Sunday Supper Share: Tasty Weeknight Pasta

It's Sunday, and if you're anything like me, you're already ruminating over the coming week's jam-packed schedule and dinner menu options.

I remember my mother frequently lamenting "What am I going to make for dinner tonight?"

She explained once what a daunting task it could be to put together three meals each day, seven days a week for four very different palates.

It took decades for those words to come back to me, but oh how they resonate in my head now days!

What to make that everyone will like?

What to make that can be gobbled down between Little League and Boy Scouts?

What will hold up til the Handsome Husband gets home at 8:30?

And, most importantly, what do I have the motivation, inspiration & energy

to make after a long day of blogging, consulting & Momming?

Aren't we all perpetually on the lookout for quick & tasty dinners inspiration? Something new, that the family will like too.

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting UMommy at Blog Better Boston, have since enjoyed reading about her culinary crusades, and recently spotted this recipe for Pasta with Sausage, Rosemary & Tomatoes.

Big Nature Adventure

Friday was another surprisingly lovely spring day,  so to celebrate our last day of April vacation week, the Baron of Boredom, Master of Mayhem, Zara the Love Sponge (our Border Collie) and I headed for the trails of Cutler Park.

Despite Cutler Park's easy proximity (mere minutes from our humble abode), I'm embarrassed to admit that it has taken us over two years to finally check it out!

700 acres of woods nestled in the midst of metro-west Boston suburbia - there's Cutler Pond, freshwater marshlands and the Charles River meandering by.

What I love most about hiking with my mini-men is that we don't need heart-pumping, thigh-burning vertical or massive boulders to scramble up & over to have an amazing adventure.

Red-winged Blackbirds, a mama Goose perched on her nest on a reed island in the pond and Mallard couples swimming about.

Poison ivy spotting becomes a bizzare sort of scavenger hunt.

We spotted a bat circling overhead - yes, I was a tad creeped out, but the boys thought it was "wicked cool". (Unfortunately, my iPhone wasn't capable of snapping Count Dracula mid-flight.) 

A perfectly twisted vine is facsinating . . .

and a sun-drunk snake in the middle of the trail is a tale to tell Daddy over dinner.

The Kratt Brothers would be proud of my Weeks Brothers.

I knew the afternoon was a real success when the Master announced "this was the best hike ever!"

Gadgets Make Me Giddy

How many times have you fought with tangled ear bud cords?

How many times have cursed the snarl of excess cords that tripped you?

I have tried countless do-hickies and thing-a-ma-bobers to conquer these two messes with little long-term satisfaction . . . until today!

While the Baron & Master were captives of an April Vacation week camp, I treated myself to a quick dash through one of my FAV shops - The Container Store.

I was there to grab a few additional bins to finish my spring reorganization of my pantry shelves when I came across these two simple solutions for two of my biggest, little annoyances.

Source: us.mybobino.com via The Fortuitous on Pinterest

Bobino's Cord Wraps come in three sizes so I can finally manage the excess lengths of power & charger cords that are jumbled all around my house & office.

Source: quirky.com via The Fortuitous on Pinterest

And the Wrapster, from Quirky, just might be my holy grail of ear bud cord control! Slim & simple, and when you take out the ear buds, you can use it as an iPhone stand! (La-ahh . . . is that angels I hear singing?)

Source: containerstore.com via The Fortuitous on Pinterest

For under 10-bucks I solved two of life's major problems - ok, maybe not so MAJOR, but don't diminish my excitement with a dose of reality just yet!

A Quiet Place

From the moment they laid eyes on each other, the Baron of Boredom and the Master of Mayhem have been best buddies.

They are like two puppies - constantly nipping, yipping & rolling around, or snuggling up for a quick power nap. They may drive each other nuts, but they can't stay away from each other for more than a few minutes.

They are charter members of the "nobody beats up my brother but me" club.

Then, Sunday night . . . 

protestations & tears as big brother departs for an impromptu sleepover.

Monday morning . . .

"You know, Mom, the house is really quiet when my brother isn't here," announced the Master of Mayhem as he strolled out of the kitchen.

Then he turned back and announced, "I like quiet places sometimes. Next time my brother goes for a sleepover I'm not going to cry."

 A priceless moment I just had to save & share.

Very Scary, Very Fun

Last night the Needham Bloggin' Mamas (sadly, sans our compatriot of The Lily Pad) abandoned our offspring (not really, there were babysitters & fathers involved) and escaped the confines of our humble 'burb for some wicked scary fun with the Scary Mommy herself, Jill Smokler.

What fun to meet in-person someone who's work you enjoy and admire!

And what a joy to find that person to be just as charming and gracious as you imagined they'd be.

If you're a Mommy in need of a good hearty dose of comic relief -- a cup of unvarnished honesty, two tablespoons of irreverent, a teaspoon of snide and a dash of snarky -- an escape from the harsh realities of the Momminghood, you simply must grab a copy of Jill's new book, Confessions of a Scary Mommy.

You'll giggle, laugh out loud, there might even be a snort or two, and you'll feel a little less alone in your less-than-perfect motherhood -- I promise!

Breaking Boden News!

Just got a comment on Facebook that Boden has a towelling hoodie for us gals coming  this summer!

Source: bodenpreview.com via The Fortuitous on Pinterest

You can reserve one now, though summer items won't be shipping 'til mid-April. That's OK, after three years, I can wait a few more weeks!

So nice when you get same-day delivery on a dream!

