Starting Over

One of the projects I've been working on is making a cookbook of family recipes and recipes that we enjoy.  A lot of times I email my mom or grandmother asking for them, and I wanted to have them all in one place.  I started this project two years or so ago.  In that time, I've owned four computers, three external hard drives, and an unknown number of thumb drives.  My cookbook was lost :o(

For a long time I'd keep searching the same drives over and over again.  But I'm now bucking up and starting over.  This time, I'm using Google Drive to keep the information.  That way, at least the recipes are accessible, even if the pictures aren't.

How do you keep track of your favorite family recipes?

Days Are Flying

I'm amazed at how quickly time is passing.  I don't know if it's because June seemed to stand still, what with waiting for Miss F for an extra 15 days, or that the haze of the first six weeks has finally cleared.  But Miss F is 10 weeks old, and starting to assert herself as a little person.  She's holding her head up well. 

All four of her grandparents are telling us she's teething.  She hasn't actually cut any teeth yet, but they independently swear it's true.  I'm so not ready for that yet.

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Now that *B*'s income is the only thing sustaining us (aside from a small sum I earn from weekly tutoring), we seem to be eating much more healthfully and happily.  Last night, *B* cleaned out the basement while I organized the freezer and pantry yet again.  We've determined that I have to be the only one to put food away, or else the organizational system falls apart and we never know what we have.

We have a fair amount of meat from a cow we got last April.  I'm trying to use it up since we got another cow right after Miss F was born.  I wanted to make beef stew, and I found this amazing recipe from Pioneer Woman.  So I dove in head first without reading the recipe well.  We had no beef consume.  And it turns out, no red wine either.  But we did have some strange ziplocs that *B* had labeled "beef juice/gravy" and "beef soup base" in the freezer.  I threw them in instead, and oh.my.gosh.  That was the best beef stew I've ever had.  It was somewhat like beef bourgignon, somewhat like stroganoff.  And it cleared out all the leftovers we had hanging around.

We also had two roast chicken carcases in the freezer and a ton of beef bones.  Today, I made both chicken broth and beef broth from scratch.  It smells heavenly in my house.  Now that I've gotten back in the swing of real cooking, I'm looking forward to awesome meals again.

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Since Miss F was seven weeks old, I've been attending a class called Stroller Strides.  I really need to get back into shape, get out of the house, and to meet friends.  This seemed like the best option to accomplish all my goals.  I've been going for three weeks, and I really feel like I'm on the way to better health.  Friends of ours also generously gave us a treadmill that they didn't use, so I'll be able to get back to running once we get it over to our house.  My weight hasn't really changed yet, but it must only be a matter of time.