We've been busy today. We took our tree and Christmas decorations out of storage, and will set up the tree tonight or tomorrow. I am looking forward to all the Christmas decorating, now that Thanksgiving is past.
We put up a Decor Elements phrase on our wall in the living room. It says "Life is Good" in a cool font. That was not very difficult, but since we have a textured wall, it was just a little tricky. Still, it looks nice and went on fairly easily. SU! now sells these phrases, so I had to get one to try out, and am pretty pleased.
We also cooked another turkey that we bought on the way home from my parent's house on Thanksgiving. We had stopped at the grocery store to see if they had any more of the fresh turkeys, since we wanted to cook another after Thanksgiving. Safeway had a bunch, but the one we took home turned out to be frozen inside. We spent some time thawing it in cold water this morning.
Yesterday, we spent some time at my sister's place, and afterwards, Ray and I did a little shopping while Chloe helped Lisa level up on Mario Kart. Ray and I picked up a roasting pan to try out, as well as a few other things. (Not much was on sale!)
So today, we roasted the now-thawed turkey using the new roaster pan with a lid. Ray's carving it now, and he says it's way better than just putting it in the oven in a disposable roasting pan. He keeps going on and on about how good it is, and it *is* way juicier than the one we cooked on Thanksgiving day!
We also took down two of the prints that I had in the living room, they'd been up on the wall since I moved in (in 2000). We decided to go ahead and try to do a "picture wall", and had bought a few frames yesterday to put up. Now we just need to get the pictures printed, and the wall planned and put up. Looks kind of bare right now! My sister and her roomie have a gorgeous picture wall, and it motivated me into doing ours.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
I hope everyone is having a great day today! I have a lot to be thankful for this year.
We're going over to my parent's house in a bit to make breakfast for them. Yum! Orange rolls! I'm hoping they'll turn out as good as when my Mom or my sister Lisa make them. When we get back, we'll start the turkey for a late lunch.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
One more day until Thanksgiving weekend!
Yay - one more day until a 4-day weekend! I'm looking forward to sleeping in, orange biscuits, turkey and mashed potatoes, spending some more time with my family, and having some time to do some stamping and scrapping.
We're looking for license plate #123. Yesterday, we saw 119, 120, and 121, plus Ray's car is 122, so we saw 4 in one day!
Been playing with my new iPhone, an early Christmas gift from Ray (thanks, Honey!) It has some really cool applications that you can download for it. One of them is called "Grocery IQ" - it's a grocery list where you can save "favorites" (things you buy often), and make a list from them and whatever else you need. You can store the items as favorites, keep a history of purchases, even send a list via email to another person! We went grocery shopping tonight using it. We had our list in the phone and was able to check them off. When we checked off every item, it came up with a note that said we got everything, and would we like to delete the list?
Another fun application is called "Shazam" - where you can hear a song playing, have your phone record a few seconds of the song (just hold up your phone to the speaker), and it will tell you what song you're listening to. You can then add that song to your iTunes list if you want to buy it. Pretty nifty!
I can also download the Facebook application and keep up with friends on my phone, as well as post pics and updates. I'm told I can update my blog from it, too, so we'll see about that.
Whoever would have thought that you could do all these things with a phone?
We're looking for license plate #123. Yesterday, we saw 119, 120, and 121, plus Ray's car is 122, so we saw 4 in one day!
Been playing with my new iPhone, an early Christmas gift from Ray (thanks, Honey!) It has some really cool applications that you can download for it. One of them is called "Grocery IQ" - it's a grocery list where you can save "favorites" (things you buy often), and make a list from them and whatever else you need. You can store the items as favorites, keep a history of purchases, even send a list via email to another person! We went grocery shopping tonight using it. We had our list in the phone and was able to check them off. When we checked off every item, it came up with a note that said we got everything, and would we like to delete the list?
Another fun application is called "Shazam" - where you can hear a song playing, have your phone record a few seconds of the song (just hold up your phone to the speaker), and it will tell you what song you're listening to. You can then add that song to your iTunes list if you want to buy it. Pretty nifty!
I can also download the Facebook application and keep up with friends on my phone, as well as post pics and updates. I'm told I can update my blog from it, too, so we'll see about that.
Whoever would have thought that you could do all these things with a phone?
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Meal Planning
A couple of people have asked about the meal planning I mentioned, so I thought I'd explain what we do. I'm sure many many people do this, and I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out!
Before we started planning our meals, I would have a vague idea of what meals we could have during the week. Ray and I would usually decide what to have for dinner on the bus ride home from work. Then we'd have to stop off at the grocery store to get last minute stuff to make dinner, or we'd just go out to dinner.
The last minute grocery store stops usually meant that we'd buy extra stuff that we didn't need just because it *thought* we would use it. We tried shopping once a week, but ended up wasting food because we didn't really have a plan on what to use.
So...it wasn't working. We were spending too much money on groceries and eating out, and I was stressing too much during the week on that immortal question "What's for dinner tonight?"
We decided that we'd take a few minutes each week (it usually ends up to be about 20 minutes) planning on what we want for dinner each day Mon-Sun. Then we check our freezer and cupboards to see what we need to put on the grocery list each week. We keep a list on the fridge as well, so we can note things during the week that we need.
