SO Much To Share! Meal Planning, FINALLY doing THIS. Clean & Cook. This Is All Over the Place 😂

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:14]Well, hello. How are you doing? I am currently measuring dining room tables.

[00:00:20]Not for our dining room, um, for a like kitchen nook area. And then I found one that I love and it's the same size as the one in our dining room. I'm like, this is huge. So, before I even think about buying it, I want to like move my dining room table to see if it even looks good there. Like, cuz the one we have right now is a high top. And I like the way that it looks, but I don't know.

[00:00:44]So, that's what I'm doing right now. I obviously need to be a little bit more productive. I went to the gym this morning and I forgot we brought the chickens out back. Like, what is that?

[00:00:56]Their chicken poop is so sad. So, normally we just let them out back because there's actually grass out here.

[00:01:01]So, they're happy chickens. I've been searching on Instagram like chicken coupe inspiration. Some people go all out. I'm talking chandeliers. Okay. I'm like, uh, I think I need to tone it down a little bit, right? Maybe some plants like time. Anyway, I worked out this morning. Feeling so good. I feel like I just have more energy on the days that I work out. I wasn't able to work out at all last week because it's Maycember as they call it and they, you know, just all the activities. So, it just didn't line up that way. And even at night time, I feel like it's during the morning and the night. I guess that's what happens when you have like 75 kids.

[00:01:39]But it's great. It's wonderful. Life is full. My heart is full. Joyful. Heart full of gratitude has room for nothing else, right? But it does feel good when I have a little bit of time to spend on myself. So I worked out this morning, yesterday morning went. So I'm like back at it, but my body is feeling it because you know when you take a week off or whatever, you know, my one of my sister-in-laws is a physical therapist and she said it takes like 4 days for your body to start losing muscle. I'm like, "Yeah, that seems about right, but then it takes like 2 weeks to build it up again or something ridiculous. It's just not even fair, right? And it's so hard for women to build muscle anyway.

[00:02:18]So after the gym, I ran to the store. I needed I literally needed two things.

[00:02:24]>> Okay. I needed underwear for someone in the family. And then I also needed >> money in the picture.

[00:02:32]>> Wrist tape for Melanor.

[00:02:36]And that's how all that's how all my kids names are, by the way. Just like a morphing into a jumbled version of all of their names together. So, I guess I'll show you what I got there. Oh, because I certainly didn't leave Target with just those two things if you didn't gather that. So, yeah, it's just like a little bucket. I'll spread those out.

[00:02:56]But then I also want to take care of the girls bathroom >> on this.

[00:03:00]>> You can sit on that. Uh, they've been doing a good job of taking care of their rooms, but their bathroom situation needs my help. Okay, so that's on my to-do list. Oh, also a recipe that I feel like I've been wanting to make for a while. I'm also compiling a meal planish >> already open.

[00:03:18]>> That's okay. You can have one for Mother's Day. Like a Mother's Day meal plan. I'm like, these recipes look so What are you doing for Mother's Day?

[00:03:25]Because it's I don't know if it's soon or it just passed. I don't know when you're seeing this. Eventually. Did you even know it? Happy Mother's Day.

[00:03:34]>> Um, >> hope you had a good one. Sometimes it's just another day, right? And you can't even see it.

[00:03:40]>> I know.

[00:03:41]>> They have one of them.

[00:03:42]>> Um, when I open it, you can have one of them. So, let's hang out together. I'll show you what I got. You are sitting on a box of Element right now. It's actually their newest flavor.

[00:03:52]#nonspawns. You take a guess. I don't know if they've announced it yet, but I gave some to my friend and she reported back it's amazing. And hey, I was shocked at how, you know, I haven't been in Target in a while. like if I go in, I run and get what I need to come out. So, I did browse around a little bit more than usual. And I was kind of shocked at what I found. And part of it, I needed mini M&M's. I I made a list on my phone.

[00:04:21]I'm starting to do that now when the kids are like, "Oh, I need this." And I'll say, "Oh, yeah. I'll definitely remember that." And then a few days go by and they'll remind me, "Hey, mom, I need XYZ." Which reminds me because I didn't put it on my list. Wentworth has a piano recital tonight. So exciting.

[00:04:38]Alina had hers yesterday. Amazing.

[00:04:41]A guitar. But he needs a black shirt, like a buttonup. And I'm like, oh, target.com.

[00:04:52]Nothing. Nothing. Like, what? Where do I go? What do I do? I don't even know. So, I'm going to have to figure that out.

[00:05:00]So, I was browsing around, which uh surprise surprise, they have all kinds of summer stuff out. Oh, that's it.

[00:05:07]That's what I was going to say is I went through on my list of things.

[00:05:15]We Eleanor, you know, had her dance competition and, you know, they bring like those snackle boxes and stuff. So, one of her friends had, you know, her snackle box out eating snacks and we were like, "Ooh, what what are these?"

[00:05:30]And so, she told me and so I pulled out my phone and added it to my grocery list, if you will.

[00:05:37]And I actually put them in the pantry already. So, let me go grab those out.

[00:05:42]Okay, here is the haul.

[00:05:45]I got some Drizzle. This is what she had. They're like mini rice cakes and I apparently they do sell these at Costco and I have seen them but I never bought them before. Uh but they're really good.

[00:05:58]Only what does that say? 90 calories per pack with however many pieces cooked with avocado oil. All the good things.

