Southern Stew {Recipe}

Here’s a great recipe to make on New Year’s day! A common good luck food in the southern United States are the black eyed peas. Black-eyed peas are thought to bring prosperity, so Allens Vegetables wanted to share this great recipe, wishing you only the best of the good luck that is yet to come!


Ingredients


1 Rotisserie chicken, fully cooked
1 Tbsp. Olive oil
1/2 cup Green peppers, chopped
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1/2 cup Onions, chopped
8 oz. Smoked sausage, cooked and diced
1 can Allens Cut Okra, Tomatoes and Corn
2 cans Allens Blackeyed Peas, drained and rinsed
1 32 oz. carton Low sodium chicken broth
2 cups Water
1 tsp. Cumin
1 pound medium Shrimp, peeled and deveined

Directions


Remove meat from chicken, discarding skin and bones from chicken. Chop into bite size pieces. Set aside until needed. Heat oil in large saucepan or Dutch oven. Add peppers, garlic and onions. Saute 5 minutes until peppers and onions are tender. Add sausage and continue cooking until sausage is browned. Add okra, tomatoes and corn, peas, chicken broth and water. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. Add reserved chicken and cumin. Stir to combine. Simmer, covered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add shrimp. Continue cooking, stirring frequently, until shrimp are pink and opaque, about 8 minutes. Ladle into 6 shallow soup bowls. Serve hot.

(Disclosure: Recipe and image courtesy of Allens Vegetables. This is not a compensated post.)

{Bloggers} Sign Up For The Toast To 2012 Giveaway Hop

I’m having so much fun with these Christmas Giveaway Hops that I signed up to participate in another New Year’s one! The “Toast To 2012” Giveaway Hop will take place from January 10th to 17th and is hosted by Just Married with Coupons & Sweep Tight.

If you are a blogger who wants to sign up you can get more information here.
***

(Disclosure: I’m participating in the hop and my entrance fee is being waved since I’m sharing about the hop on my blog.)

2011 Goals

I am excited about 2011 and everything that the new year will bring. I have made goals for myself and decided to focus on 3 goals in each area of my life. I am sharing them with you all in hopes that you will keep me accountable because I will updating my progress through the year :)

PERSONAL GOALS- Focus on the positive, spend 30 minutes a day relaxing away from the computer, read one book a month

MOMMY GOALS- Potty train both boys, take more pictures and scrapbook at least four pages a month, write in a memory journal for the boys

RELATIONSHIP GOALS- Date night once a week, do one nice deed for each other daily, more positive comments

SPIRITUAL GOALS- Devotions daily, return to regular Church attendance, read the whole Bible

BLOG GOALS- Include more “life” posts, get better at replying to comments, have two weeks of posts scheduled ahead

WORK GOALS- Full-time position by the end of the year, at least three SM marketing accounts a month, run one blogger review program a month

HEALTH GOALS- Limit pop to one a day, eat healthier, 30 minutes of activity five times a week

HOME GOALS- Keep house “company ready”, finish unpacking and organizing, stick to my cleaning routine

FINANCIAL GOALS- Set up an emergency fund, pay all bills on time, make and follow a budget monthly

HOMESCHOOLING GOALS- Do Tot School four times a week, make a lesson plan weekly and post it, decide between homeschooling Jake or putting him in preschool (or doing a combination of both)

FAMILY GOALS- Spend time with family weekly, call family more often, get to know extended family better

FRIENDSHIP GOALS- Spend time with friends weekly, attend a mom’s night once a month, call or email a friend once a week

GIVING GOALS- Donate/tithe monthly, volunteer four hours a month, do an act of service for a friend or loved one a month

***

Have you written your goals down? I’d love for you to share them in the comments below or if you blog enter you post in the linky below! (To view the linky click on the link below)

 

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Pear Tree Greetings December Giveaway

Holiday cards have been on my mind lately but really it’s time to start thinking about New Years cards.

Pear Tree Greetings offers New Years cards and I love the What’s Your Resolution? ones.

Giveaway:

One reader will win 16 “What’s Your Resolution?” photo cards.

How to enter (leave a comment for each one):

1. Subscribe to Making Time For Mommy

2. Tell me what your favorite card is from their selection.

3. Follow @aliciamarie112 on Twitter

4. Follow @PearTreeGrtngs on Twitter

5. Like Making Time For Mommy on Facebook

6. Like Pear Tree Greetings on Facebook

7. Tweet: “Enter to win a photo cards from @PearTreeGrtngs from @aliciamarie112 at www.makingtimeformommy.com”

Giveaway ends on December 15, 2010 at 11:59pm.

(Disclosure: I was not compensated for this post but as a Pearista do receive free products and discounts from the company.)

My main goals for 2010

I am very excited to start this new year. I’m looking forward to my best year ever! (ok, I keep hearing that from everyone but it’s true!) I’m a very goal-oriented person so I always keep a goal list that I update a few times a year. Kind of like my bucket list , I guess. Since I have hundreds of goals on that list I decided to focus on a select number of them in 2010.

Goal #1- Read the whole Bible in 90 days. To find out more about this program you can go here or here. This challenge is listed first because it starts today. I am very excited to do this but am also nervous because it is a big task. I’ve never read the Bible all the way through, let alone in 90 days. I think it is an achievable goal this year because of two main things: 1) I’m doing it with other moms who will hold me accountable and 2) it’s only about 12 pages a day! Wow. Reading the Bible had always seemed like such a huge task and I would have guessed it would take 30-40 pages a day to read it in just 90 days, but 12? That’s easy. Ok, well maybe not easy, but manageable with two kids and a career. (Update: My sister just read the first day’s reading as I was typing this post and it took her less than 20 minutes…)

Goal #2- Save half of our income. This will probably be the hardest goal that I have set for myself. I have always been a “shopaholic” who can’t resist a good “deal” (check out my dad’s blog post about me) but I have decided that is going to change this year. Part of why we moved in with my dad was to save for a house and in the past six months we have only saved about $500. In my defense we did have to fix our two cars, but in reality we had an extra income these past few months so those repairs should have come from that. I am still working on a budget and hoping there is some spending money but if not I will just have to learn to live with less.

Goal #3- Keep my house “company ready” (though really it needs to get to that point before I can keep it there). It doesn’t have to be spotless but it would be nice to know that if someone happened to stop by my home I wouldn’t be embarrassed to let them in the door. And it would be even better if they could look in my closets, cupboards, etc and they would be organized, too. The first step towards this goal is to finish unpacking from our August move. Our two car garage is so filled with boxes that only one car can barely fit in. Eventually I would like to have a weekly cleaning list, too.

Goal #4- Work on my relationships. With Sinisa I would like to make couple time a priority since it’s rare we are both home without the boys being awake. With my mom I would like to work on communication. With my friends I would like to focus on seeing them once a week whether it’s at playdates or mom’s nights.

Goal #5- Become a “better” blogger. This includes blogging more often than I have in the past (I am aiming for 3-5 times a week), building relationships with other bloggers, reading and commenting on other blogs, and looking into how I can improve the look of my blog.

Goal #6- Do something for myself daily. This “something” could be as little as taking a nice, hot relaxing shower to getting a pedicure to scrapbooking. Just a daily thing to remind myself that I am special :)

What are your goals for 2010?