Maintaining My Home

I have been busy lately, I find that the internet, tv & my cell phone can make me waste my day, so I make sure that I earn my time on here now. I had been a rut ever since I got married, because I am use to cleaning up after myself and not Jonathan and the baby. My house was always a horrendous mess and it is surprising me that it was considering when I lived at home with my parent's, I always kept the place clean, well with the help of everyone else, but however, Jonathan works extremely odd hours from 10:45pm to 7:00am and so through the day I am on my own with house work.

I decided to get on the ball with things in my home, but the hard part of keeping a place organized is you need to have shelves, bins, basket's etc and Jonathan and I are cheap when it comes to buying EVERYTHING even groceries so to buy such thing's like a basket for $10 was out of the question. I followed people on pinterest with dollar store ideas which helped, but still needed something to get me going, because I need a visual of someone else's nice organized and well kept place to get my ideas of how they make use of such thing's. Then I stumbled across a video of probably the most organized, neat, tidy & clean house in the whole world. Her name is Alejandra and she is on youtube and has video's for literally EVERYTHING.

Ever since I have watched a good portion of her video's it has given me that boost of encouragement that I needed to get me going. I am not going to say that my house looks at perfect as her's, but it has helped me improve a lot about my home and as I gain more thing's to use for keeping my home tidy and clean I am sure it will look a lot like her's.

Here's a link to her youtube account: Click

It will make you feel a little over whelmed looking at how she keeps her home the way she does, but it works for her, plus this is how she makes her living. She has video series you can buy that have apparently more in depth tutorial's on how to maintain the home, but I find the ones that are available on youtube have helped me plenty.

So this is what I have been doing these past few 2 months and as much as I do not like making new years resolution's this is mine and I want it to stay this way. I feel less stressed when I don't have to worry about stepping on a toy with a sharp edge or if I am stepping on a cheerio, or before I can brew a cup of coffee I have to clean all the dirty cups from the night before.

It is all about routine and I plan to keep it this way.

Wattpad

Wow, it has been 7 months since I have written anything on here. Sorry for my long time of absence. I have been working hardcore and plus being a Mom and wife kind of takes up my time lately, besides on the side of all of that I write, and I use the writing platform called wattpad.

It is a great way to get yourself known and find lots of good writer's out there that enjoy to write and read. Well since I am on here making a post I might as well share some links with you of what has been consuming my time from not being on here so maybe you can feel more connected to me.

So here is the link for my book Six Inch Rule: >Click<
And here is another for my Deceived: >Click<

Also, I just as of today actually, been recently introduced to another writing platform, which at the moment am not convinced it is better than wattpad, but I figured there may be some people on there that aren't on wattpad and I try to get my work out there as much as I can. So I will set up a link underneath.

So here is the link for my book Deceived: >Click<
and also the link for my book Six Inch Rule: >Click<

So there it is, some of my works in progress, they aren't the fully books. I am writing them chapter by chapter. I hope you take the time to read them and let me know what you think.

Well I best be off for now. I got to wake up Jonathan it is past the noon hour and we have some errands to run today.

Take care :)

Ashley

Penne Noodles and Creamy Carbonara with Shredded Chicken

I love pasta always have and always will. I am trying to make my favorites more healthy. I may not make my pasta noodles from scratch, but everything else I am trying to make from scratch so I can control my in take of fats, carbs & sugar etc. I love creamy carbonara's. It is very delicious and usually loaded with salt if you buy the pre-made sauce. I also like the versions out there with chicken mixed in as well. So what I did was made a simple white sauce most people call it bechamel. Bechamel's can be turned in alfredo sauces or the starting base for bisque's, chowder's and cream sauces to pour onto fish. It is endless for the ways your can prepare it. So I am going to stop babbling on and just go straight to ingredients.

Sauce:
2 TBSP Butter
1 TSP Salt
1 TSP Black Pepper
1 TSBP of Flour
2 Cups of Milk (I used partly skimmed, since I am watching my weight)
2 TBSP of Epicure's Bacon Salad Topper (I like the bacon flavor in carbonara's so felt this was great for this meal)
1 TBSP of Bacon Fat (Every time I cook bacon I pour the fat into a mason jar in my fridge)

Meat:
Two Pieces of Boneless Skinless chicken.