[00:06:04]Um cinnamon swirl bites, birthday cake bites, s'mores. I mean they're real good. So those are fun. And then I also got a summer snack pack. It's the popcorn, the lesser evil popcorn, but two flavors. Watermelon hibiscus.

[00:06:18]>> Thank you. And >> I'm a big shark.

[00:06:23]>> Watermelon hibiscus and pink lemonade. I think I tried the watermelon hibiscus.

[00:06:29]Oh, yep, I did. Pretty good. Pretty good. Um, I also got some mini M&M's.

[00:06:34]Oh, hold on. I didn't try these. I actually forgot that I saw them.

[00:06:39]You got to rip into them, right? These are marshmallow crispy. I feel like I had the sugar cookie, like crispy sugar cookie 5 years ago. Ooh, they're really cute. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Packed with sugar. It's like a sugar bomb in your mouth. Delicious.

[00:06:57]So, there's that. I get the mini M&M's because we do yogurt and instead of buying like the yogurt with the M&M's, I can get the zero sugar high protein yogurt and then just pack a little bit of M&M's for them and they are happy as clams. Also in the snackle box, mini Starburst, but all pink because that's the only way to to do anything, right?

[00:07:18]It's always the best flavors. I also grabbed some dish soap apparently. And I typically get this from Thrive Market, but I was like, you know what? Let's try some new scents. So, the Method scent is gosh, coastal citroen. Citrantine.

[00:07:38]How bad is it that I quite literally can't read that? like everything is blurry. I swear I have the wrong prescription. And when I told him, "Everything's blurry. I'm pretty sure this is wrong prescription. Can you recheck my eyes?" Like, I made a separate appointment to do that. He didn't even recheck them. He just said, "Oh, they're I'll I'll knock it down to this." I'm like, "You're you're just guessing at this point." Like, what is happening? I can't like I don't want to spend the money getting my eyes checked by someone else. But I also feel like it's necess everything's blurry all the time. I just walk around blurry. Life is blurry. And I know it's not this bad when I put my glasses on, which was my old prescription. And I'm like, I can see. So something's definitely off. And it's just frustrating. It's like, why don't you listen to your patient? And then when he switched, I came back another time, got new contacts, and I said, yeah, it's still really blurry.

[00:08:35]and he said, "Oh, it'll adjust because the type of contact that I have is like has to it's like weighted on one side and it has to fall into place." I'm like, "Okay, I'm leaving the appointment bumping into stuff cuz everything's so blurry." And I'm like driving home like I DON'T I DON'T KNOW WHEN IS IT GOING TO ADJUST. It hasn't. Spoiler. It hasn't.

[00:08:56]Either that or my eyesight is actually so so so bad. I don't know. It's one or the other. Okay. I got some chomps. So, three flavors. New, new, new. I love a good chomp. I love a good beef stick. I didn't know they had chicken. What?

[00:09:12]Okay, so this is Nashville hot. It actually is hot. Okay, so beware. It's not like the craziest, but it definitely has a lingering spice taste flavor.

[00:09:22]Original chicken sticks. Delicious. And then this is savory breakfast chicken sticks. Crazy. I can taste the sage. I can taste the thyme. I can taste like all of those flavors in the breakfast sausage.

[00:09:35]Yeah, it's in there. So, if you're into that, there you go. Hey, they also had some pool floats cuz it's summer time.

[00:09:42]Oh, by the way, this is the Method brand had a ton of new ones out. And this is I love that it says 50% less scrubs, 20% more suds. Like, how do you measure that? You know, um Uno pool float. like, "Are you serious? Let's turn this puppy around so we can really see what it looks like. How can I say no to that?" I was like, "Uh, yeah, we're getting a pool float." And then, um, since we're having like summer parties and stuff, look at this. Look how fun that is. Look how many people can be shoved on there.

[00:10:15]How many people can hang out on this little star? They had really, really cute floats. Those are the just the two that I got. And speaking of the summer party, I got a couple of buckets cuz we put water balloons in them. and just like, you know, they have water balloon fights or whatever. I almost got two buckets, but do you know how much these buckets were? More. Well, maybe less depending on what you guess, but $15 a piece. I'm like, and it's funny because as I was walking around Target, I was just thinking like I was deinfluencing myself. I was walking around the spring section and looking at all the planting things and gardening things and artificial plants and pots, all this stuff. And I was like, "Oh, this is cute." And then in my mind I'm like, that's actually not that cute. Don't need it. This is broken. I just going around. I'm like, they're trying to sell this for $40. It's actually insane. Some of it's it's a whole thing. Needless to say, I didn't get anything from the gardening section.

[00:11:10]Also got some of these like better for you Oreos. And then they were buy 1 get one, I don't know, 50% off or something.

[00:11:18]So I grabbed peanut butter cream. And again, this is another thing where we just like crush up an Oreo and put it in the yogurt instead of getting the flips with the cuz those are so expensive.

