Puffins (Mancakes?) and A Very Dead Snake!

Ok, so I prefer the former name for these quick little breakfast yummies. They are pancake muffins, hence "puffins". However, my eldest daughter started calling them mancakes, which I personally have issue with. They bring to mind being out chasing ripply men, and somehow it even implies (to me) chasing men that are far too young. Since I am both happily married and far too young to be a cougar, I'm going to stick with puffins. You, however, may call them whatever you like!

Mamas (and daddies, I don't discriminate on the basis of gender!) you are going to love me! I whip these up on mornings when I am in a hurry, get up too late, or we are in horrid need of a trip to the grocery store. That is precisely the reason I made them this morning!
What you need:

~Your favy box of pancake mix
~Your favy syrup
~Water
~Various things for toppings (chocolate chips, strawberries, bananas, blueberries, etc.)
~A muffin pan
~Nonstick spray

Heat oven to 350.
Now, I would LOVE to give you exact measurements for the ingredients, but I don't measure them! I pour some dry pancake mix into a mixing bowl and then pour in a little water and syrup. I mix it until it is a consistency that I like and then spoon it into my pre-veggie sprayed muffin pan. Hmmmm. I WILL tell you that I put in twice as much syrup as I do water and I like to keep it a little thick so that the toppings STAY on top. It really stinks when all of your toppings sink through the mix and end up at the bottom of the puffin. If you are unsure, start out with a little water and a little syrup; you can always add more, but you can't take it out!

Once you have mixed it all up, spoon it into your muffin pan, filling 2/3 full just as you would if making regular muffins. Then top with whatever toppings you prefer. Pop into the oven for 12 minutes and WOOT! breakfast in under 20 minutes! Here are pictures of my puffins from this morning:

Please forgive the horrible picture quality. I'm really going to have to do something about the scratches on my iPhone camera.

Anyway! You may notice that I used chocolate chips for my toppings. As stated above, I REALLY need to go shopping. The boys had just gobbled up the last bananas. No fruit to use here! I made "C" pose with her puffin before she took off with it.

The best part of these? They taste syrupy, but with no syrupy mess! I won't have to be wiping down little hands afterwards. And, I'm willing to bet that they actually end up eating less syrup than they would with traditional pancakes. There is only as much syrup as you wish to put in them!

Are they good for an every day breakfast? Uh, no. Excellent for breakfast on the run, though.

What about the very dead snake, you ask?
Yes, about that. Minding my own business, cleaning the house and getting "E" laid down for a nap when I glance out our large front window. There is a snake sunning himself out there! Granted he was only a black snake, but they still bite and snake bites are nasty and get easily infected. What if one of the kids had walked out on the porch and stepped on him? And, he's been on our porch before. The only reason I didn't get him last time was because he sneakily stayed by the house, and I couldn't shoot at the house.

So, when he started to slither off the porch and into the yard I ran into my closet for the shotgun. Yes, shotgun. I'm no sissy, and I love to shoot. Sadly, I haven't done it in a LONG while, so it took me a minute to get it loaded. (No loaded guns in this house with the kids, and the shells in another location!) When I did, I ran outside. I don't know where he was headed, but he should have gone FASTER. I got him with the first shot, but he was still moving and I didn't want him to suffer so I shot him again. I'm embarrassed that it took two tries, but again, I haven't used a gun in a long time. I can usually out-gun my husband easily, but obviously I need some practice.

I heard a "tap-tap-tap" through the ringing in my ears and turned around to see three wide-eyed faces peering out the window at me. The girls and "E". Well, at least they know their Mom isn't afraid to pull out the gun if needed. Honey, can I have a Baby Desert Eagle?

~Love and Smiles,
Chala

P.S. Still needing likes on this page: www.facebook.com/LifeAfterInfidelity
Helping a friend build a community of healing! 

An Amazing Weekend!

I'm in a hurry, so this one will be short! (House cleaning, dinner, getting ready for church, and lots of homework!)

My Graduation weekend was nothing short of awesome! On Friday, May 18th I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Education. There was nothing like walking out into JQH Arena with all the other grads. I've been waiting 5 YEARS for that moment and I'm proud my 5 children were able to see me walk. Also my sister, C, and my Grandparents were there. My Grandparents are my inspiration for my college education! I think I smiled the entire time. I'll even smile here~ :-D I couldn't have done it without my husband, who has worked like crazy to support our family while I have been going to school ever since 2007.

On Saturday we had friends over. It was originally deemed a "celebratory BBQ", but after the hubby and I decided that we would rather enjoy friends than make food it became a "celebratory get-together". We ended up ordering all of the food. We had a blast with friends and our friends' children had a blast playing in the sprinkler and chasing our chickens, ducks and turkeys all around. My cake was absolutely gorgeous and so delicious! Thanks to all who came out and I promise we'll do it again SOON! Next time we'll make Matthew grill, though! Also, thank you for all the gifts! I didn't expect them, but I love them all!

Then, on Sunday, we had another BBQ (which was actually a BBQ) at my Mom's house. She made me a super cute graduation cake, too! We had fun with family and everyone (except me) rode my Dad's Harley with him~or without him if they are able to ride!