Noodles:
1 1/2 cup of Penne Noodles

Topping:
Chunks of bread (2 slices)
1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese (shredded)

Start by bringing to boil water in a pot then add your noodles. While your noodles are cooking I then heat my frying pan and melt the butter along with adding the salt and pepper to the mix then add the flour and stir then add bacon fat. Then add the milk in a little bit at a time. This helps the sauce from burning, because if you pour the whole 2 cups in at once it will burn and also get lumpy. For each time I would add more milk I would a sprinkle of the bacon salad topper from Epicure's spice. I always tasted as I went and sometimes would have to add just a pinch of salt. Once you have finished adding all the milk bit by bit and it has thickened. I turned off the stove, put it on the back burner with a lid on top.

During the time of making the carbonara sauce the penne noodles were already finished. So I drained them and put them aside in a bowl.  Then I cooked the two pieces of chicken up into shredded pieces. Then I put the noodles into the pan with the sauce and also added the chicken and gave it a good stir, then poured the whole batch into a baking dish. Then I topped it with the chunks of bread and shredded cheese. I put the dish in the oven for 15 minutes just to warm it up and allow the cheese to melt and the bread chunks to get crispy.

The whole family loved it! Jonathan never compliments my meals often and when he does, that means he is really impressed. He took his first bite and first thing that came out of his mouth was "Mmm this is delicious." and my little girl took a lick of the sauce off her spoon first and as soon as she realized how tasty it was she ate it all up and with each mouthful she would say out loud "Good num (yum)."

2014 Goals

Wow this is my first post for the new year for 2014. I am not like others and like to complain about unfinished goals and blah blah blah. I will say that I made a new years resolution about 3 or 4 years back and I still kept it. Which was to never make new years resolutions and there you have it. I kept it, all I do now is make realistic goals, because sometimes people list off a bunch of things that aren't achievable with in a twelve month period. Some goals which I actually didn't post on here from last year was to have my daughter more interactive with other kids and more talkative and that she will get use to using her own hands for gift opening and drawing with out help. And to also get her familiar with the alphabet, which she does know most of them, but not all. I did start to potty train her a bit in November of 2013 and I want to by the end of 2014 have her off the diaper and into 'big girl' underwear. Of course if I could do it I would like to put the goal of losing at least 30 pounds of my pregnant weight, but not going to happen when you are a Mom that has more priorities to worry about than your weight.
Besides Jonathan and I had tried to conceive on Christmas day and I am waiting until the 7th of January to take a pregnancy test to see if I am pregnant first. It's not healthy to work out and diet while being pregnant. Anyways so here's to hoping that I am and if not, then it wasn't time for us to have another one. Either way if I am not pregnant I want to get my body weight down the a more healthier weight, not too skinny, just a perfect healthy size.
By this time next year I would like to be out of the house we're renting, because it is too small and the basement is not finished and we don't have rights to the part being renovated they want to rent it out to a single person. So in that case we have to share the laundry. I want a full house with maybe an extra bedroom and also have more storage. These are just mere goals, not a resolution, I have more things I would like to accomplish, but don't want to overwhelm myself. Just to main important ones, and as one by one gets crossed off my list of goals, I will added another.
I have a neat idea that I saw on pinterest which I am going to try to keep. Basically you have a jar and for each week you raise up a dollar more than the last week and put it in the jar. So first week of the new year is $1 and the last week of the new year is $52, and also if you have spare change as well to just throw it into the jar. It would be nice to have a bit of money saved up. Here's to hoping that I can save up that money with no car troubles this year, because as soon as we have over $1,500 in the savings account a car trouble always happens which ends up depleting our account, and I am staying positive this year with this and not going to allow that to happen. I trust in God's hedge of protection over our lives in this new year.
May you all be blessed this year and if you do goals or resolutions may you accomplish the main ones and then some!