[00:11:29]Easy way to save some money. Buy yogurt in bulk, buy some Oreos, and then prepare them. You know, it takes literally 10 seconds, you know. Um, oh, and since it was summer time, we're preparing for like a either obviously summer party, but also a beach birthday party in November for Eleanor. And then I'm thinking like I'm about to have myself a beach birthday party, right? So I have a whole bunch of stuff on my Instagram page. I'm like every time I see because you know your algorithm once you start saving stuff, it's like, "Oh, you like this? I'm going to feed you more of it." So I've got like DIYs and all kinds of birthday at the beach or like beach themed birthday stuff. And I just keep saving it. I'm like, "This is so cute. It's so fun." So I thought, you know, just to have as a little snack on one of the tables. And right now is the time to buy that kind of stuff because the stores are filled. I again I was going through Target and looking trying to deinfluence myself looking at they had a little shell dish and I was like, "Oh, that's so cute. I could get that for this summer party." And then I was like, "That's actually so dumb. I'm only going to use it one time. You don't need it. Check the $3 for like one little thing, which is not so bad. Just like buy one." But then I'm like, "I don't need one." I just end up buying a bunch of food like I can justify eating. Um I got these. These were half off. I don't know if it's because of the flavor.

[00:12:49]Almond poppy seed, 15 grams of protein.

[00:12:51]It's the Kodiak uh pancake mix. So good.

[00:12:55]New spring recipes. Well, what are the recipes? I guess it doesn't matter.

[00:13:00]Maybe it just means like the flavor. I'm excited to try it. I don't think my kids will be into that, but I definitely will be. And then I got some Fourth of July stuff over here that I was really cute.

[00:13:11]Memorial Day, Fourth of July, just patriotic stuff. It's Aalina's favorite holiday and I think we're going to celebrate this year. We might do a barbecue. I'm not really sure. But I got a couple things and for party supplies. They had a whole end cap. So, these are like bubbles but on a necklace and I was like, "Okay, that's pretty cool for the kids." Got a couple of those. And then they had temporary tattoos. And like they're so glittery glittery. I always have a hard time with that word. Um, there's like six in there. And it just goes like it's like freckles but glitter.

[00:13:47]>> Oh, that's funny. And speaking of gems on your face, they had these as well.

[00:13:52]Face gems. And I was like, "Oh, heck too." Yeah. Again, these were like $3.

[00:13:58]So cheap enough to say, "Okay." But I feel like 5 years ago, these would have been a dollar each. You know, welcome to 2026, apparently. I also got a fun little craft for them. You guys know I'm a sucker for just really anything at this point. And I was like, "Yeah, a fun little activity for the kids to do bracelet making, but make it patriotic and fun and festive." So, I got a couple of those. It didn't look like it comes with string, but I think we have a bunch of string that I bought in bulk one time. I also grabbed some balloons. Oh, speaking of balloons, hold on. Hold that thought. I hope I remember to come back to it. um, USA balloon banner kind of thing. I got these. Aren't these the cutest earrings? Like the firework.

[00:14:47]And then the ice creams and the flat I mean like easy yes. Easy yes. And I went to cuz I typically get the Hold on. M&M's over here too. I couldn't find a big one of these and I was like, I'm probably gonna make a dessert with M&M's and my kids are probably going to steal one before I make the dessert. And just in case I need a third bag, I grabbed a third bag.

[00:15:06]So, the earrings I typically get like bobble bar. They had a bunch of different earrings, by the way. Some of them were massive and I was like, cool, cool. But also, you know, I'm just trying to be a dainty little gal. So, I got those instead. But they had a good array of them. And then I went to where they have the bobble bar, you guys. They used to be $12.99. Now they're I want to say $18.99 and I could have been looking cuz now they sell like a pack of three earrings, but I think I was just looking at one like but I don't remember. Oh, they had shell and I almost got it for you know Elanor's birthday party in like 8 months and I was thinking oh these are so cute but I only wanted the shells and not the other two and so I looked at the price to see if it was worth it to just you know get that. It wasn't. It's like $18 $18.99 something like that. I I was frozen in the aisle. Put them back immediately. Okay, so for the balloons, Target has a million25 balloon arches, balloon kits, balloon things. They had summer themed one, they had a cactus, or if you just like cactuses, they had a a wide array of balloon things. And I know myself enough to know that I will not put it together.

[00:16:20]I have probably bought at least one, if not two balloon things in the past. I want to say one. It doesn't take much for me to learn my lesson.

[00:16:29]I mean, sometimes, right? But I bought one and I was like, "Wo, this is not for me." So, I never put it together. And needless to say, I also didn't buy any. Even though they looked super cute, super fun. I just know myself. I'm like, maybe I could commission the kids to do this, but then I'm like, I I just don't know, right?

[00:16:53]They had a lot of crafts, too. On to cleaning up the girls' room. I have some window cleaner, but I think I have that Scrub Daddy wipe that cleans their mirrors in their bathroom.

[00:17:05]What am I looking for? I recently got Here it is. This was also this cleaner. And I typically get the Blueland cleaners, but I think I only have like the hand washes, like the hand soap, you know, like the refill things that you're supposed to buy. Watch this be like a allpurpose cleaner.

[00:17:30]Yeah. Foaming hand soap.

[00:17:33]I guess I could just go through it and see. Hand soap. Hand soap. Hand soap.

[00:17:40]Hand soap. Hand soap. Hand soap.

[00:17:42]Remember that one time I bought a bunch from Thrive Market and threw them away because they come in like a cardboard box and I just thought it was like empty packaging. That was like one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made in my entire life. Just kidding. I don't know if Thrive Market sells them anymore or if I'm just bored with the scents that they sell, but I haven't bought any. But I did get this.

[00:18:04]I don't even know what the scent is. It is wonderfully.

