My husband rocks Friday

Wow, hard to believe it's Friday again already - and not, at the same time. It's been a kind of long week over here in no-Husband land. I think I've got at least one more Friday before he's back in town, and wow, we're really starting to miss him over here. Sure, sometimes it's nice to get to be alone after putting Baby to bed - you know, have some calm, quiet time - but night after night, it gets kind of old. Not to mention that when there's no one else around to help me with Baby (and he's awfully demanding right now), it kind of takes a lot out of me. It takes some serious energy to not just go to bed when he goes to bed.

Anyway, it's hard to have good MHR stories when Husband's away. So that forces me to rely on what few memory cells I have left, with my mommy brain, and recall some incident where he rocked. The one that stands out to me this morning is that this man changes the cat litter. Always.
I think it kind of started with my pregnancy - when women aren't supposed to be near cat litter for fear of some kind of gross cat-related disease. I seem to recall taking turns (sort of) with the cat litter. But then, I got pregnant, and Husband was on kitty litter duty. And it's not like we have the kind of cats who can have their litter changed every other day - no, we have prissy cats. They need daily litter changes. Fun stuff. To this day, Husband changes the cat litter every morning when he's home. No complaints, he just does it. Then, when Husband goes out of town, I have to deal with it, and I get grumpy about it, because I have somehow turned into my mother. My mother has always said to me "Rather have a kid" when I complain about my neurotic animals. Well, I've finally joined her, at least when it comes to the cats. I love our cats, don't get me wrong, but definitely in a different, more mellow way now that I have a child. Maybe it's because Baby doesn't puke all over the house like the cats do. Those cats could make having hairballs and vomiting Olympic sport - it's awful. Husband generally cleans up all of those messes when he's home too. How awesome is that?

I never thought little things like that would impress me, but they do - especially since I can't seem to perform any of those tasks without at least some complaining. Shocking, I know. I'm counting down the days before I can relinquish these lovely duties back to Husband for a while.

Hey, you cat mommies - do you have an electric litter box? You know, the kind that cleans up after your cat for you? Does it work well? Would you recommend them? We've thought about them several times, but not knowing anyone who has one, we're not sure they're worth the hefty price tag, so tell me what you think!

What's on my nightstand: May

Last month, I started participating in the What's on Your Nightstand meme over at 5 Minutes for Books. Last month was a somewhat unproductive reading month - after I finished off "Pretty in Plaid" last week, I had a really hard time picking out a new book to read (in part because I loved the book so much that nothing else was as captivating or funny as it was).

Here's what's on my nightstand for the next month:
1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
2. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
3. Sunday Money by Jeff Macgregor (Husband is nowhere near finishing this one, so I haven't even started yet)
4. Everyone is Beautiful by Katherine Center
5. It Sucked and Then I Cried by Heather Armstrong
6. The Devil in the Junior League by Linda Francis Lee

Here's what left my nightstand this month:
1. The Middle Place by Kate Corrigan
2. Still Alice by Lisa Genova
3. Pretty in Plaid by Jen Lancaster
4. Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics by Ina Garten
5. Barefoot Contessa at Home by Ina Garten

I'm sure some of you are wondering why "New Moon" is still on my nightstand after it being there last month, but for whatever reason I just haven't been in the right mood for it yet. I fully plan to pick it up after I finish off the Marian Keyes book I'm reading now. I adore Marian Keyes. She's hilarious.

So tell me what's on your nightstand...are you reading a mystery? A biography? A romance? I'd love to hear all about it! Some of the best books I've ever read were recommended by other people.

Pretty in Plaid by Jen Lancaster

I finished off Jen Lancaster's newest book last week - "Pretty in Plaid." I happened upon her first book, Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office,
one day at Barnes and Noble a few years ago, and have eaten up each of her other three books now as soon as they arrived in the bookstore. I love her totally sardonic style and she has some pretty wild, entertaining stories to tell about her life. If you want to see a taste of her writing, she keeps a pretty hilarious blog, Jennsylvania.

