Today was very funny and crazy as usual. It started off normal with me going to work. I got off work early so I wanted to go and work out. The problem was that I didn't have any workout clothes. Corrin was exhausted and intended to work out but decided to go straight home. She loaned me her workout clothes. It was 1:00 and I had to pick Paige up from school at 2:30 so I had a lot of time to kill. My intentions were to go to the park across the street from Paige's school and run for an hour. I then realized that I had no pony tail holder for my hair. I decided I would run to the Dollar Tree by Paige's school to get the rubber band and a few other items. Here is where the problem started. I pulled up to the Dollar Tree but my
FAVORITE store is RIGHT next to the
Dollar Tree. That favorite store is the Goodwill Select. I know that I have NO room for any more stuff but I love going in there to see if they have any cool things. I thought to myself "I will just go into the Goodwill Select for
just a second and then go to the Dollar Tree to get shampoo and stuff. BIG MISTAKE!!! Ha Ha! As soon as I walked into the Goodwilll Select, I saw the most beautiful sofa, right in the front. I sat on the sofa and thought "I love this sofa." My next thought was "If I buy this sofa, where would I put it?" The ladies that worked there did not help any. They said "oohhhh you look so good on that couch!" I said "I love this couch but my husband will KILL me if I buy it." One store clerk said " your husband can't kill you because that is illegal." All I could think about is that we are in a tiny apartment, our TWO storage buildings are packed to the max. I wasn't going to get it. We told the kids that we were not doing the media room that will be in the house that we are building. It is prewired for surround sound and all set up to be a media room. Brad and I don't care about a media room. However, we just visited our friends house that they just built. Their media room is AWESOME. I began to think how cool it would be for the kids to have a room to watch movies and stuff. When you have four kids, you are always thinking of ways for the kids to be entertained. I then started to think, "we wont do the media room right away." We will wait and see. When I saw this beautiful couch and it was only $129.00, I thought "this would be cool in a media room with a Hollywood Glamour Movie theme. I do everything on the cheap so I could do a cool room for cheap. This sofa would be perfect. The sofa is literally in new condition. I told the ladies, "I am going to get it." I then thought "how am I going to get this thing out of here?" Tom no longer has a truck and our friend Lance lives pretty far away. I asked the ladies "do you think it would fit in my car?" They said "car"?? ha ha. I then pointed to my SUV and they said "maybe." They told me to pull it up and we would see. The couch fit perfectly in my new SUV and even had two extra seats for my kids to safely be buckled in for the ride home. Once in my car, I asked myself "what in the heck do I do with this thing?" I thought about my options. I could drive it to Katy and drop it off at Corrin's house but then I would have to deal with Dave complaining about it in his garage until October and the cost analysis, etc of it being there. Nope, this was not an option. I called Brad and braced for his reaction to me buying another item that we currently have no room for and that I bought another item from Goodwill. I said "please don't kill me over and over about ten times." He thought it was something serious. I did this on purpose so he would be prepared for something worse and be more accepting of the new couch. His first words were "where are we going to put it?" I assured him that I would figure it out. Too bad he married a girl who will just figure things out....LOL. I looked at one of the storage sheds and there was enough room. In the end, though, it was just easier to bring it back to the apartment. Once Brad saw how great of a condition the couch is in, he was excited. I picked the kids up from school. The crazy part of it is that they did not seem the bit shocked that there was a huge couch in their mom's car without any forewarning. I guess my kids are just used to this. The kids and I decided to continue to stalk our land to see what was going on in our little section. We were THRILLED to see that they started to landscape around the lake that is right by our house. I took some pictures but they still were planting flowers and trees. Brad and I both agree that the developers of Towne Lake are not cheesing out on making the development look beautiful. I can't wait for them to build the pavilion right by the lake near our house. It will be cool for the kids to fish and us to bbq by the lake.
If you are still reading up to this point, I plan on sharing recipes that I make and try that are really good. Tonight I made an AWESOME recipe. It is Trisha Yearwoods' Spaghetti Casserole. It was really easy and fantastic. I didn't include the bacon part of the recipe because I didn't feel like messing with bacon and it still was fantastic. I will definitely do this recipe again.
Ingredients
Baked Spaghetti Casserole by Trisha Yearwood
- 1 pound of lean ground beef
- 3/4 pound of spaghetti noodles, cooked and drained
- 6 slices bacon
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 cup chopped bell pepper
- 2 (14.5 ounce) cans Italian
style diced tomatoes, with liquid
- 2 (10 ounce) cans Rotel tomatoes, with liquid
- 1/2 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 2 cups grated Cheddar or Mozzarella cheese, divided
- 1 (10-3/4 ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
cheese
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350
degrees. Spray a 9 × 13 x 2 inch baking dish with non stick spray.
Break
the spaghetti noodles in half one or twice to make them more bite sized and drop
them into a large stockpot filled with boiling, well salted water. Brown the
ground beef in a large skillet; remove, drain and set aside. Cut the bacon in
half lengthwise, stack a few slices together and cut into small pieces, dropping
it directly into that same skillet. Cook until only slightly crispy; remove and
let drain on a paper towel, reserving the bacon fat in the skillet.
Add
the onion and green bell pepper to the bacon fat and cook until softened, about
5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 2 minutes. To that, add the
tomatoes, Italian seasoning, and the cooked beef and bacon. Bring up to a boil,
reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
Layer half of the spaghetti
noodles into the prepared baking dish. Spoon over half of the meat sauce. Add
half of the cheddar and then repeat all three layers. Combine the cream of
mushroom soup with the water and blend well. Drop over the top layer of cheese
and carefully spread across the top. Sprinkle the top with the Parmesan cheese
and bake at 350 degrees, uncovered, for 30 to 35 minutes, or until heated
through and bubbly around the edges.
The casserole came right up to the
very top of my baking dish by the time that I got through the layering, so for
insurance, I placed a pan on the lower rack and the casserole on the top rack to
bake, just in case there was any spillover. There wasn't, thankfully, but you
may want to take that precaution also, just in case!
~Cook's Notes~
Can substitute
all plain diced tomatoes; can also drain the Rotel to tone it down and just
loosen the sauce a bit with some beef broth.
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