[00:18:10]Wow. Lime and sea salt. You guys know I'm into that. Okay. They also probably just need bleach. But a part of me thinks that I put a bunch of cleaners in their bathroom to encourage them. Be like, "Hey, everything you need is right here. You don't It's so easy. You got to make things simple for them to clean."

[00:18:30]So, okay. Yeah. Okay. Now, we're banging on all cylinders here. This, by the way, what scent is this? Literally fresh breeze. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, when's the last time you got a fun, interesting scent for your toilet cleaner? I'm not going to say it's changed my life, but I am going to say it makes cleaning 4% more fun, a little bit more interesting. Brace yourselves because I'm going to show you around in here.

[00:19:02]OKAY. OH, I want to put another I think I only have one of these left. Talking about whimsy, have you ever had purple toilet bowl water? Water water in your to whatever that they're just Have you ever had purple? Yeah. Did you just see our garbage can? After we came in here this weekend and we're like, "Okay, girls, tidy up." It's like they forget this shared space exists. But I'm just going to take the brunt. Give them cuz you know when they tidy it needs a mother's touch in here because really when they tidy up it's still looking sad. I'm not going to lie. Okay, so we've clearly got some garbage. This, by the way, I feel like I need to say this because I use this bathroom almost every morning. If you have a toilet um whatever this is called, toilet paper holder like this, if you're thinking about it, no. Literally, I don't It falls. Do you see how it just falls? How it just falls?

[00:20:01]It's the worst. It's the worst thing I've ever purchased in my entire life.

[00:20:06]You think it's good, but it's not. Okay.

[00:20:09]The smallest amount of force.

[00:20:12]I didn't know it was like that.

[00:20:13]Otherwise, I wouldn't have got it, you know? I just I'm just thinking, "Oh, I'm getting normal toilet paper holder." No.

[00:20:19]No. Okay. This is what their situ You You would think a family of 24 lives in this shower with the amount of stuff that they have. And here's the kicker.

[00:20:32]70% of this stuff is empty, right? It's like, do you know where the garbage can is? Oh, empty. Oh, empty. This one's full. This one's probably empty. This one's Okay, I'm not giving good examples right now, but this for sure is empty.

[00:20:47]That's full. Okay, this is empty. This is empty. This is empty. Now we're ringing on all cylinders.

[00:20:56]Okay. And do they need 75 lofas? What's happening in here? It's just a mess. And this is probably the safest thing we've ever done our whole lives. The towel warmer is in the shower. To be fair, um the water doesn't pass here. And that was an oversight. Listen, if you're planning um a shower of this capacity when I shower in here and I, you know, I'm like under the under the water. The trick to get the shampoo I'm like freezing.

[00:21:28]It's like you're taking a shower here and then all this distance. You know what I mean? That was an oversight, too.

[00:21:36]But thankfully, we have this.

[00:21:38]Oh, what do you mean, Kim? More products. Yes. Welcome to my tweenagers bathroom establishment.

[00:21:48]Yeah. I mean, like, does she need 17 scrubs? Yeah, of course. Have you met her? You know what I mean? Um, also all the crud up here. So, needless to say, also this is Eleanor's Meredith brush.

[00:22:01]Oh, good. It's broken. Oh, cool. Love to see it. And we've got this situation going on. We've just been busy. We just We're busy. A lot of people, you know what I mean? So, the drawers are packed.

[00:22:13]The counter is full. The sinks are a mess. But hey, time to tackle it. I know. Also, I have no idea where all of their towels are because I just did all of everyone's law. Well, that's a lie. I don't do their laundry, but Eleanor just did her laundry, and normally I pick the towels out. I don't see a single one in that pile. They must all be in Avelina's closet or something. three black dogs.

[00:22:43]>> I'm going to take a few moments while he's playing by himself independently, uh, with my shoes on, by the way, which is just killing me. Um, I'm going to take probably 10 minutes in here, maybe 15, 20 in there to go through everything and really give it a good scrub down. It dep and then maybe five to clean out this middle area, which is like it needs a good deep clean. There are a bunch of teenagers in my kitchen right now. It is currently 10:30 at night. But this is what happens when Wolf Gang said, "Oh my gosh, there's a toy under under here that I want." So, we pulled it aside for him and it was a disaster under there. And also, I don't keep up with this. Literally, I'm just not staying on top of things. Hey, speaking of Mother's Day gifts, um I just got a text from Wolverine's Bakery, which is like my go-to if I know someone who like just had a baby or I don't know, is going through a life event. Uh that's it's a great place. It's like quick, easy. They have sales all the time. But I'm like, what else can we do here? So, I need to order something. And I wanted to share with you my Mother's Day meal plan in case you're wondering.

[00:23:57]I don't know if I'm going to make all this because this is lengthy and I also a lot of it's lemon and I'm probably just going to I don't know pick something else. Lemon shecake sounds good, right? But then I found a little hack from Trader Joe's. They sell the lemon sheetcake, but then the woman like cut them into little squares and put fresh fruit and herbs on them. Mint. And I was like, "Oh yeah, blueberry lemon trifle. Impressive. Everyone loves a trifle, but it's also lemon, so I don't know. Hummus flour. Oh my gosh, you're going to be amazed and impressed. Green salad. I'm excited for that one. Also, a strawberry shortcake dip. I'm salivating. Sourdough bagels. Probably won't make those, not going to lie.

[00:24:45]Spring pasta salad. Sounds really good.

