Tackle it Tuesday

I missed last week's tackle post. I planned to do it, had pictures ready and everything. But I was so tired at the end of the day, I just never got it up.
So...the refrigerator part of this post is what WOULD have been posted last week.

My refrigerator was pretty bad - it had gotten so stuffed full that I was afraid stuff was going to fall out when I opened the door. Actually, I think stuff did fall out a time or two.

And the outside was a pretty big mess as well. My daughter is constantly coloring something new and sticking it on there. Plus, since we homeschool, the side of the fridge is used as a place to showcase her latest creations.

But it was time to clean it up - inside and out.

Here are some before pictures:








And after:

(Please ignore all the wires - they are annoying but thankfully only temporary!)





As a bonus - I even cleaned under it! I didn't really plan to, but I had to move it to unplug the phone that was plugged up back there. The phone was old and needed to be tossed, and I had to get it unplugged. What amazed me was how dirty it was under there. We had new floors put in the end of November, so it was clean then. And it was filthy under there! So, I'm glad that phone needed to be unplugged!

Ok, what else did I tackle? Not as much as I had hoped to get done. But I DID clean my living room from top to bottom and corner to corner. I moved the furniture and vaccuumed under it and removed all the couch/chair cushions and vaccuumed them out. I didn't take any pictures though, because since most of it wasn't surface stuff, there wouldn't be an obvious difference.

Next, I tackled some food. No - I didn't EAT it! (Well, not all of it anyway!) I'm trying to stock my freezer with quick and easy breakfasts and lunches. I didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted to, I have a long list still, but here's what I did manage to get done.

24 bagel pizzas made and packaged for the freezer. I had done some of these before and learned a little something. Before I prepared them like I prepare any pizza I'm about to bake. Sauce, cheese, then pepperoni. I put them in the freezer to flash freeze then bagged them up. What I found was that the cheese and pepperoni would fall off the bagel.

So this time I added the sauce, then the pepperoni and the cheese on top of that. Then I popped them in the oven for about 5 minutes - just long enough to melt the cheese so it would act like "glue" to hold it all together. This worked MUCH better! 10 minutes or so in the toaster oven and we have lunch!

Here's one pan, cooling from the oven.


And all bagged up!


I made a batch of banana-chocolate-chip muffins.


And I made oatmeal cream pies! YUM!


Then I made some refried beans. I soaked my pintos in my crockpot overnight. Then I drained them the next day and cooked them most of the day. When they were ready, I put them in a pan, mashed them up, added some sautéed onion, some red sauce and some cheese.


Then I made flour tortillas. These are good, but they are really difficult to get thin enough. I did these because I was out of store bought ones. I don’t know how often I’ll make them myself, because I also found them harder to work with, but they work fine if I’m out of the others!


And with that, I made bean burritos for the freezer.


And I made a batch of granola. This is one of CJ's favorite things, and he's been asking me to make it for a while. So I finally got some made!


And I think that pretty much covers it for this week. I’m a bit disappointed in myself because I lost my momentum and didn’t get half the stuff completed that I wanted to! Oh well…I’ll keep trying to get those things done!

To see what everyone else is tackling this week, be sure to visit 5 Minutes for Mom!