6 Things To Focus on, When You have No Time to Focus on Anything.

We're all busy. Life is busy, and every month we take a deep breath and say a silent prayer that this is the month things will slow down. I am a firm believer that once one thing ends in your life, instead of life slowing down, it's just replaced with another task or event. Here's a shout out to you working moms of multiple kids! I have one, and am down to working only about half the week, and still am just not thriving as much as I'd like to be.  Maybe once Baby B is a year old, I'll be more in the swing of things.
And to think when I was little I wanted to join every club and group so I was always busy and never home... If only I had that energy again. Now I just want to go to The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Montana & build my own one room cabin, & live off the grid... Sadly I have student loans, & a car payment, that just doesn't agree with my next to no income life style I wish to have... One day Big B, Little B, & myself will move & be self sufficient, but for now, while my life is just one GIANT scrambled up mess on high speed, these are the things I prioritize, or at least the things I try to remember need to come first.

ONE: Baby B.

I know a lot of people say that you should be number one, but if I have to wait to take a shower until after we play all morning, and he goes down for a nap, then so be it. I'm not the type that wont leave the house without a full face of makeup, or spend an hour and a half on my hair. Even if I had all the time in the world, I still wouldn't take the time to do all of that. So in my particular situation, Baby B is number one, but don't feel bad if you are the type that can not function until you have a hot shower in the morning. Baby B is the easiest to keep happy, it doesn't take much, and it's quick to find something to entertain him, so once I get him situated and taken care of, I move on down the list to what else needs some attention.

TWO:

Myself.

 I do know the importance of not forgetting how important your mental health is. I can put off my shower for 3 or 4 hours if it means tuckering Baby B out, but I do need my me time once in a while, and it's not just 'no baby' time, I am a very un-social person, and I need my alone time. Being around people drains me very quickly, so I am tired most of the time. Once or twice a week, Big B will take Little B fishing with him. This is the greatest thing. Baby B loves sitting in his seat, staring at the lake, or napping, he's happy with it for hours! Meanwhile, mommy lays in bed at home, watching netflix, until I decide to take a nap. Sometimes I drink a pot of coffee, and power clean the house, because it feels SO nice to actually get something finished without being interrupted .

THREE:

Big B. 

He works so hard, and more often than not, on his one day off, he watches Baby B, so I can go to work. He doesn't have the Mommy Drive we have, so he doesn't get off work, go pick up Baby B, come home, start dinner, play with the baby, feed everyone, clean up the house, play with the baby, shower, bathe the baby, play with the baby, put the baby to bed. If you have a man that can do all of that, you my dear, hit the jackpot! He is still adjusting to having more than himself to be responsible for, and recently he has TOTALLY stepped up his game! He doesn't understand everything I do on the daily, but I have faith one day he'll see it. I try to make sure he knows I notice everything he does, and let him know what a help he is & how much I appreciate it. I show my love how I'm sure most of you do, I pick up after him sometimes, I don't turn on the light in the bedroom in the mornings, when it's a rare day that he actually gets to sleep in. I surprise him with his favorite dinner, I make him brownies, I let him pick out what we watch on Netflix...You all know the special ways Mamma's show they care. I just don't want him to feel like he is lost in this crazy whirlwind that is our life.

FOUR:

Our House

We have a very, very small house that we are renting at the moment, and we are desperately searching for another place to rent, or to buy, but for now, we have to work so hard just to make this house function. It is a full time job itself. Our living room is long and narrow, so narrow that we can't even have a coffee table...so if there's a pair of shoes, or a TV tray, or Baby B's swing left out at the end of the day, it pretty much makes for no walkway through the room. Which leads to both of us being irritated, I'm sure all of you can relate to just wanting to throw in the towel, and see how long it takes for someone to step in and clean up after themselves once you stop. If that ever works out for me ( I try that approach often), I'll let you all know... Making my house a priority, keeps my anxiety down when its clean, makes Big B happy to come home to a clean house, and keeps foreign objects out of Baby B's mouth, when he has all sorts of room to crawl around. So my house if high on my priority list, even when my entire world is upside down and on fast forward.

