RECIPE: Baked Rotini

I was shocked when I didn't see this recipe on my blog. I came up with it several years ago and have made it several times since then. Aubry called and was not happy that I made it without telling her so she could come over and get some. ;) She likes all of the pasta dishes I make. I used to make this with Prego Leafy Greens, but that doesn't seem to be available in stores anymore. I hate when that happens! But it still tastes pretty good. :) And really, you could use whatever kind of spaghetti sauce you want...it doesn't have to be Prego. That's just the only spaghetti sauce that I personally like. ;)

Baked Rotini 

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef
16 oz sour cream
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1 cup grated parmesan
12oz rotini Pasta
1 jar Prego Roasted Garlic & Herb
1 jar Prego Fresh Musroom
2 cups shredded Italian blend cheese 

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
2. Prepare pasta according to package.
3. Brown hamburger and drain. Return to pan and mix with both jars of spaghetti sauce.
4. In a mixing bowl combine sour cream, mozzarella, and parmesan.
5. In a 9x13 baking dish, layer half of the meat sauce, half of the pasta, all of the sour cream mixture, the rest of the pasta, and then the rest of the meat sauce.
6. Spread a layer of the Italian blend cheese on top.
7. Bake for 30 minutes until cheese is melted.

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Start of a New School Year!

It's hard to believe that "summer" has ended and Ashlyn is already back at school. She had a good first day and likes several of her classes. I think she is most excited for her photography classes. She's also in drama club again this year and may possibly be assistant/stage manager...just as her sister was. I think it's really awesome that they were able to have that one year in high school together (when Aubry was a senior and Ashlyn was a Freshman) to introduce Ashlyn to some things that she might not have otherwise tried. It's hard to believe she has just two years left! 

Ashlyn reluctantly let me take her picture the morning before her first day of her junior year. She's wearing her new shoes and jeans...but she didn't wear any of her new shirts that Johnny had gotten her because they're all long-sleeve shirts and hoodies...and it was pretty hot that day. But...she's been wearing hoodies since then so maybe the air conditioner is working really well at the school. :P 

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Aubry had her first emergency room visit and overnight hospital stay this past week. She was actually in the ER overnight waiting for a bed to open up and then spent one more night after that. She is fine now...it was more just a precautionary measure. 

Johnny and I also celebrated our 9th year together and 4th year of marriage! It's both hard to believe that it's been that long and also seems that it's been even longer. I can't imagine my life without Johnny...and it's getting harder to even remember what life was like before we got back together in 2012. We've been through so much over the last nine years (and even before when we met in 2005) but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I actually found Johnny's anniversary present this year through an ad that was on Facebook. I ordered it at the beginning of April because I didn't quite trust that it would get here in a timely manner (it did arrive later than scheduled and I had to contact them multiple times, but it did end up getting here a little less than a month after I ordered it). It's a canvas with a print that looks like a cassette tape with the lyrics to 'our song' printed on the ribbon and then a couple pictures of us. I really like how it turned out. :) 

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In other news...FedEx lost Johnny's birthday present. UGH. And of course, Lowes won't have the refund processed until after, like, an entire month. It's a new tool set in a hard case where everything has a designated spot so it's easy to keep organized and to know if something is missing. This way I can get the hodge-podge of tools out of the armoire in the office. I'm going to be cleaning it out to keep my printer and supplies in there...that way I can try to reduce the amount of dust that gets to the printer. I had a really hard time finding my printer, but it was FINALLY delivered this week. Large format printers are nearly impossible to find in stock right now. I ended up having to get a more expensive model than I was planning to because the only printers of the previous model I could find on places like Amazon and Walmart Marketplace were marked almost $400 more than list price because they're so hard to find. So at that point it made more sense to just get the newer one for about the same price. With the supply chain issues, it's also difficult to find some substrates in stock as well. But I've been keeping myself busy with trying to get the office cleaned up and organized so I can get everything set up for my new adventure. I've also been trying to get all my digital design elements organized, creating designs, researching, etc. I can't wait to see everything really start coming together. 

The dogs are still doing great! It's so much fun watching Bozley and NovaLee play together. They always keep us laughing, that's for sure! :) I was finally able to schedule their appointment with the groomer. I'm so glad she was able to get both dogs in...I think they'll do a lot better if they're both there together considering how antsy they seem to get when the other isn't around. And I don't think Nova has ever been to the groomer before, so I'm hoping she'll do well. And then we also have her appointment scheduled to be spayed after that. It'll be weird not having her taking up all the room in the bed that night. :P  

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Busy, Busy, Busy!

Things have seemed pretty busy lately. 

