Bringing Back Sunday Dinner - Breakfast is what's for dinner

I have to laugh because my sister and mom are having THE EXACT same thing for dinner! We girls are linked so closely sometimes it doesn't matter how many miles we are apart. 

Growing up Bisquick was not an eight letter word in our house, but more like a four letter word! We didn't use it, it wasn't in our house, and we never bought the stuff. If it's a staple in your house then I issue you a challenge, try this recipe and see which one you like better. My bestie Jen SWEARS by my pancakes, she drives thru the crappiest of weather for breakfast just because they are that good!

I've had my share of good pancakes in the past, and Cracker Barrels pancakes rank up on my list pretty high for sure. I also heard there's a place in Springfield, IL that has 16'' pancakes! Good Lord I don't think I'd be able to finish something that big, but for the rest of us normal folks that like breakfast for dinner I give you our family pancake recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do…

Ingredients:

2 eggs

2 Cups of Buttermilk

1/4 Cup of oil

1 3/4 Cups Flour

2 Tbsp Sugar/Honey

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp of salt

I almost always double the batch because whatever is left we use for lunches to make PB&J Roll ups. So this time I'll show you this recipe doubled and tell you all the stuff that you can add to this recipe to truly make it your own.

Eggs and Oil - Check

Mix those together,  add your buttermilk and sugar

You'll need all your dry ingredients together, add slowly and carefully
to your wet ingredients.

Mix it all together, but don't over mix.

It's really a simple recipe, granted it isn't as easy as just adding water to a box mix, but I promise you that you won't be disappointed. Okay so this is where I get creative. I ALWAYS put Cinnamon in my pancakes, in a pinch if you don't have enough Buttermilk you can sub out Eggnog, if you sub out Eggnog omit the sugar from the recipe. You can also add, Nutmeg, Pumpkin Pie Spice, Ginger….just to name a few. This recipe is a base to add pretty much your favorite sweet spices too.  

Tonight I had just enough Buttermilk for half the recipe, and just enough Eggnog left for the other 2 cups, so I omitted the sugar, added cinnamon and it was SO good! Then Soph wanted strawberries, so we added strawberries too. I have yet to add chocolate chips to this recipe, but I'm quite sure you could for those special occasions, or any occasion for that matter.

Strawberries!

I don't think we'll be doing this again…it didn't work out so well.

My little helper!

As you can see I did not go All State in Pancake Flipping! 0.o I'm good at a lot of things, but pouring perfect pancakes is NOT one of those things, and flipping good looking pancakes takes decades of practice, and I honestly haven't been making them that long. Regardless of how they look they came out awesome! We also ran really low on syrup so I pureed about 6 strawberries in a blender with the rest of the syrup we had and made Strawberry Syrup! It was what it was…nothing fancy, but in our house it doesn't have to be. Everyone loved it, and that's all that matters. We've got plenty of left overs for PB&J roll ups for lunch this week. This makes my heart happy! 

Happy Eating!!!

10 years and counting

 Today Mitch and I celebrate being together for the last 10 years.  It has been a wild ride to say the least, and 10 years, at least for me is a LONG TIME. In the big scheme of things, it's really not that long, but for me it's the biggest chunk of my life that I've spent with anyone besides my immediate family. For me, it's a big deal. We've been married for 8 years, but this 10 year mark is big too. It encompasses everything that we've accomplished together, and that's something that I am proud of.

In the last 10 years we've shared everything. We've shared 3 cats…and 4 cars…but we won't go there. 

Luna, the psychotic kitty, and pretty freakin' useless…
yes, that's a bunny, no, she didn't care.

Skittles and Chase, both great kitties! They really have added
to the family quite nicely!

We also over the last 10 years have built a family based on a great foundation that we learned from our parents. Hopefully instilling the life lessons that we learned from our parents, and passing it down to our daughters. I couldn't imagine our lives being any better really. We make awesome memories everyday. There's no special secret to our lives, just love, respect, honesty, and communication…that's it. Love is the big one though. Respect, honesty and communication come out of love.  I couldn't imagine a better person to share all of this with then Mitch.

