Dear Rachel Ray,

Dear Rachel Ray,
I adore you, I really do. You're cute and bubbly and love dogs but here's my issue... you have too many ingredients in almost every single recipe. I wish I loved to cook, I watch cooking shows for fun and write down recipes like I'm actual going to use them, but I don't. To be super honest if it has more than about five ingredients it's never going to happen, if it's more than about 5 steps also never going to happen. Searing meat before putting it in the crockpot? Are you kidding? That's so much work! Ok in reality it's not a ton of work but in my incredibly lazy, cooking-hating mind it is.
On top of my lack of enthusiasm for making dinners I also have the constraints of food allergies (dairy, egg, peanut, and shellfish) to keep me from the truly easy and yummy recipes. I love my children and I obviously do not mind searching for meals that won't kill them, but if we could just have dairy back, that's all I would ask for. We would have casseroles galore and cheese on everything. So.... now that I think about it... maybe the dairy allergy actually helps us all to not be excessively overweight.
Have you ever read an allergen free cook book? It's a lazy, cooking- hating persons worst nightmare. You can't find a recipe without at least 15 ingredients. I appreciate the people that have taken the time and energy to write these books (and also to you, Rachel Ray, for your recipes) and I do use them every-so-often (when I can find the ingredients that you can't find at your local Walmart), but how did you have the time to come up with these recipes? When I try to make one it takes me about two hours, is it just that I'm incredibly slow? Maybe that's my real problem with cooking, I'm just slow so everything takes twice as long as it does most other people. I'm also a stickler to instructions so i read and re-read the recipe at least 10 times to make sure I've completed all the steps. Nothing makes me angrier than a vague ingredient or step, for example: "a dash of salt" what is this? A "dash" is not an exact measurement! What if my "dash" isn't the same amount as the recipe creator's "dash"? People tell me that cooking isn't an exact science that you have to taste while you go, be creative with what kind of spices you add in. Creative? Do I seem like a creative person? I get mad about "a dash of salt" what do you think the possibilities are of me grabbing random spices out of the cabinet and pouring unmeasured amounts into what I'm cooking? The answer, my friend, is zero.
My poor family. My husband is a trooper and tries to find at least something to compliment at dinner every night like "This chicken isn't as dry as last night's, you did a really great job!" Bless his heart. My kids are a little more honestly blunt (they get that from me), "Mom, please don't make me eat any more of this." When anyone comes to visit I stick to the staples, tacos and spaghetti, the two things I don't often fail at (mostly because everything comes in a box or jar or spice packet).
I truly hope that some day a desire ignites inside of me and I get over the whole "that's too much work" mentality. I'm trying to take steps, little by little. I try at least one new recipe every week (much to my kids' dismay), my crockpot use has gone down to about only twice a week instead of four, and I'm trying to not let ingredient list length sway me from trying a new recipe. Until this magical igniting desire occurs could you change the name of your whole "30 Minute Meals" theme because I feel like it just mocks me "30 minutes for Rachel, 5 hours for you, sucka!" And if we could also do away with the non measurements of dash, pinch, etc. my little direction following heart would be so happy. Thank you so much! ~ The lazy, cooking-hating mom

Mother's Day Resolution

I'm not with my mom for Mother's Day this year. We were with her last week, however, and she mentioned how lonely it was going to be this Mother's Day without any kids or grandkids around her. I thought to myself....that sounds absolutely wonderful, a day of complete peace where you can do whatever you want to! Being a smart 29 year old who thinks she knows everything I turned to her and told her as much, to which she replied "No it doesn't sound perfect to me, it sounds lonely." I answered with some remark about how when she was my age she probably thought differently, but as the week has progressed it's been weighing on my mind. My daughters are 9 and 7 already, when you're going day to day it does seem like forever, but when you look back on it as a whole you realize you blinked and life flashed by. So for this Mother's Day I'm going to make a mother's resolution (unlike New Years resolutions because I've completely given up on those) to stop looking to the future for when the kids are older and I don't have to be as hands on anymore, but instead, to enjoy every moment of what precious time I have left before they're completely independent. I will have many days of peace and quiet in the future, for now I just need to soak up the snuggles, giggles, sparkles, unicorns, and, yes, even the occasional (or not so occasional) chaos.
To my mom this Mother's day, thank you for life, of course, but also thank you for enjoying those times of chaos and snuggles when I was younger. Thank you for teaching me new life lessons even as an adult. Thank you for loving me even though I know I can be hard to love. I love you!

