Friday, March 29, 2013

Friday Fives

Here's five random things on this Friday.....

-I have to work today.  Boo.  My company gives us President's day instead of Good Friday.  Yay America.

-KB's grow light operation has been working well....a little too well.  We transplanted the seedlings into bigger pots yesterday because they were starting to die.  Now my house looks like something off of Drugs Inc.  Lots of pots.  Lots of lights.  Lots of water.  Our neighbor actually asked us the other day what he should tell the cops we are growing when they show up.


-I got bitten by a tick 2 weeks ago.  It still itches like crazy and has this really nasty scab on it.  Ticks are seriously so gross and there is snow on the ground.  What was a tick doing out at that time (I sound like its mom)?  Before you go crazy and think that I have some nasty tick borne illness, I don't.  We have extensive background in that (KB is a tick magnet) and I don't have any of the symptoms.  It's time to break out the DEET I guess.

-I'm still going back and forth on paint colors for our house.  At first I wanted something dark and woodsy, but after thinking about it I think that would look kinda weird on our house.  I think I've settled on a sage green color for most of it, a cream trim, and dark red accents.  Now I just need to convince KB to pay someone to do it and not try it himself.



- Everyone should vote for Cheerwine in Garden and Guns bracket of the best southern foods.  North Carolina come on and raise up.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Pinteresting Wednesday...

I haven't linked up in a while, so here goes!  Link up with The Vintage Apple to play along.

Here are my favorite Pins of the last few weeks...













Source: obaz.com viaRachel on Pinterest












Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Nom Nom Nom

I can't stop eating this....





It's so creamy and coconutty (but not too much) and delicious. I got a bunch of them on sale at Aldi because sometimes they have random Greek yogurts in there.

It's a pretty good snack for under 200 calories and has a ton of protein. It also doesn't have high fructose corn syrup (just good ole American sugar...ok the sugar probably isn't from America).

Monday, March 25, 2013

Menu Monday

Here's what we'll be eating on this week....

Mon: Roasted, Garlic and Chicken White Pizza



I'm not a huge fan of white pizza. It just feels wrong. I do really like roasted garlic though, so I'm hoping that will make up for it. I might add a little bbq sauce to it too because you can't go wrong with bbq sauce.

Tues: Roasted Mushrooms, Onions and Gouda Grilled Cheese



I love mushrooms and onions that are cooked down until they are dark brown and almost nothing. So good. Aldi also had some smoked gouda on sale this week, so I splurged and got the good stuff. I might heat up some tomato soup to go with these, but we'll probably just end up eating them as is.

Wed: Italian Crock Pot Chicken



I haven't used my Crock Pot nearly as much as I used to when I wasn't working at home. I'm going to try to make a point to use it at least once a week (especially once our kitchen demo starts). This recipe looks really easy and I feel like I've made it before (and it turned out okay).

Thurs: Freezer Food and Fried Cabbage with Bacon



This is going to be a mish mash of a dinner. I have a big head of cabbage that I need to use up and I also have quite a few frozen things of soup and beans and random things in the freezer that I need to use up also. I really like fried cabbage and the bacon will make it even more delicious.

What will you be cooking this week???

Friday, March 22, 2013

Randoms...


  • I have been listening to this remix during my workouts every morning this week.  I can't get it out of my head.







  • We're in the process of getting our kitchen redone (very early stages) and I have to pick out the granite for the counter tops, the wood floor and the tile, tile for the back splash and the new appliances before they get started.  So many decisions.



We are keeping our oak cabinets since they aren't that old and are still in good shape.  I'm thinking Uba Tuba granite (black with some gold flecks) and slate tile for the backsplash, but in a subway tile type shape.  Ugh - decisions are so hard.  I'm also going with black appliances since I'm not a huge fan of stainless steel.

For the floor, we're probably just going to do some sort of distressed oak or maple floor.


  • In keeping with the updated kitchen look - I started a thread on Houzz to get ideas.  People are so weird!  The thread turned into some lady talking about her Maine Coon cat and she got offended when I said "Oh aren't those the ones that are huge?".  Apparently hers is "just a petite little girl and NOT huge".  Come one people.  I don't need cat feedback.  Just tell me what color my drawer pulls should be.



  • I'm so over the snow.  It snowed here yesterday and it was so cold that even though the sun shone all day it still didn't melt.  It's still there.  Gross.  Where is spring?