[00:24:47]But I also um I saw Ely Ellis from Macroofriendly Food. She posted the new meal plan for the month and uh I'm very late to it. I actually went back and realized a couple months ago I forgot to download one of the PDFs and so I was trying to look for recipes. I didn't have it but cuz I like to print them up.

[00:25:09]So she shared the new recipes and one of them I think are sliders. They look so good. I also think there's like a grilled recipe. Now I don't remember.

[00:25:18]And while I'm here, I might as well just download them and then I'll show you cuz like Mother's Day recipes are usually like dainty and but I want to eat real like heavy food, too. So, you know, I also don't know if I told you, but for the past 2 weeks at this point, did I type that in right? It won't let me log in, but I think it's my internet. For the past solid week and a half, if not more, maybe only almost 2 weeks. Our internet has been so horrible. It's actually a miracle that I'm able to upload videos. I don't even know how it's happening. It's been so dodgy, so slow, almost non-existent. Some days we're living like the Amish over here with zero internet. And it's an exaggeration obviously, but it's frustrating. And then even just going to a website, it's literally like dialup.

[00:26:07]We had someone come out um yesterday.

[00:26:09]Wait, is this the new internet? We had someone come out yesterday and we like switched our Oh, this is the new one.

[00:26:15]Oh, okay. Fingers crossed.

[00:26:18]I don't know why. What's going on?

[00:26:21]Okay, we're in. So, here is the meal plan for May 2026. Are you ready to get some meal plan inspiration?

[00:26:30]Let's do it. Looks like 14 new recipes.

[00:26:34]We've got blue cheese bacon sliders.

[00:26:37]Yes. Sheep pan Hawaiian chicken salads, pesto chicken pizza rolls, steak and vegetable kebabs, buffalo ranch chicken burgers, grilled green goddess chicken, one pot southwest pasta, burger bowls, layered wedge salad, parmesan panetta asparagos, tuskcen pasta salad. Yeah. Oh, protein fruity pebble treat. Excuse me while I print every single one of those recipes.

[00:27:11]Oh my gosh. It's like, why do I over complicate meal planning? Sometimes though, there was one month where she came out with one and I just kept scrolling and I was like, none of this.

[00:27:22]So, not every month is a full of bangers. It just depends on your taste and what you like, obviously. But this month full of bangers for me. I'm excited. I I feel like it's going to be good. Hope I gave you some I don't know meal inspiration. Oh gosh. This will be the death of me. My computer chair. Mark my words. Here's the PR package. Can you guess the flavor? M.

[00:27:47]Wow. Little sneak peek.

[00:27:50]Okay, 20 minutes later. Let's tackle this. Actually, it usually looks worse because I normally get ready in here and my stuff is normally situated in this area. But because Eleanor had an appointment this morning, I she slept in. I didn't wake up wake her up to get ready for school as usual. And so I took all of my things. I tiptoed in here.

[00:28:16]Took all my things. And not as if I needed to tiptoe because my stinking kids, they would sleep through an earthquake. And I don't know why I'm giving that example. I've never been through an earthquake. They would sleep through the end of the world. Okay. Our smoke detectors in the house went off one time. No one woke up. I'm like, "Okay."

[00:28:40]And it was so, I'm telling you, like, and they all went, it was like a wiring problem or something. It was the loudest thing I've ever heard in my life. No one batted an eye. Okay, except for Alex and I. I'm like, ah. Anyway, I'm not organizing her drawers. Some of them are hard to open, not going to lie. But she can take care of that. It's almost summer and I feel like they're going to have more time to dedicate to stuff like this because she does like having an organized space, but it's like I told you before, our weekends have been just full of competitions after competitions and games and events and all this stuff.

[00:29:20]So hopefully when summertime comes, it'll slow down a little bit and they'll have some time. I'm saying this for me too. Like hopefully I have a little bit more time for random stuff. What your daughters don't have a drawer full of wigs.

[00:29:35]Isn't life just so fun and interesting?

[00:29:38]Okay, I'm so glad that I got this cabinet cleared out, but I always find the most random things like this cheese spreader. What are they doing with it?

[00:29:48]What is it safe for me to put it back in the kitchen? I never know. I never know.

[00:29:52]And I always find kitchen utensils in random parts of the house and I'm like, what are you doing with a cheese spreader? You know, also Wolf Gang and Meredith have been catching love bugs lately. If you live in the south or Florida, I I mean, are they everywhere?

[00:30:09]Who the heck knows? I know they're really prevalent down here. The love bugs. It's a love bug season. I feel like it comes earlier and earlier every year. It used to be summertime. It used to be June, right? But uh here they are.

[00:30:24]And I also feel like they used to just coat my car and they don't do that anymore. Are they going extinct?

[00:30:33]I don't know. You know, that's a great question. I doubt it. Maybe. Um I mean, I'll have to Google that. I probably will never because I really don't care that much. I put the purple stuff in their toilet. I did end up moving the toilet. I mean, the towel warmer. Don't worry. I took it took it out of there.

[00:30:50]It wasn't plugged in or anything, so I'm sure it was fine. I think because the space is laid out in a weird way that when we open the I didn't allow space for a towel warmer in here for a while.

[00:31:03]It was inside the closet. And I think it will it fit under one of those shelves.

[00:31:08]I don't know. I don't know actually now that I say it out loud. Was it under there? Who the heck knows? But I put it inside like where the toilet area is.

