The Organized McTatty

It's an Addition!

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 14:18:00 +0000

We finally did it. We committed. Off comes the porch. We've decided to do a full basement, mudroom, plus additional room to give us more room. In the end, we're taking up the same footprint as the gazebo porch and the deck to make all three rooms. I would LOVE to do a sauna in the basement but we'll see if we get there. We're trying to take everything one step at a time.

In the photo above, they've just pulled the porch and deck from the house.

Next, they smashed it all down so it could fit into the dump trumps to take it away.

I've missed a step - but only because it's a video. Here you can see they've already dug the hole and put up the concrete blocks to frame out the basement. I'm still just amazed at the massive amount of dirt that they took to make the hole for the new basement. In total, they had to take 3 dump truck loads and this is still what's left. They left a lot to backfill the basement after it was completely water proofed.

This is just after it's been waterproofed. They legit tar the walls, and then toss the insulation at it and then put plastic over it all. It's nuts. And the total time spent on the waterproofing was MAYBE 45 minutes. They drove two trucks and had one truck just for supplies.

And here we are after it's been backfilled - but it's still a HUGE hole so Phil the dog can't go back there quite yet. He gets too jumpy and I'm really nervous that he'll fall into the hole. So he's stuck doing his bathroom business in the front yard for now.

It's coming together just enough that I can SEE the end in sight and I'm really excited for it. I can't wait to be able to use our new rooms and have the actual usable space. Woohoo!!!

Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 14:09:00 +0000

Surprise Jack O'Lanterns in the Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 13:37:00 +0000

In the spring, I swear that I gave Baby Chewy watermelon seeds to plant. Like, I have the empty packet of seeds saved in my garden notebook (that I sometimes add to and sometimes do not add to, I suppose I should take more pictures and just post them here for a record).

And one day before we went to Colorado over the summer I noticed a small (what I thought was a watermelon) fruit on a vine and was super excited to come back home to show the kids the watermelon we had grown all summer.

Turns out... not a watermelon.

We grew Jack O'Lanterns. I think what happened was that the plants are volunteers from the pumpkins that we carved last year and the vines sprouted after I spread my compost this spring to replenish all the nutrients lost to tomato plants last year.

Overall, I have found 4 pumpkins. I think one might not make it because a chipmunk has chewed it already. I put some diatomaceous earth on all the pumpkins to keep them from smelling delicious to critters so I'm hoping I can keep the pumpkins from being eaten until at least the first few weeks in October, after that I can harvest the pumpkins and keep them inside to keep them from squirrels and chipmunks. What a fun surprise this year!

wordless wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 18:22:00 +0000

Hello, from the other side

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Mon, 02 May 2022 13:27:00 +0000

One school year is almost done with both kids. I've filled out a school volunteer application to volunteer in the school district. I volunteered to help with the school garden. I have become THAT parent. But you know what, I'm really excited to get to know the kids better because we couldn't volunteer during this ongoing pandemic and I'm hoping that since I'm vaccinated and boosted, I'll be able to volunteer.

I've been getting rid of so much STUFF. Over 1,000 items GONE since January 1. I've been keeping a tally - albeit not the best now because I've just been getting rid of things one at a time and then I forget to tally it off. My goal is 2,022 items for the year. I can feel a difference but I'm not sure if anyone else can. There's several things that I've kept where it's been a "maybe I'll get around to this" but since I've saved them, I haven't gotten around to them and I'd rather volunteer at school, walk the dog, read, and go biking with the kids. I don't need to keep things around that are aspirational that I know I won't get around to. Bimmer Man keeps bikes that he's never going to ride and I can see that they've rusted and are not in great shape anymore - and he doesn't take care of them because he doesn't have time. I don't want to do that with my things anymore. I want to spend time doing what I want to do. And making this house easier to live in. So that's that. Take this as inspiration and get rid of your shit.

Because I've gotten rid of so much so far - we've had time to do 30 Days of Biking this year and we've completed all 30 days! It was so cold and so gross and so wet and so snowy. We're all ready for warmer weather and a nice, hot summer!

Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 17:31:00 +0000

Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 14:00:00 +0000

New Orleans

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 16:58:00 +0000

Doing a photo dump of our recent trip to New Orleans. I didn't call it a vacation because technically it wasn't. Bimmer Man was racing and neither of us had been there before. I wanted to go too! Race weekend is not a bunch of excursions to wherever city we're in - it's literally just hanging out at the racetrack, watching the race monitors, helping with pit stops, watching other teams, and gathering food for the team. It's really not a vacation - but it is really fun work!

We decided to stay for an extra day and a half to explore the city and eat all the food. It was...somewhat disappointing - in part because there was a huge parade during the weekend and it was so busy that the amount of people buying things had emptied our restaurants and most were closed because they had no more food and needed to restock. We tried Verti Mart for muffalettas and no bread. We tried several restaurants and no stock in beer or food. So yeah...that's New Orleans on the day after a huge Mardi Gras parade for ya. The best food we had was tacos from Val's (not in the French Quarter by the way). That was AMAZING and I would go back for those tacos in an instant. French Truck Coffee had really good coffee and tea. I went there twice because it was so good.

The architecture was really interesting! I enjoyed looking at all the balconies and the windows and all the flower boxes that people had put together. The streets are all narrow and small - the French Quarter was extremely easy to navigate.

Lots of buildings had the old gas light lanterns and most of them still used gas! I thought they were so pretty at night and what a fantastic way to see the past in action.

We didn't do any tours - but we did see many people taking walking tours. This is the LaLaurie house and is supposedly haunted. Madam LaLaurie tortured her servants (well, slaves, really, let's not beat around the bush with this). She was an awful human being to these poor people. Nicolas Cage apparently owned this house for a bit and only spent one night in it because of the haunting. This story is also the setting for a season of American Horror Story. The house itself is kitty corner from Verti Mart and it's a beautiful home. If there were tours, I would definitely have taken one of the inside to see the architecture and how the families would have decorated these home in the past.

We're still in the middle of a pandemic and one person that we were with is very germ-conscious so we decided to find a restaurant/bar with a courtyard instead of sitting inside. As it turns out, we liked this one so much that we came here twice. The cocktails were delicious and the courtyard was so cute.

New Orleans' streets are not so well marked and that's because the old street signs are on the ground! There are new ones but I became used to checking out the corners signs on the sidewalk instead. The tiles are absolutely gorgeous - I noticed many of them in disrepair and I really hope that the City of New Orleans will take the time to have them replicated as closely as possible and do a restoration of what they can.

Small sidewalks, skinny streets.

One of the oldest cemetaries in NOLA - they were supposed to be open to the public but they were closed. I read they closed the cemetaries off to the public because of the desecration and graffiti and whatnot to the graves and tombs. They were so interesting to see because in NOLA you can't actually bury a body in the ground.

On the way to the airport we did see a more modern cemetery - those were above ground also and much larger than the small original cemeteries in the French Quarter.

Still, they have "weeds" growing in the cracks just like any other city. I saw this and thought it was really pretty.

Riverboats and cargo ships. Downtown is off to the right and so is the French Quarter - in reference - Cafe du Monde is behind me.

Overall it was a pretty good trip! I think I wouldn't go so close to Mardi Gras and I for sure would go when it's warmer - like later in Spring or mid-Fall. The flowers and plants and trees were still in their winter hibernation so it wasn't as pretty and colorful as you might think but the sunshine still felt really good! I think next time I would stay in a different neighborhood and take the trolley to see more parks. And definitely go to restaurants when they have food in stock!

-Patty

Do People Blog Anymore?

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 16:58:00 +0000

Is this still a thing?

Have people moved over to Instagram and Twitter and TikTok for good??

Because I tried looking for an app that links to Blogger to update my blog from my phone (because wouldn't that be SOOOO EASY??). Apparently it's not a thing that Google made. No app for mobile blogging for Blogger so I guess blogging is not a thing for the young people? Eh, whatever. This Xenial is just fine doing what I'm used to. HA!

In any case - I update Insta and Twitter more often. If you want to see more of me, head over there. But I'll still come 'round here as often as I can remember to pull out the old computer and update. At least until Google comes out with an app to update blogger from mobile.

