A bit of this and that...

Hello friends!!! So sorry its been too long. Last weekend was LOTS and LOTS of cooking on my part.  My favorite thing to do is actually cook, but only when I have time. And since Burr was working he just came home for dinner at night (Friday and Saturday).  Here is what was whipped up last weekend.

Friday Night – Make your own Pizza with ceaser salad and homemade croutons

Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat fresh pizza dough

TraderJoe’s fresh pizza sauce

Low-fat skim mozzerlla cheese

Soy sausage  - also from TJs – FULL of protein

Sauteed mushrooms

Olives (for anne)

Croutons = whole wheat bread with light butter, garlic powder, and garlic and herb cheese broiled to perfection

Saturday Night – Lebanese Night (Now this was a bit difficult!) Seriously – 3 middle eastern grocery stores…hello!

1.       Chicken Swarma Pitas with garlic sauce (You have to marinade chicken overnight)

a.       Garlic Sauce = 1 cup nonfat greek yogurt, ¼ cup lemon juice, 3 smushed garlics, garlic powder if needed, salt

2.       Fattoush Salad

a.       Romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, homemade pita chips (pita coated with olive oil and crushed garlic baked for 7 minutes at 400), tossed with dressing of 1/2cup water, ½ cup lemon juice, 1 t. sumac (spice), 1 t. dried mint, salt, pepper,

Sunday I made egg muffins for breakfast for the week, makes 12 muffins

1 cup liquid egg whites

3 regular eggs

½ cup skim milk

Sautéed veggies (mushrooms, spinach, onions, peppers)

Soy sausage

Cook for 20 minutes, then top with low fat cheese and cook for another 5 minutes.

I love these cause you can re-heat a couple in the morning and shove them in on your way to work!

I get to see Ellie and Clare in T minus 13 days. SOOOOO excited – check out recent pics. Are you kidding me?! Ridic.

 

This is a picture of me and our friends, Katie and Drews, little girl - Maggie. Isn't she the sweetest thing ever! I heart her.

 This is pic of the shape of our new bed!!! I picked out a grey velvet fabric to get it covered in though.

I was SUPER productive last weekend and even whipped up this arrangement on our wall! I was SOOOO proud of myself:-)

 

We also had the yard guy come – here are a couple pics.

Oh, and termite update is we don’t have “active” termites; these were old and treated before. At least we can sleep at night!

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Invasion!!! We have termites. Isn’t that disgusting?!  Welcome to owning an older home. ICK ICK.  We had the house inspected 7 months ago but apparently they have grown since then. GRRRooosssss.  So goes my furniture buying for a while. 

Its so much easier to rent. We can just call the landlord and say “the ceiling is covered in water spots, please fix” – love that. Definitely take that for granted. Home ownership is a full time job. 

So we are having a second inspection for termintes next week, we will see what they say but most likely my furniture budget will be put on hold for a couple months while we eliminate tiny little bugs. EWWWWWW.

Burr is in his last few days of busy season!!! Lets all say his prayers for him.  The sleeping from 2am to 6am has got to be brutal.  Almost over…next week at least.  So this weekend he doesn’t really want to do much. I’m guessing if I made plans with friends for dinner he would maybe say 10 words the whole time, so I think I’ll pass. It’s a great excuse for me to try new recipes for us! Yeah! 

Weekend for me is full of jazzercise, hair cut, fabric buying, cooking, building a vision board, organizing my closet, church solo, and building a menu planner. I’m super excited. 

Valentine’s day was fab. McD’s and we rented 50/50 – which was actually funny.  Burr got me a spa gift certificate, his go-to, and I am NOT complaining. Facials are not cheap people! 

Hope everyone is having a fantastic week !

 Kisses

Anne

Valentine's and SD!

Thank you for your prayers.  The surgery went very well.   I was planning to go home, but Mom said it would be best for me to keep my scheduled trip with my High School friends and come for David's Birthday in March. So that is my plan.  We are now praying for a clean report and a quick recovery!

Weekend in San Diego with Dawn, Melissa, and Nicola was fabulous.  We did LOTS of eating and shopping. My 2 favorite things!!! Thursday consisted of just Dawn and me  - we drank wine and ate delicious cheese and talked for hours. Friday and Saturday Dawn and I ran around Camp Pendleton in the morning. It was really crazy for me.  In the 2 30 minute jogs I saw a live helicopter, M-16s, some crazy machine that is like a land/water sub-marine, and lots of other cool stuff.  I loved seeing how different live was on base. It was a very eye opening experience for sure! 