FIVE:

Family Time.

The majority of both sides of our family's live in the same town as us,  and we are both close with them. So dinners out at my moms house, or going over and helping with yard work at Big B's aunts, are both weekly things for us. We usually just meet somewhere after work, and head to their house, or just meet at their house, instead of running home first, so it doesn't make everything that much later. We both like to go to sleep early, since Big B usually works early mornings, and I have to wake up with Baby B early, whether I work or not. My mom only works half the week, so if we both have the day off, we spend it together. She sees Baby B almost every day. It is important to us that we are close to our family, they are the ones that we love the most, and they wont be around forever, so they are on my list of things to focus on when everything else is lost in chaos.

SIX:

My Car.

I just got a New (to me) car. It's 10 years old, but I am planning on keeping it as nice as possible. When you get a new vehicle you feel like a Bad *ss, and over time that feeling fades, well I paid damn good money for my car, and I'm going to keep the new excitement in our relationship! Don't let your vehicle get cluttered with baby things, or even your own things. Because in that rare moment, when baby's not in the car, and your cruising by yourself, and a good song comes on, turn it up, and rock out, take a timeout from being a mommy. And if your rear view mirror is reminding you of the heaping pile of baby clothes, toys, and blankets in your back seat, that just doesn't sound like a nice mini break to me. Keep it clean, and dusted, and take good care of it. It's a big financial commitment, and I would imagine most of you are hoping your vehicle lasts you as long as I'm hoping mine last me, so check your fluids, drive safe, heck you can even get a 'New Car Smell' air freshener!

I'm sure all of you have very different things to list for your top 6, which is great, this is just a reminder to keep your top 6 a priority, even when life is absolutely bonkers, keep the important things straight, and give them the needed attention and love. Comment and let me know your top 6, and how you keep them feeling special!

Paying Off a Degree I Do Not Use

I hope & pray some of you can relate to this post, so I know I'm not alone.

I went to college for a degree that my job has nothing to do with.

I went to Culinary School, for a degree in Baking and Pastry. Fast forward four years later, I'm working at my family's mechanic shop.

Please humor me and tell me one of you lovely people out there has also had this mishap in life. Quite frankly, I love my job...except for the two times a month that I have to pay my student loan bills...On those days I just want to bang my head against a wall....hard...and repeatedly.

whyyyyy did I go for baking, that's a hobby not a job...

whyyyyy didn't I think it through...

whyyyyy didn't I listen to my parents, (who were telling me to go to community college for a year or two while I make sure I know what I wanted to do when I grew up).

Honestly, I LOVE baking, & I was good at it, & it IS a job (a hard one at that too!). I know some of you are thinking "it's not hard to bake"...But the school I went to was a one year program, for a degree that takes two years to get, so it was very intense, it was a full year (no summer for me!), and I loved EVERY second of it. It wasn't perfecting grandmas apple pie...It was making $10,000 wedding cakes, making 5 foot tall sculptures out of chocolate, it was burning ourselves while pulling sugar to get it so thin you could see through it, and making a flower, or a balloon out of it, without breaking it, and it was making plated desserts so pretty we didn't even want to eat them, made of a dozen different components, that were all different flavors, and making them all work together, while it either looked so effortlessly they couldn't believe the flavors that came out of it, or making it so complex, they didn't understand how it was put together, or how we defied gravity while it's plating.

I don't know if you can hear the passion coming out of me while I write this, but my heart is pounding just trying to explain it to you.

After this year was up, I had to do a three month externship at a bakery. I did mine in Portland, OR... Which if anyone has been there, it is a very large city.

And to let you all in on why I no longer bake (professionally)...I have very bad anxiety, and thanks to my mother being over protective, and a worried mother, I also get very paranoid and am a professional at thinking of the worst possible thing that could happen. So as soon as my externship was over, they offered me a job, but I couldn't take the stress of being a 19 year old girl living by myself in a big city, with so much crime daily, & all of my family was hours away, & I had no friends in that city. 

