Man! How is it I’m always so excited to get my stuff when we move somewhere new?? I must forget how overwhelming it is in the intervening months between moves. (Incidentally, I a always thrilled, too, when they take all our stuff away and the whole house is empty again when we move out of places.) I feel like I have NO time right now to sit down on the computer or anything. I’ve been up so late every night, and John and I have been working, working, working! Within reason, of course. Since I’m nursing Daniel, that’s a time every day when I get to sit to feed him, potty him, and change him. Sometimes I cuddle him, too. 🙂 Today, I was so blessed to have our first visitors!!! It was a family I met through our homeschool co-op — one of the two families which responded positively to my “bagpipe lessons” advertisement through the homeschool support group emails. The new friend came over with three daughters and a son (her older son stayed home to babysit the youngest) who were all there to help with the children and the unpacking for about three hours. It was such a relief to have someone else spurring me on in the kitchen (John’s been working in the living room mostly, since the kitchen is “mine,” and I need to be the one to decide where things go) since I was feeling really bogged down by the lack of space (or was it the overabundance of stuff for the perfectly acceptable amount of space??) They helped me get through about four or five more boxes. Which is how many boxes I’ve unpacked since the people delivered the stuff in the last two evenings by myself. (So productivity from the last few days was doubled in just a few hours!!)

The “baking” cupboard, with spices, baking soda and powder, cocoa, regular flour, chocolate chips, random nut meals and flax seeds, and then all the vinegars and bottled sauces. I think I have about 10 types of vinegar. No joke.
Friday night I made my own taco seasoning for the first time – a huge batch to have it around for a while. I was tired of having trouble finding taco seasoning without MSG (I’ve never found any, but I also haven’t looked past the regular store brands), and I also would like a seasoning that is less salty than normal. This one should have more cayenne I think, but it calls for a pinch, so I didn’t know how to really measure it out in bulk. I think in the future I’ll just add a sprinkle or two to my meat along with this premade mix. Everyone loved it at dinner tonight! 🙂 I basically did 40 TIMES the recipe. As a gauge for that, there are 2 Teaspoons of Chili Powder in one recipe. So that’s 80 Teaspoons of just that one spice. Here’s the recipe I used:
It was on Allrecipes here: taco seasoning recipe
Leaving you with Greer, playing at the mall Friday afternoon when we had to run out to pick up some pictures we had taken:
One last thought. I was watching “The Biggest Loser” Season 8 last night on my computer while I worked on the computer, and in the first episode the contestants went around and introduced themselves. One woman had a 5 year old daughter and a 2 1/2 week old son. Who were both killed, along with her husband, in a head-on collision in which the other vehicle was driving over 100mph. Talk about heart-wrenching. Yes there were a few tears shed during my cupboard organization as I reflected on how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family. This post sounds like I was complaining about my “situation” – drowning in boxes, kids running around making messes while I’m trying to unpack, constantly needing to make meals and then clean up from them…so I don’t mean to sound that way at all. 🙂 My life is wonderful, every day, all the time. Even the times that are more are trying than others. Hope you had a restful Sunday full of joy!
Hi Coreyanne, It looks like you have onion flakes in your mix. Did you use that in place of onion powder? in equal amounts? What are the black and yellow bits I see?
Hi Wendy! Yes it was dehydrated onion I believe because it’s what I had on hand. The red and yellow flakes are probably from the “red pepper flakes.” Let me go look at the picture and I will reply again if it’s different from what I just said 🙂