Book Club - The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

2019 -1

"I tried to make a home for myself here, tried to turn the apartment into the sort of place where the person I wanted to be would live."

"You'd be destroying what makes it special." she said.  "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty."

"I hoped when New Yorkers looked at me, they would see whatever it was that Dad saw." 

_______________________________________

Another November purchase already read, I'm on a roll!  In the fall I read another book by JW - Half Broke Horses.  I enjoyed both of them, but this was was very difficult for me.

Freezer cleanout has begun

Our freezer is in a pretty appalling state right now - full to the brim....but of what?

There never seems to be anything useful for a quick meal, it's full of fruit, bread, greens, bones....

Where are the chicken pieces, packs of ground meats?  

They are at the store because I have no room for them.

With the dawn of a new year I've decided that enough is enough and I'm getting my freezer cleaned up, along with the rest of my life (ha!)

Last Saturday -

I was working on a menu plan for a busy week and went to the freezer hoping to find some stew meat and some chicken.  I found the stew meat - no chicken, and also unearthed some yeast, which I added to my container in the fridge freezer, and some corn tortillas and homemade enchilada sauce, which I also moved to the upstairs freezer in anticipation of making a version of these green chile enchiladas.

I also brought up a bag of homemade frozen spinach, half a bag of frozen blueberries and a nearly full bag of mixed frozen berries.

I turned the spinach, the blueberries, and some of the mixed berries into a smoothie for me and the kids, along with a banana that was heading south and some almost expired coconut yogurt.

Delicious!

The beef stew was turned into Instant Pot Korean Beef, but the tortillas and sauce were not used.  The Mister pulled a box of mini sausage rolls out for a dinner/snack one night but the kids refused to eat them.  We tried to reason with them - you like sausage, you like pastry!  No go.

This morning  - 

I can see improvement in the amount of space at the top of the freezer!!!!!  Progress is being made.

I found some frozen chicken cutlets that will get cooked for tomorrows dinner.  I also grabbed a bag of turkey bones to make some soup, a bag of roasted garlic heads to move to the freezer upstairs so I will remember to use them, a bag of cheese buns, MORE blueberries, some swiss chard - maybe for the soup?, 2 Korean kebabs from Superstore that I will cook up for The Mister and I to eat for lunch or dinner.  I also found a bag of pierogis and some bacon, which will be an easy and tasty dinner too.  Grabbed a package of sausages too - if I can find a crock pot recipe or something easy for them, my week is practically set.

I am not above tossing out anything that really needs to go, although my goal is to eat as much of this as we can - I found a glass jar of homemade jam that was thankfully in a freezer bag; it had cracked or leaked so that got thrown out, along with a truly unidentifiable bag of something pretty scary looking that I didn't want to thaw to find out what it was.  Ew.

playwright's melt

I pulled my copy of My Father's Daughter off the shelf a while back to make the 10 Hour Chicken for a special Sunday Dinner.  It was so good! Better than I remembered from all those years ago.  

The book sat out for the rest of the week and I started flipping through it, reading recipes to The Mister of things that sounded good.  

When I got to playwright's melt - olives, scallions, cheese, curry powder and veganaise spread on an english muffin and toasted, The Mister stopped and said "That's breakfast today" and started shredding cheese and firing up the broiler.

The kids both took one look at our plates and asked for cereal but that was ok - this would be wasted on someone who didn't appreciate it.

We used regular mayo instead of veganaise and canned olives instead of fancy ones and it was deeeelicious.  This version doubles the cheese but that ain't a bad thing.

Sunday Dinner - One Pot Seafood Stew and Skillet Flatbread

We cooked an absolutely gorgeous dinner from Cravings 2 by Chrissy Teigen that knocked all of our socks off, ALMOST including the kids!

This seafood stew is amazing, fully of fish, shrimp and scallops.  Incredibly flavorful.

I did what I often do and increased the liquid amounts, so it was more of a soup than a stew but then there were more leftovers and we were all glad for that.

The flatbread was a super duper major hit with my carb loving family.  This is on repeat around here.

Such a delicious amazing dinner from one of my favorite books.

Advice for 2019

____________________________________________

THIS is how we are going into 2019.

Put those emotional vampires, the negatives, the drama first people at the back of the pack.

Focus on you and those that are important to you - those that love and care about you JUST the way you are - not the ones that only want you to act and react the way they think you should.  The ones that only reach out when they need something or some validation.  The ones who ignore you until it works for them.  Because - real love and kindness?  Isn't like that.

Bye to those guys.

Reach out today to someone you love, like, admire, miss - whatever.  Tell them you are thinking about them.  Wish them well.  Put some good vibes out into the world today, on day one of 2019

Here we go; peace and love to you as we start this brand new year.