Just Curious...

So, Mark's car needs brakes. We don't have "a place" where we take our cars. Whenever one of our cars needs work it's a mad scramble to find someplace, someplace we feel confident will do a good job at a reasonable price. Obviously we've never found someplace that we would go back to again and again that really instilled that confidence.

So, I spent a while calling around today, and found three places that can do brakes, close to home, and at a time that works for us. There's a service station literally at the end of our street, within walking distance, that I would LOVE to take our cars to. It's staffed by nice people, it's extremely close, and I do believe they're honest. Unfortunately, their prices are completely out of whack. When I recently needed tires, their price was over $400 more than the place I ultimately ended up having them done at. Not good. Their price for the front brakes was $500.00. Again, I have complete confidence they'd do a good job.

I also called Meineke and Midas. They do a lot of brakes, my impression of them is that they're a lower end service shop, adequate if not great at what they do. Meineke's price is $300.00, Midas' price is $370.00.

I've tried googling all sorts of things to try and find any reviews and ratings, but I can't seem to find anything, good or bad. The BBB also has no information, good or bad. I'm leaning toward going with Midas, simply because their price is in the middle, they can do the work in the evening and they're close to home. If money were no issue, I'd go to the place at the end of the street. I like to keep money in our community, I like the idea of leaving the car to be worked on while I walk back home, I know they'd stand behind their work. However, after the last week especially, money's definitely a big consideration. Very big.

What would you do? Where do you get your cars fixed? What do you think of the chain-type service places?

Cross your fingers for us that it's just the front that needs brakes, definitely not in the mood to spend another $700!

Dinner plans...

Dinner Plans. Doesn't that sound sexy? Yeah, in this case, not so much. Just fancy-speak for meal plan. I get tired of saying that over and over.

Good news, we believe, *knocking, knocking* the gas leaks are all fixed and that everything's back to normal around here--whatever normal is. I'll go on to further jynx us by saying we don't believe any of it had anything to do with the furnace, the leak we discovered Saturday was the brand.new.hot water heater. Grrr. That caused two leaks this week for sure, and there were three others at least. What gives?

The bad news? Mark's car still needs brakes and it was not a stack of $100 bills causing our problems, nice try though MemeGRL. That would have made it all worth it. :-)

Dinner's this week need to be very much on the cheap side...luckily I had a big turkey in the freezer from the sales last year after Thanksgiving. Think it's about time I dug it out and cooked it, don't you? The meat should carry us through at least a couple of meals this week.

Monday (dance, band): Roast Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots
Tuesday (piano, sax, conference, band concert): Turkey & Noodles, whole wheat rolls, salad, apple crisp
Wednesday (Daisy & Cub scouts, jazz): Cashew Kung Pao Chicken, rice
Thursday: Waffles & Kielbasa
Friday (no school): Turkey Tetrazzini (recipe below), applesauce, crescent rolls, glazed carrots

I'm just not feeling the mojo this week when it comes to menu planning. That's how it goes sometimes. Still, it should be cheap, fairly easy, and hopefully, good. Hope you all have a wonderful week. Personally, I'm hoping ours is much less exciting!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Easy-Peasy Tetrazzini
1# spaghetti, cook al dente
Put in bottom of 13 x 9 inch pan.

Combine: 2 4-oz. cans sliced mushrooms, drained; 2 cups cooked, diced or shredded chicken or turkey; 2 cans cream of chicken soup; 1 1/2-2 cans milk--depending on how 'saucy' you want it.

Pour over spaghetti in pan.

Top with 2c. shredded cheddar.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

You're not going to believe this...

We have another gas leak and Mark's car needs brakes. Oh--and there's a chance we need a new furnace, that it's causing this gas leak. I'd really appreciate prayers that things aren't more than we can handle.

Halloween Lessons, PSF

I learned a lesson trick or treat night. (We don't trick or treat on Halloween, we have something called Beggar's night here, it was last Thursday.)

As you can tell, Julianna was the American Girl Felicity, Jacob was Dracula. The lesson? Don't take too many pictures. :-)




Jacob was doing fine, but then he started getting bored...

Okay, it's reasonable for Dracula to have a "bite". LOL

There it is, the warning sign I missed, see the boredom?