Christmas and Mystery Shopping

Today Jonathan, Aaliyah and I went out and did a few mystery shops through out Alberta. Some in Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan and also in Camrose too! Once we got all of that out of the way we went to Wal-mart and Shoppers and got our Christmas shopping out of the way FINALLY!! I didn't think we would get any of it done at all, but we did. I am so late this year with all things Christmas, we don't even have our tree up. I am usually one of those people who have it up in November. Gee Christmas is only four days away and we don't even have the turkey either. I guess I can some what blame my being behind on doing way too many mystery shops. That is all Jonathan and I do on our days off is do them, because for one they pay good if you're signed up with the right companies and two we do lots of hotel jobs which they fully reimburse and also pay you a fee for the job, along with travel fair if it is outside of Edmonton. What's cool about it too is we always look on the job board to see if there are other shops to be done for smoke shops or restaurant jobs in the city and we set as many up as we can, just so we aren't wasting our trip there.
So, that is to blame, because we keep putting off Christmas shopping and decorating just to make as much money as we can, but I don't want to complain either, because to a degree I like doing it, because if you saw what we have saved up in the bank just from shops we have done last month alone you'd be surprised. Now it is not lucrative to the point of making you a millionaire, but for a regular working family, what we have built up in the bank is AMAZING to us. Every dollar counts for us in the Morin house so any extra money we can save up is great.
Well I am going to go for now, because I need to get some moisturizer on my hands, because the winter weather is so drying on the skin and my knuckles are bleeding because of the weather.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Wow! Can you believe that it is going to be 2014? I can't this year has gone by way too fast for me. Well have a good evening everyone.

Under The Weather

Today I am home from work sick. UGH!! If only you all knew how bad it was. I won't go into extreme details, but I will say this much of the matter. I been up since 1:00 am running back and forth to the bathroom, being sick out of BOTH ends. The worst part is the fact that I can't trust a fart (if you know what I mean). Okay too much information on the fart topic, so I am sure you get the idea now.
So I am sitting here at my lap top on my couch, so tired, but can't get any rest now that the sun is up and keeping me awake. I just wish I could sleep, but no point, because Jonathan is asleep from working his over night shift and someone needs to be up with our daughter. As sick as I am, I certainly am enjoying my time with her. I have myself wrapped up in my blanket like you would wrap up a flatbread for a burrito. I am freezing at the moment, but that will change in about twenty minutes, then I will start to get very hot.
Since I am awake Aaliyah and I are sitting her at my lap top about the watch some documentaries. Then later on I am going to go make some homemade chicken soup (mainly for me cause I am sick) although Aaliyah will eat a bowl as well, because she just LOVES chicken.
I best be on my way offline now. I am off to spend some quality time with my little princess.

Facebook & My Birthday

So facebook is down for now. I don't know if it is just for me or for everyone, but when I went to sign in this morning I got a notice saying that the site is down for some maintenance. I really find stuff like this annoying, to be honest. Facebook is my main and pretty much only source of communication to my family that live so far away. Although, I guess I could use less facebook, because I am sometimes on it when there are no messages or posts on my wall and I just browse and browse for what seems only like a few simple minutes, but in reality a good hour passes by.
So yesterday was my 25th birthday and it was good. I may not have got to spend time with my family down home, but Jonathan, Aaliyah and myself went to Earls restaurant, because it is my all time favorite place to eat out to. Plus we have the best waiter in the world. His name is Matt, he's a pretty cool guy and very friendly, bubbly and he feels like family or like an old friend that you've grown up with. His service is great, he knows what we all choose for our meal, plus he knows our appetizer's and also knows how many refills of our pop to give us. So I couldn't see myself eating any where else for my birthday. I definitely haven't had great service like that at any other restaurant.
Near the last hour of my shift yesterday at work it came out about my birthday accidentally really only because I was bragging that Jonathan was taking me to Earls for my birthday. So, Jomilyn (my co-worker) had made a trip to target to buy her candles and some gum, then pulled out a box of Ferrero Rocher's. Which at first I just thought 'oh she is having a chocolate craving,' then she passed the box to me and wished me a happy birthday. Which was really nice, because no one had to do anything. I don't expect it from my co-worker's to buy me anything, but she did. Well it is nearing quarter to 9 her by my clock and I need to be at work for 9:30 and it takes about 25 to 30 minutes to drive and I am not dressed or have make-up on my face, so I better go now.