Review

My Husband the fearless cook!



















The Machine!


















The wonderful meal!


















This is the second attempt... Yum!
So the veggies were green giant steamers, but the chicken was so juicy and tender! It almost tasted like rotisserie chicken, but less greasy.

So I promised a review of the flat iron steak, well... it was a little red for my taste, but Joe and JJ loved it. I like well done steaks... but if I liked medium to rare it would have been great.

Sous What?

I had felt kind of weird before about posting some of my husband's extreme nerdy-ness, but after I said something about posting about all of his crazy ideas he jumped right on board. I have been given free reign to post about all of his (our?) adventures.

For those who don't know, I have a very nerdy husband who gets on a kick and searches the mess out of it. When he wants to know something, he figures it out to the point of almost becoming an expert. Because of this, he enjoys puzzles and mind games. Any way the latest in a long line of obses... I mean hobbies... is Sous Vide cooking. From what I can understand, sous vide is a style of cooking that originated in the 70's? Any way basically you use Food-saver bags, water, and this sous vide machine to cook your food. It keeps your food at a certain degree to cook the food without over cooking it. You can keep it on for hours and it won't over cook... and because it keeps the water below boiling, it doesn't use much electricity. So after you pull the meat out of the food-saver bag, all that is left to do is brown it and it is supposed to stay moist and keep its flavor. Vegetables cooked in it are supposed to retain their vitamins and nutrients. It is pretty much the nerdiest way to cook that I have seen so far.We are supposed pick it up from Fed-ex this evening since the place we pick up packages is closed for spring break. I'll tell you how it goes. I think the first meal is going to be flat iron steak...

Spring Break

So far this spring break...

We have began to eat healthier. Trying Splenda sweet tea, Greek yogurt, adding more fresh fruit, and trying to eat three balanced meals a day.

Last night we had a Caesar salad but with baby spinach, light Caesar dressing, croutons, and part of a rotisserie chicken shredded without the skin.-- Very yummy!

Tonight we had pesto chicken with spinach and mozzarella pizza.-- Also very yummy, and we were good and had normal portions. There are even left overs for tomorrow.


Anyway, it has been great to have time with Joe and not have to worry about night classes. Next week is going to hit hard, but not too much longer, right?

I haven't posted recently partially because I am pressed for time and usually prefer a nap when possible, but also partially because I have little to post about. The past few weeks I feel I have constantly been going in the most mundane way. Work, home, class, sleep, work, home, class, sleep, homework. Sadly if I get a moment I am usually trying to complete something that has been put off for a while, be it homework, chores, or something for work. Needless to say, running has come to a rushing halt after the second trip to the Dr. (you know the one in between kidney stones). I have been trying to constantly catch up on sleep, especially since the snow day. I am still feeling the after effects of the snow day in my head and chest. I know that I will be thankful when the semester is over, and it will be nice not to have to worry about another semester like this, but at this point I am just trying to survive it. I am trying to be responsible for with my time so that I won't miss work or class, but I feel it is a never ending cycle of getting run down and then sick and trying to get over it. If I had better management skills, I would probably be fine. I could run, work, and go to class and nothing will falter. I don't, I am trying to become better when it comes to planning and being diligent. I think my biggest issue is breaks and break time. I feel I deserve both, and if I am not a productive break taker I feel I still need a break to relax. All this to say... I am falling alseep

So today I woke up to a winter wonderland, and it kept snowing. I think it just stopped after it started last night around 7:30. It started to stick around 10:30 last night, so when I woke up there was already 2 1/2 to 3 inches on the ground at 5 this morning. The picture to the side right side was taken at around 8 this morning and the picture below was taken closer to 6:45.

I love the "scary tree" that we can see from our bathroom window especially now since it is covered in snow!
Closer to 8, I took this from the same window, now you can see the snow on the road... it is kind of slushy now, which will be bad tomorrow morning, but hey it look pretty then.


When I went walking before waking up Joe, at least before he woke up. I tried to wake him up earlier, but he wouldn't budge. But then again he didn't go to bed early like I did...The total of snow on the back of our car around 8:30 or so... almost 4 inches! In Clinton that has to be some kind of record, not to mention snow was still falling!