I've been working on getting my Etsy shop up and running. First I had to finish putting together my logo and cover banner. I will only be using Etsy to sell digital designs and utilizing Facebook when I'm ready to sell physical end-products. I had to return my original printer and the replacement is out of stock...so I'll have to wait a little while to start creating products. There are so many supply chain issues right now with both printers as well as sublimation blanks. But while I'm waiting on that, I'm having a lot of fun creating digital products. I'm also trying to reorganize all my digital elements so that I can find everything easier and make the process go a bit more smoothly. It's time consuming, but I really enjoy it. :) I only have two designs finished and uploaded in my shop...but I hope to have a LOT more soon! 

I had take Bosley to the vet again last week. We noticed that Nova had some discharge from her eye after we brought her home. We found a small blade of grass in her eye that we removed so we assumed that was the cause of the discharge. We were keeping it clean and watching it but then when Bozley also started having some discharge, I took him to the vet for some antibiotic/steroid eye drops which has cleared up the redness and discharge completely for both of them. :) And Nova's spots/scabs from her allergies seem to be doing better as well. I think the new food has helped a lot. And it's been over a week and Bozley is still eating all of his lunch and dinner with the new dehydrated food! I'm SO glad that we've found something that he likes. :) We are still so happy with our decision to bring Nova home for Bozley. We've noticed such a positive change in Bozley's anxiety. They've definitely bonded with each other and it's so fun watching them play together. I need to get them both into the groomer soon and we still need to get Nova spayed, too. 

I also had to take Ashlyn to get her meningococcal vaccine before school starts next week. It's hard to believe summer is almost over already! This will be Ashlyn's first time back in the classroom since March 2020. She was remote learning during all of her Sophomore year. There were several positive cases during last school year so I just felt it would be better to have her continue remote learning. She did really well the first semester, but she started slacking quite a bit second semester...which seems to be pretty typical of Ashlyn. She focuses more on her social life than her GPA. :P But I think Ashlyn is excited for her electives...since she was so limited on what electives she could take with remote learning. This year she's taking photography, journalism, theater tech, and clay fundamentals. I took a pottery class when I was in college and took the girls up to the campus with me to get some of my projects done and they really enjoyed it. Aubry took these same classes when she was in high school too (except Journalism). Like me, they've always loved arts and crafts. :) Aubry was really involved in Thespians and during her senior year she talked her sister into becoming a theater techie as a freshman...so Ashlyn is excited to get back to that this year. :) 

We had dinner tonight at Olive Garden tonight for Johnny's birthday. My grandparents' like to take everyone out to dinner for birthdays. So we met them and my mom at the restaurant...and it's the first time we've actually eaten IN a restaurant in awhile! It was yummy, as always. I'm bummed they still don't have my smoked mozzarella chicken though. :( But it was an enjoyable evening with family. My grandparents' always get Johnny some Jelly Belly jellybeans and cashews from the Nifty Nuthouse. He looks forward to it every year! They also had a really neat puzzle game that my cousin's husband made with his 3-D printer...so that was fun! And tonight was the first time we left Bozley and Nova home alone...and everything seemed to be fine! We didn't come home to find anything destroyed...so that's good! lol. 

Tonight after dinner, Johnny took Ashlyn shopping for some school clothes. The kids think it's a lot more fun to shop with Johnny. ;) He likes to browse and be silly...and I'm more of a let's get in and get this done and get out sort of person. Plus he has a bad habit of spoiling the kids so of course they like that too. :P Johnny and Ashlyn decided to hit up the clearance rack at Kohls first and she found quite a lot there plus a couple more things that were on sale. She ended up getting two pairs of jeans, a jean skirt, bralette, two cardigans, two soft sweatshirts, and then a cute lightweight hoodie in three different colors. Plus now we have some Kohls cash to use starting the 16th. :) 

Ashlyn wanted a new backpack this year, too. She said she wants a backpack that "doesn't have as many pockets." Seriously?! How can a child of mine not want ALL the pockets?! The more pockets the better, I say! They didn't see any backpacks she liked while they were out, so she came home and looked on Amazon and we found one with free Prime 2-day shipping. It had more pockets than she wanted but it was big enough to hold everything she needed and she liked how it looked. And it was under $20 too! Then tomorrow I have a Walmart grocery order being delivered that will have her notebook paper and new binder. The binder I found has lots of pockets too! ;) 

I still can't believe my youngest child will be a junior in high school this year. They grow up so fast! 

Success!

I'm SO excited! We have FINALLY found a food that Bozley likes! He's eaten ALL his food at EVERY meal since Tuesday night which hasn't happened in, like, forever. 