Before you can read Pretty in Plaid, you ought to know a little bit about Jen. In her first three books (and these really aren't spoilers, more like basic plotlines), she loses her high-paying corporate job, shares the truth about living in the big city (and having awful neighbors), and then goes on a quest to lose some weight. Jen Lancaster is one of the few authors that can have me laughing out loud repeatedly throughout a book. This, in itself, is a bit of a double-edged sword - the laughter is super fun, but then when Husband hears me laugh, he wants to know why, and then I have to try to explain it to him, so on and so forth.

Pretty in Plaid is the story of the old Jen, as a child, then a tween and teen, and finally as a college student and young adult. Let me tell you, she was just as rambunctious and hilarious back then. She was an overachieving Girl Scout (just as I had dreamed of being, but my mother never let me), an eager-to-learn fashion victim teenager. Her stories are not only hilarious, but relatable and fun. It may not be as good as her first three books, but it was still a very enjoyable read, and I tore through it very quickly because I couldn't put it down. I'd definitely recommend it, and I'd also recommend her other three books. Happy reading!

Sheet Pan Pizza

I consider myself a bit of a pizza connoisseur. I'm a huge fan of pan pizza, it's my personal favorite, but I'm not fanatical about. I am fanatical about pizza, though. When I first made my very own pizza from scratch late last year, it was what really kicked me into high gear in terms of learning to cook better. I was like, "Wow, this pizza kicks Pizza Hut's ass." And I grew up on Pizza Hut. I took a business trip to Chicago while I was seven or eight months pregnant with Baby, and he sure loved the pan pizza at Gino's, as did Mommy. When I realized I could cook as well, if not better, than some of my favorite restaurants, I began reading cookbooks, scouring the Internet, you name it, in search of the best recipes. I've been really successful with a lot of them, as you all have seen. This particular recipe I'm going to file as a "dud." It was really not the best pizza. Not by a longshot. If you want the best pizza recipe, click here. Skip reading this one. But, for those of you, who like me, are learning more about cooking, feel free to read on.

I found this recipe on Cook's Country, which I really like a lot. Normally, I really enjoy their recipes, although I definitely reject some upon first glance if I don't care for the ingredients. This pizza seemed innocuous, just a larger version of my usual pizza with two major ingredient differences - more yeast in this pizza and it uses water instead of milk. I think what I really didn't care for about this pizza was the use of parmesan cheese on the pizza in addition to the mozzarella. I'm a mozzarella girl. That, and the parmesan goes on before the pizza sauce, which I found then didn't spread very well at all. So, if I ever bake this pizza again (and I might, if I have to feed a crowd), I would skip the parmesan. Oh well, at least I got to send my mother home with beaucoup leftovers, so I know she'll eat well for the next few days. She really liked it, by the way. She's a big parmesan fan - so I guess if you're a parmesan fan, copy this recipe down and give it a shot. In case you're interested in giving it a go, here is the recipe.

Sheet Pan Pizza
adapted from Cook's Country
Printer-friendly recipe

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 3/4 cups water, heated to 110 degrees
1 tablespoon sugar
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 envelopes instant or rapid-rise yeast (4 1/2 teaspoons)
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese
3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 200 degrees. When oven reaches 200 degrees, turn off oven. Grease a large bowl. Evenly coat 18-by-13-inch rimmed baking sheet with 1/4 cup oil.
2. Combine (warmed) water, sugar, and remaining oil in measuring cup. In bowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook, mix flour, yeast and salt on low speed until combined. Increase speed to medium-low and slowly add the water mixture, until dough is uniform in texture, about 3 minutes. Transfer dough to prepared bowl, cover with plastic and place in warm oven. Let rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
3. On lightly floured work surface, use rolling pin to roll rough into large rectangle. Transfer dough to prepared baking sheet and stretch dough to cover pan, pressing dough into corners. Brush dough with a little bit of olive oil, and cover with plastic wrap again. Set in warm spot (not oven) until slightly risen, about 20 minutes.
4. Remove plastic wrap and, using fingers, make indentions all over dough. Springkle dough with 1 cup Parmesan and bake until cheese begins to melt, 7-10 minutes. Remove baking sheet from oven and spoon sauce over pizza, leaving a 1-inch border. Bake until sauce is deep red and steaming, 7-10 minutes.
5. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese and remaining Parmesan evenly over sauce and bake until cheese is golden brown, about 12 minutes. Remove pizza from oven and let rest 5 minutes. Serve.

