How about two favorite Midwestern topics for today? Especially during the winter months, the main topics tend to be weather and food (also, television and sports but let’s save those for now).

So for my Five on Friday, a recap of our crazy weather week along with mostly pictures of what we ate for dinner each night. Before we begin though, a random picture of my Valentine’s Day flowers still going strong.

Okay, onto tidbits of the week, the weather, and what we ate. Oh, and by the way, I didn’t follow the menu plan from Monday at all.

ONE: Monday we ate tacos!

Monday was a holiday here but my husband and G still had to work. Honestly, I can’t remember much about the day but I know we had tacos for dinner. And we were watching the weather because of winter storm/extreme cold warnings. The time of the storm kept shifting.

TWO: Tuesday I tried new recipes. Pork Chops and rice plus applesauce bread!

With the storm starting and the cold temperatures, I knew I wanted to use the oven a lot this week. So I decided to give this Easy Baked Pork Chops and Rice recipe a try. Everyone seemed to enjoy and it was a nice cozy meal for a crazy cold, snowy evening.

As an added bonus, earlier in the day, I made this applesauce bread as well. I knew I was making pork chops but hadn’t decided on recipe yet. Apples always compliment pork.

Random fact about our family: We all with little exception hate applesauce. Apples are yes, applesauce is a NO. However, sometimes I have some in the pantry and found 3 containers on a pantry clear out. (probably leftover from when the husband had dental work and there are only so many soft foods…)

THREE: Wednesday was an unexpected working day for me so I put the husband in charge of dinner!

Hotdogs and onion rings were an odd meal on a freezing cold night. The real temperature was 8 degrees while he was out there grilling! And yes, without a coat. Welcome to living in the Midwest!

Since my work day was unexpected (I only said yes because a teacher had an unexpected loss in her family), I had put together a French Toast Casserole the night before planning to cook it for breakfast and freeze the leftovers for future quick heat and go breakfasts.

Also, unexpected, lunch at work on Wednesday: hot dogs! SIGH. Had no idea that’s what we’d end up with for dinner.

They have that meal too often at my work. I’m currently not scheduled again until next Friday and guess what’s on the menu for lunch? Yep, hot dogs! I’ll be taking my lunch but I do feel for the kids. It’s one of my current gripes, the menu has gone downhill in an effort to cut costs, I get food’s expensive but come on, do better!

All that to say, I ate French Toast Casserole for dinner on Wednesday evening as I didn’t want hot dogs twice in one day. G had some French Toast Casserole for dessert as well.

FOUR: Thursday was the coldest day yet and another (this one scheduled earlier) half-day of working for me. I settled on stuffed peppers for dinner.

I made sure to take a screenshot of the temperature when I woke up to show the crazy cold.

Oddly, I was actually warmer at work yesterday than on Wednesday. I think because I was in the other classroom with a smaller front door. It’s weird when you go outside to go home and 12 degrees feels warm! Once home, I debated on dinner for a bit before landing on stuffed peppers mainly because I remembered I’d bought peppers (on sale!) at the store on Sunday for that purpose.

Orange ones because the red ones didn’t look to be in great condition. Plus they reminded me of sunshine and warmth. Finished product, I was hungry yesterday and almost forgot to take a picture!

I just use the classic Betty Crocker recipe for stuffed peppers only changing it slightly. I like my peppers crisp so I don’t parboil them and also, I use colby-jack cheese as opposed to mozzarella. Did you know as a kid I was not a fan of this meal at all but now I like it.

FIVE: Better Weather, Spring Cleaning Bug, and No Idea About Dinner

Happy Friday! This morning a cat paw in the face woke me up right on time though I didn’t need to go to work. She used to just sit on the nightstand and purr but she’s figured out that pawing at my face works while purring loudly works really well to make a person get out of bed and do her bidding. Sometimes her bidding is she just wants me to sit in the living room while she looks out the windows. SIGH.

