When Nothing Gets Done

My baby Grace on her knees and ready to crawl, maybe.

In recent months, I feel as though I have lost most control of my home, my activities, and sometimes, even, my sanity.

• I used to be able to multitask quite well. 

• I kept things quite organized, a skill I have possessed for most of my life but put to a new level when I was a first-grade teacher. 

• Posting new photos of my girls so the grandparents (and even aunts, uncles, and cousins) could see their development was something I did with regularity. 

• And so many more things....

Now, I feel like I can barely keep my head above water on some days. Some days I don't get much accomplished beyond changing diapers, laundry, making breakfast and lunch for my girls, and sometimes dinner for my family.

I will admit that I put some of this issue upon myself. I've gotten even more involved in blogging and all that goes with it in terms of trying to promote it and get a larger readership (I dream of actually making money from my blog someday, for a little spare change just for me.) I also have two little girls who keep me busy. With Grace about to crawl any day now and Ginny into absolutely everything, I don't often have that many moments in the day to accomplish all that I hope.

The other part of the problem is sleep deprivation. Since Grace was born (and honestly, probably the month or so before she was born), I have been operating on very little sleep. Grace is not a sleeper like her sister. She decided to take after me. How unfortunate. Where Ginny would sleep in 6 hour chunks quite regularly at this age, I'm lucky if Grace sleeps in 4 hour chunks. What doesn't help matters is that Grace keeps waking herself as she "practices" crawling in her sleep.

Ginny keeps me quite busy.

Adding to the issue is my husband's work schedule. Lately he has been working a lot of night shifts. In the past few weeks, his schedule has been as follows: 7 overnight shifts in a row followed by a couple day shifts, then he had 2 midnight shifts followed by a few day shifts. Then, another string of 7 overnight shifts. Those shifts ended Friday morning with him only getting one day off and now he has 3 day shifts. In a couple of days, he will have a string of 7 midnight shifts.

When my DH is dealing with all of these shifts, I feel limited in what I can do while he attempts to sleep during the day. The last thing I want to do is wake him from sounds of cleaning and banging in the kitchen. And, again, I find myself in a situation where I feel like nothing is accomplished.

So, I'm tired and stretched and ready to get into a routine for me again. My girls are in a routine, but my routine long ago disappeared into the ether. I want to get it back. I need routine almost as much as my little munchkins do.

This week, I plan to power through and try to get a routine back. Get control in my life plus organization. It won't be easy, especially after a night of 5 hours broken sleep. It won't be easy as I try to remain quiet once my husband starts the string of midnight shifts on Friday. I will do what I can though. I will push myself to achieve something at least once a day. Well, that is my plan anyway.

My New Creation: Verde Chicken Lettuce Wraps

For what seems like ages, I have been wanting to try lettuce wraps.  I've seen them on T.V. and in magazines. A handful of times I've even seen them listed on a menu. Usually, though, I would bypass the wrap for something else I wanted to have. Yet, curiosity abounded. What did a lettuce wrap taste like? It looked like it could be good. In recent months, I started seeking out recipes on Pinterest for a lettuce wrap. I found a few, but hesitated on making any of them because they often seemed complicated or even had ingredients that I had no hope of finding in my local area.

Not long ago, I found a lettuce wrap recipe that appeared doable. Yay, me! I pinned it immediately. This morning, as I was working on my menu planning for the week before going grocery shopping, I decided that we would try the wraps, Chipolte Chicken Lettuce Wraps, for dinner tonight.

The wraps did not take a lot of effort to make, and ended up tasting delicious! My DH and I enjoyed them very much. I say this before getting into how to make them because I significantly changed the recipe. That was not my intent, but when you can't find an ingredient, you sometimes improvise. At least, that is what I do if I want to try something bad enough. However, despite my changes, I followed the basic idea of original recipe. Basically. (Some day, I do hope to try the recipe as it was written.)

The first thing you need to do is to roast some corn. Put one cup of corn that has been mixed with 2 Tbsp of olive oil, salt, and pepper, onto a cookie sheet. Place it under a broiler for about 7 minutes.

While the corn is roasting, you will work on the sauce. The sauce is what changed in my version. The original recipe calls for 2-3 chipolte peppers and adobo sauce. I had problems locating both items at our grocery store. I found dried chipolte peppers and picked them up. I fully intended on soaking them once I got home, but forgot. (My baby was hungry. I needed to nurse her and got distracted.) I tried to soak them about 15 minutes prior to prepping them, but that wasn't nearly enough time. So, the chipolte peppers were not used at all in my recipe. Instead, I used one jarred roasted red pepper.