I will say this: it sure is pretty...

Menu Plan Monday for May 25th

Wow, another week gone already. Time seems to be flying by me so very fast lately, and Baby seems to be more and more of a little boy every day. Yesterday, he learned to do a new thing - dance. Or "dancey-dance" as we called it. He bops his head and does little squats when you ask him to "dancey-dance." It's just the cutest darn thing ever. We went to the park Sunday, and he was so independent - he wanted to do everything himself.

Monday - Eggs and bacon
Tuesday - Spaghetti
Wednesday - Meatloaf and onion potatoes
Thursday - Beef teriyaki
Friday - Burgers
Saturday - Pork Lo Mein (a new recipe, stay tuned!)
Sunday - Homemade pizza

Husband's still out of town this week, so the dinners are again kind of boring, but hopefully they won't be very messy. I hate dishes. I truly, truly despise them. Not only that, but I think I don't know how to wash them right. Things never seem to be really clean when I wash them. I've only got one new recipe this week, but it's one I'm excited about - Pork Lo Mein. I love Chinese food so much. The thing I don't like about Chinese food is that sometimes it seems really oily and it also isn't always deliverable, and when Husband's out of town, I can't always go fetch some yummy dinner. Hopefully this will be a super yummy recipe, I just love lo mein! I'll be sharing the recipe after I make it.

Don't forget you can visit Org Junkie to find hundreds of other menu plans on other blogs, and even post your own!

Virtual Girls' Night Out: The Memorial Day Edition

So it's Friday, and the official eve of Memorial Day weekend, so it's time for a special Memorial Day themed Virtual Girls' Night Out! Ann's hosting, as usual, and she's featuring a great recipe for Carolina Iced Tea (a southern version of a Long Island Iced Tea), so make sure to visit!

This week's question is about your Memorial Day plans. Admittedly, I don't generally have a very exciting Memorial Day weekend, outside of spending time with my family. That's what I'll be doing again this year, but unfortunately, Husband is away in D.C. and can't come home for the holiday. On the bright side, I invited my mother to come visit, which will hopefully be fun and not stressful. She's already insisted I take the night off from cooking tomorrow and she wants to treat me to Maggiano's (no worries for those of you who follow my menu plan, I'll still post my glazed pork chops recipe!). I'm not complaining, though I do kind of like showing off my cooking skills when she visits. So, I've got some dinner plans this holiday weekend, and I'm planning to try out some new workout DVDs I picked up at MovieStop this week. I love that place, it's so awesome to go in with a few DVDs to trade and walk out with some new ones for next to nothing (or better yet, nothing!!) What an exciting weekend, right?

Oh, and I'm cooking up the rest of my crab cakes tonight, so we'll see if refrigerating the uncooked cakes overnight makes any difference in my recipe, since last night's were only refrigerated for an hour. Now the crab cakes are indeed exciting.

So what are you doing this holiday weekend? Are you traveling? Cooking out? Making pulled pork (a.k.a. my personal favorite BBQ dish)? If you're making pulled pork, you have to share the recipe!!! Make sure to go visit Ann and celebrate the whole blog hopping holiday extravaganza!

P.S. - Ann's having a super giveaway for all of you popcorn lovers out there, so make sure to visit!

My infamous crab cake recipe

Part of Husband's family hails from Maryland, and as a result, Husband considers himself a crab connoisseur. I've never had boiled crab, but crab cakes are high on my list of favorite foods. Every year for his birthday, I order the mail-order crab cakes from various Maryland eateries, and they cost an arm and a leg. A few months ago, I decided I would try my hand at making my own crab cakes. I'm darn glad I did! Mine are way better!! I promise! They're super easy to make and take very little time, though buying decent crab can be expensive. I usually wait until it goes on sale at Publix to make them. I buy the Phillips' refrigerated pasteurized crabmeat, not the canned stuff you find where the canned tuna is. I think that makes a big difference in the flavor and quality of the crab cakes.