It's January

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 21:37:00 +0000

Still here. Still plugging away at life. Both kids are in school. Phil is.... Phil.

I'm super happy to finally have some time to myself but before I can even do that.. I've been clearing out and decluttering the house. I've donated so many things, I made more than 5 trips to Goodwill. I've given away so much on Buy Nothing. I feel lighter? For a very long time I really thought I should SELL everything that I don't want anymore and I've come to the realization that our house should not be a holding area for "stuff" that I need to sell. My house is not a store. I've let go of the amount of money spent on items and just said "eff it." Get it out of my house so I don't have to spend the mental energy on it anymore. When you constantly are thinking about your stuff, it's robbing you of the awesome things that you could be DOING instead.

I unloaded over 7 bags of clothes from my closets. It was stuff that was too small. Fancy work clothes that I'm not going to wear again. Old t-shirts. Old ill fitting clothes. Clothes that I thought I would wear. Clothes that I kept that I just LIKED but didn't wear. I started trying stuff on and wore it around for awhile and then put it in a pile if it made me itchy. If I have to dry clean it, I decided to donate it. I don't want to spend the time, energy, or money on dry cleaning unless I absolutely need to.

I have only tackled a small portion of toys. Unfortunately Baby Chewie doesn't play favorites with toys and so he has his interests in many things - cars, trucks, rocket ships, books, action figures, LEGO, trains, PJ Masks, and everything in between. And he has way too many cars. At least 5 bins. It's time for 3 of those bins to go.

I gave away all the wooden toys that I liked but got tosses aside. I gave away Barbies and babies and books. I can now go through all the Christmas and winter books - instead of putting those away I will post them on Buy Nothing and put the rest in the Free Little Libraries in the neighborhood.

And I decided not to buy books AT ALL this year until my library requests and my to read pile are down to nothing. I know. That's a HUGE challenge for me - there's two cookbooks sitting in my Barnes & Noble cart right now. So.... we'll see what happens...

Saying Goodbye to Orange Juice

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 16:11:00 +0000

Orange juice is the bike. Not the actual juice.

This kid finally outgrew the orange bike and he was SO SAD. We had to take a goodbye picture with his first handbrake-only bike. It served him well - it was heavy enough to help him keep his balance but after doing Cuyuna several times and Colorado trails we decided it was time to upgrade him to a bigger, and much lighter bike. We ended up going with a Commencal for his new 16 inch. Now we go onto bigger and faster and more trails with more features. He can now do wheelies with his lighter bike. He's been really fun to watch learn how to ride (and he's had many scrapes, bruises, falls, etc...).

I was really happy to see it go to a LITTLE GIRL NAMED RITA. When I heard that from her dad who picked it up, I almost screamed for absolute joy. She's getting an awesome bike to learn on with upgraded brakes for little kids and she's going to be awesome.

School has Started!

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 16:11:00 +0000

School has started! Both have started, Baby Chewy is no longer Baby Chewy, he's now a Kindergartner. I sometimes have a few minutes to myself - but as it seems in the last 5 weeks of school, I can rarely get my shit together to have time for myself.

Or shall I say.. life keeps happening around me when I would really enjoy taking a break.

So here's a photo of Phil. Waiting patiently for someone to give him the bacon that's on the table.

Hey! I'm Still Here!!

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Fri, 18 Jun 2021 14:21:00 +0000

Just busy AF. I rarely have time to even shower, let alone blog. I love how much more independent my children are as they grow but also as they grow, they need more of my time - which seems counterintuitive when you think of how babies rely solely on their parents.

I'm driving my children to camps; trying to figure out when I can shower; keeping my plants alive in the dry heat (we've been reaching the record breaking temps and it's driving me insane if I have to keep watering daily, I'm tempted to leave all my perennials to the heat and see which ones are hardy!); my elderly mother needs more and more care - she needs cataract surgery so I'm in charge of finding doctors and setting appointments.

I'm hoping I have so down time in the next few weeks. But somehow, I still feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. It's not always the best feeling.

