Yes, this is what it looks like halfway through Black Friday when you are a Social Media Manager!

My day began at 12:01am and continued until about 2:00am when I finally logged off and attempted to go to sleep.  When the adrenaline kicks in it’s difficult to shut down your brain and actually sleep.

I woke up between 7-8am and checked back in with the crowds (online) to build up the morning excitement and Buzzz…

Enjoyed a short trip to the stores with the family to hunt down our own Black Friday deals before they expired at noon.  Continued to check in online off-and-on during the day.  At some point I tried to lay down while my kids played with Lego’s and this is what my son did with my phone.  The ‘nap’ didn’t last that long since 2 kids can’t be in the same room together for more than 10 minutes without arguing – even on a good day.

I didn’t spend all day online – but it certainly feels like it at times.  As I sit here at 11:14pm waiting for midnight once again I now know what it feels like to be a Social Media (addict, specialist, manager, guru, insert any other word of your choosing).  I can always sleep tomorrow, right?

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Happy Thanksgiving friends!  I hope and pray that you all have a fabulous day with family and friends.

Me?  I’ll have a quiet day with my kids while my husband works in the morning.  Then we’ll have a quiet Thanksgiving dinner with just the 4 of us.  No huge meal plans, no fancy table settings, no friends or extended family – just the 4 of us!  I may not even clean my house for dinner and try to enjoy the day playing with my kids.  The weather is so gorgeous still in Florida that I’m sure we’ll be outside most of the day.

Tonight I made the first part of our little Thanksgiving meal, my dads Frozen Cranberry Salad (a yummy dessert).

Ingredients:

• Container of sour cream (Small or large depends on how many you are feeding)
• Whole cranberry sauce – 1 can
• Crushed pineapples, drained – 1 can
• Mini-marshmallows – about 1-2 cups (again depending on how many you are feeding)
• Handful of chopped pecans

Directions:

In a freezer safe dish or pan mix all of the ingredients together.  When they are all mixed together the end result should be a light-medium purple colored bowl of delicious goodness.  Cover and freeze!  You’ll need to make this the night before so it has time to freeze.

To serve:

Take out of the freezer about 20-30 minutes before dessert is to be served.  Cut with a knife and top with a small scoop of whipped cream (although I usually eat mine plain).  It should still be slightly frozen but not melted.  Once I pull it out of the freezer I’ll snap a picture and share it with you.

This dish always reminds me of the holidays – both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  He always made it for both.  I’m not sure that my family appreciates the dessert as much as I do or if they will even eat it.  While I won’t be spending this holiday with my parents or any extended family I look forward to spending it with my family.

I pray that you all have a blessed day and that you find hundreds of reasons to be thankful.

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A few days ago I told you that I was going to my sons school for the Great American Teach In.  On Friday he came home with a handful of Thank You cards all decorated by his classmates.  I wanted to share a few of them with you:

Dear Mrs. P, Thanks for visiting. I never new that glass dose not disinagreat, thats so cool. I’ll tell my step mom about the re-use able dippers. Sincerly, Marissa

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for helping our class how to reycle. Sinsily Jaquan

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for speaking and for teaching us about reduce reuse and rescyle aslo refuse. Sincerly Chloe

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for teaching me all about reciciling.  My most favirt part was that it can take a straw 500 years to incinegret. Sincerly, Jimmy

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for coming to teach about recycling. Sincerely, Peter

Dear Mrs. P, I never knew dipers could be reused! I though one baby could use less than 20 dipers a day! Thank you for teaching me! From Abby

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for all the things you tote us but my favorite was when we talked about the straws.  Thanks, Sincerely, Kali

Dear Mrs. P,  Thank you for teaching us about your job. Thank you very much. Sincerely, Sarah

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for coming in the room and the part I liked the most was when you said glass was recycled. Sincerely, Jordan

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for teaching us how to rycicle glas, plastick, and all those other things. Sinsirly, Harold

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for tiching me how to yous stuf. If you recyle you can make new thies and what i lern is that you can make things out of recyle. Thank you. Sincerly, Hope

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for thaching me of how to recaikle prosas. Sincerely, Tyler

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for teaching us about recicling. I learned about the 4r. Sincerely, Paris

Dear Mrs. P, Thank you for teaching about resikaling, and glass never gos awhy. Sinsely, Noah

These all made me smile.  I especially love the few who said thank you for teaching them about reusable diapers.  The children are our future.  We should teach them well.

I copied their words exactly as they were spelled since I think it adds to the charm.  This is from a classroom of 3rd grade students.