Type A Mommy's Infamous Crab Cakes
Printer-friendly recipe

16 oz fresh, pasteurized crab meat
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 teaspoons Old Bay
6 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs (I make mine from the Pepperidge Farm hearty white bread - pulse a few slices in your food processor, they're awesome!), separated
1 lightly beaten egg
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1. In a small bowl, gently combine crab, mayo, Old Bay, and 4 T breadcrumbs. Be as gentle as possible.
2. In a separate bowl, lightly beat an egg, then fold egg into crab mixture very gently. If the mixture does not hold together well, add the other 2 T of breadcrumbs. Form small crab cakes with your hands and place on a plate. You should be able to make 6-8 cakes, depending on how big you make them. Cover plate and refrigerate for at least one hour, or for as many as 24 hours.
3. After refrigerating the cakes, heat up a 12-inch skillet to medium-high and add oil. Heat until oil is shimmering. Add cakes to pan, leaving space around each one (otherwise they can stick together!), and cook on each side for 4-5 minutes or until desired they reach the desired level of browning. Place cakes on a paper towel for a moment after they are fully cooked and serve immediately. Yum!

My husband rocks Friday!

How did it get to be Friday again already? I really didn't feel like the week was flying by until today. Husband has been gone since Monday, and while I do miss him dearly, I also have sort of enjoyed the time alone to read and watch movies/shows he doesn't particularly care for. Last night I even turned on my old PlayStation 2 for the first time in years to play one of my favorite old school games, Ratchet and Clank. Think Super Mario for the new generation (though Super Mario is still superior, in my book).

It was kind of tough today to come up with a reason that my husband rocks, with him being away, so I figured that whatever I missed most about him would be a good thing to start with. That would easily be his dishwashing abilities. He used to be a big-time, major cleaner when we were first dating. His apartment was always spotless, despite the fact that he had a cat who tended to yank her own hair out in chunks. He would dust regularly, vacuum regularly and wash all his dishes. When we moved in together, most of the cleaning fell to me, but he kept washing the dishes. Which is a good thing, considering how messy I am in the kitchen.

You know the old saying about how girls marry their fathers? Well, my dad was the dishwasher when I was growing up too. Mom would make a holy terror of a mess in the kitchen and Dad would clean it up happily, no grumbling, although a few snide comments might make it out every Thanksgiving (the mess to end all messes). My husband is the same way - he will occasionally make remarks about the messes I make, but he still cleans them up. So right now, I'm missing that.
Sure, I have a dishwasher, but most of my pots and pans are not dishwasher-friendly (boo!). I am not the world's best handwasher, I tend to not scrub hard enough or something, because the stuff I wash never seems as clean as the stuff Husband washes. As a result, I'm using a lot of paper towels - cuts down on the dishes. Well, it does a little, I guess. There's no such thing as a paper mixing bowl yet (or is there??), so I've still got prep dishes to wash. In fact, the dishes are starting to pile up, so I better tend to them today. Argh. I hate washing dishes. Always have. Husband, I miss you! (And trust me, I miss you for other, way better reasons too, but this is the first one that popped in my head!)

Borders coupon!!

You all know how much I love to read, so imagine my excitement to see a 40% off one book coupon come into my inbox this morning!!! And, I was so excited about it that I wanted to share it with you guys, in case Borders merely sent it to me and me alone, because I'm such a good customer (highly unlikely, of course). Make sure to take note - it's only good today and tomorrow, so hurry up and go to Borders and get yourself a nice book to curl up with. And stay tuned, because tomorrow I'll be posting my review of my latest read, Jen Lancaster's "Pretty in Plaid."

Here's the link: Super Borders Coupon for Friday and Saturday ONLY

Guest Post: Professional Mommy Blogging

Today I'm pleased to feature a guest post from my friend Margo, over at Writer Mom at Home. I've also written a guest post over at her blog, so I hope you'll swing by and check it out! Without any further adieu, here's Margo with some awesome blog advice!