So I came home to my small town that I grew up in, and started working at my familys business, managing the bills, while I went to community college to pursue my second degree, which was going to be accounting.

I wanted to open my own bakery & be able to do the books side of it myself as well as the baking, because I LOVE office work, & paper work. I started taking accounting classes, & halfway through my first semester, the college informed me that once you have a degree you lose you scholarships, and all of your student aide.. I had to immediately halt attending all my classes, until I could figure out how to pay for it. The School board told me I would have to take my case to them and argue why I need to continue receiving financial aide. Long story short, I had to pay for half a semester out of pocket, when I was a broke college student with no savings, had a lot of headaches for a couple of months trying to find the correct people to talk to on the board, could not get all of them together to have a hearing for my case, and to put it simply, I gave up. I was spread to thin, jerked around too much, and threw my towel in.


I have a full time job, that I can get any days off for appointments, or 'me' days, I get to do paper work, book keeping, and payroll. With the economy in the town I'm from (and would like to continue to live and work in), they would not support a high end bakery like I would have liked to have.
But now I have Little 'B', & I enjoy spending my time with him, and baking has to be your number one priority if you're going to do it.

My life changed in ways I never imagined. I had the time of my life at school, I loved EVERY SECOND OF IT. But I also love my life now, managing my familys business, and having enough down time to try to start a blog!

But I still have those two student loan payments every month that remind me of my not so well thought out plan. Oh well, life happens. A lot, (and I mean A LOT) of people do not use their degree in their career that they are currently in... So at least I'm not alone.

Please comment if you can relate at all! Or tell me some of the famous people you know that have useless degrees. I don't know if you know Jenna Marbles, but she's the one I think of when I get down about my not-in-use degree. THIS video gives me great comfort

Gluten Free- Grain Free Muffins

I'm learning to go gluten free whenever it's a choice, I'm not going all crazy about it (yet).
I definitely love the idea of it, and feel like a super star whenever I know I just successfully made an entire gluten free meal.

I do not have a gluten intolerance, nor does Big 'B', but with the research I've done about gluten, I've made a personal choice to eat less gluten, I believe it makes me feel less 'blah' after eating, & make my energy last longer after I eat a meal.

So of course one of my common searches on Pinterest is Gluten Free Meals.
I also love baked goods. There for, gluten free muffins pop up a lot. I learned you can substitute the grain in a recipe with oats (quick or old fashioned). Here is a conversion chart that shows you a lot of options to replace grain with, full discloser, I have not tried a lot of the options listed, & do not know how accurate the conversions are. I will update once I've tried more of them!

The muffins I tried last week, I used 2 cups of oats, & 1 cup of Honey Greek Yogurt, once the oats were blended down into all the ingredients, you couldn't really tell the different texture. And they were delicious.

Here's the recipe I whipped up;
In a blender or food processor add the following;
1 cup Honey Greek Yogurt
2 Cups Oats (quick or old fashioned)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
This is the base of the muffin mix.

After this you can add whatever you want the flavor to be.
So far I've tried Banana dark chocolate chip, & Banana Cranberry.
For the banana, I used 2 Ripe Bananas, you add them into the blender, and once theyre mixed in, thats when I sprinkled in the dried cranberries, & poured the batter into lined muffin tins.
This recipe makes 12-15 muffins. I baked them at 400F for 12 minutes, then I set the muffin tin on top of a cookie sheet for another 3 minutes, so the bottoms didn't burn.

I did not take pictures along the way of my little experiment because I wanted to make sure they turned out, & honestly I'm a little knew to this blogging thing, and am not used to taking pictures every step of the way of everything I do. Hah!
Let me know what different flavor combinations you come up with and how they turned out! I want to make these EASY PEASY MUFFINS all the time, and want to try all different kinds of flavor combinations! 