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I’m full of emotions this week as we lead up to Thanksgiving.  I’m usually really excited about Thanksgiving because it means spending time with family and friends – and Black Friday shopping.  Over the past few years we’ve started some new traditions in our family.  We have spent Thanksgiving Day with family (either mine or my husbands – we try to alternate each year) then we’ll leave the kids with the Grandparents in the morning as we go watch all the craziness of Black Friday shopping.  We don’t usually go out looking for bargains but more for people watching.  We normally end up eating a late breakfast or early lunch before we head home to nap.  This year our traditions are changing a bit due to our schedules.

My husband is working on Thanksgiving Day so we won’t be going to visit family – and the family isn’t coming to us either.  With my new job I’m scheduled to work off-and-on over the Thanksgiving weekend since Black Friday and Cyber Monday are some of our biggest sale days of the year.  While the hubs will be home early in the afternoon (by 3pm) it’s not all that exciting to cook an entire turkey dinner for 2 adults and 2 children.  We’re not big leftover eaters either – if it doesn’t get eaten in the first 2 days it normally gets trashed.  (Don’t get me started on using our freezer, the food just sits in there and gets frostbitten.)  I know that I will end up grocery shopping tomorrow and will cave and get all of the traditional fixings that we both grew up with.

I found a few exciting recipes that I would love to try with my new Carapelli Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  They sent me a bottle over the summer to cook with and I love the flavor.  The recipes call for a variety of olive oils but since I’m not a savvy chef I’ll be using my one bottle of organic olive oil for everything.  Since I’m in such a funk tonight thinking about the changes in our traditions this year I may just make the mashed potatoes over the weekend – they are my ultimate comfort food.

Tuscan Roast Turkey – Serving Size 16 (Yes, I’ll need to scale this down A LOT!)

• 1 16-pound young turkey
• Kosher salt, to taste
• 1 cup Tuscan Herb Paste
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
• 2 teaspoons celery salt
• 3 fennel stalks with fronds, rough chopped
• 3 onions, large dice
• 1 stalk celery, small dice
• 2 1/4 quarts chicken stock
• 3 ounces all-purpose flour

Remove giblets from turkey’s cavity, rinse cavity and pat dry, set aside. Season turkey inside and out with Kosher salt.

Mix Tuscan Herb Paste with crushed fennel seeds and celery salt. Starting at the neck of the bird, slip your hand between the meat and the skin to loosen.

Rub half the paste mix under skin, and rub remaining paste inside the cavity and over the rest of the turkey.

Season all over with kosher salt.

Place two-thirds of the chopped onion and fennel stalks inside cavity. Truss bird.

Place turkey in a roasting pan. Roast at 400°F for 30 minutes.

Reduce temperature to 325°F and continue cooking the turkey to an internal temperature of 160°F, approximately 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Baste turkey often during cooking with juices from pan. If turkey begins to overbrown, cover it loosely with aluminum foil.

As turkey roasts, simmer giblets (neck, heart and gizzard), the other one-third of the fennel stalk, onion mix and diced celery in 1 quart chicken stock until tender, approximately 1 1/2 hours.

When turkey is done, remove from roasting pan and set aside to rest. Degrease roasting pan, reserving 3 ounces of fat to make a roux.

Deglaze pan with a small amount of chicken stock. Transfer stock to a saucepot, and add remaining stock and broth from giblets. Bring to a simmer and degrease.

Make a blond roux with reserved fat and flour. Add roux to the liquid, whisking well to prevent lumps. Simmer 15 minutes. Strain gravy through a fine-meshed strainer. Adjust seasoning.

Tuscan Herb Paste – Yield: 2 1/4 cups

• 3/4 cup Carapelli Extra Light in Taste Olive Oil
• 1 cup Carapelli Premium 100% Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh basil
• 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary
• 1/2 packed cup fresh Italian parsley
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
• 2 tablespoons fresh sage
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Blend herbs and crushed red pepper with light olive oil using a blender or food processor, then stir in extra virgin olive oil.

Serving Ideas: Rub under the skin of turkey for Tuscan Roast Turkey. Use to flavor vegetables for grilling and mushrooms for roasting.

Olive Oil and Herb Mashed Potatoes – Serving Size: 12

• 10 8-ounce potatoes, (about 5 pounds) peeled and cut in half
• 3/8 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1/2 cup Tuscan Herb paste
• 1/2 cup Carapelli Premium 100% Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 cup heavy cream, warmed

Boil potatoes in salted water. When cooked tender, mash potatoes. Mix salt and pepper with Tuscan Herb Paste, olive oil and warm heavy cream. Fold into potatoes.

What about you?  Do you like to try new holiday recipes or do you like to stick with family traditions?  Have you ever cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal for just your immediate family?  What tips do you have – I don’t even know what size turkey to get for 4 people.

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I’ll admit it, my kids aren’t perfect!  It’s so easy to talk about their strengths and brag about their achievements because that’s what we do as parents.  But what about when your kids misbehave, lie, cheat, and steal?  Do we go around talking about that or do we just sweep it under the rug and hope that no one will find out?

