Since being home and trying to get back into the normal swing of things, I have been totally bogged down in organizing, laundry, cleaning, paying bills, WBS, etc. which leaves little time for creativity and blogging.  Hopefully things will get better soon...

One thing that I am excited about is that I am thinking of braiding a rug.  I have been thinking about it for a while now and have read about it and I think that it sounds really fun. I'll keep you posted as to my progress. On my to-do list today was to go and get the two books that the library has on braiding rugs, but Halleigh wasn't cooperating and we needed to come home and eat lunch and take a nap, so that will get pushed back until tomorrow.

In other news, I am starting to get a little stressed out about all the shuffling around that we are going to have to do to fit another kid in this house. I am thinking that if we don't start soon we are going to be in a situation like when Halleigh was born, where very little had gotten done and Miles played a lot of catch up while I was still in the hospital.

I have waged an epic battle on recipes... and I am going to win. At first I thought I wanted a gigantic cook book that I could manually organize all the recipes that we use and throw the rest away. So I asked for one for Christmas, but my mom found this instead, and is forcing me into the depths of technology once again.

The Living Cookbook, this thing is awesome. It is a recipe management computer program.  It is going to take quite a bit of work to set it up and customize it so that it is at its peak usefulness, but after watching all of the tutorials, I am very excited about all that this thing can do.

If you want to see the miracle for yourself, click here to see the video demos. 

 
Here are some of my favorite features:

1.    Enter recipes with as much or as little detail as you like.

2.    Add images to recipes. In fact you can add a main recipe image, a source image and an image for every recipe procedure step, if you want to.

3.    Copy recipes from the Internet.

4.    Calculate recipe nutrition from the recipe ingredients or enter the nutrition data manually.

5.    Search, filter and save searches

6.    Calculate recipe costs.  

7.    Enter preparation time, cooking time, inactive time and total time.

8.    Organize recipes into cookbooks, chapters, sub-chapters, etc. according to your needs.

9.    Print your recipes on any paper format: US letter, legal, A4, 4x6 index card, 3x5 index card and more.

10. Scale recipes to any number of servings.

11. Publish your cookbooks with tables of contents and indexes.

12. Print your publication from within Living Cookbook or export it as a Microsoft Word document.

13. Format your publication using your choice of fonts, colors, spacing and layouts.

14. Choose from over 7000 ingredients with nutrition data provided by the USDA.

15. Enter your own custom ingredients or copy them from the Internet.

16. Import new USDA nutrition as it is made available by the USDA.

17. Assign costs, grocery aisles and preferred stores to ingredients.

18. Calculate menu costs.

19. View nutrition and cost summary information for a day or a range of dates.

20. View meal calendar in month, week or day mode.

21. Add recipe, ingredients, menus or meals grocery lists or enter the grocery list items manually.

22. Create a grocery list for multiple stores.

23. Calculate grocery list costs and subtotal by store.

24. Automatically organize the grocery list by aisles.

25. Customize grocery aisles by store, including grocery aisle order.

26. Create a grocery list to restock inventory.

27. Create a grocery list for a range of meal plan dates.

28. Automatically combine like grocery list items (e.g. "1 cup milk" and "1 pint milk" will be combined automatically to read "1 1/2 pints milk".

29. Manage your kitchen inventory.

30. Control the ordering properties of any inventory item (minimum order quantity, order at level, order up to level, etc.).

31. Create a printable inventory worksheet to help you take stock of your kitchen.

32. Print multiple recipes, ingredient, etc. at once.

It being Jan. 2nd, I thought that I should think about picking a New Year's Resolution. I can never keep a resolution, and often I don't really even try, but today in the shower I thought of one that I can keep... hopefully.

Drum roll please... have a baby.  Yep, 2009 is going to be a big year! :)

Here is a picture of one of my favorite Christmas gifts.... a sonicare toothbrush.

I have wanted an electric toothbrush for a long time, and know several people who have and love their sonicare toothbrushes.  My friend Mary told me that it revolutionized her oral health, and I am all about oral health (except flossing, that is where I draw the line... I know it is going to shorten my life-span by six years, but whatever!).

I tried it for the first time last night and I thought I was going to die before I got to all of my teeth. Not only did I keep touching my other teeth with the hard part of my toothbrush (read: scratching nails down the chalkboard multiplied by a thousand, feeling), but it tickled so bad that I couldn't see straight. It was horrible! When I finally finished, I had toothpaste EVERYWHERE, and my lips felt like they were still vibrating long after the brushing was over.  Miles on the other hand, also got one (even though he didn't covet it like I did), and he looked like a pro and only had slight lip-vibrating discomfort.  I think I need to read the instructions again.

I got up this morning and tried it again, and it was a little better, I kept my mouth wide open so as not to touch the toothbrush to my other teeth (just thinking about that horrible feeling is giving me goose bumps!).  I must say that it is going to take a large effort on my part to get used to this crazy toothpaste flinging, whole head vibrating, gut wrenching, gum tickling toothbrush! Mary, how do you do it?!?!?!

I am still alive, but on top of being nauseous pretty much all the time still, I have had a yucky cold that has taken over my life.

Also, I have become addicted to the Twilight books. Something that my 13 year old sister would be horrified by... don't tell her. ha ha ha (She's one of my most regular readers)

I went with some girlfriends to see the movie on Sunday night not knowing anything about the books, and by the end I decided that I would read the first book... and that was it. I have read the first two books (It's Tuesday night), and I am trying as hard as I can not to go and buy the 3rd book tonight. My mom is sending it to me and it will be here soon... I just need to know how the story ends... I hopelessly hooked.

I hope that all parents think this about their own kids, because almost daily I think to myself, "How did I get so lucky to be able to raise this child?!?"

Then again, also on a daily basis, I think I need a vacation from you! 

Being a mom is a lesson in contradiction.