Summer is terrible for my workout routine. I thought it would be better because we're home in the mornings, but instead I'm rushing around trying to clean the house before I leave to drop the kids off at their summer camps, leave for parks and the lakes, play dates, mountain biking, etc...

Summer is a lot of work for parents.

Veronica Speedwell

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 16:04:00 +0000

If you haven't yet heard of Veronica Speedwell, you're missing out.

A Perilous Undertaking is the second book in the series by Deanna Raybourn and the characters are absolutely delightful. Veronica always has something clever to say and is the complete opposite of what Victorian ladies are supposed to do - she also recognizes "the male being" and definitely loves what she does - which is solve mysteries and hunt butterflies.

This is a short entry because I don't want to spoil the series! If you love mystery novels AND historical fiction, this book is a great blend of the two. The writing is fantastic and nothing about Deanna' Raybourn's books are boring. Highly recommend if you need a new series to read.

Homemade Berry Syrup

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 15:57:00 +0000

Damn, berry syrup is beautiful.

Super easy to make too!

1 pint of blueberries

1/2 pint of strawberries, cut into small pieces

2 tbsp water

1 tbsp lemon juice (I used the juice of 1 lemon, so a little more than 1 tbsp)

2 tbsp sugar

Put everything into a small pot over medium-low. Stir, until simmering. Once it's simmering you can squish the berries to the consistency that you like with the back of the spoon you're using. Simmer for about 10 minutes (enough time to mix pancake or waffle batter). Turn off heat, let thicken for a few minutes and cool before pouring over waffles over pancakes.

Where Supplements Go to Die

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 15:45:00 +0000

So hard. So hard. I know vitamins and minerals and calcium is really good for you so I buy a bunch of vitamins and try to take them. I try so darn hard. But then the next week starts and I stop.. It's like I've forgotten that I've tried to start a new habit.

For example: let's take the calcium supplement on my counter. Over the winter I was like, "I'm Getting To Be An Old Lady" so I should take a calcium supplement for my bones! And so I started. I took them daily for a week.

I did so, so, so great for a week. They're even CHOCOLATE. So they would even taste really good!

But it's now months later and I should have finished this container already.

Lots of face palms over here. I'm sure you're wondering what else I have - Vitamin D in pill form (I like the gummies better), Vitamin C is slowly disappearing, some gross probiotics, other gummy probiotics with carnauba wax that I can't have (I get hives from carnauba wax, it's weird), and other stuff.

Le sigh. Next time I deep clean the kitchen I'm going to have to clear out all the old supplements.

Suck it, Covid!

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 01:25:00 +0000

20.2 miles on the bike down. WOOHOO!!!

My lungs are still recovering from yesterday on the bike. I am still out of breath walking up and down stairs, walking the dog, etc... But I seriously push myself to exercise because I LOVE my bike and I really enjoy exercising. It's good for me. It's fun. but my lungs.

So in any case, my lungs still feel tight, my watts are only half of what they were pre-Covid. I like endurance biking anyway, so this doesn't bother me too much - going slow and steady is better when it comes to Covid lung recovery. I'll bike again on Wednesday morning and push for another 20 miles - but not worry about my outputs because honestly, at this point, I'm on the bike and I'm working out. How professional athletes can recover so quickly after having their lungs ravaged by Covid is just mind boggling. Bodies are amazing and do amazing things.

Minnesota is so cold this week

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 17:38:00 +0000

I decided to make some rainbow bricks. Honestly, I didn't think about what I would do with them after frozen so... I decided to line our retaining walls with them. However, it's snowed (barely) and of course the snow covers them up! HA! My plan has been foiled. I made 50 bricks and was able to line the upper retaining walls and a little bit of the walls leading up the stairs. I had 4 leftover so I dug out around the little retaining wall I made around the bird feeder and lined that one too.

Had I actually come up with a plan, I think I would have made 100+ to be able to make a snow fort for the kids - more castle-like than igloo. I don't like how kids don't think about how the igloo forts can fall in. I've seen my children run at snowbanks full send and there's no way both of my kids would stay off the top of an igloo. Kids just don't know any better!

