I like it.

I like to blog, plain and simple. But sometimes I worry too much about what other people think. My blogging had pretty much slowed down to 1 or 2 entries a month, because I would overanalyze andthink, "Do people really care about 'x?' I won't write about that..."

But then I just decided that it's something I enjoy, and if someone doesn't want to read about it, they don't have to!! I'm certainly not forcing anyone to read it. For that matter, I don't know if anyone does read it, but it's a good outlet for me, so I'll keep blogging!!

Updates...

• We've added not only kale to our smoothies, but also wheat germ. They look a little gross - with little green bits - but they taste just like before. So our smoothie recipe for two is as follows:

-1 banana
-2 cups assorted frozen fruit (our mix has melon, strawberries, pineapple, peaches and mangoes)
-3/4 cup lowfat yogurt
-3/4 cup juice - we use Pomegranate Blueberry V8 Fusion or Cranberry Pomegranate
-3/4 cup water
-2 T wheat germ
-1 leaf of Kale - stem removed

• We also made bread and muffins, substituting 1/2 cup of wheat germ for flour. Both still tasted great, and were a little extra healthy!

• Our ice cream maker is here!! We made French Vanilla Cookies and Cream ice cream and it's super yummy!! I'm excited that we can have ice cream and know everything that's in it. It reminds me of the commercial for Breyer's (I think) where they talk about being able to pronounce all the ingredients.

• The unpacking of our house is moving very, very slowly. This is a picture of the living room. We don't have very much to go in the living room, so none of this really belongs there. We're making progress this week though.
  
• Our apples seem to be multiplying - as you'd expect. In a weeks time, 6 cubic feet of apples fell off the tree. It took Aaron and I about a half hour to pick all the apples out of the yard.
  
• And my favorite Laffy Taffy joke so far..."Why did the cow wear a bell around it's neck?" Check the comments for the answer :-)

Thanks Alton!

A good marriage is full of compromises. So, Aaron watches 'Dancing With the Stars' and 'Jon and Kate Plus Eight' with me sometimes and I watch Nascar or 'Good Eats' with him. I can't stand the host of 'Good Eats,' Alton Brown, but I do have to thank him for a little tip we employed tonight.

We made the "batter" for our homemade ice cream tonight so it can chill overnight. (The Kitchen Aid attachment arrived today and is spending the night in our freezer so we can make ice cream tomorrow night!!) The recipe we made - French Vanilla Cookies and Cream - calls for 8 egg yolks. Getting rid of 8 egg whites seemed like a waste, but we have no immediate need for them. That's where Alton comes in...
He suggests putting your egg whites in an ice cube tray and freezing them. Then, if you have a recipe that calls for just egg whites, you can pop them out, defrost and Voila! you're set!! We ended up with 10 "egg cubes" from 8 large eggs, but we figure it's pretty close. Now we just have to wait for a recipe that calls for egg whites...

I *heart* S'mores!!

Camping is great. There are lots of things I could talk about in regards to my enjoyment of camping...the chance to relax, 2-minute mysteries by the fire, the necessity of cuddling my husband to stay warm...but my favorite part is the S'mores!! I prefer to eat them with every meal while camping, and generally do. Camping with a 6-year old sort of made me think about that in a new light though.
Saturday morning there was a bit of a battle getting Roarke to eat breakfast, because he just wanted to eat S'mores. After all, they're tasty and his older sister was eating them, so why can't he fill up on S'mores instead of eating eggs, potatoes and sausage?? We finally convinced him. And I still had 2 S'mores at breakfast :-D

Trying this out from my phone...

We're camping. My dad brought this cool headlamp. And there are roaming goats at the campgrounds! More pictures to follow...

The kind of week I've had

I don't know why, but I've been in a funk this week - for lack of a better word. I wake up in the morning tired, even if I go to bed early the night before, I'm usually annoyed with someone at work within minutes of walking in and every day just seems to drag on. We've been really busy this week, so maybe I'm just suffering from a lack of downtime or "me" time, but whatever the reason, the "funk" remains.