  • We're getting ready to book our fall trip with my in-laws.  We're either staying here...


Or here....


I'm voting for the first one, but I have a feeling Mama Brown will have the final word.  We're hoping to maybe go down into Guatemeala or Belize for a little bit while we are there, that of course if KB doesn't get sick the whole time like he did last time.  Montezuma meant business.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

What is happening????

First Google Reader goes away and not Pinterest is changing its set up.

My world is falling apart.

I just signed up for Bloglovin and have no idea how to use it.  Tips anyone?

Monday, March 18, 2013

Menu Monday

Here's what we'll be eating on this week....

Mon: Smothered Chicken with Greens

Source: turvs.net via Rachel on Pinterest


This looks really good and I have some mushrooms that are on their last legs.  We'll be having this with some extra greens from KB's grandparent's house on the side.  I'll probably dress them up with dried cranberries and apple cider vinegar.  Yum yum.

Tues: Corn Cakes with Goat Cheese and Salad



I've had these pinned for a really long time and kind of forget about them. Aldi had goat cheese majorly on sale, so I stocked up. I'm also going to make a salad to go with these with some kind of mustard vinaigrette. Our friends gave us some really good spicy mustard and I can't wait to try it out in this.

Wed: Chicken Fajita Salad



I love salads like this because they are easy and taste way richer than they really are. I'll probably not use the dressing. I made some like this last week and it wasn't very good. I'll probably make some jalapeno ranch (which is totally not cultured or healthy, but whatever).

Thurs: Avocado Egg Salad



I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that KB will not like this dish. He pulled an avocado out of the fridge yesterday and asked me what it was and who was eating them. That would be me. All the time.

Extras!:

Peanut Butter Pie Cookies



Sometimes I eat things and I'm like "I'm really glad I'm not allergic to peanuts...or milk...or gluten..etc. This is one of those things. I made these for a cookout with our neighbors on Saturday and they were really good. I'm pretty sure their kid at about half of them.

Easter Egg Bread



We had another cookout to go to on Sunday afternoon for some friends that have chickens, so I thought it would be fun to make this. It turned out terrible. I'm just not good at baking. It didn't rise hardly at all and is really hard. KB thought it was good though, so he's been eating it for breakfast in the morning. I ended up taking a bottle of wine to the cookout instead. That's probably more fun anyway.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Confession Time

I'm linking up with Confessions of a Northern Belle again to confess my weirdness for this week.





I confess....I've been going crazy on the garden stuff recently. I've already ordered 3 different orders of plants and am just waiting on them to get here so I can plant them. I had KB cut down a ton of trees in our yard, get me a ton of mulch and just generally do lots of hard convict labor. Our yard looked terrible last summer because we moved in during the spring when it was too late to do much. Not this year. Oh no.

Oh our yard will not look like this nasty mess again...
I confess... I got mud all over my shoes and blamed it on Rosa just to see what KB would do. Rosa is his special little girl and can do no wrong in his eyes. He didn't seem to care, but I'm not sure he would've cared if I had just said that I got mud all over the carpet either.

I confess.... I'm kind of fed up with a contractor that I really liked. We're trying to get our kitchen redone and I had a handful of contractors come out to give me bids. I only really liked one of them when he was here....of course he's the one that still hasn't given me an estimate. It's been almost a month. Come one dude.

I confess.... I had big plans to work in the yard yesterday afternoon because it was sunny and it was still daylight, but instead I just ended up watching a few episodes of Girls and calling it a day.

I confess...Besides watching a few episodes of Girls I also watched almost an entire season of Veep. It's hilarious! I saw it pop up on our On Demand stuff and thought I would give it a try. That spiraled out of control into watching almost an entire season.


Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Grow Grow Grow

We have lift off....








KB wanted to try starting some seeds inside this year.  Almost all of them came up.

We planted Black Krim tomatoes, Right Bite tomatoes, Beefsteak tomatoes, jalapenos, bell peppers, squash, cucumber, zucchini, impatiens, alyssum, and some gourds. Holy produce Batman.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Menu Monday

Here's what we'll be eating on this week....

