the cuckoo's calling

My day started off bright and early at 7:30am with my organic and biochemistry final. Why yes, this was a fabulous choice of exam time. Seriously. Luckily it was only thirty minutes earlier than my class normally is but damn, can a lady catch any type of break amongst all the chaos? After that it was off to my to math exam. The struggle of this semester was epitomized when I got back in my car after chemistry and drove around campus to math exam. If it hadn't been raining, I might've walked. Haha, who am I kidding. I still would've driven. And still, I have one more exam to prepare for but seeing as my brain may implode at any moment, I'm giving it a break with a new book.

This one makes #9 for the year. Without having a school schedule this number would have been doubled by now.

 I've had this book on my list for a long while but had been really hesitant. A) I was sort of annoyed that J.K. Rowling revealed that Robert Galbraith was her pseudonym after the release of this novel (supposedly after sales bombed). B) I am even more annoyed at the fact that she continued to write as Robert Galbraith after it was made known that it was a pseudonym. C) Ultimately J.K. Rowling is capable of few unforgivable things. D) I found it at Meijer for 'under' $6 even though it still sells at Barnes & Noble (in store) for $26. Online you can get it for a similar price as I just found out.

Also, I left these stickers on the cover because they are the kind that absolutely ruin the dust jacket with goo if you remove them. I will forever be confused by this notion. Just put the stickers on the back or something!

The cuckoos are a family of birds: cuculidae.

Leia

mid-week meal share: sloppy joe's

Oh folks, it's Wednesday again and depending on when you ask me it's either the best or worst (or a combination of both) day of my week. This Wednesday marks the first day back to work and the beginning of my eight day stretch, next Wednesday is the last day of my stretch that leads to six glorious days off.

It's been feelin' like summer in the mitten so after Kennedy's soccer practice on Monday everyone seemed to be enjoying the weather so I catered dinner around that. Sloppy Joe's and a picnic style dinner in the backyard. It was pretty much a win-win scenario.

Easy to concoct: if you can cook burger and pour a can of sauce this one's for you.

Cost effective: $8!

Though I'm sure the ingredients list for this one is unnecessary I've prepared one for you anyhow!

1 lb ground beef (or more)

1 can Manwich (or more if you got more meat)

buns

*sriracha

*mustard

*potato chips

*cheese

1. Brown your ground beef and heat to specially 165°F according to Manwich's instructions. I mean, we all check the temperature of our ground beef when we cook it for other meals, right? Good one.

2. Drain the excess grease, add in your Manwich.

3. Top with a multitude of condiments and enjoy!

Totally a casual affair. Simple preparation. Simple cooking. Simple clean up. The girls totally loved it! And while it was easy on that front, I thought I would keep with the theme. I made Piper a Sloppy Joe 'salad'. This method still produced spilled contents but much less than if I had made her a sandwich.

    With this semester coming to a close this was exactly what I needed. And oh Sloppy Joe's such a summertime, childhood classic. As an adult it's clear to see that the main ingredient is ketchup which is like ehhhhh, but NOSTALGIA.



A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal.
Leia

dairy barn

Michigan has finally delivered beautiful Spring weather! Albeit we got hit a little hard with intense summer heat when it wasn't quite expected.. especially when a week ago we had snow on the ground.  Like going from low 40's to mid 80's over night is a stitch of a shocker to the system. Have no fear, though, our local Ice Cream Shoppe is open!

We hopped our our bikes and we ice creamed it up real good.

Piper barely missed a drop. This is not incredibly surprising, though.

This also happened: cheeks in slow motion. Still unsure of how to make my videos work within posts so there's a link to insta. 

You're my little doop scoop!

Leia

first soccer game

On Saturday Kennedy had her first soccer game! It was every bit of a cluster fuck as one would imagine when nine 4 and 5 year olds are trying to play soccer. On top of having had only three practices, her team was divided into pairs of three and they played against each other. I'm assuming this is typical for the age group since winning/losing is not something that should be instilled. Maybe our league is just wacky, I truly don't know. Giving this, I totally understood their confusion when they all attempted to score in the same net instead of switching sides respectively.

In addition to scoring in the wrong net there was plenty of: spinning, dancing, sitting, laying down, chit-chatting and aimlessly looking at the sky. Like, that poor ref. My heart went out to her. Oh, their coaches too.

