This is a delicious, low calorie, very low carb and diabetic friendly meal. Even better? It’s absolutely delicious. My 3 year old eats it, and my husband demanded I put it on the menu every payday.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cut chicken into 3 inch pieces and place them in plastic wrap. Using a meat mallet, pound each piece until it’s about a quarter inch thick.

Sprinkle pepper and garlic powder onto both sides of each piece.

In a large pan, heat a tablespoon of oil. Brown chicken for about 2 minutes on each side. While it’s browning, chop your fresh basil.

Place browned chicken onto a large baking dish.

Mix bread crumbs, 1 tbsp basil, paprika and 1 tbsp oil in a small bowl. Place this mixture on the top of each piece of chicken and pat it down. Spray the tops with cooking spray. I forgot to add the basil into the mix this time, so I pressed it on top after I took this picture.

Bake for 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked all the way through.

While that’s cooking, in a small pot, heat 2tbsp oil. Add 4 tbsp flour and cook for 2 minutes. SLOWLY add milk and chicken broth, whisking the whole time. Add fresh basil and simmer until it thickens.

When your chicken’s done, remove it from the oven and put it on your plates.

Top with your basil cream sauce and serve with a side of veggies. One night we did green beans with almond slivers, the next we did spinach.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds chicken breast, boneless and skinless

1/4 teaspoon pepper, black, ground

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/3 cup bread crumbs, Italian herb flavored

4 tablespoon2 olive oil

1 cup milk

1 cup chicken broth, reduced sodium (or vegetable broth, reduced sodium)

2 tablespoons basil, fresh, chopped

1/2 teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoon flour, whole wheat white

cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut chicken breasts into pieces about 3 inch wide. Place chicken between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound to about a quarter inch thickness. Place one tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium to medium high heat. Season chicken with pepper and garlic powder and cook in skillet for 2 minutes per side until lightly browned. Remove chicken from skillet and place in a rectangular baking dish. Mix bread crumbs, half of the basil, one tablespoon olive oil and paprika in a small bowl. Top chicken with the bread crumb mixture, pressing to coat the tops of each piece of chicken. Spray tops with cooking spray. Bake for 15 minutes until chicken is cooked through (170 degrees). Meanwhile, in a small pot add 2tbsp oil. Heat, then add 2tbsp flour. Slowly add milk and broth, stirring to prevent lumps. Cook for about 3 to 4 minutes until sauce thickens. Add basil and stir. Drizzle sauce over chicken and serve.

I don’t have many shoes.. in fact, my husband tends to have the largest collection in our house. Matthew has maybe 3 pairs, I have about 5 or 6 that I actually wear, and Jeremiah has more than 10 that he wears. We each have more shoes, but I don’t count the shoes we use for yardwork or ones we don’t wear any more but can’t let go of, lol. There’s so many cute shoes now that I almost wish I was into heels and such. Even easyspirit has so many cute shoes now that I would definitely wear. When I was a teenager I just remember some of the trends and some shoes were so terribly ugly. Maybe once I lose more weight I’ll be more comfortable in different styles.

Lately we’ve been reevaluating our budget and our cluttered way of living. I don’t mean clutter as in dirty, just that we’ve got so much stuff. We’ve got some sort of shelf or basket in every corner or bare spot on our wall to hold.. random stuff. Starting about two days ago, we have begun downsizing. We just sold our huge china cabinet that was full of random knick-knacks, just because we didn’t have enough china-cabinet-type items to fill the shelves. We’re also selling our huge wooden king headboard because we already created a DIY headboard that takes up less space and looks cleaner.

Along with de-cluttering, we’re also looking to save money on things that we don’t really need. The first big thing we’re getting rid of is cable television. Technically we had fiber-optic tv, but you get the gist. We are keeping our internet, but trying to push for our promotional rate that they never gave us when we signed up. It would bring our internet bill from $40 to $25 for 12 months, which will be past the time we plan to move (again). By getting rid of cable, we rid ourselves of an $80 bill per month.

In place of cable, we’ve purchased a small personal computer to put in our entertainment center. We will pay for Netflix streaming ($7.99/m) and Hulu Plus ($7.99/m) and stream off the PC, which is already tied into our receiver and surround sound. We also have an antenna so that we receive the local channels. The money we’ve spent will be paid off in 6 months or less. After those 6 months, our bill drops drastically.

