Wordless because it's Wednesday...I guess

A new pond?

We missed the worst of yesterday's storms thankfully. We did get quite a bit of rain though. Again, not much to say, so here are some quick shots from yesterday.

Before the storm.

The water is not supposed to be there.

Or there...

Yeah, not there either

Or there

The water didn't stick around for long after the rain stopped. It just came down so fast, it was impossible to drain off.

I'm kind of tired

It's been a good day. We've done our normal monday things and now the boys are in their rooms. One is napping and one is playing on the floor. Ethan was exhausted. But bless his heart, he was in a good mood despite the exhaustion. Dylan was tired, but he went the other way. He was a terror. Most of the time, he just asks to go to bed when he gets like that. No not today. He decided to raise a little hell. I guess someone has to so he thought it may at well be him. I left him content in his room though.
Last night I had attempted to thaw out pork chops for dinner. Well they were no where near thawed by dinner time. So we ended up having what I call a "clean out the freezer" dinner. Various junk basically. No one complained though. Everyone left the table full. I guess it all worked out. So tonight will be last night's pork chops. Nothing special. Probably just bbq them.
We have had the threat of storms all day today. Round 1 missed us. Round 2 is on it's way and should get us, but I think they are getting weaker the closer they get, so that's good. We got a little bit of rain, but nothing else. And it has been insanely windy for the last 24 hours. I could do without the wind. It was near 70 degrees when we got up this morning. Crazy!
I usually don't have anything interesting to say on Mondays. This one is no different!

Good

It's been a nice day. Ryan got up with the kids this morning so I could stay in bed a little longer. That hasn't happened for a month or so. It was good. Once I got up, he made breakfast for everyone. Ethan wasn't thrilled about the eggs. But I thought it was good. I did all of the dishes and played with Ethan for a while before his nap. Once he went down, Dylan and I went to town. We walked around Walmart and then dropped off our stuff at Goodwill. And since we were out, we stopped at Subway and got everyone lunch. It was good! We've had a good day.
Last night, dinner turned out much better than I expected. I made our strip steaks, and found a recipe for a wonderful sauce. It was a mustard caper sauce that I found on cooks.com. Click HERE if you'd like the recipe. Like I said we used strip steaks, and not flank like the recipe calls for. That sauce was awesome! All we had was a medium sweet wine, so I used it instead of what the recipe called for and it was fine. I think Ryan and I were both surprised at how good it was. YUM! Try it. After dinner I made smores in the oven. I bought the good chocolate and followed a recipe from Food Network. Click HERE if you'd like to see it. The recipe calls for steeping tea leaves, but I just skipped that part of it all. They were good, but rather labor intensive. I think it would have been quicker to go out and light a fire and do them the traditional way. I'm glad I tried it though! Before After I am supposed to be working on my grocery list right now. I got side tracked a bit. I'm having a hard time getting ideas for the week's meals.

Sometimes thing do turn out well

Last night's dinner of Honey Chicken turned out well. The recipe called for baking it, but I needed the oven at a higher temp to roast the broccoli and asparagus. So I just cooked the chicken in the frying pan. Still turned out great! I like the flavor on the chicken. It was a simple marinade and very easy recipe to follow. I like that. I used breast tenders instead of breasts, just because they cook up easier. If you are looking for something quick and easy, give it a try. Luckily the recipe called for things that were all ready in the cupboards. Both boys enjoyed the dinner too, that is always a bonus. Ethan just inhaled the chicken. Not much else happening today. The sun can't seem to decide if it wants to be out or not. So one minute it looks so nice out, and the next it makes you want to curl up under a blanket and take a nap. Well it does me at least. Nothing special for dinner tonight either. Steaks with an undecided sauce on top. Hopefully. I found a couple of recipes for a sauce, I'm just not sure if I am going to use them or not. I hope you all have a nice fun weekend. I may try to get Ryan to do something tomorrow. We'll see. I just need to figure out something.

Right now..

Right now there is a batch of Heavenly Yeast Rolls working in the bread machine. I've been wanting to make these again, but keep putting it off because I don't want to be tempted at snacking on them! If you'd like to see my previous post on making the rolls, click HERE. They should go well with tonight's dinner of Honey Chicken. I found that recipe on allrecipes.com. It has curry in it. I have been wanting to use curry in another recipe, so hopefully it turns out well. That is what is planned for dinner at least. But plans can change. We don't have any plans for the weekend. Ryan will probably be busy on Saturday anyway. The boys have been playing well together all day. It is such a nice change! Whether they play well totally depends on Dylan and his mood. I tell you that boy can be so moody and emotional. He isn't hard to read. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. He is going to be an interesting teenager that's for sure. I was able to get the rest of the clothes together to go to Goodwill. They just need to be bagged and taken in. I found a couple of other miscellaneous things too that I wanted to get rid of. I hope to take it all in on Monday and be done with it. After that I hope to get y dining room back in order and looking nice again. So that will be next week's task. In my previous post I linked up with a couple of blogs to feature a picture I took. I look forward to linking up each friday. I like being able to show off a picture I am proud of, but I also love looking at what others have taken. I found some really nice photo blogs through those link ups. There are so many wonderful photo blogs out there and the people behind those blogs are so nice. They offer their help if you need it, and give their (valuable) honest opinion. And really it is fun! If you get a chance, go and browse the blogs I linked up with. Oh, and the Reds won yesterday in their opener. Remember my baseball post? So yay!

Friday Link up

I am linking up with 2 photography blogs today using this photo I took yesterday. It is the rock in the base of my little ficus tree. I got that tree last year for mother's day. Shockingly it has survived. Im not good at keeping plants alive! I cropped it a bit, added a matte and softened everything but the letters on the rock.