{Not} Living Vicariously

Meal Planning Week of March 25th

Yes - I'm late . . . I got busy . . . and I'm backing up a bit. We had our nephew in town over the weekend so meal plans changed. He thoroughly enjoyed Friday's tilapia, steamed broccoli, and sweet potato fries with us. However we did not have leftover soup on Saturday . . . we had:

Saturday: chicken fajitas with rice and salsa

Sunday: fajita rice bowls (using leftovers)

Monday: fajita quesadillas (finishing off the leftovers)

Tuesday: cheese ravioli in pesto-tomato broth (using up leftover pesto from a yet to be blogged about panini recipe) 

Wednesday: Aaron is fending for himself while I go do a puppet show

Thursday: black-eyed pea salad with ham and cilantro using up the leftover ham from the weekend

Friday: either leftovers or date night

Saturday: whichever doesn't get done on Friday

Bacon and Cheese Goodness

Don't look if you are opposed to bacon . . . I have a love affair with Tillamook Cheddar.

It has been my go-to cheese for years. I also am a huge fan of bacon and married into a family who loves bacon even more than I do. When I was much younger, I wanted a BLT sandwich at some cafeteria style restaurant I was at with my mother. Only problem was I didn't like lettuce and didn't like tomatoes. Don't ask me why I wanted the BLT, but there you are. Somehow I ended up with a bacon and cheese sandwich instead and I was happy! The other day, I got to craving one of those and since my parents had recently restocked my supply of Tillamook Cheddar (sharp at that!), I was able to indulge . . .

I definitely had one happy belly!

Meal Planning Week of March 18th

Sunday: Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

Monday: Linguine and Pork Stir-Fry

Tuesday: leftover soup

Wednesday: Aaron at bookclub, me something vegetarian

Thursday: leftover Linguine

Friday: Tilapia

Saturday: either leftover Chicken soup or leftover Minestrone soup

and would you believe it is in the 80s here, yet we keep having soup?

Using my fine china . . . cabinet

One of the things my mother helped me with while they were visiting was pulling out all my fine china, and placing it in the easy to get to and use china cabinet I inherited from her quite early.

I do have three different patterns in here: the one we registered for, my parents' as they no longer use it, and my Grandmother's (or what is left of it). I never met her, but it is nice to get to use her china. And speaking of using the china, not only has it been used at Thanksgiving and Tea Parties, it also sometimes gets used in the everyday, such as when Ryan made Chicken Tikka Masala the last time he visited.

I really enjoy getting to use my china whenever I want.

Dratted Weather

So one of our trees is having seasonal issues . . . and has put out these lovely little blooms . . . way earlier than it should.

You know this means we're going to have huge amounts of insects this year, having it so warm already and without any good cold snaps. I really don't like having lots of bugs around, unless they are nice ones like ladybugs. I've already been dive bombed by a fly at work. I'm so hoping for a good cold snap to come kill them.

Please purple martins and bats - come hang out in my yard this year and eat lots of mosquitos!

For the Love of Picture Books - Stowell

Illustrator Adam Stower has published his first (that I can find) title he has also written: Silly Doggy (9780545373234). One day Lily sees something absolutely wonderful in her garden, something with four legs, a tail, and a big, wet nose, something she has always wanted: a dog(!?!) When one is extremely optimistic, it is easy to confuse a bear with a dog, right? Even though Doggy can’t do dog tricks, doesn’t obey Lily, and won’t eat his dog food, Lily is in love. However, Mommy says Lily needs to put up a Lost Dog poster. It turns out there is a hole in the fence at the zoo, some animals have escaped, and the zoo keeper comes looking. However, Lily’s luck holds out as the next morning she discovers a Kitty in the garden. How wonderful to have such a positive outlook on life. 

Standard disclaimer: I get to see advance copies of books through my job, however this review was unsolicited and unpaid for . . . opinions are completely my own.

