Author Archives: katherine

About katherine

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Enough with the pink already!

I am about to lose my damn mind over here, people.

Rylee has been all about a bike for the last few months now, so Andy & I decided Santa would bring her a bike for Christmas. I figured I’d start checking out our options.

Holy mother-trucking pink-glitter-unicorny decorated bikes. I about threw up in my mouth just browsing toys-r-us’s website.

I mean really, every single girl bike is either decorated with bright pink dolphins, or minnie mouse or dora or disney princess froo-froo crap. And they have names like “Shooting Star” or “Morning Glory” and “Ocean Mist”. Seriously…who in their right  mind wouldn’t throw up in their mouth when seeing names like those!?

So, naturally, I took a peek at the “boy” options. Those weren’t much better…it was all hulk, spider man and crap like that.

Who cares you say? Just get her a “girlie” bike you say? She loves Dora you say?

Well I say…

But she probably won’t love Dora forever.

And She doesn’t even know who the disney princesses are.

Not to mention if we bough her a pink, glittery unicorn bike our luck, our next kid would be a boy and, well folks, we just don’t have the money to be buyin’ new bikes for each of our kids. So, there will be hand-me-downs. {I didn’t get my very own new bike until I was in the 5th grade and it made it that much more special and awesome thankyouverymuch.}

Oh and there’s the little fact that I JUST DON’T WANT TO!

There are just no real options for “gender neutral” little kid bikes.

Don’t get me wrong, over the last few years, I’ve grown to love pink-ish girlie things a wee bit more than before I had a daughter, but too much of it still makes my stomach churn.

To get around all of this? We’re no, I’m  We’re spending $30 more than most any other bike available and buying her a red Radio Flyer bike.

Not girlie, but it also doesn’t scream “I’M FOR A BOY” either.

Perfect.

Now I just have to find her a decent little helmet.

{Don’t even get me started on those!}

The Sunday Review: Turkey & Black Bean Chili

Last week JennieO ground turkey was BOGO at the grocery store. You best be believin’ I stocked up. I’ve only recently started buying ground turkey but have quickly fallen in love with it. Toward the end of summer we were eating lots and lots of turkey burgers. I figured to save me time & thinking ahead of defrosting something, I would just keep a packaged of the ground turkey out for dinner last Sunday night. JennieO’s website has a lot of great recipe suggestions so I headed there and found this recipe.

Turkey Black Bean Chili

 

Level of Difficulty: Super, super easy

What I did Differently: The recipe called for 28 oz can of whole tomatoes, cut up. Well, I used 2-14 oz cans of diced tomatoes and since I don’t totally love all things tomato, I drained one of the cans before I put it in the pot. Then, I added a whole can of chicken broth.

Serving Suggestions: I served this with saltine crackers, shredded cheese & sour cream and a salad on the side.

PROS: It was good & healthy! And it made enough that I had at least 3 servings worth of leftovers…2 of which are in my freezer. Perfect for the mornings I’m running behind and don’t have time to throw a lunch together!

CONS: Cons? What cons? Seriously…this would was great all the way around.

Will we make it again?: I’m sure I will, but not necessarily any time soon. We don’t eat a lot of soups…especially not chili. But, I’m definitely keeping this in my cooking arsenal. It’d be a great dish for a tailgater or something like that too!

With Thanksgiving coming up later this week, I’m not trying any new recipes…before Thanksgiving we’ll just be keeping it simple and after Thanksgiving we’ll be eating a whole lotta leftovers!

Working With Style {8} & other things

Happy Saturday friends!

I’m happy to report I am feeling so much better today! My nose is still a tad stuffy, but my throat feels better and I’m coming off of a nice 10+ hour night of sleep.

Today instead of my normal “Working With Style” post over here, I’m actually hosting it over on Liberating Working Moms! So, please, head on over there and say hi! A little outfit teaser…I NOT wearing jeans!

And, just a quick reminder (my last one…I promise!), there’s only a couple of days left to vote for my photo of Dante & Ry for the Modern Bird Studio photo contest. I’m trying to win a custom piece of art!! Voting ends on Monday. Click HERE to “like” my photo!!

Life’s Tough. Get a Helmet.

Ugh.

I still don’t feel great.

Work is still busy.

I’m redonk-ulously annoyed with technology at the moment and may throw my desktop out my window by the day’s end.

I’m so, so happy today is Friday. I’m looking forward to some major R&R this weekend.

Next week is Thanksgiving! And I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to do nothing…I’m still in shock myself, but despite all of the family we have living within 15 minutes of us, we are doing nothing and will be enjoying a turkey dinner with just the three of us.

I’ll be back tomorrow…when it’s the weekend and I don’t have boat loads of work to worry about.

For now, I leave you with this…

Deep Breaths…

When it feels like this sore throat may get the best of me…

When it feels like the stress of work is getting to be too much…

When it feels like I just can’t shake the uncertainty…

When it feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders…

When all I hear out my window is rain…

I just want to curl up on my couch next to a fire and shut out the world.

But I can’t.

It’s not an option.

I’m a mom, a wife and employee. All these things must come first.

So I take a deep breath.

And I keep on pressing forward.

Because people are counting on me.

And it’s what I do.

Please excuse the vague, melo-dramatic nature of this post…I’m fully aware this makes me sound completely depressed and unstable but I assure you, I’m not… it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to it’s my blog and I’ll be emo if I want to. And seriously? This cold is starting to kick my ass.