So, now I have to crack down on my Master's work, which is very in-depth. I had to learn Turabian style in 2 hours flat, although I like it so much better than APA or MLA format. It is so easy to just put a footnote in rather than have to mess with all those in-text citations. I was once told by a Masters student at MSU that it was "So easy, you don't even have to buy your books to read!" Uh, how? I've done nothing BUT read since my courses started last week! For one class in ONE of that class' required books I had to read 94 pages of tiny words! Granted I love it; I've learned so much about Theology and Apologetics in just a week and a half! By far my favorite book is The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics as it answers every question you could have about Christianity! I also just found out today that I have to apply to my Ph.D program by mid-January. Yikes!

One last thing before I discontinue boring everyone to tears; there is a page on FB I would appreciate it if everyone would go and "like". In this world today it is unlikely that you don't know someone who has been through an affair. Maybe YOU have been through an affair. Please direct others to this page and like it yourself, as well! It would be a great help to a friend!

www.facebook.com/LifeAfterInfidelity

Love and Smiles,
Chala

Homesteading, Homeschooling.......and all of the other messes I get myself into!

"Hooonnnneeeeyyyyy.....I ruined my Asics!"

This was my whine to my husband a few weeks ago after a hard day's homesteading. I had mowed the yard by myself, thus ruining my shoes. What a perfect excuse to buy more shoes! My hubby had also promised me more shoes if I went out and mowed, figuring I probably wouldn't. For the record, I. Don't. Mow. I haven't mowed but a handful of times ever since I was a pre-teen. This is because of the horrid memory I have of running over a piece of metal when I was around 11 or 12, the metal shooting out of the mower at me, striking a hole in my leg straight down to the bone, filling my high-top shoe (then in style) with blood, and making necessary a painful trip to the emergency room. (One of many in my childhood~remember, I'm clumsy.)

On that same day, I'm proud to say, I cleaned chicken poop out of the coop. Something I never, EVER thought I would be doing. We've never had any interest in chickens. Or turkeys. Or ducks. Yet now we have ALL THREE roaming our yard when the dog is put away. Our Great Dane likes chicken a little too much. That's why we have the giant thing in the first place. Because he kept killing his former owner's chickens. I find that surprising because he hasn't shown any interest in ours, even when a couple of them have managed to get loose. Our flock now consists of the following:

Chickens: 2 Black Barred Rock, 2 Black Wyandotte, 6 Cornish Cross, 7 New Hampshire Reds, and 8 Buff Orpingtons. Ducks: 5 Khaki Campbells (all who appear to be female, which means 1500 duck eggs a year!!!!) and 2 Mallards (these belong to the girls). Turkeys: 2 Bronze Breasted (1 Tom and 1 Hen, they don't go anywhere without one another!) and 1 Bourbon Red.

Whew!

So mowing and poultry-raising. Yep, that's my version of homesteading. Oh, it will get better. Soon it will be time to kill off the Broilers of our flock and that is going to be an interesting day all around.

If we had our own and more land we would probably take this homesteading thing to a new level. Goats, a few pigs.....we've talked about it, but until we buy our own house and have more land it just isn't possible. We've started buying our meat from a local butcher instead of from the store. Seriously, no more pink slime meat. I'm not game. Once I start working I'm hoping to go all organic, but right now it's far too expensive.

*Disclaimer: If you are not a homeschooler feel free to let your mind wander during this portion of the blog. You can check back in later on. ;-)
In other news, we started homeschooling again today. We took the month of April off because I had so much unexpected stuff to get done for graduation this month and trying to get accepted to Liberty for the summer term. We are doing Bible, Lit. and Math and Spelling this month. We should be able to finish up Lit and Math and then next month we will be doing Bible, Science, Social Studies and Spelling. If all goes well we will be done at the end of June and the girls can have July and August off before we start up again in September. I'm excited because we are going to do away with the LifePacs this next year. I've been looking and we are going to try the Weaver Curriculum. We are also going to do Monarch for a couple of subjects annnnnddddd, "E" is going to get some Pre-school stuff! He likes to join us at the table and sit and color while the girls are doing their work, so I figure he will enjoy it. Not only that, but he will be almost three in September and more than capable of starting pre-school work. There is a Horizon Pre-school pack that I think he will like and it will keep him busy. Right now he just GETS INTO STUFF while we are homeschooling, with "I" in tow!

So, May is busy already and it just began. Homeschooling. Daily animal care now. Just offered to volunteer at the church. Graduation on the 18th, a BBQ on the 19th, and my Graduate classes start on the 14th. Not to mention I'm still working hard at losing weight and getting my running amped up for the Color Run in June. Can't wait for that! If you've never heard of the Color Run you should check it out at www.thecolorrun.com. Proceeds benefit  a local charity in each town they visit. In KC it is the KC Ronald McDonald House.

So, I know I slouched during April, but I have some GREAT blogs coming up for you! Food blogs, weight loss blogs, chicken care and slaughtering blogs. My next adventure will be documenting the effects of Jillian Micheals' 14 day cleanse and burn. I'm doing fine loosing weight on my own; 2.5 to 3 lbs. a week sticking to 1200 calories a day through my MyFitnessPal app and running 4-6 times a week. However, I thought the cleanse and burn might be a good way to clean out my system and I hear it gives you more energy. I looked up some reviews and I was shocked to see that most people had good things to say about it. Especially those who were actually dieting and exercising along with it. I figure I'll try it out and if it goes well I'll do it again when I hit my plateau. But, no matter if it goes well or not, you'll get to hear about THAT mess that I get myself into, as well!

Love and Smiles,
Chala

A pic of the smallest members of our flock.

 A pic of my graduate material for three classes. Yipes! I've already started reading, though, because I find it all very fascinating.