I don’t want to go into all of the details because this blog is not my place to embarrass or humiliate my children (after all, one day hopefully they will read some of this) but I want to acknowledge that my children aren’t perfect.  This has been a challenging week as a parent.  My son got caught cheating.  He is a very competitive academic and puts a lot of pressure on himself to do good.  When things don’t go as he thinks they should he gets very angry and doesn’t know how to react properly.  He’s always been sensitive and tends to over-react when he gets angry, that’s nothing new.  I’ll take full blame on the sensitivity issues because I tend to over-react myself (although none of my friends ever see that side of me).  He ended up receiving a punishment that I think will discourage him from cheating again so hopefully the incident will have a positive influence on him.

Then tonight my 2 year old got her first lesson in lying.  She damaged something in my room tonight and instead of admitting that she did it she blamed her brother.  Two year old’s aren’t the best liars so I had a feeling she was lying to me but I couldn’t guarantee it.  She was upset when I punished her and gave me her dramatic tears.  I asked her one more time if she lied to me and finally before bedtime she admitted that she ‘did it.’

I think I was harder on my son at this age because I knew I was teaching him a lesson.  With her, she’s our baby and our little princess who can do no wrong.  With 6 years between them it’s amazing how different our parenting strategies are with them.

Why is it harder to talk about their weaknesses and failures than it is to talk about their achievements?  I feel like I could have written a post 10X longer and more well spoken than this if I was bragging about his mad math skills.  Instead I’m admitting that my children lie and cheat!  They aren’t perfect!

Are yours?

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It’s that time of year again, the Great American Teach-In is this week and I’ll be talking to my sons class about How to Be Green.  I’ve talked to his class every year since Kindergarten and each year seems to take a slightly different turn.  I have 30 minutes to spend with them on Thursday and I have to decide what this years message should be.

I always talk about the 3R’s (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about the 4th R (or first R).  REFUSE! We can all practice this one in our daily lives and I think if we teach children at a young age that it’s ok to refuse wasteful items we can train them to be even more eco-friendly and green than we are.

5 Examples of ways to refuse:

• Refuse a straw at a restaurant and drink from the edge of the cup instead. Or use a glass straw like glass dharma – they are kid friend
• ly and guaranteed for life.  We have one but I always forget to take it with us.
• Refuse bags. Do we really need a bag for everything?  Even if I forget my reusable bags when shopping sometimes the item is  easy to carry without a bag.
• Refuse your receipt at the gas station. Unless you need a receipt for tax purposes do you need to have a receipt for all of your gas purchases?  I’ve even noticed more restaurants asking if you need a receipt for your purchase.  As long as I don’t plan on returning an item, giving the item as a gift, or verifying that the prices are correct I always just thrown them away anyways.  What a waste!
• Refuse more than one napkin – or refuse them all and bring your own.  When you are at a restaurant do you really need more than one napkin per person (unless you have small children the answer is probably yes)?  Sure if you are eating ribs or chicken wings you may need more than one but for the average meal one napkin is plenty.  General rule of thumb – we may need 5 napkins but I doubt we need 25 of them with your Happy Meal.  Be honest, how many have you just thrown away unused?
• Refuse bottled water. Bring your own refillable water bottle and fill it in a sink or faucet.  Whenever we visit friends or family away from home I will usually try to bring at least one bottle or cup with us.  Those new reusable plastic cups with lids and straws are the BEST yet!  I actually use them more than the bottles – and I remember to bring it more often.

The best part of talking with the kids is that I open up the conversation.  I don’t want to be all preachy and tell them what they ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ do.  I ask them to brainstorm with me and come up with simple ways they can Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…and now Refuse!  I always love hearing what they come up with.  Last year I even talked about reusing cloth diapers and the kids loved it.

The final part of my presentation is always a quick craft project using found items.  I think the project they liked the best over the years was making bookmarks from cereal boxes.  I had them pre-cut and ready to decorate and they each got to take home a ‘brand new’ bookmark at the end of the day.

I need to look through our junk collection and plan our a project for this year.

Have you ever spoke to your kids class about your job or passion?  What are some ways you can encourage change by getting kids to start problem solving at a young age?

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1191196

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Observations from the road trip:

1- My son can’t say ‘pecan’ or ‘cotton’ properly! Even being raised in the South he must not hear me say them much. At 8yrs old he says the ‘pekin’ and ‘coddin’ – I need to record him saying them.

2. Why are pecan trees always spaced out so evenly in rows?

3. When traveling with a dog your only options for food is fast food and I’m SICK of fast food!! I’m dying for a real meal!! The closest I got was a Wendy’s baked potato; however they forgot to put the butter in the bag so even that didn’t satisfy me.