Despite trying probably a dozen different dry dog foods...Boz wouldn't eat it. Most of them he wouldn't even take a single bite of it. So much of the advice said to leave the food out and eventually the dog would eat it...but he wouldn't. He didn't eat for two days before I finally caved and mixed it with some wet food. Even then...he still wouldn't eat most of it. I've thrown away so much food that I'd mixed for him...since it ends up as a mushy mess if you try to save it in the fridge after mixing the dry kibble with wet food (though I tried and he still wouldn't eat it). Even just the wet food by itself...he still wouldn't eat all of it. And for him to get all the nutrients for his size, he would need 6-7 cans a day which also gets expensive. 

There are only so many foods out there that don't have any chicken in them and aren't grain-free...and I'm pretty sure we've tried every single one of them. We even tried some that were grain-free just to see if we could find one he would eat. But...nope. We found a couple wet foods that he would eat sometimes (meaning he'd eat it one day but then just pick at it the next day)...which were Pure Balance Turkey and the Canidae Duck and Turkey. We'd tried the lamb options in both brands as well but he ate even less of those. And all of those are grain-free formulas. 

So I started looking at other options...and it looks like we've found one! The Honest Kitchen has a dehydrated dog food that comes as a dry, kinda chunky powder that you mix with water before serving. So...basically it's like buying dry kibble that you make into wet food. They have a whole grain turkey recipe that I thought we'd try since Bozley really seems to like Turkey. It arrived on Tuesday and we gave it to him for dinner starting that night. We mixed it with the dry kibble (which he hadn't actually been eating much of)...he ate ALL of it! And he's eaten his whole bowl of food for every lunch and dinner since then! 

It's SUCH a relief to have finally found something that Bozley actually likes. :) 

Two Happy & Healthy Pups!

Tuesday afternoon I took both Bozley and Nova to the vet...at the same time all by myself. They did SO good. :) Bozley used to hate riding in the car. He always wanted to be sitting right in my lap, refused to ride in the back seat, and would jump in my lap from the passenger seat as soon as I'd put the car in park. But now that Nova is with him? He rides in the back seat and enjoys poking his head out the window to look around. :) He just seems to have so much more confidence and is a lot more relaxed now that he has a friend. It's been such an awesome difference. 

Our vet's office has never done appointments (except for surgeries). But ever since the Covid shutdown last year, they've implemented a check-in process where we can check-in using the app and then wait until we're closer in line to actually drive over there. The lobby was still closed until a month or two ago...so we'd wait in our cars and then do curbside drop-off and pick-up. Now that the lobby is open, we're able to check-in on the app and then wait in the lobby until the vet is ready. We waited in the lobby for quite awhile but Bozley and Nova were very well-behaved. I had a hold of their leashes so they never got more than a couple feet from me, but neither of them acted anxious at all. They were more curious about the other dogs than anything else. They got a lot of compliments about how sweet and beautiful they are. :) 

Nova Lee weighed 58.5 pounds at almost 7 months old. We got her rabies shot and I also got her microchipped while we were there. Aside from that, we wanted to have the vet check out her skin to make sure she doesn't have an infection or anything. She is still scratching quite a bit, but the vet just recommended continuing the Benadryl for now to help the itching...rather than giving her an allergy shot (Cytopoint). Some of the spots where she's had scabs seem to be clearing up and we haven't noticed any new spots in the last couple days...so that's good! But other than that, Nova is doing great! 

Bozley really just needed his annual heartworm test so we got that out of the way. :) He weighs only 56 pounds...which isn't that surprising considering he's such a picky eater! He doesn't look sickly...he just has a more "lean" build. He's always been smaller than the average golden size though (he weighed just 5 lbs at 8 weeks) so it's not too out of the ordinary for him anyway. But we are still working on finding the best diet for him. The vet talked about some prescription diet options that are good for allergies, but his food allergy isn't really the problem...it's the fact that he just doesn't want to eat the kibble that we've tried. He prefers wet food...but that gets pretty expensive when it's like 6-7 cans a day for a dog his size. We've been adding a can of wet food as a topper, but he still leaves most of his kibble uneaten. We just got some dehydrated food for him to try...sort of an in-between of dry food and wet food. He would get 2-4 cups a day of the dehydrated food mixed with 3-6 cups of water...making it more of a wet food. So hopefully he'll like it! *fingers crossed* I have never known a dog who is SO picky! 

I just can't get over how well Nova Lee has merged with our family. She and Bozley bonded pretty much immediately. Where one is, the other is always close by. Shortly after we got into the exam room at the vet, the nurse took Bozley into the back to do his heartworm test. Nova immediately started whining and pacing between me and the door until he came back. 

Next up is getting Nova spayed. Even though we've considered breeding Bozley, Nova isn't AKC registered so I don't want to breed her. Even IF we decide to breed Bozley in the future (Johnny wants to), I would rather offer him as a stud and be able to keep one of his puppies. But...that won't be for another couple years at least (after Ashlyn and her dog move out). I'm hoping to get Nova fixed before her first heat...so we'll have to do that soon.