The adobo sauce was impossible to find as well.* I searched on the internet for a substitute when I got home and found none. I realized that adobo sauce is just a spicy tomato sauce with a chipolte base. I decided I would use the salsa verde that I had left over from the tacos I made the other night.

So, back to the sauce. In a food processor, place 1/2 cup cilantro, the juice of a lime, 1 roasted red pepper, and 3 Tbsp salsa verde. Process this combo until fairly smooth. (It tasted pretty good. Lucky me!)

The chicken mixture

In the meantime, you will be heating up some chicken in a skillet. Now, the original recipe called for making the chicken right then. That step seemed pointless to me. My husband had recently grilled a bunch of chicken for recipes that call for cooked chicken, so I decided to use that chicken. I got about 2 1/2 cups of the pre-cooked & diced chicken and let it warm up in the skillet. Once the chicken was warm, I added the sauce to the chicken as well as the roasted corn and 1/2 of a roasted red pepper (another change...not a fan of bell peppers but I can handle them like this so it was my cheat so I would like it more).

I let the mixture sit on low heat as I readied the Bibb lettuce. You will want to wash the lettuce, drain it, and then pat it dry before serving (about 6-8 lettuce leaves).

The final step is to serve it all with about 3 chopped scallions on the side. You (hopefully) won't be disappointed! I'm so glad that my changes worked! It really was delicious. :)

*My husband pointed out to me that I could have picked up a can of chipolte in adobo sauce because it would have the 2-3 peppers and adobo sauce. It never dawned on me until I got home. Duh. Nearly 8 months of sleep deprivation is taking its toll. LOL

Verde Chicken Lettuce Wraps

2-3 cups cooked & diced chicken

1 cup frozen corn

1 lime, juiced

1/2 cup cilantro

1 jar of roasted red peppers

3 Tbsp salsa verde

3 scallions, chopped

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

1 head Bibb lettuce, rinsed and separated

1. Mix frozen corn with olive oil and salt & pepper. Spread out on a 

cookie sheet to broil for about 7 minutes.

2. In a food processor, add cilantro, lime juice, 1 roasted 

red pepper, and salsa verde. Process until smooth.

3. Heat up pre-cooked chicken in a skillet. Once warm, add sauce from 

the food processor, roasted corn, and a chopped up roasted red pepper.

4. Spoon chicken mixture into lettuce when served and 

add scallions as a garnish.

My Little Helper: Closing the Doors

This blog post is the second of a series on Tuesdays called, My Little Helper, featuring my adorable toddler, Ginny. The first one was about how she loves to help at bath time for her sister. Today is all about how our daughter is destined to be a doorman someday, or should I say, door person.

Closing the Doors

Closing the door to the laundry room

When Ginny first started toddling, we decided it was necessary to start shutting many of our doors. Child-proofing had been done in all the rooms, but we didn't want to lose sight on our little one. Who knew what trouble she could get into. We had a fair idea of the type of havoc she could cause because we have a dog who loves to eat paper, so we were already in the habit of closing all bathroom doors.

As Ginny has gotten older, we started leaving doors open a lot more often. Okay, that may be stretching it. Basically, if we had no laundry in the laundry room, we would leave that door open and her bedroom door. Our bedroom and our office have been deemed off limits when we aren't in those rooms with her. She will find something to play with that we don't consider a toy.

At some point in the last few weeks, Ginny decided that we needed help in closing our doors. No longer are my husband and I allowed to close a door, whether it be our bedroom door or even the door outside or to the garage. Nope, closing the doors is now her job. You can ask her to do it, but often that is unnecessary. She will run up and close a door before you are even ready for the door to be closed. Often when you are still in the other room and have yet to leave it, prompting you to open the door again, much to her dismay. The dismay is short-lived since she will realize that she gets to close that door again.

She loves her job closing doors!

The problem comes when you decide to close a door on your own. Ginny will let you know, in no uncertain terms, that ONLY she is allowed to close the doors. After pitching a fit the size of KU's Allen Fieldhouse, I will inevitably reopen the door just so she can close it again. Hey, you choose your battles, and if closing a door makes my two-year-old happy, who am I to complain?

Ginny has not yet learned how to open doors. She can reach the door know, but hasn't figured out how to twist the knob and then push or pull the door. Once she has figured out how to do that, I imagine my husband and I will no longer be allowed to touch the doors at all.