Not to give him a big head, but he's become my knight in shining armor, and my rock. For him I am extremely grateful. Some wives don't share that with their husbands enough, so if you've got a good one, please let him know. Guys, even though they think they are tough, really need to hear that every once in a while too. Marriage becomes a balancing act of give and take. Give him a little ego boost! It'll do wonders for his self-esteem, and you'll feel amazing too. It's a great circle of positivity to start!

So take the time to go thank your significant other for their contribution to your life. I know my life wouldn't be the same without his constant support. He makes me a better person, just ask my sister. 

With all those things said, God willing, I hope to spend another amazing 50 years with this man. Here's to the man that makes my life SO much easier, and more wonderful than it has to be!

May luck smile on you all as it has smiled on me!

Starting over…

The contents of my desk - 7 boxes worth! 

Well, this blog isn't called 'Our Unfiltered Life' for nothing; I can assure you of that. It's because I've always been THAT person, for better or worse, and today really is no exception. I have learned over the years that timing is as important as the message that is delivered. My hubby taught me that lesson over the last ten years. That one has to have a certain level of tact in order to make it in this world, and that a beautiful combination of it all is where I have hopefully grown to be in my life. I still work on my tact everyday, it's something I will get better at the longer I live, well at least that's my dream.

Yesterday my job was eliminated, and for a hot minute I literally went thru the Five Stages of Grief: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. If I hadn't have gone thru all of those I don't think I would be right in the head; just saying. When you get blindsided those are the normal states of emotion one should go thru. The time it takes to go thru all of those stages differs per person, but in all honesty, they are there for a reason, and extremely valuable in shaping who we are as people. There is no right amount of time to go thru each stage, but the one you should stay in the longest is the Acceptance stage. Today I have reached my Acceptance Stage. For some people they would think that this is a very quick journey from Denial and Isolation to Acceptance, but if you know me then you'll realize it was kind of a short trip. 

The reason that I was given for my sudden job loss was, 'that the job description I was given could not be completed in a day, a week, or a month, and the work load was too much for me." In short it sounds like I was set up to fail. Regardless of this lame excuse, it's the one I received. I was given the opportunity to ask any questions I had, and opted out of that discussion. In short, they had made a decision, and it was my time to go. No amount of pleading or negotiating was going to change the decision that was in place. My only option was how I chose to react to this news of my being let go. 

Now, my mom and dad, if you've ever had the opportunity to meet them, you'll know that growing up in the Bloomfield household might have looked strange to the average outsider. *I laugh as I type this* If you know them, then you know exactly what I am talking about. We were raised from a very young age that our choices are what make us unique. How we choose to handle our business, ourselves, and our situation will set us up to fail or to succeed. It was ingrained in us that we must always take "the harder right." If you've never heard about "the harder right" let me explain it to you. The harder right consists of doing the HARD thing, making the HARD choice, choosing the path less traveled, for there in the HARD is where we grow. If you take the easy way, yes it's easy, but you are less likely to grow there. Growing up it was always about growing up to be the BEST you that YOU could be. I believe this to be true to this day, and wouldn't change my childhood because I would be changing the very ME that I have grown up to be.

So yesterday, sitting in the chair across from the HR lady, after being given the news that I no longer was employed, when I was seriously told two weeks earlier, "it would be fine." I had to choose my reaction. In that split second I had to choose what I wanted to say, how I needed to conduct my business, and how I would forever be remembered to my boss on the other end of the phone, the HR lady across the desk from me, and everyone that I had worked with. 

Where I worked, I can assure you works very much like a VERY small town. Everyone knows your business, even if you don't want them too, because if they don't "know" your business, somewhere someone said something to someone else, and it gets into a twisted mess of foolishness. Honesty is a rare thing there. The only way you ever get the truth is to go straight to that person, then you are at least getting their truth, if they choose to share the information with you, and their version of the situation. Most, if not all, corporate entities work like this. No place is exempt from this type of behavior. Better to just know how it all works ahead of time, and do your best to be the truest YOU that you can be, and let the others think what they want to think.

