Insanity and Ty Food

This past Wednesday I spend at least 7 hours doing nothing but cleaning.  I scrubbed floors, organized, vacuumed, dusted, disinfected, and made 90% of my apartment spotless. 

By Thursday night, it looked like I had a circus in here.  There was popcorn everywhere, random toddler underwear strewn about, toys every 6 inches, and just general disarray. If you had walked into this household last night, you would have believed I hadn't cleaned since we moved in. 

So, why do I do the ridiculous repetitive chores?  I mean, I had to vacuum, tidy, and do a lot of that work again today and it will probably have to be done again tomorrow afternoon.  Ty doesn't really care unless it gets in the way of him doing stuff, and Whimzy loves having toys everywhere. 

It is for a few reasons:

A) It makes me feel better when the place is clean, even if I get frustrated, angry, and a bit psycho feeling after it gets trashed in less than 24 hours.

B) I remember how bad it can get from my less than perfect younger days.

C) Paranoia.  What would happen if a social service worker stopped by to ask for directions and my place didn't look fit for a healthy toddler?  I could lose Whimzy!! 

Granted, my place is nowhere near perfect 90% of the time, and my bedroom is only clean about 10% of the time, but keeping up on it is easier when I do a bit each day.  And that 10% of the time when Whimzy is in bed and Ty is at work and I can just sit and enjoy the clean almost makes the crazy worth it. 

 

So, this diet has me eating a very strict amount and type of food.  And since I measure part of my self-worth by the food that I have cooked, it was really bugging me.  My passion from life was missing.  So, I sat Ty down yesterday and had him pick out some recipes from my Pinterest board for snacks and meals that he would like me to make.  This would serve 2 purposes.  Hopefully, having homemade snacks and convenience food available at home would stop him from spending money at Kwik Trip and would be healthier.  It would also satisfy my need to cook and take care of him.  I am super excited about this week because I am stepping outside of my comfort zone and cooking things I wouldn't normally really consider.  I will even be making my own pretzels!  How exciting is that? 

 

Tonight was the first recipe.  Buffalo-Ranch Chicken.  Super easy, and something that Ty would absolutely love. 

 He loved it!  I got the recipe from Pinterest, who led me to this link:
 

http://reallyfrompinterest.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-02-03T11:52:00-08:00&max-results=1&start=11&by-date=false

The 3 lbs. will last Ty 2-3 meals and can be used after the initial meal as shredded chicken for sandwiches, diced chicken for salads, or just plain.  The sauce left over in the slow-cooker can be used for a bunch of different stuff including dips for those sandwiches, sauce for chips and pretzels, and toppings for anything else he wants to put it on. 
Side note: The 3 lbs. will last most people at least 4 meals, but Ty is a monster and eats 3 breasts at a time.  For 3 breasts, it came out to about 600 calories (which would be reduced with less chicken, obviously) and ended up with a B- on my nutrient tracker/calorie counter website.  I paired it with some chicken broccoli rice and salad. 

I will try to keep up on all of the new recipes that I am trying and post them on here :)

Ugh, and I am about to throw a fit because the picture uploader is not working!
Here is the link to my Facebook picture of the chicken:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152426626170366&set=a.10150808771980366.735638.786490365&type=3&theater