Lol, Even in snow as the pledge says, the mail will be delivered (except on holidays of course).
So this is where I work, or didn't work today. I woke up early just so I could get the news that we were closed. It is very pretty covered in snow. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the playground it was very pretty. It is also on a hUgE hill and would have been fun to sled down.


Anyway, it was a lot of fun today playing in the snow. Our camera died so I don't have the pictures of building a snow bride and groom with Matt and Kristy, or Kristy and my snow angels, but Oh well. I thought I would leave you with two of my favorite pictures. Especially with Valentine's Day coming up. The monument to the left is on our college campus, but I rarely pay attention to it. Today it stuck out with the snow piled up on it, so we took a picture. The snow was wonderful, but now I am off to find something for the hubs for Valentine's day. Sadly it is less dangerous to get out on the roads now than it will be tomorrow, so I am off to bundle up and brave the snow once more. Have a great rest of the day, and if you got it, enjoy the snow!

Inspired

So today has been a day full of very adult things, Career Fair, in which I met with eleven school districts for the coming year and handed out resumes, and then paying bills. I am still dealing with quite a few things from that wonderful ER visit about a month ago, but thats how life goes. Thankfully God has provided by cutting my bill at least in half if not more. I will find out about the final bill's actual amount a week from Friday, but until then I am thanking God for providing so much already.

While taking a break before starting to fill out applications and work on homework, I went back to a few of my favorite sites, and felt inspired to share some of the things I have enjoyed.

Kevin & Amanda www.kevinandamanda.com is a fun blog I stumbled upon, and honestly I can't remember how! Amanda has tons of free fonts up for download. There are actually two sites full, broken apart into scrapbook and handwriting. She even has an explanation on how to use the fonts on your blog, but it was a little complicated so I haven't tried it yet. Here are a few I like, sorry if they are blurry that is me trying to put them in to a compatible, yet small file.
There are other fun things on their blog as well, like recipes and decorating ideas... I have wandered around it for hours and probably still haven't discovered everything yet.

Other things that inspire me are our newly rearranged bedroom and our ever-in-progress bathroom.



Bedroom (obviously)




Its not perfect, but it does look better than it did. I finally found a place to stow away the unmatched towels. We found some cute baskets at Walmart to hold our odds and ends on the shelf, and we bought the shower curtain in the window so that during the day we could have more light. For the bedroom, we only had to buy curtains, which actually aren't shown in the pictures (we already had the ones shown). I have been on a spree the last few weeks. I blame it on wanting to be productive, but not wanting to do school work.

Cranberry Juice and Birthday Celebration

This week started off pretty rough. This kids were crazy at work, and Wednesday I woke up with a pain in my side... You've got it, another kidney stone. I took some meds and went back to bed. Later that evening when I was talking to my mom she suggested cranberry juice, which I asked Joe if he could pick up for me... the above picture is what I woke up to the next morning... plus two more in the fridge. Sadly, I later looked up the benefits of cranberry juice on Kidney stones, and there aren't any. There have actually been studies that say that drinking too much can cause kidney stones... so I will drink in moderation, and I guess Joe will drink the rest ;)
Anyway, The rest of the week was rough, but got better as I was able to celebrate with the amazing man above. Yesterday was Joe's birthday! We celebrated yesterday with a fish fry with friends. We also tried out the new reeses ice cream cake from DQ, which was delicious. Today we went out to eat at the fish house in the Bass Pro Shop, but neither of us had fish. Joe had a buffalo burger, and I had a cajun chicken pasta dish. We stuck around a few extra min after we finished to see the fish feeding, and then headed off to dogwood.
This is what I "surprised" Joe with last night, and below he is showing off his gift he picked out today. Yup it is the same watch Chuck wears, without the communication device. His watch died early this morning... perfect timing to get an awesome watch that just so happened to be at Sams. It is solar powered, and it updates by the atomic clock. There are many other very nerdy features but I can't remember them all. Needless to say he was very excited.
In other news, this semester is killing me. I'm trying not to stress out but I really do feel I am doing things very halfheartedly. I know I need to manage my time better, but I really like being able to relax a bit during the week. I'm not sure if I am really going to be able to keep running normally right now, with everything else going on. Anyway that is what is going on in my neck of the woods. Enjoying the weekend.