Now growing up with my "Harder Right" parents the best thing I could muster was silence. Silence can be a powerful tool when people expect you to behave differently. Silence can be your biggest asset. So I answered their questions, and the meeting was over very quickly, but before I left, and this is what counts, I told them that I hoped they had a good rest of the day. I honestly meant it. There was no malice in my tone, there was no sarcasm in my voice. It was the truest thing that I could hope for both of them.  In my journey, I truly believe that how people treat you is their Karma, and how you react is your own. I'm quite sure firing someone, or letting someone go isn't a highlight in their day. Well, maybe letting ME go was, but I don't know that for sure…and you know what they say about assuming. :)

So starting over….will it be hard - yes, will it be tight financially for awhile - yes, will I have bad days - yes, will we have to make some hard decisions in the future - yes. Guess what, welcome to life. Hardness, and hard times happen to everyone at some point. It's how we chose to react, and the choices we make that defines how great situations can turn out to be. I have a big clean slate ahead of me, and its immense! I have three young children to figure out how to raise, BUT I have one amazing husband who really is true blue awesome! His reaction to yesterday, "It'll be fine. Don't worry." Honestly, with him by my side I don't worry. We WILL figure this out because we are a team, and a seriously good one at that. WE can get thru anything because we have faith that God gave us the tools we need to build a better life from this choice that someone chose for us. We are survivors, inventive, and if anything else we are SUPER creative! So when God helps push us in a direction we never wanted to go in, and shows us a different path then the one that we wanted; Faith, Love, Acceptance and finding new ways to grow in a new direction is not always a bad thing. My girlfriend told me yesterday that I should be happy I got a promotion! I got a promotion from my mundane, boring, no direction at work life, and was given a new start. I do believe that she is right.

So I am starting over. Right now I'm 37, and have no idea what I want to really do when I grow up. I would LOVE to buy a hobby farm in the UP of MI, make furniture, run that hobby farm, and raise my girls in a way that brings us all closer to our true selves, brings us closer to the earth, and brings us closer to the peace within every one of us. That's what I want, what happened was "Man Plans and God Laughs." Well, I know that my path might be foggy right now, but eventually, and with time, the sun will come out, and burn off all that fog. My path will be revealed, and I know it will be amazing.

For now, prayer, patience, and persevereance are my friends. I plan to live with all of them daily.

Many thanks to my old co-workers, for you ALL taught me something. Blessons all around. 

Blessons are Blessings and Lessons rolled into one. :) 

Onward and Upward!

Project: Cute as a button tacks

So last week was just so busy that I didn't get around to posting anything. This week is much of the same. With Super Bowl I didn't even bother to do family dinner, and just made some white chicken chili that wasn't half bad. I did end up helping one of my Besties make a really good Banana Split Icebox Cake. We were also on a time crunch so I might have to make that one again. I promise to post it when I do. It had rave reviews from the minions, the hubby, and my Bestie Amanda. 

This one is going to be a wicked quick post since it's Wednesday night, and that means pizza night.

Some purple buttons

So I've had these around the house for a while. I picked them up at Michael's Craft Store for like a $1.50. They have that great little $1 section, you can find these very fun plain buttons in that section.

Tacks!

Next you'll need to go to the grocery store, or office supply store, and pick yourself up a box of tacks. Schnucks here in the county has them for about $2 for a box of 100, or I'm quite sure you can find them at Office Max. I used the jewelry glue that I had on hand to apply the tacks to the back of the buttons. I'm quite sure you could use Super Glue too. Any kind of glue meant for metal or plastic should do the trick.

TA DA! Et Viola!

So these "cute as a button" tacks would spruce up anyones desk space. The color is fun too! Spring is right around the corner! These would be fun in any color.