Watch the hand...

That little buggar!

Fortunately, she's still smiling.

Back to the sillies!

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween.

(Sorry for the spacing issues, Blogger's acting up and I'm tired of trying to fix it.)

Hosted by Cecily and Emily

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Okay, it's not. It's fall, I love fall, I don't want to rush fall. Nevertheless, Christmas is coming, and coming quickly. I'm doing some shopping, starting to look forward to certain traditions, although I'll certainly be waiting until after Thanksgiving to act on them. All that doesn't stop me from looking ahead and dreaming...Five Minutes for Moms is hosting they're annual, awesome, giveaways. You might want to head over there and check it out.

Pomegranate Chicken Review

Well, we tried the Pomegranate Chicken and Walnuts from Rachael Ray. It was easy enough, but the recipe seemed strangely out of order. For example, you simmered the walnuts in pomegranate/cranberry juice, but all that did was make the walnuts soften. To me, they would have been much more appetizing crispy. Additionally, the whole dish was too reminiscent of charoset. I enjoy charoset at Passover, but it's not really something I want as a main dish.

Disappointing yes, but sometimes that's how it goes when you try something new. For a similar, but much, much better dish, I'll stick with Noble Pig's Plum Chicken. It's just as easy and affordable, but lots more flavor and a more pleasant flavor at that.

One more rant...

Okay, this is going to be two--sue me.

1. My darling daughter got me sick. Now I get to be cold, poor and sick. Good times.

and

2. The plumber (male chauvenist) that's here to give us an estimate, only wants to talk to "Mr. Mark". Grrrr.....

Okay, I'm done whining now. Not an invitation for more bad luck, by the way.

Okay...maybe you didn't hear me...UNCLE!

Now, we're fighting a major gas leak--not a huge problem, we have a gas line guarantee. Not so fast. The guarantee covers the gas lines inside the house. Our local utility covers the gasline outside the house. Bet you didn't know there was an area not inside or outside the house. From the meter through the foundation is not covered and needs replaced.

The good and expensive and cold times just continue to roll around here.

Time keeps marching...

It occurs to me that senior year is one long slow, painful, pulling off a band-aid.

Today, the pulling continues. My (second) baby got a flyer about commencement--rules, etc., and...got accepted to college.

This parenting thing is so hard sometimes...hard but good too.

Today...

I don't know how to communicate everything I'm feeling, but my boy, baby muncher extrordinaire, defends his dissertation questions today. I'll be thinking and praying for him all day. His time slot is mid-afternoon Central time if you want to say a prayer too.

Found it!!!

I knew I wasn't losing my mind, although I did begin to wonder if someone was messing with me. :-)
This morning I sat down determined to find those recipes. The November, 2009, issue of Cooking Light magazine has the article I was searching for: The truth about the great American veggie burger.

The two recipes are: Our Homemade Quick Black Bean Burger and Middle Eastern Chickpea Miniburgers.


I'm really excited to have found these recipes. Black beans and garbanzo beans are two of Jacob's favorite ingredients. I think he'll really like these burgers. Of course, his won't look anything like these--they'll be completely naked, but it would be really nice to find something to make for him when we're having burgers--I just can't bring myself to insist he eat something as unhealthy as a hamburger when he just doesn't like them.

Thanks for the moral support. It's nice to know I'm not the only person who does things like this. :-)

Magazine HELP needed!

I seriously think I'm in danger of losing my mind. I read a lot of cooking magazines, one of the luxuries that will be disappearing around here. Recently though, something happened that has me going crazy!!!

I got a magazine recently--it could have been a month or two old, but I think it was a November issue. Anyway, there was a couple of page article about veggie burgers. Included with the article were two recipes--one for a black bean burger and one for a garbanzo bean or chickpea burger. The black bean burger called for a squeeze of lime, some cumin and other ingredients. The chickpea burger called for blending some of of the beans and leaving some whole. It had 8 oz of red potatoes in it as well. Jacob does not like hamburgers and Julianna had requested hamburgers for her birthday dinner. I bought the ingredients to make both veggie burgers, intending to let Jacob choose which one he would like to have for dinner.