We also started going to Costco every 6 weeks or so to stock up on hamburger, which we package up into meal-size freezer bags to freeze. We also get frozen chicken breasts, frozen Atlantic salmon, and lasagna from Costco.
Below is a sample week's menus:
Monday: Fajitas
Tuesday: Pork Chops, pasta
Wednesday: Salmon w/rosemary, green beans
Thursday: Pizza (Survivor nights are always pizza!)
Friday: Spaghetti
Saturday: Soup and home-baked bread
Sunday: Pot Roast
It's been really helpful, and I believe it's saved us around $200-$300/month in groceries and eating out, just by planning.
Before we started planning our meals, I would have a vague idea of what meals we could have during the week. Ray and I would usually decide what to have for dinner on the bus ride home from work. Then we'd have to stop off at the grocery store to get last minute stuff to make dinner, or we'd just go out to dinner.
The last minute grocery store stops usually meant that we'd buy extra stuff that we didn't need just because it *thought* we would use it. We tried shopping once a week, but ended up wasting food because we didn't really have a plan on what to use.
So...it wasn't working. We were spending too much money on groceries and eating out, and I was stressing too much during the week on that immortal question "What's for dinner tonight?"
We decided that we'd take a few minutes each week (it usually ends up to be about 20 minutes) planning on what we want for dinner each day Mon-Sun. Then we check our freezer and cupboards to see what we need to put on the grocery list each week. We keep a list on the fridge as well, so we can note things during the week that we need.
We also started going to Costco every 6 weeks or so to stock up on hamburger, which we package up into meal-size freezer bags to freeze. We also get frozen chicken breasts, frozen Atlantic salmon, and lasagna from Costco.
Below is a sample week's menus:
Monday: Fajitas
Tuesday: Pork Chops, pasta
Wednesday: Salmon w/rosemary, green beans
Thursday: Pizza (Survivor nights are always pizza!)
Friday: Spaghetti
Saturday: Soup and home-baked bread
Sunday: Pot Roast
It's been really helpful, and I believe it's saved us around $200-$300/month in groceries and eating out, just by planning.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Long Live Rock
Last night, we went to a show called "Long Live Rock" at the Renton Civic Theater. The show had five performers (including a girl that I work with), plus an awesome backup band, performing tribute rock songs like a mini-concert. They had songs by Heart, Pink Floyd, Pat Benatar, Jim Morrison, Led Zeppelin, and others. It was amazing!
The pic above is of my co-worker, Jami, as Ann Wilson, and the guitarist.
I didn't go to any rock concerts when I was growing up, and Ray went to many. Now Chloe has been to Weird Al, and now this tribute concert. She seemed to enjoy it, even though she said she only recognized seven songs!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Bread
I dug out the bread machine today, I don't think I've used it in the last 6 years or so. During our weekly meal planning last week, I mentioned to Ray that I'd like to try using it again, so he got me a couple of mixes to use.
Ray is fascinated with the machine...he currently has a flashlight and is looking into the top window on the machine, watching the thing work. He got Chloe into it, and they took turns looking into the little window.
I honestly don't know how it's going to turn out. I misplaced the operating manual, but I used to use it *all* the time the first few years I had it, so I'm hoping I remember correctly. It was really cool to set it on the timer while I was at work, and come home to fresh bread. The loaves always came out a little funny, due to the tall shape, but they were so good fresh with butter.
Lately, I've been using a bread recipe (from scratch, not in the bread machine) from a new cookbook "America's Best Recipes". It has a "sandwich bread" recipe that is really easy, and finishes in 2 hours. That's some good bread. It slices nicely, has a firm texture, and you can use it for sandwiches. I made it quite a few times when I was on my sabbatical, and always think I'm going to bake up some when I get home from work, but have not done so yet.
I haven't made any quick breads lately, but I used to like to make pumpkin and banana bread. When my parents gave me huge zucchinis from their garden, I'd make zucchini bread too. I think I got out of making bread so much because I was trying to lose weight/maintain weight loss. But is it really worth it? I mean...seriously! Fresh bread!
Ray is fascinated with the machine...he currently has a flashlight and is looking into the top window on the machine, watching the thing work. He got Chloe into it, and they took turns looking into the little window.
I honestly don't know how it's going to turn out. I misplaced the operating manual, but I used to use it *all* the time the first few years I had it, so I'm hoping I remember correctly. It was really cool to set it on the timer while I was at work, and come home to fresh bread. The loaves always came out a little funny, due to the tall shape, but they were so good fresh with butter.
Lately, I've been using a bread recipe (from scratch, not in the bread machine) from a new cookbook "America's Best Recipes". It has a "sandwich bread" recipe that is really easy, and finishes in 2 hours. That's some good bread. It slices nicely, has a firm texture, and you can use it for sandwiches. I made it quite a few times when I was on my sabbatical, and always think I'm going to bake up some when I get home from work, but have not done so yet.
I haven't made any quick breads lately, but I used to like to make pumpkin and banana bread. When my parents gave me huge zucchinis from their garden, I'd make zucchini bread too. I think I got out of making bread so much because I was trying to lose weight/maintain weight loss. But is it really worth it? I mean...seriously! Fresh bread!
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