To my precious daughters, thank you for making me a mother, thank you for the snuggles, giggles, sparkles, unicorns, and chaos. It is a privilege to be your mom and I love you so so much.

Intros, Themes, and Silly Things.

So Let me start off by saying that I've been thinking about this blog for a while now. I had one before but basically used it as my diary and lets face it.... I was a very boring person then. I decided that this time I'd like to be better at this whole blogging thing and that I did NOT want to be boring anymore. I decided to Google the matter and see what professional bloggers say about how to get things started and was immediately overwhelmed. PICK A THEME, INTRODUCE YOURSELF, and (the real kicker) NAME YOUR BLOG.

Theme:
Theme....where do I even begin there. I'm not exceptionally good at any one thing, heck I'm barely okay at most things I try my hand at (marriage, mothering, cooking, homeschooling, even friendship). So I guess what my theme should be is "Things that I'm not completely failing at." Seems appropriate, and from what I see on the memes floating around Facebook it's something that almost every mom/wife/friend can relate to.

I'll skip introductions for now and get right to my most intimidating task....

Name Your Blog:
Seriously mind numbing blankness for a solid hour or more.... Many names circled in my mind, I'd look them up, and of course my genius blog name would already be taken. I have a Pinterest board called "Homeschool Mama Drama" but I knew I didn't really want the word homeschool in the blog name. It's not that I'm not proud that I homeschool it's just that this will not be an exclusively homeschool themed blog (this is my first year homeschooling so I do not have the authority to give any advice yet). When I realized there was already a blog named Mama Drama I Googled words that rhyme with drama. This led me to the word "melodrama", and it hit me like a freight train MELODRAMATICALLY NORMAL. I know the words contradict each other but I feel like most of the time I'm just one big walking contradiction. I like to talk to friends, but I hate calling. I like to be invited to things, but I don't usually want to go when it comes time to leave for them. I'm an introvert that is ridiculously extroverted once I get to know you. (just in case you're a Myers Briggs person... I'm an ISFJ) I'm already in love with my blog name, which I guess is a tremendous start.



Introductions:
I've already revealed a lot about myself in the previous paragraphs, but I guess I can expand a little on what you already know. My name is Sarah, I'm 29, I'm a stay at home homeschooling mom (which is very different from last year when I was a hairstylist at a kid's salon and worked 40 hours a week). I have been married to my husband Caleb for 11 years. If you're doing the math in your head, yes, I married him when I was 18 but that's a different blog post altogether. He works as a munitions handler on Redstone Aresenal and is also a Marine Corps veteran who is currently in the National Guard. He makes me laugh EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

We have two daughters, and yes I'm aware that neither of them look anything like me. Our oldest is Annie. Annie is her father's daughter, hyper, ADD, fun loving, smart, hilarious, life of the party. She is 9 now. NINE! I can't believe this is my last year to not have a double digit kid. Our youngest daughter is Lyla. Lyla is a shy, caring, quiet, snuggling, animal lover. She is 7 and is my little peanut. The girls are polar opposites but are each others best friends.

Also in our house you'll find two cats and one loveable doggy.
Callie and Jasmine look at us as if our only purpose in life is to feed them and stay out of their way. Its ok I love them anyway and I've heard that that's how most calicoes see humans. They do like to snuggle once you're asleep and have no idea they're showing you love.

Archie is the newest member of the household and let me tell you we hit the jackpot of dogs. He is literally the sweetest animal I have ever encountered, he adores children and will let my 2 year old niece sit on his back and pretend he's a horsey.

That's all the intros I have and wowza has this been a long blog post! Keep coming back and reading because from this point out I will carry a pen and paper with me wherever I go so that when inspiration from something interesting hits i'll be able to write it down to remember.