I am a professional writer. I create website content for companies, and I have done some professional blogging for different websites. Part of my job is to understand how to write content that search engines, such as Google, can find and index for their search results. I am also a mommy blogger, and using the skills I have learned through my work has improved my blog. And, as many blog readers have blogs themselves, I thought that I would share some of these tips with you.

Having a blog that people can find through search engines is one of the best ways to build up your number of readers. Unless you have a protected blog, meaning that you don't want search engines to send you traffic, a little search engine optimization (SEO) is a good thing. And it's really easy to do. These simple tips can get you started.

The biggest secret to SEO is the use of keywords, and chances are, you're already doing this. If you head over to Google, and you want to find a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, your keyword, or phrase, is "chocolate chip cookie recipe" or "recipe for chocolate chip cookies". Keywords are what search engines use to figure out how to list your blog posts.

It is a really great idea to have a few keywords that you are using overall in your blog. For Type A Mommy, Elizabeth can use "Type A Mommy," "Stay-at-home mom," "best family recipes," or anything else that she feels really represents what her blog is about. Use these keywords often, in posts, pages, and other bits of writing around your blog. Use this same concept for your posts. Pick 2-4 keywords, and use them each 5+ times. Use them once or twice in your first paragraph, and then spread out through the rest of your post.

The reason that you are trying to use these keywords more often is because search engines look for repeated words when they are indexing your pages. So if you have "chocolate chip cookies" five or six times in your post, Google will realize that the post is about cookies, and not about something else. So, when someone else searches for chocolate chip cookies, your page will be listed, although probably towards the back of the list of sites. Unfortunately for many bloggers, the top search engine results go to the most popular pages. But there are ways to improve your chances there, too.

The first way, you are already doing as a blogger. Update often, using keywords in your posts. Search engines don't usually put old, outdated websites in their top search results. Also, keep blogging. Sites that are established will get a better ranking than brand new blogs. The truth is, thousands of new blogs are started every day. Most of them won't last more than a few months, and even fewer will still be regularly blogged on a year from now. If you keep blogging, you'll beat out a lot of other websites for better rank.

Use your tags and categories wisely. Search engines put a bigger emphasis on the words and phrases you use for these, which makes them a great way to use your keywords. If, like Elizabeth, you post a lot of recipes, a Recipe category is a good idea. Or you could even bring it up a notch, and use "easy recipes for busy moms" or "healthy recipes." If your blogging platform (Wordpress, Blogger, ect) allows you to use parent categories, you could have Recipes as a parent category, and then the more specific categories under it. Try to keep the tags you use on your blog to a reasonable number. I've visited blogs with over 50 tags. WAY too many. Settle for 10-15, and use them often. A post can have more than one tag, but it should only have one category.

Share the link love. If you are writing a post about child discipline techniques, for example, link to a couple websites for further explanation and examples. And when you post comments on other blogs, be sure to leave the URL for your own site, if it is asked for. If search engines see that your site has other blogs linked to it, they will boost your rankings. It improves your blog's credibility. This isn't always a sure thing, for various reasons, and it can be over done, but a link or two per post, to quality websites, is a good goal.

There are dozens of other ways to improve your search engine rankings, and a dozen reasons why it is a good idea. Especially if you run advertisements or affiliate programs on your blog. If more people visit your blog, your chances of someone clicking on an advertisement improves. More visitors also means more readers. Mommy bloggers are the new big thing, even if they aren't particularly new. Mommy bloggers are turning their large followings into book deals, speaking engagements, and more. It pays to build your number of readers, and search engine optimization can be a great way to do it.

When I first started blogging, I didn't know any of this. It took a few months of working as a writer, and being required to use keywords for my assignments, before I really got the hang of it. Give yourself some time to play around with these ideas. They definitely won't hurt your blog, and you might see a substantial increase in traffic to your blog if they are used consistently for a few months.

Anything I can clarify? Anything else you would like to know about using SEO in your blog? Please feel free to leave a comment below, and I'll answer any questions you might have!