So yesterday at lunch, I asked Aaron if we needed gas. The act of getting gas itself doesn't cheer me up, but getting candy at a gas station does. (I'll readily admit that when I'm in a bad mood, I eat junk food. I know it's not good for me, but I do it anyways.) Then my husband said he wanted to go to Sam's Club to get gas, because it's cheaper. I happily agreed, because they sell lots of candy there!! This is what I got to try to improve my mood:

The candy helped a little, and so did all the great jokes from the Laffy Taffy. Here's to hoping I get out of this funk soon!!

We did it!

We got a Kitchenaid Ice Cream Maker Attachment!! We have been wanting one of these ever since we got our Kitchenaid Mixer for Christmas 1.5 years ago, we have a couple recipes that we've been saving for the day that we actually get one and we've even looked in a few stores, ready to buy one, only to find out they didn't carry it in store or were out. But today, my amazing husband discovered that Target offered Free Shipping, so it's on it's way!! It was good timing, because we had a 10% off that we could use online as well as a couple gift cards, so we felt pretty good about the purchase, and there's still plenty of summer left!!

Anyone have any great homemade ice cream recipes they'd like to share??

The Air I Breathe

Articles like this one drive me crazy! It says, "She said five of six products she tested emitted substances the Environmental Protection Agency says are not safe at any level. The researcher did not disclose which six products she tested."

Ok. So you're telling me that the air freshener, laundry detergent or fabric softener that I'm using is potentially hazardous, but you're not going to tell me which ones specifically?!? Instead, I'll just continue to be (possibly) exposed to hazardous products on a regular basis.

At least I'm not headed to Beijing for the Olympics.

Apples galore

We have an apple tree in our new backyard. It looks to be a great climbing tree, but it has its drawbacks as well.
I doubt that we'll get any full-grown apples off the tree, because they'll all fall off before then. Aaron cleaned up a bunch of them about a week ago, but they're all over the yard again. They also clog up our gutters in a hurry, which caused part of our basement to flood.
They're also very confusing for the dogs. The apples are similiar in size, shape and color compared to their tennis balls. Fetch has been a very confusing time recently.
The worst part is, Aaron doesn't think we'll be able to eat or make anything out of any apples if we do get any, because they'll be infested with bugs. *sigh* I guess we'll just have to wait and see and learn how to deal with the other inconveniences and challenges the tree causes in the meantime.

I'm a sheep*

We bought wheat germ tonight. We're going to start putting some in all of our baked goods, as well as sneaking a little into our smoothies in the AM. We've talked about doing this for a while, because of the following health benefits, but finally bought some tonight.

"Face it, wheat germ is a nutrition standout. It's one of the best sources of folic acid. That's good news, since it's recommended that all women of childbearing age get sufficient amounts of this nutrient to prevent neural-tube birth defects. Folic acid reduces a compound in your body called homocysteine. Lower levels of homocysteine have been linked to reducing the risk of heart disease, osteoporosis bone fractures, and dementia.
Wheat germ also contains a phytonutrient called L-ergothioneine, which is a powerful antioxidant that is not destroyed by cooking. In addition, the fiber boost you get from wheat germ is phenomenal." (http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/natural-weight-loss-food-wheat-germ-ga.htm)

We're making Honey and Oat muffins this weekend, which use Whole Wheat Flour and Oatmeal and have no added sugar. We found the recipe a few months ago and were really pleased to find discover that the muffins freeze and re-heat really well, so we make a bit batch, freeze the majority of them, and can pull them out on a weekday morning when we're crunched for time. We're also trying out Ambre's Milk and Honey Bread recipe just because we heard it's yummy. We'll be adding wheat germ to both, so I'm anxious to see how they turn out.

