My Single Mom Life

Last night around 9pm, I started cooking a pot roast in the crock pot with whole baby carrots, thick sliced onions, and whole baby potatoes, and let it cook on low all night long.
I used 1 packet of McCormick Savory Pot roast seasoning with it to give it a little bit of a flavor boost, as well as make a really nice gravy right in with it.
Mark loves to have gravy with his meat and potatoes, so using the seasoning packet meant I didn't have to cook up any extra gravy to go with it, they could just spoon out some of the very tasty gravy and pour as much of it as they wanted over their pot roast and baby potatoes.

The whole house smelled absolutely delicious all night and all day long, it was just fabulous smelling in here.
Sebastian woke up first and wanted to know right away if he could eat some of it at 10am, I said "Sure, that's why I cooked it all night long!"
I decided to cook it all night long and then keep it on warm all day long, so that whenever the teens were hungry, they could just go grab a bowl, scoop out some of the sliced up and so moist it was falling apart pot roast, potatoes, baby carrots, and onions, and eat it as they felt like all day long.
The teens ate some for breakfast around 10-11am, then they ate some more of it around 2pm, and then they went out with my sister and nieces for dinner at Chick-fil-A around 4-4:30pm, and then they ate some more of the pot roast around 8pm.
They actually finished off the entire crock pot of pot roast in one day, but that's totally fine with me.
I made enough of it to last for 3 meals, they ate it in 3 meals, it just happened to be 3 meals in 1 day instead of having to store the leftovers in the fridge and reheat it as they got hungry.
They aren't big on having to reheat leftovers, so having a full and warm crock pot of food that they could just eat from all day as they wanted to, was perfect.
I did eat some of it myself, they didn't eat it all by themselves, I had 2 helpings, 1 for breakfast and 1 for a late lunch.

Having the crock pot of warm and very tasty food to eat all day long was really just perfect.
It was a bit chilly out all day long, it's about 50 degrees right now, and will be going down to around 43 degrees overnight, so the teens totally loved being able to eat a hot meal 3 times today, they really just loved it, so they asked me to do this more often.
I'm thinking this isn't a bad idea, I can cook a huge pot of food overnight, and the teens can just serve themselves and eat whenever they get hungry the entire next day.
This is really an ideal thing for me to do, it will save me a ton of time in the kitchen, and it will save me money because I won't be having to feed them 3 different meals each and every day, they are totally happy eating the same meal 3 times in 1 day as long as it's great tasting, and they just loved the pot roast.
Cooking whole meals in the crock pot is really inexpensive, too, considering just how many meals you can get out of just 1 pot, so I'm going to hunt down all kinds of great tasting and inexpensive crock pot recipes, and do this as many times as I can all winter long.
I really enjoyed doing this because I wasn't in the kitchen all day cooking, cleaning pots and pans, doing all of the regular dishes, and trying to plan out what the next meal was going to be.
Mark is home full time now that he's graduated and not in school any longer, and Sebastian is out on Christmas break until January 4th, so I have 2 still growing and hungry teenage boys to feed for the next 2 weeks, so yeah, inexpensive and easy meals are definitely the way for me to go.

The other happy bellies around here are the kitty cats.
I wanted to update how our kitties are doing on The Good Life Recipe cat food that I have been feeding them since March of this year, so about 10 months now. (I had been feeding it to them for 5 months when I first posted about it in July)
As I said back in July, The Good Life Recipe has really made an improvement in all of the cats health and coats.
But since posting about it, the cats have gotten even better if that's possible.
None of them are gacking (puking) anymore, their poo doesn't stink as bad anymore, and so changing and cleaning the litter boxes isn't a horrible chore like it used to be.
Nova's coat has become so much softer, it's like rubbing your hands on silk, and her attitude is much better too.
She used to be nicknamed 'cranky old lady' because she was always miserable and "talking" to us all cranky if we touched her.
If you pet her before this dietary change, she would meow all cranky, she'd snipe at your hands, now she purrs very loud, she rubs her head all over your hands, and she 'talks' nicer too.
If you don't have a cat that talks, you are probably thinking that I'm nuts, but seriously, she talks when you pet her or say her name, and she used to be super cranky talking to you, but now she's super nice, so I'm extremely pleased with how this food has helped her.

Kali has also gotten so much better.
Her coat is so full and so soft, she has like a lions mane going on and it's gorgeous, I'm going to have to get a picture of her, her coat and mane is simply incredible looking.
Her health has also gotten much better.
She hasn't gacked in ages, she's not as lethargic as she used to be, and she's become even more playful which is so nice to see because she's 12 years old now, getting up there in age, and she was tired and sleeping all of the time, and now she has much more energy, she's not having as much trouble jumping up on the couch anymore, she's just doing really fantastic.

Both Shahiro and Carmine are doing great too, their coats are super soft and fluffy, they aren't gacking anymore, they are super playful all of the time and not sleeping constantly.
I love seeing the cats have a lot of energy and playing with each other and us, not having always tired cats is a good thing, they are much happier, and when our pets are happier, so are we.
Pets bring so much joy into the lives of their owners, and I really believe that the change to The Good Life Recipe cat food 10 months ago is what made all the difference in our cat's health, coats, and happiness.

The price is still really good too, it's still just $4.99 per bag, but thanks to the economy, the bags have gotten smaller just like they have for almost every single other product out there if you've been doing the grocery shopping and noticed.
The packages of pretty much everything, have gotten smaller, and the prices have stayed the same.
I'm hoping that once the economy picks back up, (if it ever does) that companies start giving us more product for the price again.
They started taking the product away little by little, ounce by ounce, keeping the packages and the prices the same, so if you weren't paying attention to the quantity you were getting, you may have not even noticed.
But I did.
The cat food used to be $4.99 for a 7 pound bag, then it went down to a 3.5 pound bag for the same price, and it's now a 2.7 pound bag for the same $4.99 price.
Not exactly fair to the consumer, in my opinion, but as I said, I hope that when and if the economy improves, companies will start giving us more bang for our buck again.
Until then, I will continue to buy the cat food with as many coupons as I can get and use.
They currently don't have any coupons in stock to give away on their site, but I did sign up for updates when they get a new supply of them in, and I still have some coupons left in my coupon binder, and my mom just sent me a new envelope of coupons the other day that I need to sort through and hope that there are a few more for this cat food in it.
If the company is going to give me less cat food for the same price, I'm going to try and save as much money on it as I possibly can.