So, noted for next year is to buy a snow brick maker to make a castle for the kids. The kids next door are older and so they don't usually mind when I steal their leaves for piles for my kids or shovel snow into a large snow bank either - mostly because it's all less yard clean up for them.

Tips and tricks I learned:

1. IT'S SO COLD. I used an old Brita pitcher filter and went in/out of the house about 10 times. I'm not sure how else to do it because in Minnesota you have to turn off the outside water lines so they don't freeze and the pipes don't burst. You can't do it one by one and walk them out from the sink because you'd have colored water everywhere with spills.

2. Fill up the tins FIRST, then randomly do the food coloring. The Monkey dripped 2-10 drops of coloring in each tin and by the time we got to the end, she had made way more blue/purple than any other color and I didn't notice until it was too late.

3. Wear gardening gloves instead of mittens to place the bricks when they're all frozen. Your mittens will end up with dye on them - I used my gardening gloves and they worked so well to punch out the bricks.

If it gets below freezing where you live and you need a winter activity - this was actually a ton of fun. Totally going to do this next year too! I saved the majority of the tins but because a few froze to the sidewalk, some have holes.

2021 Garden Plans

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 21:26:00 +0000

As it snows right now, all I can think about is my garden.

I ordered a garden arch to go over our front sidewalk, but Amazon sent me two - so I think what I'm going to do is set it up in the backyard so it leads into the back garden by the composter and flowers back there.

Last year no one helped with the veggie garden and barely anyone volunteered to help with anything actually. So this year I'm not going to start veggie seeds - instead I'm going to focus on flowers and herbs. I'll put in a few veggies here and there but I'm not going to do anything big this year besides tearing up more grass (well, putting down cardboard over it, really) and transform more front yard to pollinator habitat. And same with the backyard.

For the sandbox - it has a hole in it, so I'm going to just put the sand in the garden and the dog and Quentin can just dig in the garden. I'll find a large bin to keep the toys in that can stay outside year round. I'll keep that closer to the house or maybe I'll just put it by the fence. Not sure - I'm going to have a ton of hostas to move this year too and split! I'm going to move all the ones I need to split to the north side of the house and take up more rocks (move the rocks out to a friend's house because they need gravel for their driveway).

There's so much to think about! I'm so excited to have our outdoor space again.

Book Review: The Burning God by R.F. Kuang

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 21:20:00 +0000

I was lucky enough to get a free copy in the spring of 2020 - however, I'm just now getting around to reading it. I wish I had started it much sooner because I flew through the first two books in the series.

This third is LONG. I googled to see if any pages were cut - and many pages were cut from this edition for the final edition. I didn't mind the length much, though if this hadn't been so good to read, I'm not sure I would remember all the events from the first few pages all the way to the end. Also, because there are many, many characters, it usually takes me a few chapters to remember who everyone is, their back story, etc... This third book just plows right into the story and keeps moving. Not much backstory is mentioned other than the story of the three shamans that are linked together (we see all three of these characters come together too! But that's closer to the end and you have to keep reading to find out Rin's journey to get them together).

The Burning God also gets a little overdone in the war aspect. As in Rin's character doesn't exactly move past the teenage brain into realizing the enormity of her decisions for burning through an entire country. However, her character is one to just do what her god wants to do - which is burn everything. She wants to destroy but completely forgets that her people need to recover too. They need food to live, shelter, education. The people of her country need to live a "normal" life for awhile to be able to be a prosperous country. When she goes back to the south region, she realizes that they have a treasure trove of poppy, which can make her money and lots of it. Instead of thinking things through and making a plan, she immediately wants to return to war - by selling all the poppy. And the people burn the poppy fields. They have realized that she craves war, and that she has no idea how they've lived or what they need to survive. They've put an end to her means.

