Keeping It Real

Vegetarian Stuffed Shells

1 Box of  jumbo shells
1 large part skim ricotta cheese
3/4 cup mozzarella
about 1/4 cup parmesan
2 jars of tomato sauce
1 Tablespoon of parsley
1 Tablespoon of Italian seasoning.
9x13 baking dish

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Boil the shells and drain
3. While shells are boiling mix together 1/2 cup of mozzarella some of the parmesan and all of the ricotta cheese. 
• Stir in parsley and Italian seasoning
• Put in the fridge.
4. Spray 9x13 backin dish with cooking spray.
5. Fill each shell and place it in the backing dish.
6. When all shells are filled pour sauce over everything, top with the remaining mozzarella and parmesan. Bake for 45 mins - 1hr.
7. Cover with foil halfway through baking.

Vegetarian Pasta Primavera

My mom used to make something like this but she added chicken. Since I try not to eat meat, I make a vegetarian option.

You Will Need:
3 Tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, minced and smashed
1/2 - 1 white onion - diced
1 diced zucchini
1 cup (ish) chopped asparagus
2 cups of broccoli
1 cup cherry tomatoes cut in half
1/4 cup of lemon juice - about 1 large lemon
1 Tablespoon of italian seasoning.
salt and peper to taste I start with about 1 tablespoon of each.
Whole Wheat Linguine - you can use fresh or dry or grain free or whatever you have.

1. Cook pasta and set aside.
2. In pan or large skillet eat olive oil on medium heat.
3. Add onions and garlic cook until soft.
3. Next add zucchini, asparagus, broccoli, salt and pepper. Cook until soft or desired texture. I like mine a little crunchy still.

4. Add tomatoes and lemon juice. Bring to a boil.

5. Let simmer until veggies are your desired texture.
6. Add linguine and mix until fully combined.

7. Serve with parmesan ramano cheese

Serve!

Vegetarian Chili

This is a great recipe if you're going to be gone all day and don't want to cook when you get home. Just toss it all in and leave it alone. You'll have a healthy, hearty meal when you return.

You will need:
1 can of black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can of pinto beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can of kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can of light beer
1/2 -1 cup of water
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato sauce
1 can of corn
1 potato peeled and diced
1 small sweet potato (half large)  peeled and diced
1 small onion diced
1 small zucchini and/or yellow squash, diced
1/2 cup nacho jalapeños (optional)
3 Tablespoons chili powder
1 Tablespoon ground cumin
a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper
1-2 dashes of cinnamon
1 Tablespoon of brown sugar
Plain greek yogurt
cheese

* I always opt for "no salt added" or "low sodium" beans and canned veggies when at all possible.

1. Dump all the ingredients into the crock pot except for the yogurt and the cheese.
2. Cook on low for 6-8 hrs. 
3. Serve with cheese and greek yogurt or eat it plain.

Makes about 6 ish servings, freezes well.

Baby (mommy) Prep When Dad Is Gone!

Yep. I had a baby and my husband wasn't there. 

So I know, LITERALLY every pregnancy is different. But there are a few bits of advice I can give you. Especially if you're military, anything can happen. Here are some things to consider, to give yourself the best chance of sanity if you're doing this by yourself!

Prepare, prepare prepare!

• Keep your medical records in your purse!
• At about 34 weeks I asked for a copy of my records from my OB.  Its great to keep them on hand in case you go into labor and end up somewhere other than your hospital. Happened to me and they said that was the smartest thing I could have done. My OB wasn't open so they couldn't call to get my records faxed.

• Have a hospital bag packed WAY before you think you'll need it.
• at 20 weeks I started packing one. Everyone said I was crazy because thats so early but I would just throw random things in when I thought of it. Glad I did because when my water broke I was alone and only 35 weeks. Luckily,  I had almost everything I needed already packed.

• Have somebody/anybody who can take you to the hospital.
• I knew my husband had a chance of being gone so I had a friend (an equally pregnant friend haha) take me to the hospital and she was awesome enough to stay until 5 am with me.
• Have more than one hospital as an option!
• My OB was a 35 min drive without traffic or weather. In Virginia, with the bridges and tunnels that could easily turn into 45 mins to and hour. I ended up going to a different hospital that was closer and had a NICU because I was having a preemie.
• not all hospitals and birthing centers have a NICU so ask when you tour.

• Install the car seat EARLY!
• I installed it as soon as I hit my third trimester. Its not something you want to do after you give birth or even worse when you're in labor.

• Meal Prep!
• Find some recipes that you like, that freeze easy! Make 1-2 a week and freeze them in meal sized portions. Especially if you're going to be alone. The last thing you want to do postparum is to cook for yourself.  I made chili, burritos, enchiladas and lasagna. The burritos were my favorite because I could just put them in the microwave and eat them. 

• Get snacks!
• Granola bars
• cereal 
• fruit cups
• baby carrots
• candy (you know you want it) 
• anything quick and easy

• Stock up on household stuff & toiletries 
• Keep a stock pile of household stuff and toiletries so you don't have to go to the store, alone, with a newborn when you run out. You will run out.  Just buy a little at a time every time you go shopping during pregnancy so you don't have to drop a bunch of extra money. Coupons and sales help! 
• Buy extra:
• toilet paper
• paper towels
• paper plates
• all purpose cleaner
• clorox wipes
• laundry detergent
• dish soap
• hand soap
• hand sanitizer
• shampoo/conditioner 
• body soap
• pads (light and heavy)
• 1 pack of preemie (just in case) 
• I had no preemie diapers or clothes and it was a disaster. She had nothing to wear. 