Friday we went to a breakfast place called Hash House a go go, kinda reminded me of Mama’s in San Fran – where you wait outside.  We shared food there and I’m not kidding when I saw the circumference of the pancake we ate was approximately 16 inches.  The plates were HUGE. Rest of the day was seal watching and shopping, and more eating.

Saturday we went to the farmer’s market. This was SO cool. I love farmer’s markets.  They had LOTS of good samples. I tried some green drink that had kale and other veggies mixed in with apples and bananas. I actually really enjoyed it.  I also tried some chocolate soaked olive – not my favorite. Then off to Dawn’s favorite Italian place.  I will never forget the smell of that place. It was amazing. We shared pizza.

We walked around more, did more shopping. I bought a huge bag which of course I needed!  *Don’t worry it comes out of my Feb. shopping budget. My budget has been cut significantly since the addition of a furniture budget so I really have to be careful where I spend it!  But I’m happy with my purchase.

Then we went to this place called extraordinary desserts.  And it was amazing! We shared a Napoleon (shown) – my personal fav and a dulce de leche cheesecake.  We didn’t finish either…In fact we took home half the desserts and half the pizza…Dawn have you devoured yet? 

Then we went to the Vow. You know the movie with Rachel McAdams. I hated it. HATED it. Why would I ever pay to cry?  That just seems absurd, like self-inflected wounds.  Why in the world would anyone want to pay to be sad.  Ridiculous.  I mean it ends kinda-happy….but not happy enough for my liking. Don’t go!  Save your tears for actual sadness. Ugh.  I would have asked for my money back if I didn’t have mascara steaming down my face.

I would say my friends have some amazing home decorating, recipe ideas. Especially Nicola. She told me about this menu board thing that I think I want to do where you plan a month of meals….it can include meals out but at least you kinda have a plan.  I think I’m going to try it. She is so crafty she can make her own curtains and window boxes…amazing.  I think she should open a craft business up with my friend Kacie – they would make a fourtune!  Melissa was a trooper.  She has 9 weeks left of her pregnancy and didn’t complain 1 time. In fact, I think I might have complained more than she did! Haha. Please note :  I will not be taking on the no-complaining-while-preggo attitude when its my turn.

Sunday was a long plane ride back. I did finish the 2^nd hunger games though. Have you read it?  There are 3 books in the series and they are actually quite addictive. Not as good as Harry Potter but I would say definitely on-par with Twlight.  Are you asking …”Why is anne only read teeny-bopper books?”  well…I would say you obviously don’t know me because I would still buy Teen Vogue magazines if it was socially acceptable.  Plus my favorite movies include 10 things I hate about you and How to love a guy in 10  days. And you somehow think I’m above hunger games. HA!  No way dude. 

Today is Valentine’s Day!! YEAH!!! 

Last night I made a specific trip to Trader Joe’s to get chocolate croissants. They are Burr’s very very favorite – chocolate croissants in Europe that is.  And Dawn told me these were good so I had to go get them for him.  I carefully laid one out overnight, as instructed, and baked it this morning. He LOVED it!! We exchanged cards, I got a gift certificate to the spa and tonight we are having our McD’s date night!!! YEAH!! (First Burr is going to his soccer game though – priorities people!- this leaves me time for a little jazzercise - yippe). Biggest decision of the day – Shamrock Shake or Chocolate??? hmmmm 

 Happy Valentine’s Day to all – here is a kiss for each cheek. 

 

MUAH MUAH

Anne

Prayers

Hello there

Today my stepfather, David, will have surgery to remove his prostate and (hopefully) all the cancer.  All your prayers are greatly appreciated. We are praying for a quick and easy surgery and a short road to recovery.

Love

Anne

Happy Tuesday!

Hey Hey – Happy Tuesday!!! It feels like Wednesday to me since I’m taking the day off on Friday.

Off to California with Dawn, Nicola, and Melissa!!  These are my high school girlfriends – I think the last time the 4 of us were all together was Dawn’s wedding. Wow. Its been a while! That was BEFORE we even left for London tour. 