Overall it was a great time and she had quite the cheering section rooting for her. They deserve a special award, too because her game was bright and early at 9am but at least it was sunny and in the fifties! We had to report by 8:30, but of course that didn't happen. It was more like 8:45 and luckily no one batted an eye because I would have been a tad barky.

Shirts vs skins.

Leia

mid-week meal share: sausage gravy hash brown skillet

I started composing this post on 4/13 and now 4 days later.. Dun, dunna, dunnnnnn! An Average Mom Blog "original recipe"! No, I'm sure I'm not the first person to ever think of this combination but I was inspired by a dish from our favorite Coney Island.

Easy to concoct: you will need to multitask.

Cost effective: yes, but I don't have my receipt.

Here's what you're gonna need:

*lack of photo since I was adding as I went along*

half a bag of frozen shredded hash browns

1 tbsp olive oil

salt

pepper

onion powder

4 eggs

sausage links

ground sausage

2-3 cups milk

3-4 tbsp flour
CHEESE!




1. In a pan start browning up your hash browns with olive oil and season with as much salt, pepper, and onion powder as you deem desirable. Also at this time I prepped my scrambled egg mixture.

2. In a separate pan start browning your ground sausage for your sausage gravy.

3. Begin cooking your sausage links. Really, I would cook them in the same pan as your ground sausage. Initially I tried cutting them into pieces before I cooked them, but this method did not work out so well. Cooking them with the hash browns also proved to be slightly difficult.

4. Once the ground sausage is browned, do not drain and add 3-4 tbsp of flour and cook until 'browned'.

5. Remove sausage links from the skillet and cut into pieces; pour eggs into skillet and scramble away.

6. Add enough milk into your ground sausage and flour so that it covers the sausage; while initially I did not add that much because I was nervous there would be too much it was simply too thick to be considered gravy.

7. Add your 'diced' sausage links back into the hash brown mixture (and cook them until they are properly done like I had to do).

8. Top with your sausage gravy and enjoy!

Yeah, I should have written out instructions before attempting to make this one. FOR SURE should have cooked both sausages in one pan. I thought cooking the the links in the same pan as the hash browns would have been the most efficient but nope; ya live and ya learn I guess. Our hash browns turned out a little crispier than I had intended but it was still a good one. Options are endless with adding different vegetables, meats, cheeses, or spices.

Holy shit. I didn't add any cheese! I'm ashamed and mortified.



For shame.
Leia

bye bye, paci

We're finally pulling the paci plug on Piper; cold turkey and altogether. It's a huge crutch and something has to change with her and her bedtime routine. While I know she's still a baby, I also need my sanity.  We've hit an all time low and I'm hoping this will be the ultimate solution. Lately her nightly outburst have me nearly in tears and I constantly feel as if I'm running on empty. I don't want to say what time she went to bed and whether or not we've heard a peep from her as of yet (because the universe is great when you want a slap in the face), but I will say that when your toddler is eager enough for a paci she will get creative when it comes to items to gnaw at. 

Barbie cake platter anyone?

Leia

happy "spring"

This week Ken's soccer schedule should have been:

Saturday

8:30am: technical training and parents meeting

Jersey pick-up

Monday

5:45pm-6:45pm: practice

Thursday

5:45pm-6:45pm: practice

Saturday

9:00am-10:00am: FIRST GAME!

Remind me to talk to someone about this 9am shit..

 

Friday night I got this email from the soccer association:

While I had not planned on going to the meeting because why in the hell did they expect anyone to be anywhere at 8:30am on a Saturday morning; it was canceled due to below freezing temperatures and a potential accumulation of 5 inches of snow. IN APRIL.

Luckily enough the snow either missed us or had been entirely miscalculated! While the temperatures were indeed below freezing, we only experienced off and on flurries which I tried to be at least thankful for.

And then this week is a true taste of what weather is like in Michigan.

We start off the week with freezing temperatures and snow showers and are hopefully ending it with summer seventies and sunny skies. Fingers crossed the temps for Monday, Thursday, and Saturday stay consistent so everything soccer related can be at least tolerable.

Mother Nature, please take a chill pill.

Leia