Dear Johnnie B. -

A few springs ago, Bar-bar (my Mom) sent the Baron of Boredom & the Master of Mayhem two terry hoodies from Boden. Little did I know they would quickly become "the essential hoodie" of Weeksworld.

Spring, summer, even into fall -- at the beach, lake or pool -- at the playground, baseball diamond or on a hike -- eight out of 10 times those hoodies are what my guys grab as they dash out the door.

They have been abused and washed and handed down (the light blue & green strip one our gal pal above is sporting had already survived two summers of Masterful abuse) and they still look FAB.

What a calamity last summer when the Baron outgrew his blue & white striped hoodie and Boden was already out of stock. It took a week of the Housewife stalking the Boden website to finally catch the green & white stripe hoodie  before it got snapped up. . . phew!

But Johnnie, we Mama's want snuggly hoodies, too!

I couldn't begin to count the number of breezy beach afternoons my gaggle of beach-bound Mamas & I sat wrapped in our sandy beach towels ('cause the average girly coverup just can't keep a gal warm!) coveting those hip hoodies keeping our munchkins cozy while they finished their sand castles and refused to go home.

So Johnnie, I'm asking, I'm pleading, heck I'll beg if I have to, please give a gal a break and make a nice Towelling Throw On for us shivering Moms.

Happy Easter?

Yesterday afternoon I had finally exhausted all my procrastination tricks and was forced to settled down to Easter dinner planning. 

My table never has & never will look so very elegant, but let's pretend for just a moment.

I don't know why I was so reluctant to get down to business, I normally LOVE planning a big day of eating - maybe the cascading piles of paper that have suddenly overwhelmed my little desk & the ever-growing (and never-shrinking) lists had something to do with it.

I flipped thru the pages of my recipe binders (yes, there's more than one), a few go-to cookbooks and surfed a bit before finally settling on . . .

Pin Accomplised: Glow-in-the-Dark Slime

I hereby confess . . . I am seriously craft-challenged.

When others walk into the craft or fabric store they delight in the potential & possibilities laid out before for them.

I, on the other hand, walk into a craft or fabric store and my brain becomes feeble, overwhelmed. I don't see potential, I see unfinished projects waiting to clutter up my life and continually remind me the ADD got the better of my intentions once again.

But my guys love to do projects & crafts (as long as there are no flowers, lady bugs, fairies or princesses involved), so I'm always on the lookout for projects that are relatively simple - not too many items on the supplies/ingredient list, not too many steps.

When I spotted this pin for Glow-in-the-Dark Slime from Katelyn @ Domestic Charm, I knew I had another ASAP Pin.

Source: domesticcharm.blogspot.com via Lollie ~ on Pinterest

The list of supplies were simple and relatively cheap (under $20 for everything!) -

• 4 oz. bottle of Elmer's glue
  (Katelyn recommends clear or blue, but all I could find at the store that day was the good ol' fashioned white, it dries clear, so I figured it would work okay.)
• 1 1/3 cups warm water
• 2-3 Tablespoons glow-in-the-dark paint
• neon food coloring
  (another failure on my supplies acquisition trip - no neon food coloring, so I grabbed bottles of neon craft paint & prayed)
•  2 teaspoons Borax soap

Katelyn's instructions:

• mix together bottle of Elmer's glue and 1 cup of warm water
• stir in the glow-in-the-dark paint and food coloring (or in my case, neon paint)
•  in a separate bowl mix together 1/3 cup warm water and 2 teaspoons of borax, stir until borax is dissolved
• add 2 Tablespoons of borax solution to the glue mixture, stirring continuously - do not add all of the borax solution, the more borax solution you add, the stiffer your slime will be

We invited our pals from up the street, Sera & Leah, and their mom, Dana, to join us for an afternoon of slime-makin' fun - and oh what fun we had!

How did our slimy experiment turn out? 

Check out my pinning pal, Cynthia's, corner of the blogosphere - Oh So Pinteresting - for my final report.

Almost Wordless: Writer's Clock

Source: lindarohrbough.us via Lollie ~ on Pinterest

Love this "Writer's Clock"!

But if I were designing it, it would be a 24-hour clock with spots for caffeine, research (aka web surfing), nap, solitaire, more "research", insomnia and at least one more adult beverage.

Making Democracy a Family Affair

Next Tuesday (April 10th) is local election day here in Needham, but I will be tied up all day and won't be able to make it to the polls, so last week the Baron, Master & I stopped by Town Hall to inquire about absentee voting.

Turned out time hadn't run out on submitting an absentee ballot (you can absentee vote until 12noon on April 9th) and it's really simple to do.

All I had to do was fill out an Absentee Ballot Application (which the Baron & Master graciously helped me complete) . . .

then the nice lady in the Town Clerk's office handed me a ballot.

Once I'd filled in my ballot, I folded, stuffed and sealed the envelope and handed it back to the nice lady.

The boys loved helping Mom vote, and the lollipops the nice lady gave them for being such good helpers was a super bonus.

The Handsome Husband will be out of town on business next week, so I was even able to complete a Absentee Ballot Application on his behalf and his ballot arrived in our mailbox the very next day!

So let your voice be heard, Needham peeps! 

Be a part of shaping our community's future! 

And don't be afraid to drag the kids along with you -- it's never to early to be a part of our democratic process, and it just might turn out to be a fun & educational afternoon outing.

If you have questions about voting, check out Needham's Voter Registration & Information or contact the Town Clerk's office @ 781.455.7510.