Setting up a Smoothie Bar, Putting Greenery Back in the Home Decor, and Making Black Bean Enchiladas

Yesterday was absolutely fab being at home, for the first full day in 21 days. 🙂 My goals were to clean house, do laundry, start setting up the smoothie bar, clean out the fridge, vacuum, and to make black bean enchiladas for the freezer for lunches.

Do you know how many goals that touches for the year, LOL ha! At least THREE: blessing my house, cooking more, and getting the smoothie bar up and going, and being more frugal because I made lunch instead of buying it. Yay for success at something! The day was enjoyable, even though it was busy.

The smoothie bar.

I opened up and washed the containers and let them dry good and began putting the ingredients in each and did the labels. I still have to transfer cocoa and cinnamon over. And I need to order PB powder and some kind of greens. But it’s coming together! I have unsweetened vanilla almond milk in the fridge and it lasts up to two weeks after opening. You can also put yogurt in there if you want but I’ve found the smoothies are pretty good without it if you use the vanilla protein powder. I will likely keep frozen fruit in the freezer. So I am almost through with the set up of this. I am ordering the PB powder and greens over time to save some money. It’s a lot to order all at once. So I’m spreading it out.

I had held off on adding a lot of my spring looking pieces of decor. You know we had that Winter Party, then it was Valentine’s – but now the temps are getting warmer and I’m ready to decorate for spring. Here’s some of the things I’d held back on above. And below, is the “springier” looking mantle. I need to order some more updated pics of Little Roo!

I moved everything around on the shelves in order to wash down each one. It was a good time to do it because we didn’t have as much in there. It looks like a full fridge but it’s nothing compared to usual. Most everything has been scooted up to the front.

Here’s a look at the makings of the black bean enchiladas. What you see is black bean paste. I made that and brushed it on each tortilla and then added the black beans, tomatoes, onion filling. I had sautéed the onions, tomatoes, and added seasonings and then added the beans – so all that made the fillings. Then add the filling to ONE side of the tortilla and rolled them up and placed them with the opening side down into the dish to bake. They baked at 475 until the cheese melted good. It took two cans of black beans. I had frozen green and red bell peppers and onions – which are handy! I used cumin, oregano, chili powder, red pepper flakes, regular pepper. And had some enchilada verde sauce to put over it, along with the cheddar cheese for baking.

After they cooled a bit, I put two in a lunch container. So quick math there indicates we have 5 lunches. I still have many tortillas left over. So we’ll use that for fish tacos or something this week.

So I was able to get much done yesterday and it felt wonderful. I also was able to get a list done of all of my cleaning projects for the year (likely two years) which I’ll share with you in another entry that I will also use as my check list.

The rest of the weekend.

George went to McKaye’s bookstore yesterday and then he went to the store to get salmon and we had salmon for dinner.

We have been watching that “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?” show this past week. I fell asleep during most of them, lol. Not that it was boring, I was just tired.

This morning after being on my feet and moving around all day yesterday, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. But that is ok. I needed the movement! I did rest some yesterday though when Dexter and I watched a couple of YouTube shows and split some popcorn.

Today.

We got Mom to church this morning and took her to Whattaburger to eat. It’s the first time we have had them in Tennessee. The burgers were very good and we all enjoyed it. She requested to eat inside, otherwise George would probably have gone through the drive thru. Then we went to Aldi’s. She doesn’t like to go to Kroger or Publix (where we shop) but then Aldi’s doesn’t have everything she needs. But she got to pick where to go. They didn’t have self-rising flour, only all purpose. And they didn’t have any corn meal for making corn bread.

The guy at the check out broke mom’s squeeze cheese (lol) and George went back to find more. I swear if we can ever go anywhere or do anything where something doesn’t go wrong, I will be fully surprised, lol. There is this evil gremlin following us around I think. Something is always going afoul or breaking.

So back to Mom’s and putting the groceries up, George got the recliner Mom is giving us, into the old RAV4 (yes we still have the Flinstonemobile). Then I ordered her a new Emeril Lagasse toaster oven – similar but upgraded to what she has as her toaster oven is on the blink and not working. And she depends on that. She is not really fond of her big oven. I think mainly she can’t read it to tell what is what. But she does the best she can.

Discussion on Sunday’s and how to get more time at home for each of us:

So the last two nights at dinner and this morning on the way to church, George has brought up that we both need to have some weekend time back. I agree. I’ve told him that Mom is my Mom and he doesn’t have to be involved in her care if he doesn’t want to be, that we can go in separate cars. He wants to be involved in her care though because he wants to be helpful and he also wants to be there for me. I appreciate that so much. So he has tossed some scheduling ideas about and I think we are going to “divide and conquer” again on Sunday’s. Only we agreed for the most part to try to do church together unless we really just need to zone out and do it on line at least. But we both enjoy our Sunday school class too.