Also, once she sees the New City with the Hesperians to save Kitay, it hasn't quite hit her that old school war techniques and shamans are probably no match for the lifestyle that the Hesperians live - once people see the clean city and aren't stepping in puddles of shit, they seem happier to be occupied. However, Rin just gets Kitay and they continue on with conquering the South and finding Nezha to defeat him. One thing that stands out in this written scene is that it's absolutely the west takes over the east. Gone are the old ways, and now in are the new modern ways of life - the author definitely taking this idea from real world wars. It's very sad to read in the book (and also in life too). The Hesperians feel their way of life is the better way of life. They also feel their race is better than Rin's. The whole book takes on race, skin color, class, and more. The author does an amazing job of pointing out all the differences and making the reader actually think about what is going on.

With this being the last in the trilogy, I'm so happy the author included a map so I could follow along with where these cities are in the whole of the book. I wish it was labelled a little more - such as where each character is from and where the armies had their skirmishes and large battles.

I really love to read YA fiction and trilogies, this one is pretty spectacular. I highly recommend reading The Poppy War trilogy, it's long, but it's definitely worth it!

Girl Can Sew

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 17:01:00 +0000

After a terrible December (thanks, Covid), we're finally back to somewhat of a normal schedule but not really...because what exactly is normal these days??? I'm not sure anymore.

But The Monkey has wanted to learn how to sew since this past summer when I was busy making hundreds of masks. So I bought her a hand sewing book to learn the basics and learn how to not poke herself with a needle (she drew blood multiple times but carried on!). And then she still desperately wanted to learn how to machine sew. So I ended up buying her The Sewing School 2: Machine Sewing book for kids - it had a few projects that I was sure The Monkey could tackle with little supervision, but mostly me hovering over the machine making sure she wasn't going to break my machine.

With her first project she learned a very important lesson: read through the instructions VERY carefully. She didn't read them all (I don't read the instructions for her DIY stuff because I think it's important for kids to learn skills by themselves so that they grow up to be competent and skilled adults, independence is a big skill to learn and this also teaches work ethic and to be proud of the things that you do on your own, so parenting moment included in learning how to sew). The Monkey ended up ripping up a whole project because she missed an important step - marking ears on a stuffy, which can't be done after you've sewn the whole thing inside out. She also realized she started/stopped at the wrong side.

I gave her a few tips and tricks for starting/stopping, which way to pull a finished item so she can cut the threads with the thread cutter on the machine and how to use a chopstick to push out corners in projects.

After she finally got her first project CORRECT, the girl is addicted to using the machine and she absolutely loves it. I'm going to have to come up with a few more Pinterest sewing projects for her to do on her own, with little help from me (other than saying, "BE GENTLE WITH THE PRESSER FOOT!" and also "TURN THE NEEDLE TOWARDS YOU NOT AWAY!"

Onwards we go into a new hobby this year! Hopefully I've inspired her to sew for the rest of her life.

Shenanagans

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 01:57:00 +0000

Everything is shenagans these days.

Distance learning.

Covid.

Kindergarten next year for Chewy (OMG).

Phil being Phil. He ate 2/3 of a full container of peanut butter yesterday and got a whole M&M cookie today. It's shenangans.

Meal planning.

Cleaning.

Cooking.

I say everyone can have a full on tv day tomorrow. And the next. And the next. Mostly for my own sanity.

I read 71 books so far this year. I'd love to write book reviews on all of them but frankly, I don't have the time - motivation is definitely there but the time is not. MER.

Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 01:53:00 +0000

Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 15:10:00 +0000

Favorite Breakfast Recipe - Baked Frittata

noreply@blogger.com (Patty) — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 14:58:00 +0000

Baked Egg Frattata

12 eggs

1 bell pepper, chopped (any kind is find, I usually have the Costco variety pack on hand)

1 small package feta cheese, crumbled

1 tbsp Italian seasoning

Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a 13x9 baking dish - I use glass and spray with non-stick spray.

Break the eggs into a large dish. Whisk them all together until all yellow and combined. Add in Italian seasoning, salt, pepper. Add in pepper and feta.

Pour into baking dish making sure that all the ingredients are evenly around the dish.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until egg pulls away at the sides and the egg is set in the middle.

Cut into 6 pieces for individual breakfast servings.

I top everything with sriracha.

Variations: add in zucchini or yellow squash, Italian sausage, swap feta for mozzarella. Chorizo, jalepeno, bell peppers, with Mexican cheese