[00:31:19]And if you open the linen closet door, it won't open all the way. So, you know, pros and cons to everything. And I tidied up in here, it feels a lot lighter and brighter and clearer. And yes, I do regret this tile that I picked. Who who agreed to this? Who let me agree to that? Who said, "Yeah, Kim, that's great. Do that." I wanted it to match the rest of the house, but I I think I got hung up on the details. It's horrible. Well, back to my office because I'm trying to order something also. Good news. Well, hopefully good news. Alex texted one of our friends.

[00:31:53]He's leaving right now to go get the kids from school and I have to leave in like 20 minutes to go get Aalina.

[00:31:58]Details. Also, someone's here. I don't who what am I doing? Bentworth's t-shirt. I don't even know if I explained it to you. He needs a t-shirt.

[00:32:08]Target doesn't have any. And I'm like, what the heck do I do? Well, our friends are saving the day. Hopefully, the shirt fits him.

[00:32:15]If not, I don't know. He can wear something like leave it unbuttoned or something. Okay, I just got an email cuz I'm checking my email for some stuff and I got an email for Wolf Gang's furniture. It's like schedule your delivery and I'M LIKE OH MY GOSH, UNBELIEVABLE. Both of the I ordered like two pieces. One of the pieces I got an email that said this item is delayed. It will come in July or whatever. And I thought, oh well that kind of sucks, but who cares? Whatever. I'll just do something else until it comes in just for a temporary situation, a nightstand.

[00:32:52]And they just were like, "Schedule your delivery. Here are the pieces in it."

[00:32:58]And both of the pieces are there. So, I'm like, "Is it going to be there or not? I don't know what to think." But in scheduling the delivery, I wanted to order something else, but I've been dragging my feet on it. But I need to order it now if I, you know, I want the pieces to come at a similar time. and I'm trying to find a coupon and I feel it's from Wayfair. I found it on another site, but it was twice as expensive.

[00:33:24]And I was like, well, I'm not that's crazy. So, I just Google image search to see if anyone else sold it. A couple other places sell it. Wayfair has it for a good price. So, I added it to cart like weeks ago, probably months at this point. They sent me something in the mail. I feel like it was them that had a coupon. I have searched everything. I must have thrown it away. So then I'm like Google searching coupon code D.

[00:33:48]None of them work ever on every single website I've ever tried. Like it's such a waste of time to do that. So do I just bite the bullet and order it? Cuz I've been waiting for them. Maybe they'll send me something else with a coupon on the back and they haven't. So I should just order it, right? Yes, I should just just do it. Just do it. Like what?

[00:34:07]But then also there's a little professional assembly and I'm like, you know, I'm pressing that button, right? I feel like that is going to make my life so much easier. But I'm scheduling it out from like 2 weeks from now just because I'm like, "Oh, I don't know when I'm going to be able to get to my calendars." Like, you know, the kids have everything. So, I think I found a day that's going to work. And I'm excited. So, I hope you're going to get excited, too. Okay.

[00:34:36]I hope it works out. I also need to find a couple of more things for his room. I really want to go antiquing. I feel like maybe I'll do that this weekend. Who knows? There was a lamp that I wanted to buy from Pottery Barn. Okay. I was about to spend an arm and a leg on a lamp. Who am I? But it was like, no one else has a lamp like this. And apparently neither do they because it doesn't exist anymore. So, I guess I'm not ordering that.

[00:35:05]I have to find another lamp. It's not that big of a deal, but it's hard to find like boyish looking lamps. I just click the button to order it. You don't even know what it is. Hey, totally random. I'm putting in my credit card information and some of the numbers resemble my home address from when I was a kid, but also coincidentally resembles my home phone number as a child. Do you guys remember those things? And it's like why? I can erase that from my memory. Thank you so much.

[00:35:42]I don't need it. Let's make space for more important details. Final update.

[00:35:47]This will arrive before the other pieces.

[00:35:53]I shouldn't have them arrive on the same day, right? Just be too much going on in a small space. Okay. Yeah, this is going great. Okay, think it's ordered. Okay, let me add that to my calendar. So, I don't forget. Okay, cool. It's really happening. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. OKAY.

[00:36:10]WELL, I guess it's my fault for doing this.

[00:36:13]But as I was setting up the appointment, it's like, "Do you have a preferred time?" And I was like, "Yeah, anytime.

[00:36:18]No preferred time." I guess I do have a preferred time because the time they gave me is 8:00 p.m. I'm like, "Oh, midnight. Oh, bedtime." Like, that's probably the worst time to come.

[00:36:31]No backing out now. I guess I It'll be fine. It'll be fine. Cuz you know, they never actually come on time.

[00:36:39]Whatever. Okay, cool. I'm actually really excited that the ball is moving on that. I wrote down a recipe for the best homemade brownies. You guys know I've been on a quest to figure out the best homemade brownie recipe. I thought, you know, I've been a little lucky with at least one. Last week's was okay. The frosting was kind of weird, like with the I think the honey made it weird. So, I'm going to try this one. It looks really promising. Now I literally have a list of like Wolf Gang's bedroom, living room makeover, breakfast nook makeover, and you know, it goes on and on. Just dreaming, you know, but I can knock a couple more things off the list. Yeah, I can knock a couple more things off the list. Doesn't it feel good to just X marks the spot where we fell apart?

[00:37:33]Shotgun shot in the dark. We were driving. Get away car. We were flying but we never went far. Don't pretend it's such a mystery. Think about the place where you first met me. Driving.

