Convenience that makes you smile…
Okay…so if you haven’t figured it out, I LOVE being at home and cooking with my love. However, there come days in every life when cooking is just not going to happen. At least not before 8:00PM, and I don’t know about you guys, but eating dinner at 9:00PM is not on the agenda around here. Now in Spain? Rome?……. that’s a different story. But here? 9:00PM means getting some school work done or taking an hour to decompress my brain with a book or an intriguing show.
Lately (read: during the last week of our life), our lives have been a bit off as we’ve been scrambling to convert an office in to a much needed baby’s room (wahoo!) and to figure out where in Snoopy’s name we are going to put all that CRAP we stored in the office. In addition to kick starting the serious “Spring” cleaning (or nesting, as I’m beginning to think about it), we just finished the MONSTROUS packet of paperwork for the USCIS (U. S. Citizen and Immigrant Services, formerly known as INS).
Those flipping papers were tedious, to say the least. We spent a week (a ton of time in baby-wait time which is similar to dog’s years, I think) waiting for corrections to be made from the adoption agency (apparently our little baldie-baby girl was cute enough to be considered a boy too as all of her paperwork was marked “Male”… umm… that’s was a problem…. LOL). The last three nights I have been spending organizing and collecting all of the data and records necessary. Really, it wasn’t a mess to find anything – that was the easy part. The hard part was in interpreting the stinkin’ paperwork. And tonight? We *FINALLY* finished the paperwork and mailed off a 3 inch stack of pages, photos, records, etc to our agency for them to file.
The fun part was actually being able to tuck a couple little things into the package for our baby girl too. Our agency will arrange to have the items (a little cuddle blankie and a soft bunny) sent to our little one in South Korea. It’s funny as we dropped the box into the post office drop box, my love is worrying about the paperwork arriving but me? No. I was worrying about the bunny being crushed by the massive paperwork and being rendered to ridiculous and useless before our baby gets a chance to snuggle with it.
Oh boy. I’m getting sentimental about her toys already and she really doesn’t have any! (Time to get another “office” that we can stuff with more crap, I think…. LOL)
On our way home from the Post Office, I was thankful for our last Costco find. You see, last night we had to run to Costco to pick up pictures for our adoption paperwork too. (For you adoption people, we needed to send 12 photos total of: inside/outside of our house, the baby’s room/bed, us as a couple, individuals, etc).
We took a quick spin to the freakin’ FREEZIN’ “cooler” to pick up some romaine lettuce and fruit. As I walked to the back, I passed by the aisles of coolers filled with items I cannot eat. Normally, it doesn’t even faze me. Actually, most days it rather elates me. Saves me MONEY to NOT “need” to buy the items in those cases! LOL But last night we went at 7:40 PM…. after work, after working out, after paperwork, but NOT after eating anything!
Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a bag of chicken meatballs. Oh, how I loved my mom’s meatballs that she would make for quick appetizers for parties. She would simply dump the prepared meatballs in to a crock pot with her BBQ sauce (or a bottle of BBQ sauce if she was prepping other things). It was the perfect toothpick-pricked appetizer/snack.
I picked up the package out of curiosity to see what seasonings they had used when LO and BEHOLD the words “GLUTEN FREE” grabbed my eyes and my mind started spinning!
“WHAT? Prepared meatballs that are GLUTEN FREE? Oh, baby! I gotta get some of these!”, I thought.
And oh, how glad I am that I did that! They are delicious! We ate them tonight (8:30 PM dinner this time) with some salad and fruit for dinner. And there are more in the fridge for my lunch tomorrow…. and the next day? Oh, I sense a little meatball sandwich. And after that? Well, then, just then, I might get around to dumping some in a pan with a little BBQ sauce just because I can.
Ah. It’s good to find convenience in the midst of a hectic week.
If you find these meatballs, you should check them out too. I have absolutely NO connection with this company, but am delighted with the product. They are made by COLEMAN NATURAL FOODS and are the Italian Parmesan Chicken Meatballs. (Although allow me to say, I don’t think there’s much Italian or parmesan here… but they sure are good with a little Thai sweet chili sauce (my choice) and my Love votes for these dipped in ketchup. LOL)
Check out their website – you can even search their products by selecting “GLUTEN FREE” or “DAIRY FREE” or “SOY FREE”. Come on! You gotta love that!
I’ll be back this weekend with a recipe.
Do you have any requests? I’m itching to try something new!
Happy Gluten Free Days All!
-Kate