So,cat paw until I got out of bed. Then, had to go to the downstairs for milk since we were out upstairs and oh, yay, stepped in cat puke on the steps. Was I barefoot? Yes. That really wakes a person up fast!

Perhaps, that’s what triggered my spring cleaning bug. Started a bit, as soon as I finish up this post, I’m back to that. Right now, some scented candles going in attempt to refresh things a bit.

And sticking with the food theme, still not sure about dinner but thought I should show a couple healthy things consumed around here. Just so you know it’s not all Oreo hot chocolate all the time.

And of course, I still have no idea what we’ll end up with for dinner tonight.

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Whew! This turned into a long post! Thanks for making it this far if you’re still reading. Wanted to give a shoutout to Rachel over at Living Better One Day At A Time for inspiring this post with her pictures of what we ate this past week on her Monday posts. I always enjoy seeing the plates of food. And to Carrie over at Northwoods Scrapbook for her Wordless Wednesday post mentioning weather as a conversation topic and of course, for introducing me the amazing French Toast Casserole. Finally, I can’t leave out Cathy from My Creative Life for bringing back Five on Friday as well as her kitchen post from last week which also inspired this post.

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Happy Valentine’s Day! We don’t do much for it around here. Today, it’s just a normal workday for most of us though the preschool kids have their “party,” a pretty understated affair at the school. A special treat and then an exchange of Valentine’s day cards using brown paper bags the kids decorate themselves mostly with stickers.

Here at home, I planned on a simple dinner of waffles (they vetoed the idea of chocolate waffles!) and bacon. However, my husband was mentioning something about pizza last night so who knows. I did pick up some slice and bake cookies on sale so probably going to make those into cookie sandwiches (Why do we have so much marshmallow creme in the pantry??)  along with some chocolate covered pretzels I promised J. Maybe we’ll all watch a movie or have a game night, clearly our Valentine’s Day is not planned out very well.

What is usually somewhat planned out is the annual Galentine’s Day adventure with my close friends! So I thought I’d share about that for this week’s Five on Friday hosted by My Creative Life.

ONE: Friendship Gift

While the gift of having a group of amazing friends for almost 25 years is certainly enough, we usually exchange small token gifts of friendship at our annual Galentine’s Day dinner. Here’s a glance at what I gave:

What’s in the bag?

Chocolates (Of course!) and some photos, one of which I framed. Then, I wrapped the framed photo in some Valentine’s Day tissue paper before putting them in the cloth bags.

TWO: Outfit

I like to dress in something somewhat Valentine’s day related if only through the colors. I picked my red sweater (Chiefs fans tend to own lots of red, LOL!) and some black velvet pants.

THREE: Location

Since we’ve started celebrating Galentine’s Day, we’ve met at The Cheesecake Factory on the Country Club Plaza. It’s expensive, yes, but typically we only go once a year. J gave me a gift card for Christmas so that was nice. And it’s always been very good. I typically get the spicy vodka pasta, a cosmopolitan, and a slice of classic cheesecake with strawberry topping.

An added treat this year, they decided to leave the Plaza lights on until Valentine’s Day so we also got to see those.

(Dear Cheesecake Factory, you need to clean your windows!)

Thankfully as well, the weather held off until late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning as a winter storm moved into our area.

FOUR: My Amazing Gifts

A funny thing happened this year as 3 of us had the exact same idea to do photo related gifts, framed photos and a picture coffee mug!

The other friends went a self-care route, we know each other well after almost 25 years! And some of us are very talented on top of that, look at the beautiful cardinal print my friend made for me.

FIVE: Thankful for Friendship

I’m thankful for all the friendships in my life whether they are new or life-long, work, in person or blogging friendships made over the Internet. I hope all of you reading this have many great friendships of all kinds as well!

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Happy Valentine’s Day, Friends!

We’ve made it to Friday! It’s a rainy dreary day here and I’m still a bit shocked to find myself with an unscheduled day. No complaints about it though. G’s under the weather and working from home so I’ve enjoyed a few “water cooler” chats with him and J. Ha, they probably wouldn’t even know what I meant by that. Going to have to ask in a bit.