Meal Planning Week of March 11th

Sunday: minestrone soup with an arugula, proscuitto, and mozzarella panini

Monday: French Dip (which we will blog about soon)

Tuesday: leftovers from Sunday

Wednesday: Corned Beef with all the fixin's (early St. Patrick's Day)

Thursday: any leftovers we need to eat up

Friday: family dinner at fave restaurant

Saturday: shrimp boil (we think) with family

Thoughts on Pinterest

Confession: I am addicted to blog hopping. I love to surf from blog to blog and have several that are in my Google Reader feed. Most of the blogs I cruise contain crafty ideas for things I’d love to do or make someday, I just don’t know when. However I’m always bookmarking specific blog posts of things I want to emulate.

About two years ago I had a fleeting thought (I was trying to clean out an overfull email account) about how wonderful it would be to have a clean way to organize all these URLs in a visually stimulating way so that I could quickly find specific projects I might want to “do now” when I had some time to be creative. Like many of my thoughts, it floated away because I did not have the time, energy, or technical know-how to accomplish such a task. How very funny that around that time Pinterest got a start. I was not part of the beta test group but I did start hearing about it sometime in 2010. Then, when it became open to others to use, just by requesting an invite, I was very excited to try it out. Imagine my dismay to find out you had to be on Facebook or Twitter to join. Not that I am opposed to either Facebook or Twitter – I just hadn’t joined either of them because I was worried about how much time I might find myself wasting on these sites. I hemmed and hawed for weeks over what to do until I realized that all that time I was worried about wasting, was already being used enjoyably by feeding my blog hopping habit and attempting to keep ideas/projects/etc. organized. So I caved in and joined Twitter just so I could accept my Pinterest invitation. There have been zero regrets since.

As for me on Pinterest? Well, I’m still slowly migrating all those saved ideas from my hard drive to my Pinterest account. Until that project is complete, I’m trying really really hard to not do too much surfing inside the Pinterest site. But boy do I find some lovely ideas every time I open it up and some of them do end up on my own boards. Now if I could just find the time to tear myself away from the boards long enough to actually create some of the items I’m pinning I’d feel just a little bit better about the time I’m spending enjoying the service. (The flip side of that statement is that living vicariously through others has always been a weakness of mine – which might be why I have more fun finding things to do than actually doing them – how’s that for honesty?)

Ben and Team – thanks for creating a place for me to keep all my ideas organized and indulge my dreams! Happy Pinning indeed.

February 11th Tea Party

As mentioned several times over on 2HB I helped out with a tea party at my church last month. While I blogged about the tasty food we made here, here, and here, I have not yet shared any photos of the event. Time to remedy that! Keep in mind that I am not a decorator. All of the beauty you see below was created by other talented woman. I just got to enjoy the fun and festive setting.

I was amazed at some of the collectibles brought out by women just for the purpose of creating a lovely setting . . .

Our tables had centerpieces made of flower arrangements in tea cup/saucers that were door prizes. Those were surrounded by netting in a variety of colors . . .

which we also used in the mix of napkins at each place setting. Our "silverware" was actually silver plastic which made for easy cleanup. All of the cups and saucers, as well as the tea pots/sugars/creamers were on loan. The most amazing piece of decoration were the party favors of those little hats of which I wish I had a better picture. Directions are here for something similar. However we did not paint ours!

Even though there were no children at our event, we felt the need for a "kids table" and is it not adorable?

Last, but definitely not least, let me share a few pictures of the food!

and

Yes, the food tables look fairly similar. If you are having a tea party and have multiple food tables, I highly recommend having the same food options on each - helps keep the lines short!

This was a blast, and although we were all exhausted by the time it was done, I think we are also looking forward to next year's Heart to Heart tea.

Meal Planning Week of March 4th

Sunday: C.O.R.N. soup with chile-corn mufins

Monday: King Ranch Chicken Casserole 

Tuesday: leftover soup

Wednesday: loaded baked potatoes made in the crock pot so they will be ready around the time we get home from work

Thursday: leftover King Ranch Chicken

Friday: tilapia

Saturday: dinner with friends