Midnight Poster

It is ten to midnight, and this is the first chance I have had today to get on my computer.....busy, busy. Non-stop stuff since seven a.m. this morning. I started by compiling a load of accumulated unwanted stuff to go to Salvation Army. What a cool thing this is, you can get on there website and type in your address, the day you want them to come out, and what you will be donating....you don't have to talk to anyone! This is right up my hermit alley! They don't even come to your door, you leave your stuff in the driveway and they leave a pre-printed receipt on your porch. Love It! And I purged my home of an 8x4x4 area of stuff - mostly kids toys. That was great. So I had to make sure I had everything in my driveway first thing this morning.

Then I became Susie Homemaker, serious I felt like Donna Reed today (only not as calm, she made it look easy). I actually watched "The Donna Reed Show" obsessively as a teenager. I would stay up late and watch all the reruns. Anyway, I did several loads of laundry (but somehow several more have appeared now that I am posting this), fed kids (and cleaned up after them) multiple times, dishes.....you know same old, same old. Anyway, around 11:00 a.m. I sat down to fold a load of laundry and flipped on Rachel Ray's 30 minute meal and Charlotte says "That looks good, let's make that for dinner" Score - dinner planned. Then another show came on after that which gave 3 dinners in 15 minutes, one shopping trip. Ok, I'm all over that. I've really been wanting to get more organized in meal planning and shopping, so this is a good start for me. I shopped for and planned out four dinners today.

The dinner I made tonite from Rachel Ray's show was great, I highly recommend both the salad and the chile mac. I actually modified the chile mac by using ground turkey rather than beef, low-sodium chicken stock instead of beef stock, and no chile powder (girls no like spicey). Rachel's version is call 3 Alarm Italian Style Chile Mac. My version is called Smoke Alarm Chile Mac, since I removed the spice and managed to set off the smoke alarm while cooking (but I didn't burn it)! Yummy and I think pretty healthy, other than the cheese topping. It was an all out family hit, and I was able to make both the salad and the chile mac in 30 minutes as promised.

Anyway, I did manage to fit in a 5 mile treadmill run tonight at around 9 p.m. - my total time was 52.22, an easy 10.26 pace. So now I am at 25.57 miles so far for the month, about 28% of my 90 mile goal. Woohoo! Now it is 12:30, better hit the sack I need to work tomorrow.