Time for another Five on Friday. Don’t forget to go check it out over at My Creative Life!

After a few days of working (actually, I think I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and yesterday), I really only have my Monday photos of the Fan Zone at Union Station to share so sorry (not really) to all the non-Chiefs fans out there. Don’t run away though, Union Station in Kansas City is a beautiful historical building (you can probably see it beyond the Chiefs pictures).

Here’s the backside of Union Station as viewed from the parking garage (they usually only show the front with the lights and flags on TV):

ONE: Fan Zone at Union Station

I mentioned in my Happy Homemaker Monday post how I talked my husband into going to the Fan Zone at Union Station with me. This is just inside the station entry where they put Chiefs signs and such for fan photo ops. It’s fun and free (not counting parking fees).

TWO: Photos My Husband Took

My husband took better photos really than I did of the Fan Zone. Also, you can see on the left edge there, the shirts hanging, a store inside the station where you bet I bought an AFC West Championship tee-shirt. And yes, that’s me on the right there. And sitting in the chair in the next photo. 

THREE: Union Station Architecture

Here’s some for the non-sports fans (note: some Chiefs stuff may still show in these photos)

FOUR: Local Flavor

Our city goes all out for the Chiefs right down to the ice cream flavors!

This is from a local ice cream shop but they were selling it in the grocery store. A little (Okay, a lot) expensive but they’d marked it down so I picked it up to try. Wow, it was so good.

FIVE: Random Bits from the Week

A picture of “Taylor’s boyfriend” that has nothing to do with the rest of the text under this heading.

As I said, I worked on Tuesday, Wednesday, and yesterday this week. And if you don’t believe it, let me tell you preschooler conversations are the best for making you have hope for humanity (much needed lately!), laugh, and shake your head. Sometimes all at once!

Overheard lunchtime conversation:  First kid:  They had to slice my mom open and pull me out of her tummy!  Second kid: WELL, my mom had to poop me out her *correct word that starts with V*

And then, they were on to a new topic, probably about the actual lunch or Bluey or who knows what.

My co-teacher and I looked at each other trying so hard not to give into fits of laughter!

A hopeful conversation: Little boy told me, did you know they used to not let people who looked different go to school?! That’s just not right. Cause we’re all the same on the inside.

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There’s happiness, laughter, and hope for the future out there. Hope you see a glimpse of it this weekend!

Oh, and one last thing: GO CHIEFS! COME ON 3-PEAT!

It’s been a slow January week. And I’ve been fighting off some sinus-type thing for most of it. Focusing on resting mostly. Good week for it with the super cold temperatures and not much going on really (other than the Chiefs, you bet I’m wearing my lucky red even if I’m home on red Friday. Go Chiefs!)

For right now, I’m hopping on here with a Five on Friday post with images from this week.

ONE: A Fun Surprise

My sister-in-law who moved to Florida a few years ago, sent us Christmas cookies (made after Christmas, it’s okay I wondered as well)! I don’t make these cookies (don’t even try) so we were all thrilled. Only one slight issue:

How many crumbs equal a cookie?  We figured it out and they were still super delicious!

TWO: Cold Sunlight

The cold didn’t stop the sunlight from streaming in the windows. I found myself a bit captivated with the way it hit this hibiscus bloom. Why is my hibiscus blooming indoors in January? I have no idea.

It also hit upon the bromeliad plant. I picked up two of these around Christmas as bedroom decor plants.

THREE: Bird-watching

Of course, I immediately went to bird-watching upon picking up the “real” camera again. I’ll be excited to get images from outside and not through the backdoor when the weather warms up again. Here’s an interesting bird:

(Remember these images are through the glass of the backdoor)

My goal is to get a good image of this bird but it won’t cooperate!  Did you figure out what it was yet?

Believe it or not, it’s a Northern Cardinal! It’s either molting or has severe leucism or both.