Well...yesterday was a very long day as you can imagine. Between the hot water drama and the birthday party and celebration, life was hectic. It came time to make dinner. I sat down and grabbed the stack of magazines on the coffee table, and COULD NOT FIND THE RECIPE. Rebekah, Jacob, Mark and I looked through every.single.issue, of every.single.magazine here. Gone. No trace. Complete mystery. I've googled every search term I can think of. I can not find it.

I would think I had imagined it all except that I showed the article to Mark, complete with the pictures of the two burgers. Full color, glossy, beautiful pictures of each burger. Where are they? What magazine was it? Help!!!

In other news...something fun...I was recently contacted by CSN stores, to do a review of one of their products. I chose the Roll 'pat. I'm looking forward to giving it a try soon, and I'll let you know what I think of it. I started making my own pie crusts a couple of years ago and while I love the flavor, I still struggle with an easy way to roll them out, especially since our table has groove lines in it that make it tricky. I'm thinking this will solve my problems. I'll let you know. While I was on their site, I poked around a bit, I love their dining room things. Beautiful Baker's cabinets and servers, check it out Keyword: dining room furniture.

Seriously?

So, we found out we're facing a major "adjustment" in income. We need to cut back, drastically.

Okay...we'll do our best. Things will be all right, right?

Mark's oil change yesterday? $200. For a Honda Civic. Seriously? Insane.

This morning's shower? Ice cold. Ice. Can't be too bad, right? Our hot water heater's not even 5 years old, for Pete's sake. We replaced it just because our old one was, well, old, and we were afraid it might rupture. Too many Dateline NBC horror stories or whatever. Anywho...called the plumber...yeah, we need a part he can't get...bad news...if we get it he can put it in today...good news!!!

Track down the part, it's free! Whoopee. This is where I should mention it's free because this water heater has turned out to be a piece of crud made from Whirlpool sold at Lowe's and it's known to have major problems. Actually, this is the second time we've had a major problem with it. Of course we didn't know it was going to be a piece of crud when we bought it.

So...get the part, the plumber comes, messes with it for over an hour. Yup, still broken. There are other parts broken as well. No one local has them. At this point we can order the part from the factor--3-4 days, most likely; $100 for the parts, $200+ for the plumber.

OR

We can cut our losses, buy a new hot water heater ($600), have the plumber put it in and turn it forward (yes, our hot water heater faces backward, doesn't yours?), and pay him $350 to install it.

He tells us it appears whoever installed it last time (Lowe's) did a really bad job and there are other parts loose in it. We've decided to cut our losses. We don't have $1000 to blow (obviously), but it seems like throwing good money after bad to try and fix the old one...again. If we fixed it, we would have already put $600 in repairs into it. (Taking into account the last repairs.) Plus, the idea of not being able to take a hot shower in almost a week is enough to make me cry.

Are you listening Karma? Lady Luck? Whoever? We're done. Uncle.

Happy Birthday!

Today's my baby's birthday. Unbelieveable. Truth be told, I don't have a baby anymore. She's 7 now, she's beautiful, she confident and capable and a true wonder to behold. I'll write a real birthday post tomorrow, but I wanted to get this out there.

I'm so thankful we have her. She truly is the link that completes our family.

What's for dinner?

Okay, I'm still processing all that's happened this week. One thing that's for certain with all the changes around here is that meal planning becomes even more important than before. The only thing more expensive than eating out is throwing away food, and meal planning helps me avoid both. I'm splurging a bit on our Saturday night meal this week--denial, it's a powerful thing. :)

Saturday lunch--leftovers/pot luck
Saturday night--Crab cakes, rosemary new potatoes, baby broccoli, garlic bread

Sunday--Julianna's birthday--Southwestern Chicken Salads
Sunday dinner--Cheeseburgers, baked potatoes, asparagus, chocolate cake

Monday--Rachael Ray's $10 spot: Pomegranate Chicken w/Walnuts, white rice, sugar snap peas

Tuesday--Piano night--Oven fried chicken, candied sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, cornbread sticks, dessert

Wednesday--Spaghetti & Meatballs from the freezer

Thursday--Roast Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots

Check out more meal plans at Organizing Junkies.