[00:37:48]Get away car. We were flying to the beat of your heart. All right. I got to go.

[00:37:53]Okay. Well, it turns out I'm still trying to figure some stuff out for his room. I don't really know what I'm doing in there, but I know a little bit of what I'm doing in there, so it should be fine.

[00:38:03]Okay, here come the brownies. I already made a marinade for tonight.

[00:38:11]We'll cook that on the grill.

[00:38:14]So, of course, we need a dessert. So, first of all, to do the brownies, we're going to make brown butter. This is going to give it a nice rich, deep flavor. So, to make brown butter, it's a cup and 2 tablespoon of butter will give you apparently one cup of brown butter.

[00:38:31]It will reduce down 2 tablespoons. And you just cook the butter, you guessed it, until it's nice and golden, rich brown. I'm going to show you what that looks like. You It doesn't even take that long. You can hear it sizzling away.

[00:38:48]It's only going to take a couple minutes after this. You can see how it's morphing into this like dark, rich amber color. I'm going to try to move it around so you can see it. Yeah, it's done. I'm actually going to pour it into a dish and you'll be able to see it a little bit better. Oo, and it smells good. It has like that nutty, rich odor, if you will. Look how pretty. Welcome to my homestead.

[00:39:13]No big deal. Just making brownies from scratch over here. Okay, so according to this lady, that is exactly one cup. Get all the bits in there, too. Delicious when you're spending every day on your own. And here it goes. One cup. Well, hot dog. Look at that. literally good. Uh, let this cool. You also need room temperature eggs, four of them. So, I'm going to let this cool for a little bit. I'm gathering all the ingredients that I need for the recipe. And she uses cocoa powder. That's like cream of the crop. I've got Hershey's over here. And I feel like that's going to be good. Oh, you know what else I have? Hershey's and Toll House. Which one is better? I'm going to use this one. And it also calls for cake flour. That's when you know a recipe is bougie. But then it also calls for normal flour and brown sugar is not enough. So we've got normal sugar, brown butter, eggs, vanilla bean paste. Also coffee, which leads me to believe my kids are not going to love this one. But that they say you can't taste the coffee flavor. It just deepens the chocolate flavor. And I'm like, yeah, you can taste it a little bit. You know, now she also mentions in the recipe reel that you can use chocolate chips, but what she recommends is using Oh, this is the top of the ladder. She recommends using chocolate chunks. And she does a mix.

[00:40:45]Hey, I've got Ghirardell, but I don't want to waste these if this isn't good.

[00:40:48]Ghirardelli chocolate chips. And then I also should have Yeah, dark chocolate.

[00:40:54]Okay, I'll see if I have any chunks in here. I have baking chocolate, but no one wants that, right?

[00:41:03]Sometimes I get Trader Joe's. Um, this obviously isn't Trader Joe's, but this is the dairyfree kind.

[00:41:11]And a little hack for you is that Trader Joe's chocolate chips are also dairyfree, Lily. They are really, really affordable. And they also sell chunks.

[00:41:24]I don't really like that word chunks.

[00:41:26]Well, I don't have any, so this will be good enough. Another thing that she does in this recipe is measures everything.

[00:41:34]She gives the measurements like the normal measurements, cup, half a cup, you know, dry measurements. But she says, "No, don't use that. Use the grams." So, I'm like, I don't know if we've met.

[00:41:50]This is going to be a challenge for me.

[00:41:51]So, I need 60 ml of coffee.

[00:41:56]So, I'm just going to warm this up. Oh, it's hardly anything. 60 a/4 cup in there. And then I'm just going to put the instant stuff in here. And maybe I'm supposed to do that after I warm it up.

[00:42:08]Oh, that's good. She said strong coffee to be fair. Or espresso. I'm going to be so for real.

[00:42:16]My palette is not sophisticated enough to enjoy the dark chocolate, bittersweet chocolate flavor.

[00:42:24]So, I'm going to do minimal amounts of this one. 300 g of the chocolate.

[00:42:30]I'll do like 50 60 of that.

[00:42:36]See where this gets us. Oh, sadly I'm going to have to do more.

[00:42:45]Oh, 305.

[00:42:48]Perfect. Okay. Honestly, I'm feeling pretty cheffy over here measuring all these ingredients in separate bowls.

[00:42:56]Okay, here we go. 100 years later. 230 g of brown sugar. That just made it raise 8 g when I did that little bit. It's a lie.

[00:43:08]220 g of white sugar. And this is making an 8 by8. And then the one cup of brown butter. And then four large eggs. It smells amazing. And then 25 ml of vanilla. I'm doing paste. Amazing.

[00:43:29]That was not enough. There we go. It's too much, but that's okay. Give this a mix.

[00:43:36]This might be the worst whisk I own. Do you see it just like flopping around?

[00:43:42]It's fine cuz you don't want to over mix brownies. Oh, and then we've got the coffee or espresso.

[00:43:49]60 what? 60 milliliters of that. Mix that in. Almost forgot it. Yeah, this is smelling delicious. Okay, now for the dry ingredients. And of course, you're supposed to, you know, measure these separately, but have we me? It's just that's taking it a little too far for me. So, we've got 60 g of cake flour going in. Oh my gosh, that was too much.

[00:44:13]The downfall of not How is that 60 g, by the way? That was like nothing. Okay, good enough. And this is literally to the gram because this says 72 g of flour. And it I just like I've already messed up way too much to be doing this. Perfect. 72. Okay. Okay. And then we've got 93 grams of the world's finest cocoa powder. 93 seems excessive.