Fiesta Shredded Chicken

This is not only Big B's favorite dinner, but it is my favorite thing to cook; because it is SO simple!

It's easy to say it's a win-win, & you should probably make it for dinner tonight.

Technically, I don't even know what this should be called...

Big B eats it in corn tortilla shells, I eat it with chips, as a dip. you can pour a cup of water in it before you cook it & call it Tortilla soup (that's Big B's favorite). Some similar pinterest recipes mention eating it over rice as well. It's also delicious cold, as a midnight snack by itself...

The reason this meal has stolen my heart, is because there is no measuring. 

The only thing you kinda-sorta have to pay attention to, is the package size of chicken your buying, find the one closest to 1 1/2 pounds. That's it. the rest is a full can of this, one jar of that, a packet of this, pour in the whole bag of that. No measuring things out. Which is nice, because crock pot meals take all day to cook anyway, I love that it's not taking any extra time to prep.

pro tip; Every time I make this, I have learned to double the recipe, which allows me to Seal-a-meal at least two large bags of it to freeze, so we can have the delicious meal without having to wait all day for it every time.

What you'll need:

• 1 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 packet of taco seasoning
• 16 oz. jar of salsa
• 15 oz. can of black beans
• 8-12 oz. bag of 'southwest' style frozen veggies.

Directions:

• place chicken evenly in crock pot
• sprinkle taco seasoning packet over chicken
• pour jar of salsa over chicken
• top off with can of black beans, and frozen veggies.
• if the chicken is not completely covered by ingredients, pour a little water in it until its covered.
• let it simmer in crock pot on high for 2 hours, then switch it to low for 4-6 hours.
• shred chicken with forks, and stir all the ingredients up.
• keep on warm until ready to serve.

The following ingredients are the exact ones I like to use;

Newman's Own Medium Pineapple Salsa

Birdseye Steamfresh Southwest Style Protein Blend Frozen Vegetables 

Kroger Classic Taco Seasoning Sauce

I believe I also use Kroger brand can of black beans

The chicken I use, is ones that I got on sale, & froze, so I don't know what brand it was.

Please feel free to comment any variations on how you improved this recipe! I'd love to try them!

A Little About Me

My name is Angela, I'm 23. I am starting a blog because I feel like I should share the tips and tricks I've learned lately, and most of all, my struggles I've been facing the last year, with being pregnant, having a baby, not having that great of a budget, & a (soon to be) husband that has ADHD.
 I'm very into spending time with my family, enjoying days off, being organized, & naps.

"Big B" & I put the cart before the horse, & did things in our own order. With that being said, I am the PROUD mother of "Little B", who just turned 6 months old, and is the happiest baby in the world.

 Big B & I are getting married next week actually (Leap Day!), he is my best friend, but he's also a little like another child of mine. He's big into the outdoors, camping, fishing, hunting, shed hunting, and guns. Due to his interests, my blog may contain some posts about how to make camping easier, especially with a baby.

We are actively looking for our first home to buy. We both work full time (with the exception of recently I am without a babysitter, so I now only work on days Big B, my mother, my sister, or my neighbor are able to watch Little B for me.) Due to the cut in our income, I am passionately searching the internet for thrifty ways to save money. My crock pot, Pinterest, & our new chest freezer are some of my best friends in the last couple of months! I'm also a fan of my good gas mileage car, my new budget binder, and yard sales, 

I will be posting all sorts of How To posts, about the above listed, and much much more.

Women can do it all right?

Women, not just moms, have far too many things expected of them. Nobody could possibly accomplish all of it right? Wrong. Women can, it's ridiculous it's expected of us, but we roll up our sleeves, push our husbands out of the way, and do it.
I've never blogged before, but being a new wife, and mommy, I keep thinking to myself "I bet so many people feel this way", so I am going to attempt to keep you up to date at the latest tips and tricks I've learned, to make your life the tiniest bit easier. Enjoy!