4. Kids can fall asleep anywhere!

5. I don’t like driving my husbands car because the left arm rest is too high and is uncomfortable. Since he drove most of the trip I’m not complaining.

6. Foursquare thinks my husband’s my BFF because we spent the last 3 days checking in together. Awe!

7. Cars need to come with power strips these days! We had a total six items all fighting for the 2 plugs in the car.

8. My kids get along sooooo good! It wasn’t until the last 30 minutes that the were loud, cranky, and annoying. Why is it that every rhyme, song, and joke they tell one another has to include pee, poop, underwear, or eating brains?

8. My cat had a party, got drunk, and threw up around the house!

I’m glad to be home! What things do you learn when you travel with your family?

Published from my iPhone!

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Would you like to know why I didn’t post anything yesterday? Because I had very little Internet service. I was in the car most of the day traveling on back roads through Georgia. Once we got to our destination there still wasn’t Internet or 3G connection because there we 90,000 plus people sharing the network. It was football day in Athens so only a few lucky people manage to get online as we all fight for space on 3G. Here is a glimpse at our day. I don’t regret missing just one day of NaBloPoMo for this…and family!

We won too so it was a fabulous day!!

posted from my iPhone!

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Do you have a favorite scent from nature?  A scent that reminds you of a special occasion, a special place, or person? One of my favorite scents from nature is the smell of Georgia honeysuckle in the springtime.  It’s a little odd to me that one of my favorite scents is actually from an invasive weed but I absolutely love the smell of honeysuckle.

When I was growing up in North Georgia we lived on 5 acres with only two neighbors and lots of woods to play in.  My younger brother and I were always outside exploring the old paths in the woods pretending that they were old roads and looking for hidden treasure.  I don’t think we ever found anything exciting but we always had fun on our expeditions.  I knew it was spring when I would start to smell the honeysuckle on our journeys.  You could smell the honeysuckle before you would actually see it in bloom.  In addition to the sweet smell of honeysuckle I loved the white flowering blooms; did you know they produce a sweet honey nectar that you can actually eat?  We would collect the flowers, remove the stamens, and suck out the ‘honey.’  The blooming season never lasted very long so we indulged ourselves on the honeysuckle while we could.

We moved out of that house right after high school.  My brother moved away not long after he graduated and we both went our separate ways.  We stay in touch but it’s not quite the same as it was when we were little.  When I got married after college my husband and I bought our first house in West Georgia and we had some honeysuckle on our property but not nearly as much as what I grew up with.  Not long after we moved to Florida and I haven’t smelled the scent of honeysuckle in nature for years.  When I find lotions, candles, or cleaning products that smell like honeysuckle I always buy them to bring back those childhood memories.

Memories like this one are exactly why Seventh Generation uses natural fragrances like lavender, mint, citrus, and ginger fresh from the field in their dish soaps.  To celebrate the Nature Makes Perfect Scents sweepstakes, Seventh Generation is offering you a chance to win a trip for two to visit France or Italy.  I would love to visit France and see the lavender fields in bloom.

I wrote this blog post while participating in a SocialMoms and Seventh Generation blogging program, for a gift card worth $50.  For more information about how you can participate click here.

Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/843115

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5 Things that are on my Fridge Today

1. #1 Dad magnet that the boy got for hubs a few Christmases ago. At their annual Holiday Store at the school this is what he purchased for his dad.  This was the only gift he picked up for dad.  I on the other hand received 2-3 really ‘nice’ gifts from the same holiday shop.  It’s an ongoing joke in our house.  We all know he’s a mama’s boy!

2. 2010 Tampa Bay Bucs calendar. Yep – we’re a little behind!

3. 2011-12 School Calendar from the boys school. They print one for each parent with all the holidays listed.  I would be lost without this.

4.  Tee-ball team picture from the first year the boy played ball. My husband was one of the coaches and I don’t think either of us can bear taking it down – the co-coach passed away 2 years later.  He was in his mid-30′s and left behind a his wife and two young children.

5. Georgia Bulldawg magnet! Go Dawgs!

This post was inspired by Kim, Dirty Diaper Laundry blog, and a conversation a few of us had on Facebook this afternoon.  Many of us are participating in #NaBloPoMo in which we’re challenged to blog every day for the entire month and this was a blog prompt that Kim shared with us.  Since I’m completely embarrassed by the state of our fridge I thought it would be fun to see how many other families have messy fridges too.  It’s a good thing you can’t see the top of the fridge…that’s where we hide the candy and lots of junk.  Our fridge is a faux stainless so magnets will stick to it.  I’m not quite sure what I would do with all this junk if we couldn’t use magnets.

So what’s on your fridge?

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