[00:44:47]I don't think I have enough.

[00:44:49]>> That's too much cocoa powder for me if I'm being honest.

[00:44:54]Oh, good. It's exactly exact. It's exactly how much I HAD TO THE G. Thank you. It's perfection.

[00:45:04]10 g of salt going in. I feel like that's equal to the amount of cake flour that we put in. And that's it for now.

[00:45:10]Let me give it a mix. No baking soda, no baking powder. Is this right? Did I write it down incorrectly? Should I double check? I also feel like I don't think I would miss that. I I'm going to double check. It's not worth doing all of this work and then missing one ingredient. First of all, this is what they're supposed to come out looking like. Okay. And second of all, I love that she put the measurements in the description. Thank Thank you. And I left her a comment to boost the algorithm. No baking powder, no baking soda. Just a wonderful, luxurious lift from the eggs. I suppose a spatula would be better.

[00:45:47]This is looking great. I'm going to take a little taste test. Salmonella, I dare you. Absolutely packed full of flavor. Now I'm going to throw in the chocolate. Fold all of that in.

[00:46:01]>> Oh, you like it?

[00:46:03]>> I do. Oo, it's my favorite. Actually really surprised that I found an 8 by8 dish. I'm just going to dump it all in here. Cook it at 350 for like 50 minutes and then I'll need to be running out the door. So, we got Elanor when I ran to the store. This is one of those things that was on my list of things to do.

[00:46:24]It's KT tape. So, she asked for wrist tape, but I didn't get I guess I got this, which is I mean could work. So, we just looked up, well, she looked up a YouTube tutorial on how to use it and we've used it a few times and it is helpful. She just has, you know, I feel like it's just overuse. It's the end of the season. She's been doing a lot of stuff and I think that's the real issue.

[00:46:49]Um, but anyway, it's working and we enjoy the brownie batter as usual.

[00:47:20]I hope you enjoyed that. That was the musical stylings of Eleanor Wadsworth and I'm Casey Kasem. Haven't done that in a long time cuz I don't play music anymore. It's so delightful. I love listening to my kids practice piano when they're upstairs. So glad I caught that little moment. She h had a recital. I think the next day or the day after. I don't know. One of these days they're all jumbling together. My kids literally have had something every single day and next week is no different. I think it's the last full week of school for us. Oh my word. Somebody get me to summer. I love all of these little things, but at the same time I'm like, "Oh, every single day. Awesome. Awesome. Love it.

[00:47:58]Great. Wonderful. Okay, moving on. I seasoned up some steak. I had some marinated chicken. It's grilling season and I love anything on the grill. Doing some dishes while I literally set a timer for 5 minutes while I put the chicken on and stuff. And then I did some dishes, went out there, flipped them, came back inside, and then we hung outside for a little bit. Alex finished up the chicken. I took the brownies out of the oven. They were very good. I love the texture. I love the so much about them, but I will say the flavor, it was too dark for me, too rich, too elevated for my palette. Right. So, next time, I mean, Ghirardelli is hard to beat. Next time, I'll just do all milk chocolate and see if that makes a difference. But in terms of the thickness of the brownies, oh my gosh, they were absolutely supreme.

[00:48:54]But my kids didn't enjoy them. So, there's that. Maybe I'll leave the coffee out. I think that I also don't think it's that important to like measure everything the way I did. I'm getting dressed to go to the recital. I thought I'd show you my OOTD.

[00:49:08]Does this thing have pockets? Oh my gosh. Send me over the edge. Why don't you remember when I almost got rid of this? Cuz I was like, "Oh, I never wear it." Listen, the amount of stuff that I regret getting rid of and donating, it's not worth it. Keep it all. Okay, that's my advice to you. Donate nothing. Keep it all because really, one day you might want it. But in all seriousness, I love this dress. I think it's beautiful and I finally have a reason to wear it. And aren't these shoes cute? I recently got them from the thrift store. just ran randomly with Eleanor one day and we got like this and oh, you know what else? We got an altered state dress that she's going to wear to a dance banquet and the theme is well, okay, a lot to say about this. The theme is midnight, a starry night or something like that. So, the dress is midnight blue, which is like goes perfectly with the theme. And she just had a middle school dance and we actually bought her a dress from Altered State. So if you know Altered State is like a more expensive brand and her dress was like $90 plus dollars but I was like it's a dance like you know so I let her do it. It's hard to find dresses in her size. We had the same issue with Aalina. We typically go to Windsor and Dillards, J Penney, well even J C Penney, Macy's, like those kinds of places. It's but it's hard to find especially in stock. So we ended up going to Alder State. Got her one there.

[00:50:40]It was incredible. It's beautiful. We were just going through the thrift store really quickly and I said, "Oh my gosh, this dress is so cute." Looked at the tag just to check the size. I was like, "Oh my gosh, it's altered state." It was $7. $7.50. And I was like, "This is great." And Meritt and Eleanor said, "Oh, so and so just wore this to the dance." Like she had just bought the same dress. And I was like, "This is incredible." Okay, it's time to go.

[00:51:08]Um, I was going to show you their recital, but what how did 51 minutes pass in this video? What what did we even get done? I don't know. Just life, I guess. But that is it. Those are the brownies. And that was my day. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for hanging out with me. And if you want to subscribe, put a little happy in your day. I'll see you next time. Back.