Currently we have:
At&t Uverse Cable & Internet package: $120/m

We will soon have:
Netflix: $8/m
Hulu Plus: $8/m
Uverse 12mbps: $25/m
Total: $41/m

That’s a savings of $79 per month.
We paid about $350 for the PC, so it’ll be paid off in about 5 months with that difference. Starting in 5 months, we will be saving almost $1,000 per year.

People complain about Netflix raising prices or Hulu Plus costing money. How about how much your cable company is ripping you off?

Now that we’re pretty much done with remodeling (we haven’t taken pictures yet because we haven’t done the filler pieces in the kitchen, ugh!) I have done a few things around the house and changed up the decor. I’d love to go check out Pottery Barn one day with pottery barn coupons at dropdowndeals. They have some pretty good stuff, and it can be hard to track down the coupons on your own without sites like that one that organize the coupons around the web for you!

The last thing I really want to do is make our outdoor living space. The weather is really cooling down quite a bit, so it’s time to make a little area where we can relax outside. I’d love something like this:

I’d have to measure our patio and make sure it would fit. I think it’s so nice, though. I’d also like some sort of overhang, but that may have to wait.

I don’t claim to be the best driver ever, but some people amaze me.

The closest main street to our house is not even busy. Traffic at it’s worst is nothing. If you try to cut in front of a car, thinking it’s to your advantage, you’re so wrong.

That brings me to today. Within the last half hour, I went to the YMCA to pick up the uniforms for our soccer team. On this “main street” it goes from 2 lanes to 1. The right lane ends. This guy in what I believe was a Honda Pilot starts riding on my butt right before the merge (after the merge left sign) then decides to try to whip around me with about 200ft to spare. I didn’t even realize it at first before I looked in the rear view mirror and saw he was about to clip the side of the back half of my car. At that point, if I braked he’d have hit me, and the lanes are too close to have any wiggle room to swerve. I laid on the horn and hit the gas to get from beside him before the lane merged completely. The guy honks back at me and flips me off.

SERIOUSLY? He’d have gained nothing by getting in front of me, and he decided he could risk getting in an accident JUST IN CASE he’d be able to squeeze by. I was only going 40MPH, just like everyone else, and this is right before a light.

There should be annual driving tests, where they show images of wrecks that have happened from people who were going nowhere fast and decided it was worth it to drive like a moron.

That’s my rant for today.

When I was young, I used to have all these ideas about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Like most kids do, I had a good solid list of about 10 things I would do if anything else didn’t work out. Of course, the problem was being a naive child who didn’t realize the work it took to go after any of those jobs. I wanted to be a veterinarian, teacher, doctor, police woman.. the list goes on.

Now, I’m almost 25 years old (next month) and I’m.. a stay at home mom. Don’t get me wrong, I ADORE my job. I have the cutest and sweetest (and most frustrating and terrible) little boy. He is my world. Sometimes I get frustrated and feel like my life has something missing. I would like a career someday, but it won’t be happening anytime soon. I know I’m lucky to not have to work and put my son in daycare, but I literally do the same thing, day after day after day. Wake up, breakfast, playtime, maybe watch a kids movie, lunch, playtime, go outside for a bit, make dinner, eat dinner, give bath, bedtime story, sleep. EVERY. DAY. Of course it varies some, but this is pretty much my life.

I would love to do something exciting one day. Maybe be a Network Architect Jobs or get more into web design, or BOTH! The possibilities are endless. I need to start some college classes soon, I just feel so exhausted every day and sometimes I feel like I’ll never be able to get anywhere.

Jeremiah and I are lucky enough to have two nice dependable cars. They’re not fancy in any way, but they work, are decent looking (even if they’re not my favorite models, lol) and both have warranties. Also, they both get above 20mpg, so I can’t complain.

Jeremiah drives an ’07 Jeep Compass and I drive an ’06 Ford Freestyle.

There are always things I’d like to do with the cars, such as add things or update old things. For example, in my car I’d love some new speakers, as one side is going out and tends to make crackling noises. I’d also love some new floor mats. I would REALLY like custom ones, such as the fancy mitsubishi mats, but that will maybe come in time. Mine didn’t come with my car, but they’re just the basic rubber ones you can get at any store, and they tend to move, even when you’re driving, hah.

Regardless, I love my car, and Jeremiah loves his.