Friday Fist Bump

Last month, I had to reorganize my work life.  I pushed furniture around and brought in a large file cabinet and rearranged piles of paper into folders, notebooks and recycling bins.  The inspiration for this was recent layoffs and taking on some new duties that were the final straw that broke my somewhat haphazard organizational back in my office.

After all the sorting and pushing around and punching of holes, I finally have an office that actually works for me.

The proof was this week when I had to do the 4-times-a-year migraine-inducing headache report on our programming topics.  It's usually a few days of squinting at impossibly tiny print and chasing people in three different locations begging for information on their programs that has to be included in my report. 

This time, I had all my information right there at my fingertips, organized in an easily accessible notebook - information both printed out and saved in the computer (losing information in the computer has been a recurring problem) and my report took a total of 2 hours to complete.  TWO HOURS.  Down from a few days. 

Never underestimate the power of organization.

If you'd like to read more happy endings, go visit Jill at Life Is Not Bubble-wrapped!

First Monday Cravings

No one volunteered to host the First Monday of October, so I guess I'll do it again. 

This weekend's cooler weather put me in a Fall state-of-mind and for the first time since last March, I wanted soup for dinner.  I heated up some chicken noodle soup which the Boy and I shared for dinner.  The Man had leftover pizza.  That craving got me to thinking - what do people crave when the weather gets cooler?  Sign up in comments, and I'll add your link to this post.

For me, soup is number one.  It's just too hot in the summer to eat it.  It's also time for mashed potatoes instead of rice, chili with cheese sprinkled on top, pot roasts, pork loins (the way my MIL makes it with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes) and pumpkin pie.  I normally drink hot tea when I want something hot, but colder weather warrants something a bit thicker - coffee with cream or cocoa with marshmallows.  Iced tea pretty much goes away until it's warm again, but I still drink the hot tea in the mornings when I get up.  Green beans instead of peas.  Soup instead of salad.  Gravy instead of a pat of butter. 

I'm guessing that the heavier food is genetically designed to put the fat on so that we can survive these harsh Florida winters *wink* but I also find I'm much more interested in exercise and getting out and doing things when it's cooler, so I've managed to pretty much stay the same weight at the end of winter as going in.  This year I'm hoping to be much lighter coming out!

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What's Cookin'?

I've never been a particularly good cook.  I love food though and have made many, many attempts to be good at making it.  When I was young, I failed miserably, but my family would always valiantly eat whatever I presented to them.  Flat biscuits.  Hockey puck pork chops (still one of my specialities).  Various cakes that for one reason or another didn't work.

Over the years, I've gotten better but I still don't consider myself a good cook.  Once upon a time, I made terrific meatloaf.  I got the recipe off the Quaker Oats box and it was awesome!  But something happened.  After a long time of not making meatloaf, I decided to make it again - and it didn't work.  I'm not sure what happened, but it just never came out the same as it used to... and I followed the directions perfectly (always a challenge for me).

I happen to love meatloaf.  For a while, I resorted to the Stouffer's or Publix frozen meatloafs, but they had too much salt and too much fat and I always wound up feeling slightly ill after eating them (though they were delicious).  One day, I moaned on FaceBook about how I made such awful meatloaf and really wanted to make good meatloaf and my friend Alison posted a very simple recipe.  I tried it and it was WONDERFUL!  And so simple.  I've made it many times since and raved about it to some co-workers.  The manager of the radio side of work came down to my office, having heard of this wonderful meatloat - she'd never even made meatloaf before.  She made it and her husband and son ate the whole thing.  This recipe has been passed around and around in my circles now and loved by everyone who's eaten it.

One evening, Alison and I went out to dinner and she laughed about the popular "Alison's Meatloaf"...  She said she got it off a box of soup mix!  We went on to talk about other things, but that stuck in my head.  The next time I bought onion soup mix, I looked at the box.  The recipe on there didn't even resemble the one Alison gave me.

I pondered this.  Perhaps they changed the recipe since Alison wrote it down.  Which made me wonder - is that what happened to MY meatloaf recipe?  Did Quaker change their recipe on the box and it really WASN'T the same???  Of course after all these years, it would be impossible to check and see but I suspect this might be the reason my last oatmal meatloaf was so bad that no one would eat it.

Thanks to Alison, though... I have this:

ALISON'S MEATLOAF

1 Lb. Ground Beef (lean) - I cheat here and use meatloaf mix.. you know.. the kind with pork too?
1 package dry onion soup mix
1/4 c. catsup
1 egg
1 piece of bread torn into tiny pieces
3 Tablespoons of water

 

Mix it all up and bake in 375 oven for 30 minutes. Yummy.