Getting Organized - A Lovely Day Off

Today I was lucky enough to have the day off and get myself organized.
I was relaxing and enjoying the quiet morning when I realized I had not prepared anything for dinner - or had anything planned.
Quickly I strode to the freezer and glanced at the clock. Only noon - Good I have lots of time. Hubs wasn't expected home until 5:30 - so most of the afternoon was free for me to make a scrumptious dinner - If I had the ingredients.
My face fell when I saw the two pounds of hamburger meat chilling. I had just made meatloaf a few days ago, and didn't feel like making another loaf.
I thought and thought, before finally remembering I had a honest-to-goodness live recipe book with all the answers just a phone call away!

"Mom?. . . I have two pounds of ground beef. What should I make?"

"Well you just did Shepherds pie right?" Darn! I did too! "What about meatloaf?"

"I made that just a few days ago!" I said dismayed.

From the background noise I heard my sister yell: "Meatballs!"

I thought for a moment and realized I had pasta and sauce, I supposed I could throw in a few meatballs to spice it up.

"What about Sweet and Sour Meatballs on rice?"

"Perfect! But how do I make it?"

We figured it all out, and apparently I had the recipe in my Company's Coming Crock-Pot Recipe book.
Bizarrely I even had the cranberry sauce in the cupboard - a left over from Thanksgiving it seemed.
Everything went smoothly until it told me to broil the meatballs before placing them in the sauce in the crock-pot.
I called up mom again.

"Jen - there's three ways to make meatballs: Broil them, Bake them or Boil them. Boiling being the quickest."

Since it was now 2:00 and the crock pot recipe called for 4 -6 hours of cooking time, quick sounded pretty good.
I carefully placed my meatballs in the boiling water, my expectant face furrowing when I saw all the floating bits of onion and meat.

AHHH! They're falling apart!! It was a big deal! I was on a time limit here! I didn't have time for crumbly meatballs!

Well, they didn't crumble completely, but they sure seemed a lot smaller out of the pot than when they went in.
Sadly I dumped them into the crock-pot and gingerly tried to coat them in the sauce. The delicate meatballs however burst apart at the softest touch from my wooden spoon.
Completely upset now I called mom.

"Jen it's okay! It'll all taste fine - don't worry!"

Well, it sure didn't look like the picture in the recipe book, but it did taste pretty good.

"Jen, just call it sweet and sour beef on rice" Nessa suggested.

I had to laugh - okay, I guess I could do that. Jeremie loved it regardless, just like I knew he would, and now we have very nice lunches for tomorrow.

My other accomplishment today was organizing Ugly Room. We had moved into that room a week ago, but due to work and general busy-ness, it never got done.
Well I had finally had, had enough of tripping over baskets of laundry, and my little woven baskets of knick-knacks.

Here is the end result:

I even hung a little picture - It's amazing what a little colour in a white room can do!

The end of our bed, and dresser that fits quite nicely between the two closets.

A lovely rug I bought at Safeway for an awesome $39.00

So all in all it's been a very good, organized day!

- Jenny