MamaManagement

So here are the reasons I'm sharing this recipe: 1. It's pretty easy. 2. It tastes good. 3. It's great for feeding a group. 4. It reheats well, making it also great for cooking once for a smaller group and then having yummy leftovers for lunches or subsequent nights off from cooking. 5. It has pretty broad palette appeal. 6. You can easily customize it a bit to your tastes (add sautéed mushrooms, top with siracha or sour cream or ketchup, etc.) . I have made it 3 or 4 times now, and it always goes over well. And I thought that such a long of a list of pluses made it worth sharing. So, thank you to thecuttingedgeofordinary.blogspot.com for sharing it. And here you go: Cowboy Casserole (photo from thecuttingedgeofordinary.blogspot.com) Cowboy Casserole (adapted from Taste of Home) 1 to 1.5 lb ground beef (depending on your preference, I used 1 lb) 1 medium onion, chopped 3 gloves garlic, chopped 1 can (15oz) whole kernel corn, drained 1 can condensed cre...

Well, folks, in case you hadn't noticed, it's winter. Winter brings shorter, colder days and it brings my workouts inside. So, instead of walking and running outside, I'm all about the workout dvds in my basement. Right now I'm working from my existing stash, but each year I add a few to the mix so that I don't get bored, so I'm gearing up to buy a new one or two. In the meantime, I thought I'd share a couple of dvds that I have in the rotation right now that I think are worth a try. As I type this my entire body is sore from this week's round of workouts, thanks to Jackie Warner. That seems a good sign, so here are a few thoughts on the two workout dvds I've been sweating to... First, a few words about Jackie. She's famous for her Bravo TV series Workout . Which I have watched a few times a long while back. She has an incredible, muscular physique. Watching her makes you want to try harder so you can look like her. (Even though I'm not a...

As a quick update, I have finished two books off of my 2015 Reading List. First was Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy, which was okay. It took a little bit to get into it, but once I did it was a fast and pleasant enough read. But I think Binchy wrote better novels, so if you want to try one of her books, pick a different one (like Circle of Friends). The second was Unwind by Neal Shusterman. And that's why I'm here today. If you're a fan of dystopian future novels, I definitely recommend checking this one out. I really enjoyed this book and plan to pick up the next one in the Unwind Dystology (which I don't always do...or always recommend). Unwind was fast-paced, engaging and a new twist in the land of dystopian future book scenarios. The basic premise of the book is this: There is a Second Civil War in the US. This time it's not the North vs the South but Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life. The war comes to an end when the armies agree to The Bill of Life, whic...

Cooper, when we first adopted him Three and a half months ago I took my dog, Cooper, to the vet for some tests because he was behaving strangely. At the end of that visit we discovered that he had a tumor in his bladder and an enlarged spleen. But they felt it was operable. So, three months ago my dog had surgery to remove his spleen and a large portion of his bladder. The surgery went well. He recovered quickly. And was doing well. Until about a month ago, when he started acting strangely once again. I talked to the vet, they did a urinalysis, and everything came back normal. So she gave him some extra pain meds to get him through the holidays and we decided to just go ahead with our already scheduled 3 month follow-up ultrasound in January. Which was yesterday. It did not go well. The cancer is back. Another tumor in his bladder. It's pressing on his prostate and colon. One of his nearby lymph nodes is very enlarged, likely the cancer has spread there. Some levels in...

Hello friends! As I mentioned in my new year's resolutions post last week, I've decided to create a reading list for this year. I want to read at least 12 Young Adult/Middle Grade novels, and I want to read at least 15 of the books off of my To Read bookcase in my bedroom (books that I've bought or been given (or won in a charity auction) but haven't gotten around to reading for whatever reason). So, last night after a 100 page reading marathon to finish Champion by Marie Lu, I stood in front of my bookcase and made a list. Then I went on my Goodreads To Read list and chose 12 YA/MG books and added those to my list. I now have a rather long list...but it's a wonderful guide for 2015. So I thought I'd share my list with you. Maybe there's something here you'd like to read. Let me know if you've read any of these books (and what you thought of them). And let me know if you have any books that you think should be on my reading list for this year....

Happy New Year, friends! Welcome 2015! I love the New Year. (New Year's Eve...not so much. But New Year's Day? The month of January? The month of fresh starts, of clean slates, of new beginnings? Love!) At the beginning of every year I give a lot of thought to what worked and what didn't in the last year...what I liked and what I didn't like...what I want to change, as well as what goals I want to accomplish. There's a lot of trying to kick old habits and start new ones, but I also try to set some real, measurable goals for myself. I tried not to wait until the New Year to start my resolutions. I thought that this was a good plan. Because I think, when you've allowed yourself to get so far off track that you can't even see the track anymore, you need to start hiking toward the track sooner rather than later. Why wait for an arbitrary date to get that ball rolling, I thought. As it turns out, old habits die hard. Which means that the really quite te...