So recipes this week – 

I made turkey and dumplings in the crockpot Sunday and another batch of protein pancakes for the week. Here is recipe : http://www.bhg.com/recipe/turkey-and-dumplings/ - Now I only did half the dumplings that go on top, used white wheat flour, and added a lot more chicken broth to make it more soupy – oh and 2 TSBP of cornstarch to thicken it up later. hehe

Protein pancakes are so yummy and taste much better than eating plain greek yogurt with berries!  Be warned – they take FOREVER to cook on a very low temperature.  http://www.bigoven.com/recipe/236144/flaxseed-protein-pancakes. Perhaps I like them because of the agave I cover them in…oh well. 

Oh, I also made this gingerbread cookies with Katie and James which we rolled out. Awesome.  http://www.bhg.com/recipe/big-soft-ginger-cookies/

 

Enough bragging…I also tried to make this fresh baked “quickbread” to bring to my bosses superbowl party.  Thank goodness I took a little off the top while it was cooking to taste it.  It was TERRIBLE. Like Burr had to spit out white bread terrible – and Burr loves white bread.  WOW – now this is why we TRY recipes before bringing them to other people’s homes – hehe. So definitely a flop of the weekend. I will not share that recipe.  

I have decided we need to start trying recipes for Thanksgiving since we will probably have about 20 people and 1 oven.  Does anyone have any amazing recipes that we need to try? Please send them my way!!!

Last night I made brownies from scratch. I’m not actually sure I’ve ever done this. How pathetic is that?!  And you know what?  After I made them I thought “I have been ROBBED!”  Seriously, there are 100 types of boxed brownies that I’ve bought over the years and they are perhaps more time to make when you factor in the time it takes to purchase the box and bring home. Unbelievable.  I will no longer be buying boxed brownie mix when I can just use the stuff in my cupboard.  I know you are all thinking “Hello – why didn’t you know this” but I guess I just always thought the box was the way to go. Never again. No, I say that but I haven’t actually tried the brownies yet – they are for girls night tonight. SUPER excited!  Hopefully the brownies will be more like the gingerbread cookies vs. the quickbread.

Kisses

Anne

PS - One week from today is VALENTINE'S DAY! Do you know what that means?  Hello McDonald's and movie night. I already know what I am getting - Cheeseburger Happy Meal with a chocolate milkshake. BRING IT ON. Oh, and the Movie I want to see is "The Vow" but I lost movie privileges for a while after we saw "New Years Eve" on opening weekend....not sure I have been forgiven yet.

Grateful

This weekend we went to a speaker at Christ Church in Charlotte. Now, this is not a normal activity for us but our friends Anne Brady and Jeff Carlson had told some of their friends we were in the midst of “dating” churches?   Thus, we were introduced to Betsy and Mark Westerburg and their three children, one of whom is an intern with Burr and they wanted to “escort” us to church since they are very involved at Christ Church Charlotte.  So the 9 of us (Burr, me, Anne Brady, Jeff, and the family of 5) met at their house walked to Church and then the Westerburg’s took us to Myers Park Country Club for the most amazing brunch!!

*Side Note – Dating churches means each Sunday we try out a different parish, or every other Sunday in our case, afterwards we talk about what we liked, didn’t like…in hopes at some point we will stop dating “around” and become exclusive with a church in Charlotte.

Anyway, the speaker was Brene Brown, I had never heard of her but I really enjoyed it. Apparently she is very well known - http://www.brenebrown.com/speaking. I would highly recommend listening to her!  Anyway, one of her takeaways was that you cannot be joyful without practicing gratitude each day which I completely agree with. So now I am having Burr and I say what we are grateful for each night….he doesn’t love when I mandate these things but oh well. MUAH. **

**Side Note – This reminds me of one dinner with Steve, Batten, Lee, and Burr where I tried to make them play “Hi/Lo” – there was a lot of moaning and whining about sharing their high and low of the day but eventually I got them to do it.  If I remember correctly Batten, or perhaps Burr, said they Low was playing this silly game with me – UGH.  In the words of Stephanie Tanner “HOW RUDE!!”

3 things I am grateful for from this weekend:

1.       1. Family!  James, Katie, Lynn, and Stephen came to see us. So fun (see wrestling pic)

2.       2. Meeting the Westerburg’s – their warmth and kindness was so inviting.

3.       3. Our house – even though I whine about it a lot, I think I am finally starting to feel at home even without furniture

 

 Hope everyone has a fabulous week. 

What’s on the agenda?

Jazzercise tonight, Bachelor night tomorrow, off to San Diego with Melissa, Nicola, and Dawn on Thursday. Woo woo .

XXX