And since those pictures were awful, here’s an actual in focus one of the Flicker woodpecker visiting the suet feeder:

Such amazing looking birds!

FOUR: Frugal Menus

I didn’t even have a menu prepared on Monday so here’s what we ended up eating this week:

• Monday: Roast in the crock pot
• Tuesday: Chicken Tingas, from freezer, plus I used some corn tortillas to make homemade chips
• Wednesday: Beef vegetable stew using leftover roast meat and dinner rolls
• Thursday: Fried pork chops, baked potatoes, and dinner rolls again
• Friday: Tonight I’m either making turkey sausages and peppers or we’ll have waffles/bacon
• Sat/Sun: Not sure yet but I know we have chili in the freezer so maybe that during the game

FIVE: Reading and Watching

Here’s what I’ve been reading and watching (besides the birds!)

Reading:

I finished up all the Jessica Dodge books that were available on Kindle Unlimited. Not high brow literature but I did enjoy the somewhat spooky stories set mainly in Wales and Scotland. They weren’t exactly a series but I’d suggest reading them in this order: The Forgotten Witch, The Book of Lost Enchantments, and then, Misplaced Magic. I did find the last one a bit spookier than the first two and not ideal for before bed reading.

Now, I’m reading Deck the Donuts by Ginger Bolton. Yes, it’s a Christmas cozy murder mystery.

Watching:

Something about being under the weather with me and I watch old action movies I’ve somehow never seen. This week’s been all about the Rush Hour movies with Jackie Chan. I only have the third left to watch.They are goofy but enjoyable. Also on my list of viewing from this week, Brooklyn 99, it’s nice and light, not much thinking required. Perfect if your before bed book is a bit too scary. And finally, I started watching season 2 of The Night Agent yesterday as I really enjoyed the first season. Of course, football this weekend. Did I already say Go Chiefs!?

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Not much going on today, just laundry and probably a bit more watching (of birds and tv). I really need to run to Target but haven’t felt like it. If I feel decent at all tomorrow or Sunday, I plan to spend some much needed time outside (it’s supposed to be in the high 30’s or maybe 40’s finally). No big plans just going to let the weekend unfold.

Do you have exciting weekend plans?

*Also, planning to link up to My Creative Life for this Five on Friday when she posts. Go check out her blog!

A quick post this morning as I’m off to work very soon. I still wanted to do a quick Five on Friday post. Thought it might be fun to share a photo from each day this week. These are all phone photos.

MONDAY

Day started rain and cloudy and ended cloudy. I got to see the owls (not pictured) while I was standing outside talking to one of my brothers on the phone, super exciting as I often hear but seldom see them.

TUESDAY

The outside of a fun restaurant a little ways out of town where we ate lunch. 58 Diner, kind of food you’d expect. Suzy Q fries were fun.

And also, I did vote. And I have so much I could say about our (local) politics and how angry I am with certain sports teams (suffice it to say I voted a big NO on their stadium ideas). I’m not even sure I’ll be able to forgive the Chiefs for their scare tactics campaign to get the yes votes by the time football season starts. No (nice) comment about the Royals either. If the teams want to leave, hope the door doesn’t hit them on their way. Not the way to treat fans who’ve been loyal for years even when they weren’t Super Bowl material.

We better move on before I fall off my soap box.

WEDNESDAY

Fun sticker from my favorite fancy coffee place. Also, keep trying to see the owls again with camera and/or phone in hand. No luck. Easter bunny showed up late.

THURSDAY

Finally saw the hawk again yesterday. Hanging out in the front yard in the afternoon.

Friday

Seems I’ve shared a lot about the fancy coffees lately so just a pic to show what my coffee looks like most of the time including today.

Plain Folgers brewed from a regular coffee machine. No idea why it won’t let me make the photo big.

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Don’t forget to check out Five on Friday! And now, I’m off to work (please forgive any typos as I wrote this very fast this morning).