• Keep an extra bag of dog/cat food
• Buying 30 lb bags of dog food with a baby isn't fun. Get it ahead of time or set up auto delivery from a website like chewy.com.

Minimum Wage Not Enough?

Todays lesson: If you want more money, better yourself. Because there are already way better people working a lot harder making a lot less.

Although I don't agree with the mediocracy remark. Let me just share some knowledge. Someone who is an E1 in the United States military makes ONLY $16,600 a year to work well over 40 hours a week and get deployed to god knows where for months at a time to defend our country and help many others. That's a little more than $7.25 an hour. But that's someone who just joined. Let's say someone has advanced a little bit, you know, gained some knowledge. An E3 starts at $19,300. That's still only just over $10 an hour if they work "40 hours a week" before taxes. But you show me a sailor that only works 40 hours a week. Mine doesn't. So to everyone complaining about not making enough while flipping your burgers and shaking the extra grease off the French fries, there are people getting paid the same as you risking their lives so that you can sit at home and complain about how YOU don't get paid enough. I don't know who these people are who think they deserve ridiculous amounts of money to work a dead end job. But I'm pretty sure they're not the people who have college degrees and just can't find a good job. I'm gonna bet they're the people who got complacent. The ones who, for some reason, feel entitled to things for absolutely no reason. And I don't think its because they were rewarded for being mediocre as a child. Its more likely because their parents never taught them to believe in themselves and be strong independent people. That they're able to better themselves, to have a strong worth ethic, self confidence and self respect. To TRY and take chances. Because THOSE are the things that actually get you places.. But I guess its just easier to just put Johnny on a losing t-ball team and tell him its his fault for not getting a trophy because he isn't good enough...instead of helping him practice. All while crushing his 5 year old dreams to be a pro baseball player. SO, he'll probably never even try..... 

Moving to Virginia : The Good The Bad AND The UGLY!

PCS'ing from San Diego to Norfolk Virginia has been a TRIP! Let me start by saying Murphy's Law. What can go wrong, WILL indeed go wrong. So, with our further adooooo Heres what happened.

My husband and I were bound and determined to make this move go much more smoothly than our last. (which was also a disaster) So we followed all the directions, had a relocation consultation and had all of our ducks in a row. We felt GREAT about the move....other than the fact that we were leaving San Diego.

THEN

The navy threw a huge wrench into our nice organized plans. Go figure. He was told to go to the relocation office and set up our move 10 days before we were leaving. Which we did, we actually went 12 days before just to be safe. Only to get online to schedule the move and have them tell us that if they pick up our household goods when we were moving out of our apartment they wouldn't arrive to our new apartment in Virginia for OVER A MONTH! which was no good because James is deploying soon after checking into his new ship. We absolutely were not living an empty apartment for a month. So we had to have them call us to tell us an earlier date that they could come pack everything up.  (this was on a Friday)  I got a phone call the following Tuesday telling me that they were going to come on Thursday! THAT Thursday! Which was a week before we were leaving, but hopefully our stuff would arrive in Virginia on time. SO we were like 'what the heck, lets just do it".

So we had a week with nothing in our apartment other than our bags, the pets and an air mattress....And still no move money! But I'll get to that in a minute.

Once we left San Diego, we drove to Vegas for a night, then to Fort Morgan Colorado, Chicago Illinois, Cleveland Ohio and then off to Norfolk, VA. It was a LONG drive!

When we reached Chicago, it had been almost a week and we still hadn't received any of the travel money which was beginning to make things difficult because staying in a hotel every night gets really expensive. Especially with 2 pets. After having my husband call them and finding out nothing, I started calling and finally got answers. He filled out for the move money to be advanced so we could have it before we left San Diego, apparently somebody in whatever office that is, didn't realize that and it was still sitting on someones desk. So we had to wait another 4 days to get the money put into my husbands account.

Once we got to Virginia we stayed at the navy lodge until we could find an apartment. Which took 3 days because we were SO sick of moving and wasting money on hotels we picked the first thing we looked at. A very nice girl we met at the PETA dog park, who's husband is also Navy, recommended it to us. And it turned out to be Okay. Its not as nice as what we're used to but, its only for 11 months, and James will be deployed for 8 of them.  The place is super dog friendly and has a dog park in the complex, so Finn's happy.

We had to wait another week to have all of our household goods delivered....which was VERY frustrating but it felt good to at least be 'home' even if home was still empty. Once our things finally arrived it was bitter sweet because SO much of it was broken or damaged. Almost everything that wasn't put in a box, they broke...

• My Antique Dining Room Table had an entire corner knocked off

• The solid wood leaf coffee table's end brace was knocked off. Like, it snapped off, it didn't just come loose. 

• Our 3 Drawer Dresser bottom brace was also knocked off and they taped it back together with packing tape.

• And lastly our king memory foam mattress has a tear the size of my hand in the cover and the liner. I'm not sure how we're going to fix that because I already looked and I can't find a new cover or liner and it was a BRAND NEW mattress it was only 4 months old.

We are currently in the claim precess....fingers crossed!