Thoughts on a very lazy Monday....

After taking about a four day break from the spring cleaning, I woke up this morning thinking I'd jump right back into it. I think my plan was to wash windows and blinds in the living room.

However, it was rainy and cold and kind of dreary outside today and Avery and I both decided that if four days off is good, well, heck! Five is better.



She was feeling pretty laid back herself.



I decided it would be more fun to bake cookies than to wash windows and blinds. So I made oatmeal cookies.

I've always used the recipe on the lid of the Quaker oats box. The first dozen came out so flat, they were like oatmeal pralines. I swear, I never saw flatter cookies. That's never happened so maybe it was because it was raining? It was time to experiment.

I added half a cup of flour to the batter before I baked the second dozen. The result was a tad better, but not good enough.

So I added another half cup of flour before I baked the third dozen and look! Fat, fluffy cookies. And in spite of the additional cup of flour, they taste very good.

I suppose it's a little OCD but I had to show you the three different sizes. LOL



Folgers has come out with a new line of gourmet coffee. I've fallen in love with this one - Vanilla Biscotti. It's seriously delicious. Rob is not in love with it, so it's all mine. Heh heh. I have no idea where those two Samoas came from or where they're going.



Here's what I made for dinner last night. I could swear I've shared this before, but if I have I sure can't find it. Not that I'm looking through almost 700 posts real especially hard. :-) This is so easy, I call it a "There's no way I'm cooking tonight" recipe.

1 envelope Lipton onion soup mix
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (about 4)
2 large potatoes, cut into small chunks
2 carrots, peeled and sliced

Cut the chicken into chunks and put everything in a gallon size ziplock and mix it all up.

Pour everything into a glass baking dish and bake, uncovered, at 450 degrees (yes, 450) for about 45 minutes. Stir about halfway through the cooking.

That's it. Nothing could be easier. The hardest thing about this recipe is peeling the potatoes and if it were just me eating it, I wouldn't even do that. I like potato peels. Rob, however, thinks not peeling potatoes is uncivilized. :-)



This is one of those things that makes me wonder what on earth I was thinking. I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out. So here's a tip for you:

It's one heck of a lot easier to keep your bathroom counter clean if you keep it cleared off. Duh.

You can't believe how dusty and dirty my bathroom counter always got because I had so much "stuff" sitting on it. And that's even after I read somewhere that people don't really want to see all your creams and lotions and your toothbrush and your eye makeup remover, so you should just put it out of sight.


So I did. I simply put everything in the cupboards under the sinks. It's very easy to get to anything I need and it's amazing how easy it is to keep my bathroom counter clean now.

I actually like the totally uncluttered look.



And finally, one more rambling thought on a lazy Monday...

My sister Bev sent me this book shortly after our little Cameron was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes (almost two years ago). This is another "duh" thing but today I finally decided to take this out of my bookshelves and look at it. I fully intended to buy a book called "Cooking with Splenda" this weekend but got too bumfuzzled when I lost my grocery list and I forgot all about it. Today I remembered Bev had sent me this cookbook. For Pete's sake, I'll be making some of these desserts. I plan to start with the applesauce cookies. (Soon as my oatmeal cookies are gone.)

Everything is sugar free. The recipes use fruit and reduced fruit juices as sweeteners. He's also very cautious about dairy and gluten, but it's the sugar free that I'm after, for Cameron.


So today was just a nice, laid back day for Miss Avery and Nana. Maybe we'll wash those windows and blinds tomorrow.

Then again, maybe not. :-)