Mon: Corn Chowder from a cookbook I have

I'm not going to be here for dinner because I have a hot dinner date with some lovely ladies so I'm going to thrown this soup in the Crock Pot for KB to eat when he gets home.  He's been working a lot recently because of tax season, so there's no telling when he will actually get home to eat.  This recipe is a pretty normal corn chowder recipe....I'm sure you can find it on the Internet if you really want it.

Tues: Turkey Pesto Sliders



These look so good. My grandmother used to make little sandwiches like this sometimes with ham and swiss cheese and they were so amazing. I loved them. I've tried to make them before and they just didn't turn out the same. I'm hoping this recipe is a little closer. The onion glaze that goes on top of them looks amazing.

Wed: Cheesy, Chicken and Black Bean Bake



I'm going to be leaving out the chicken and recplacing it with double the black beans. We used to not eat meat very often for dinner (maybe once or twice a week) and I'm trying to get back to that. This looks pretty good and easy (especially since I don't have to cook the chicken).

Thurs: Tomato, Avocado, Onion Salad with Cilantro Lime Dressing

Source: laylita.com via Rachel on Pinterest


Besides eating meat too much, we've also been lacking on eating salads for dinner. I really like avocados and onions, so I would probably eat this without the dressing on it, but the dressing looks really good too. KB is not a fan of onions so I'll probably leave those off of his.

What will you be eating this week???

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Confessions...

I"m linking up with Confessions of a Northern Belle




- I confess....I completely scrapped my meal plan for tonight and made up some soup off of the top of my head.  I really hope it turns out.  It's a weird combo of apples, chicken, bacon, etc.

- I confess...I've been watching a lot of "Pure Vintage" on CMT during the middle of the day while I'm working.  We get all these weird TV channels now and KB was watching something on this channel a few weeks ago.  Lots of times I turn the TV on just to have noise on and a few days ago I heard some pretty sweet tunes.  Who can turn this down?  He's really pumped about fishing.



- I confess....I don't have to go anywhere for work anymore but I still really want to buy work clothes.  I keep getting all these cataloges with spring clothes in them and I just want to buy them all because they are so fun and pretty.

- I confess...I am sort of excited for turkey season to get here.  KB is like a caged animal when he can't go outside and gets all grumpy.  Turkey season is the only time he really takes any sort of time off of work and killing animals is really his thing.  April can't get here soon enough.

-I confess....I called KB today to tell him there were 6 blue jays on my bird feeder and that the seeds we started are coming up.  I'm turning into my grandmother.

-I confess...I looked at BuzzFeed for a good 2 hours the other night and didn't even realize it.  There are just so many informative topics on there like 18 Childhood Mysteries We Never Figured Out or Heidi the Rabbit Goes Swimming with a Life Jacket to Help her Arthritis.  That's ground breaking stuff right there.

-I confess....I started watching Girls on HBO and loved it.  So I watched the entire first and second season.....in one day.  At least they are short episodes.  I'm pretty sure I want to look like Marni forever.


Monday, March 4, 2013

Menu Monday

I was rushed going to the grocery store again, so this week's menu is kinda thrown together as well.  Last week turned out pretty good though, so maybe my luck will strike twice.

Mon: Egg, Bean and Veggie Wraps

Source: self.com via Rachel on Pinterest


I really like huevos rancheros, so when I saw this wrap that looked like huevos rancheros wrapped up in a tortilla - I was on it. Things like this are so easy to make and most of the time taste really good. I got some peach/mango salsa too, so it will be delicious no matter what. You could put that stuff on anything and make it taste good.

Tues: Ground Sausage and White Bean Chili



It's supposed to snow here on Tuesday and Wednesday (oh joy), so I thought this soup might be good to make on Tuesday night. I got some spicy sausage to give it some kick. I'm most excited about crumbling up my corn bread to put in it.

Wed: Slow Cooker Garlicky Chicken and Rice



I haven't used my slow cooker as much as I normally do now that I'm at home during the day, so I wanted to bust it out this week. I saw this recipe on Prevention (which normally has pretty healthy recipes but sometimes the sodium is astounding) and it looked easy, so why not.

Thurs: Mexican Cole Slaw (recipe on Pin) and Hot Dogs



The people we house sat for gave us some really good mustard the other day, so I want to use it on some really good hotdogs. Slaw is the best thing to put on a hot dog in my opinion. This mexican slaw looks pretty easy and a little different from the normal slaw recipe. I'm hoping it doesn't clash too bad with the mustard we got.

What will you be eating this week???