Staying sane.

I am amazingly not going completely stir-crazy right now.  I haven't been out of our apartment since Thursday, but I've been getting a lot done and watching movies (Anyone seen Food Inc. or Rachel Getting Married?  I liked both.).  We've gotten a little bit bored, and done things like tried to see what the dog looks like with glasses:

 

But other than that I've been pretty good.  I'm actually proud of myself that I haven't eaten constantly.  I'm not the best at controlling myself when I'm bored.  I've been trying to drink a lot of water instead and that seems to work.

I had some leftover meatballs and marinara for lunch yesterday with bowties.  Gotta eat all the leftovers!  Nothing can go to waste!

And I'm still working on the pumpkin flax bread.  I don't think that G has been eating it at all.

Dinner was a tomato. mozzarella, pesto panini and a cup of tomato soup.  I was amazed at how good the mozzarella and pesto were.  I love when you can get good flavors like that at home.

I also had a brownie last night, but I figured your sick of seeing them ;)

Breakfast was the ULTIMATE snowed in Sunday meal-- banana pancakes.  These got some Smart Balance and syrup, of course.

My roads are still covered in snow so it looks like we're not going anywhere for a while.  Hopefully they'll be cleared today because I'm on call tomorrow!  Plus I'd really like to go grocery shopping at some point.

Oh yeah isn't there some big football game on today?  It's crazy how much people have not been talking about it because of the snow.  I think a lot of restaurants will be losing a lot of business, either because they aren't opening or people aren't leaving the house.  What are your plans for the big game?  We're probably watching the Puppy Bowl.

I love Sundays.

Today was the perfect Sunday for me; I got up and drank coffee with Sunday Morning, got a lot of chores done and crossed things off of my to-do list, baked, and generally relaxed.


I woke up to oatmeal (nothing better when it's cold! Except maybe pancakes...).

I went to the gym and just walked on the treadmill because I'm feeling a little sore.  But I thought that something was better than nothing.  Ollie was in a mood

all day today.

I had some leftover mashed potatoes for lunch.  No gravy because it didn't really microwave well :(

Later on I had an apple and peanut butter.

We had some strawberries that I had bought and were getting ready to turn, so I decided to make some strawberry pecan scones that I based off of this recipe.

  They turned out really yummy!  And multiply that by 2.  I should know better than to leave stuff out; it always gets eaten :p

I also put up some shelves and decorations that I had bought a while ago.  1. They might be crooked and the pics make them look worse.  2. I'm not sure if they look cheesy.  I'm definitely open to comments!

For dinner I made chicken scarpariello with egg noodles. 

I've been really proud of myself with chicken lately!  I haven't been burning it or overcooking it or anything!

I also forgot that I had some asparagus, so I roasted it and ate half.

With a little parmesan cheese.  I think that asparagus is moving up on my veggies list.  I really want to try making artichokes because I've been reading about them in Julie and Julia.

Now I'm just finishing out my Sunday with some cocoa.  This week is back to the hospital and then I'm taking a class next weekend, plus all the various appointments and such.  I don't want to leave my vacation!!  Back to the real world... 

Phewww.

My apologies for being almost completely absent for, well, too long.  Even though the semester ended, I still feel really busy and we just did all of our holiday traveling.  I hope that your holidays were as nice as we were blessed to have.  We also had an AMAZING amount of snow.  Something like 18"?  Not my favorite, but you can see the pupster enjoyed it a lot.



We just got back from visiting the fams today and I tried to pull something together that would use up stuff we had in the fridge.  That ended up being some macaroni and cheese with broccoli.



I don't think I've ever mentioned how awesome supercook.com is, but let me say, it's really cool!  I recommend fiddling around with it when you get bored :)

I.O.U. a couple of restaurant reviews that I will hopefully get to tomorrow.  I also want to talk about EHAW.




Ollie is acting sick and I am on-call for work, so this evening hasn't been the most fun.  Hopefully all will be well tomorrow :)


Question-- what do you use to update your blogs?  Straight Blogger/Wordpress?  Picasa?  Some special program?  It seems like uploading photos takes so long!

Yippee!

Mini happy dance!  I am very glad that I got down to business and finished my project!  And it actually looks nice!  I just hope that my professor thinks so, too!

As an afternoon snack today, I had some TJ's bananas and cream yogurt with pecans.

I switched to this yogurt a while ago and I really like it.  It's full-fat, but it's small, and I think the trade-off is fine.  I still feel satisfied after eating them and they taste great.

During one of my breaks I made these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with pecans.

They are really cakey and not like normal cookies.  I added a lot of pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon to the recipe and they're yummy!  I've had 4 throughout the day.

Dinner was tofu stir fry with rice.  I made a separate one for G with shrimp since he was a little skiddish about the tofu.

First time that I've made anything tofu since last semester!  I overcooked this a little, so it wasn't great, but I have a lot left to try stuff with.  How long does tofu keep?  I'm afraid it's going to turn while I'm at home.

I am really excited about this coming week.  I wish I was going home tomorrow, but it's a better idea for Ollie to get him adjusted to the house for a whole day.  Just look at how big he's getting already!

 

Goodnight all!  Have a great short week!

Comfort foods and new job!

Hello everyone!  I'm sure that everyone is just as happy that it's Friday as I am!  This has been a crazy couple of weeks for me.  Besides my normal school and field placement work, I've also been dealing with the new puppy and a new job (more on that later).

I've been cooking a lot of comfort food this week!  I didn't even realize that I had planned all of them out like that until G said something about it.  Weird.  Guess it's the weather.  A couple of nights ago I made RR's Philly Cheesesteak Mac and Cheese.

We weren't crazy about this, but I also didn't follow the recipe to the t.  I forgot to get provolone cheese, so I used a mixture of cheeses that probably didn't hold up as well as they could have.  Eh oh well.  I still like RR :)

Tonight I made burgers with ground chicken and some oven baked onion rings.

I have felt pretty unhealthy lately.  Probably a large part of that is because we've been watching the puppy so much and can't really take him out too much yet.  He hasn't had all of his vaccinations.  But how can you say no to this face?

So, I just finished training for my new job.  I'm going to be an on-call family crisis worker.  Basically, the hospital has a program for victims of domestic violence and every patient is screened for those type of problems.  If someone is screened positive and it is after business hours, then the nurses would call the on-call person (me!).  I work with the women (or men) on screening them for physical/emotional/sexual abuse, talk with them about the dynamics of abuse, and then provide resources and do safety planning with them.

I really like this work.  I think it's common for people to have an idea in their minds about what kinds of women go through abuse, but it can seriously happen to any person no matter their age, race, sexual preference, gender, religion, ethnicity- you name it.  The fact that I am able to plant the seeds in these women's minds about getting themselves into better situations.  So we'll see how it goes!!

I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend, even though I REALLY need to get some work done!  Hope you have a relaxing one, too!!

Yummy fall foods!

Yesterday was an awesome day for cooking!  One of the big perks to living with the BF is I can cook things that I had always wanted to, but I knew that I couldn't finish by myself.  Case in point: Chicken Pot Pie!

This recipe was awesome.  One of those things that you can't wait to eat for lunch the next day.  I left the peas out and I actually used turkey breast.

I also remade this!

This is seriously one of my favorite desserts right now.  It has such an amazing blend of flavors and it's really good for fall.

And of course, a puppy update video of our baby, Ollie.  He's starting to get really wild!!

Tomorrow is hump day!  Yay!

Meet Ollie!

Meet Ollie, our 8-week old Labradoodle!