So I think we will take turns taking care of Mom on Sunday while the other rides in a separate car to church and goes home. That way the other one gets time at home and can know what to expect. We discussed that maybe the third Sunday in between having us all go in a car that day. He suggested that the week I take Mom out on Saturday definitely needs to be the day that I get Sunday “off” because I have to go at least two weeks before getting a day off. I reminded him that a day we are going to church is not really a day off as half they day is gone and that is when he suggested doing it on line for those days. So I think we are going to be mixing our schedule up some and dividing and conquering. So it’d go something like this.

Sunday 1: George picks up Mom and takes her to church and out to eat and to store while I go to church, eat, and back home.

Sunday 2: I pick up Mom and take her to church and out to eat and to store while George goes home. He doesn’t like to waste time to go out to eat on Sunday*.

Sunday 3: We all go get Mom, take her to church, go out to eat and to the store.

So that is kinda what we are thinking. Then we get a couple of extra hours in the week which could actually be TWO whole projects!

*My family at out on Sunday – his didn’t. This has always been a difficult thing between us on Sundays.

I think the weather, the being in doors, the lack of sufficient sun the lack of time to sneeze properly, lol – and several other things – just really makes life hard and busy.

Video Channel Thoughts.

I will be honest that I have had thoughts of quitting the videos more numerous than usual, in the last few days. I thought about just doing the next two videos and quitting. I thought about going until April 1. I thought about going until June1. And I’ve thought about holding on until I retire and give it some more time.

I think about just playing computer games, reading, watching TV, and all the other things I could do with that small amount of creative time I can get. And when I go there I start to mourn and grieve, and get angry and sad. Because no, I would be giving up a passion, I would be giving up everything I’ve been working so hard to do, I’d be giving in and letting everyone else control me, and I’d be letting everyone else win and say “I told you so” – even though they really didn’t say it.

When I feel discouraged about the video channel, I go back and look at the videos and the analytics. The numbers are up – even though it might not be over the last two videos, it’s up over all of them from the ones that did ok- where some of my older ones are really getting *some* increasing attention. All arrow indicators are green and going up.

I lost another subscriber and that is fine, people gain and lose all the time. I’m not in the big leagues and not monetized (not until 1,000 subscribers I think). And the first 100 is hard. I had 100 and then it went to 98 as someone left today. Go figure. I am a sensitive person and naturally when I look at the views and number subscribed, I get discouraged, but then looking at the back sides in my analytics the numbers are up! The past month I gained about 17 subscribers all at once. So why would I toss in the towel now?

So I can’t give up. I have NOT done all the things they say you should do to make it successful. (It’s a time thing.) I’ve not even touched 30 percent of it. I’ve not had much training, I’ve improved some things but I’m still testing, trying, and still need to focus on so many things. So it’s too early to give up. I would hate myself if I did. It’s like a big puzzle to me. No I’m not pretty, No I’m not young. I’m not very entertaining. I don’t really have a whole lot of special talent or anything to offer. I’m just me. I have me to offer. I have a camp of people that are like me out there wanting to connect to something. I have a lot of people that I have found out there that I like to watch, so I think there are people out there that will appreciate me in some form or another as well. I see others out there that are NOT pretty, NOT really talented, just being themselves, sometimes not even interesting, yet others flock to them because they found a way to make it seem interesting – maybe it was their camera footage, or the music, or people just wanted to follow their life like a real person or neighbor, like an ordinary person – or _______ fill in the blank.

I really just want to be a reality blog and share what I’m doing and how I’m doing it and what we are going through and hoping it helps someone or is of interest to “my camp” out there of people like me. Sadly, most of the world wants to look at someone young and pretty as we are all a vain people, and I’ll never be young and pretty. So I have that against me. But with the right titles, the right links, and following the success patters, how and why would one quit when they’ve not followed the set paths.

No, I may be a sensitive sort, but I sure am a resilient and determined being. In a way, I’m kinda sitting here laughing at my life. Because why not? Oh hell no, I’m not letting anyone win over my life unless it’s God. (Just because someone doesn’t like my latest video because “I was in it too much” or “talked too much” (LOL) or it doesn’t meet their definition of what they wanted to see, or because I don’t have time in my schedule Oh no sir, no ma’am. That kinda thing just makes me more determined – after it hurts my feelings, lol.

We just keep praying! We keep praying til we get life right. We keep praying til we get the schedule right. We keep praying til we get the videos right, til the right people find it. We keep praying til we get the to do list done. We keep praying til we can’t pray no more. We keep praying til we find some missing time. And I will keep on until I can’t keep on anymore, because that is what keeps me thinking and what keeps me ticking – trying to make it ALL work out. My heels are dug into the ground. Much to look forward to. Much to go for.

But this weekend, I made small progress on the goals, and the to do list, and we are making small dents and trying to figure out the ongoing schedule/situation.

It feels good to make progress even if it’s minimal. And I can say that this weekend (well yesterday) is a success. I can mark some things off the list. Most weekends this year, I’ve not been able to say that.

Update: Here’s the recliner now from Mom’s all set up in my office.

Have a great week everyone. What have you been up to this weekend? Any fun plans for the week?