mr. President - make everyone work ONE holiday season, Black Friday included before you release the wolves to the rest of us, and everyone will be happier. I know that retail employees are NOT magic elves. Just because you think we can give you that item at 90% off because that is how YOU read the sign, doesn't mean we can. And please, call the BBB on us. I am sure, those kind folks who have probably worked retail before are going to TOTALLY going to understand how you interrupted the sign.

Final note on #1, this is my REAL JOB! You calling my job any less is insulting. After all, if I wasn't there to take the brunt of your abrasive and abusive talk, your husbands and wives would probably leave you!

2) Door Knobs

This rant is partially due to the lack of sleep I got this morning due to a door knob! I understand the security purposes of door knobs. The books and PS3 in our house are grateful for not being stolen due to doorknobs, but in the house. EVERY door knob (bathrooms in particular) should have a secret parental unlock button on the outside.

Scenario:

Enter 3 year old who locks himself in the bathroom.

Enter Mom working on 4 hours of sleep with hammer.

45 minutes later, 3 year old out and Mom blogging half asleep with a demolished door knob next to her laptop.

END RANT #2.

3) GOOGLE

This last topic today is more brought to you by the jealously I have that my children will never know card catalogs at the library or the insane amount of time "googling" research in those damn encyclopedias. I think kids need to know our pain. I had to hear about how our parents had to walk so and so miles in the snow to school everyday. YEAH, I am sure guys: We lived in San Diego, California. If it snowed, the entire city would shut down! And also, I walked to school! Plus, you didn't have cell phones and email. Well, I had a pager. And we had to make codes for letters from the numbers. At a young age, my generation was bilingual in "Pager Talk" 1 70173 17 or 143637. We still had to be creative! My 3 year old can work my phone and the Ipod better than me. My kids can lock me out of electronics! (and bathrooms, see #2!) Yeah, ok... I am jealous! But, I do feel better now... :) Thank you Interweb for listening...