Well, I can’t believe I just started a blog. I’ve been thinking about doing this for about a year now and said to myself, now’s as good a time as any with the start of a new year. I’m really a little scared about it because I’m afraid of new things. When I started a new job, I had a little more time than I’d like with not much to do. I have busy times and not busy times, so I started journaling. I realized then how much I like to write. I’d never journaled before. I started to multiple times throughout my life, but never stuck with it and now I’ve been journaling for almost a year and a half. I really love it and I love looking back to see the things I’ve gone through and how I got through whatever was going on at the time. This is all new to me, so we’ll see how it goes!

Anyone see the full moon last night? Took my dog out for a bathroom break and saw it behind my neighbor’s trees. It looked so beautiful. Sometimes I don’t love taking my dog out at night when it’s cold, but then I’ll look up at the sky and see all the stars or like last night, see the beautiful full moon and I remember to just stop and take a minute, enjoy the beauty of what’s around us every day. Too often I’m just busy, busy and don’t stop to appreciate the little things. I started driving a new way home from work a few months ago and there’s a section where there is an open field, so with the sun setting earlier I’m able to look out over the field for a few seconds and see the beautiful sunset. Those little moments can really change your attitude. I’ll be all stressed driving home and see this beauty and it’ll change my perspective. I have a full week of work next week and got the Sunday scaries, as everyone calls it now! Had a few days off over the holidays so the thought of a whole week does not excite me. But, I’ll get through it, like always. I try to remind myself that I’m lucky to have a job, so again, all about your thoughts and trying (although sometimes hard) to think positively. I hear time and time again about turning your mindset to more positive thoughts, but that is not easy for me. Whenever I start thinking positive or feeling good, something bad happens, so needless to say, I’m more of a glass half empty kind of person! As I’ve tried to get closer to God, I try to change my thought process. It’s definitely a work in progress.

Trying to get back into the swing of things next week dinner-wise. We had an easy two weeks with some takeout and snacky foods, so we really haven’t cooked or had to make a dinner plan. I always like to plan out my dinners ahead of time. We don’t eat out a lot. We do get pizza every Friday because that’s how I grew up and after a long week of work, I like to have pizza and a no-cook dinner one night a week. One thing that stresses me out sometimes is trying to come up with a dinner plan every week. I try to keep it fresh with some new recipes, but maybe that’s the problem! We do have some things multiple times, you know, your tried and true like spaghetti, tacos, chicken fried rice. This week we are doing pita pizzas, spaghetti and the buffalo chicken crescent ring. Anyone try that before? Haven’t had it in a little bit, but I do love buffalo chicken recipes. Wanted to do some easy stuff this week and we normally try to do at least one day where there’s not a lot of cleanup, like making homemade pita pizzas or chicken patty sandwiches and then two weekday cooking days and a leftover night. The weekend I also like to keep it simple on Sunday because I’ve got laundry to do and getting ready for the new week, don’t want to spend my Sunday night in the kitchen cleaning up a lot of dishes. We’ll usually do sandwiches or hot dogs then. Would love it if you share some of your favorite easy dinner ideas for the work week. Growing up my dad did a lot of the cooking and he would made a nice Sunday dinner. I’m trying to do that on Saturday when I have a little more time. There are some Saturday’s that I spend cleaning the whole house and some weekends where I have a lot of errands to run, but I am trying to do no-spend weekends and be home more, so those Saturday’s I’d like to make nicer dinners. One Saturday I made a pot roast and it was so good, although meat is so expensive, so that’s not something I can make a lot, but once in a while is nice, especially when the weather gets colder. For Christmas this year, my husband gifted me a new set of pots. I have been wanting a new set of pots for about 3 or 4 years now and just haven’t wanted to spend the money on them, so it was a real nice surprise. So I am a little excited to cook dinner this week to try everything out. I did use one of the saucepan’s for our New Year’s Day dinner and they are so nice, heavy. They are the Cuisinart Chef’s Collection pots. I’m trying to finish up all the Christmas goodies I made to so I can get back to my regular eating schedule! I don’t make too much any more just because there were a few years I made a bunch of different cookies and spent an entire weekend making chocolate covered stuff and then no one eats it and I throw most of it out, which is annoying considering how much time it took me to make it. So now I just make my own Chex Mix, peppermint bark, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter bars and these Christmas cracker candy or the saltine cracker toffee,so good! And guess what, it’s pretty much all gone. Just have a few peanut butter bars left, so now I’m not throwing anything away – YAY!

Well, I think that’ll be a wrap on my first blog post. Feel free to share an easy recipe or a beautiful photo of some scenery you may have recently taken. I am sharing the photo of the moon last night. Still need to work on my photography – something else I’d love to learn. Hope you all have a great week. Try to take a minute or two out of your day to look at something in nature to make you smile.