Blog Planner Review!

I am so excited!  This will be my first review for Homeschool Mosiacs!  Guess what..It is for a planner!  I am in love!  I just love a good planner.  Now when I first heard that we were reviewing a blog planner I was a bit stumped.  I had never heard of a blog planner.  Why it stumped me I have no idea.  I am a planner.  There I said it.  I am an almost 40 year old planner.  It took me a long time to realize that (like 30 years).  I don't know why, but I didn't.  Maybe I wouldn't be cool if I was a planner, I don't know.  However, for me, as I am sure a lot of you, planning just makes sense.  I am not trying to say that is the only way to do things, it just makes sense to me. Being a wife and homeschooling mother to 4 it is how I get thru the day.  I am not a rigid planner who falls apart when the plan has a detour, but my day goes smoother when it is followed by said plan.
  Now on to the good stuff.  I was given the opportunity by Homeschool Mosiacs choose from several different planners to use and review.  I chose the planner from Homeschool Creations, owned by Jolanthe Erb.  You can check out the specific planner at www.homeschoolcreations.net/2012/07/free-printable-blog-planer/ .  You can also get one for yourself for FREE!  Go ahead and try to resist the urge to download one for yourself.  Keep in mind that this is not just for homeschoolers!  This planner is for anyone who has a blog! 

For this particular planner the first thing that caught my attention was the girly cover.  It has butterflies and flowers on it in pink and green.  Of course I also had a pink three ring binder laying around that it fit perfectly in :)!How can you go wrong there, right? The second thing that I found helpful was a year at a glance which happened to be for 2012 and 2013.  Within this planner there are unnumbered calendar pages as well as a week at a glance. I love  how she added at the bottom of the calendar pages an area for things to focus on or as I looked at it goals for the month.  She also has an area at the bottom of each weekly column for things to do....so my cup of tea (or insert your blog beverage of choice here). 

Once you have jotted down your monthly due dates and goals, you can easily moved on to the next page.  This page is an area that she has laid out for each company that you are doing a review for or hosting a giveaway.  She has room for all the pertinent information like the contact info, price and due date of the review/end of giveaway.  I like the blank area that she has on the right column so that I can make notes for myself as I am using the products.  How many times have we gone to tell someone something (good or bad) about a product and can't really remember what it was we really liked (or didn't).  I have this happen a lot. As you can imagine I am using my side column for my notes.  Check out the layout.  This was when I first printed it.  It now has note on the right side too!

Finally, she has listed additional planning helps in the back of the planner.  Included in these pages are website analytics, website and blogs, affiliate programs and more.  I am not going to list everything because I want you to check it out. Click on the link above and pop on over to the Homeschool creations and get your free planner!

It is Birthday time on the farm again!  Our second oldest caddie just turned 12!  Our second caddie was born only 3 weeks early, missing premature status by only 3 days.  I still remember like is was yesterday when my water broke and the events that followed.  We almost had a baby in the car!  Our little one came 16 minutes after we arrived at the hospital!  I guess that is what happens when you live an hour from it.
  Birthdays, on the farm mean that you get to pick your birthday dinner.  Also living in the country we don't have a lot of restaurants either.  This doesn't bother us too much as we really don't eat out.  It isn't healthy and it is expensive when you have a larger family.  So for your special meal you can pick anything that you want.  For his meal he wanted hamburgers and stadium brats.  What are stadium brats you ask?  They are more like a sausage than  brat or hot dog.  They are really good. He wanted baked potatoes with that and an ice cream cake.  We have several birthday's that fall during Lent.  Unfortunately, the Pro and oldest caddie gave up ice cream for lent.  I said that I would make two cakes, the ice cream and then a bunt cake (one of the pro's favorites).  I make our ice cream cakes too.  We have had not so pleasant experiences purchasing them.  So I thought I would give it a try one year and we now have a few a year.  We choose 2 kids of ice cream, a fudge or Carmel and cookie center and then I use whipped topping for the icing.  It takes about 6 hours to make and then really needs to freeze overnight.  We sometimes eat it earlier and it is just softer.  This time I put Reese's cups on top and put blue food coloring into the cool whip.  I can't get the picture to upload right now. I have a new computer and it runs on Windows 8. I am not that compatible with Windows 8, as well as my all in one printer and my Nikon camera.  I will get the hang of it and post that picture in the future.

                                                      
                                                          
                                                               
                                                               

Left overs!

Got leftovers?  Need a quick dinner idea?  Well, check this out!  We had purchased buffalo chicken wings for our Super Bowl celebration. The Pro went out and purchased them and wanted to make sure we had enough.  So he bought 3 bags!  We both thought that it would be fine since the caddies are pretty big eaters around here.  Well we sort of misjudged and probably had about 2 bags left over.  Of course we had a lot of other foods too so that is probably why we had so much left over.
  Anyhow after the party I took the meat off the bones and then put it in a container in the fridge.  We usually have a few days a month where we have a crazy schedule and dinner is hectic.  Well Tues was that day.  We had orthodontics appoints for 2 of the caddies and spent the afternoon with my sister in law, niece and nephews.  In the evening we had to get the oldest caddie off to his monthly jr fair board meeting so time was limited.

   I took that left over already cooked chicken and put it in a pot with water.  The chicken was a little on the spicy side for the little caddies.  While that was simmering, I put my other pot pie ingredients which I really don't have a recipe for, in a second pot.  The second pot had all the veggies in it too!  I usually use left overs in the fridge for that too so it is not a tradition pot pie either.  We had peas and corn.  After about 10 minutes on low boil I added the second pot to the first to make my filing. Then I thought, oh my I don't have a topping!  Thank you Pillsbury for making biscuits in a can!  I split them in half,   placed them on top and cooked them till they were brown...Viola!  Check out my creation!  I have to say that the results are in and everyone here at the Clubbhouse loved it!  That would be everyone except the assistant Pro, she is a little on the weird side and doesn't eat meat.    Now I will share with you what I can of the recipe that I can.  Obviously chicken and biscuits, peas and corn.  For the creamy filling I took 1/2 stick of butter and melted it.  To the butter I added 2 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp of ginger and ground mustard, and finally 2 tsp of  thyme.  Then I added a quarter cup of flour.  Stir until mixed.  I then dropped this into the chicken and stirred until it thicken of course addind salt and pepper to taste.  Then pour into 9 x 13 baker split and place biscuits on top and bake according to the biscuit label.