Ambre has also recommended adding greens to smoothies to up the nutritional content even more. She, and others, claim that you can't taste the veggies in there if they're well blended, so we're giving it a shot. We bought kale tonight to add to our next batch of smoothies. Kale is also a great food to add to our diets, for the following reasons:

"Though greens in general are nutritious foods, kale stands a head above the rest. Not only is it one of your best sources of beta-carotene, one of the antioxidants believed by many nutrition experts to be a major player in the battle against cancer, heart disease, and certain age-related chronic diseases, it also provides other important nutrients. In addition to beta-carotene, kale posses other important carotenoids: lutein and zeaxathin. These carotenoids help keep UV rays from damaging the eyes and causing cataracts.

According to recent research results, kale is an incredible source of well-absorbed calcium, which is one of the many factors that may help prevent osteoporosis. It also provides decent amounts of vitamin C, folic acid, vitamin B6, manganese, and potassium. The manganese in kale helps your body's own antioxidant defense system, superoxide dismutase, protecting you from damaging free radicals. Its folate and B6 team up to keep homocysteine levels down, which may help prevent heart disease, dementia, and osteoporosis bone fractures." (http://home.howstuffworks.com/kale3.htm)

I've recently (within the last couple years) entered into the world of actually liking vegetables. I ate them before out of courtesy to whoever prepared them, but definitely never liked eating them or craved them. That's changed a lot, but I'm still a little leary of trying new things with veggies...

*I think there's an old adage about whether you're a sheep - a follower, or a shepard - a leader. I totally feel like a sheep writing about what I'm doing to eat healthier, more organic, etc...but I'm sharing anyways!!

Have you ever...

...wondered what it would look like if Aaron and I had our pictures taken with our dogs by a professional photographer?? If you have, then today is your lucky day!! Just follow this link, enter your email address and name, and you can view pictures of just that!!

https://www.collages.net/ConsumerSite/GuestLogin.aspx?eventcode=357721

Somebody at work said, "I hope you two have kids soon, so you can stop having your pictures taken with your dogs." Silly co-worker. When we have kids, they'll just be added to the pictures with our dogs!!

TV Reviews

It's time to review the serious shows. Wipeou and MXC!!

Wipeout is described as follows:
"Human cannonballs! Human pinballs! Crashes, smashes and mud splashes! Twenty-four thrill-seekers will compete in the world's largest extreme obstacle course designed to provide the most spills, face plants and wipeouts ever seen on television, in Wipeout, a painfully funny new reality series."

MXC claims to be this:
"This critically-acclaimed comedic series is a combination of Fear Factor, Jackass and Iron Chef, with a touch of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Using the actual footage from one of the most popular primetime Japanese reality game shows, Takeshi's Castle, the new series is re-written to create an entirely new comedic storyline. The series is not dubbed and there is not a single trace of literal translation from the original show."

Wipeout is a new show that airs on ABC. It has it's moments and it can be funny, but it still doesn't compare to MXC which airs on Spike TV. I mean, really, you can't compete "Gee LaDouche" as the sideline reporter and commentary that has nothing to do with what happened in reality. I'll still watch Wipeout though, because it airs during primetime as opposed to 2AM.

I'm sure you'll all sleep better now knowing that I think of these 2 shows!! Any "copycat" shows you hae opinions on??

Brownie Goody Bars

They're amazing. Enough said. The recipe follows:

1 box Betty Crocker Original Supreme Brownie Mix

Water, Vegetable Oil and Eggs called for by brownie mix

1 container vanilla frosting (we used Cream Cheese frosting)

3/4 cup salted peanuts, coarsely chopped

3 cups crisp rice cereal

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 bag (2 cups) chocolate chips

1. Heat oven to 350 and grease bottom of 9x13 pan.

2. Make brownies as directed and cool completely, at least 1 hour.

3. Frost brownies and sprinkle peanuts. Refrigerate while making the cereal mixture.

4. Melt chocolate and peanut butter together. Mix with cereal and spread over the top of frosted brownies. Cool completely before cutting and store in an airtight container at room temperature.

*Best made for a group of people, because otherwise you will eat the whole pan yourself :-D

Let me know what you think!!