The good times...

I have a little bad habit of focusing on the rough things in life. I started this blog as a focus on the positives in my life, and lately every time I get the urge to blog, I just want to vent about junk. Hence the reason there hasn't been a lot of blogging going on around here. 

There has been a decent amount of junk lately, but I won't give in. Instead, I'm going to share some of my favorite things from the past few weeks.

Jamie at our campsite

Orangeleaf!!!

Valentine's Day Dinner at the Melting Pot.

Jamie stuffing his face with Orangeleaf. =)

My Dress for my sister's wedding!!!! So excited!

Qdoba with my love.

My beautiful flowering bush in front of my house. =)

Bazbeaux pizza!!!

Best camping dinner EVER.

(P.S. I originally posted this from my iPhone app, so I had to go add the captions later.  And that's why they are strangely out of order.)

♥

World War III and Fridge art.

I've been waging war.

In my own home.

Fleas.

They are the ultimate enemy.

What started this was that Emma laid at the foot of my side of the bed on Sunday.

Sunday night, I went to sleep about 1AM, and kept dreaming that my feet were being eaten.

Finally, at 5AM, I got up, and went and looked at them in the bathroom under the light, and my feet and ankles looked like this:

 I had 12 of these bites. Ridiculous. And this was taken about 36 hours later, after most of the swelling had gone down.

I spent the rest of the night on the couch, and since then I've washed everything fabric in my whole house, and they've both had flea meds.

I will win.

Take that, fleas.

In more happy news, I got a new kitchen compost container!

 It holds 2.4 gallons, fits perfectly under my sink freeing up counter space,

 and has a great carbon filter to keep odor down, and came with 3 replacement filters!

I'm really excited about it, and the fact that I got it for about 60% off! It's also not clear, so you can't see all the yuckiness, which is kind of nice.

We had a cookout at our house this past weekend, for all of the people who play or sing in our church worship band with us, and their families.  We had a really good time, and I was left with some lovely refrigerator art.

The left side was done by Wyatt, and the right side was Jacqueline.
I love them, they make me smile.

I will leave you with a video of my crazy, funny dog.
She has been extraordinarily needy lately! She just wants attention all the time.
Turn your volume all the way up, and listen to how stinking needy she's been!

She did this for 30 minutes.
She's actually doing it right now.
 As I type this.
Crazy, crazy dog.
♥

Baked Chicken Eggrolls

First new recipe post of the summer!

I am in love with this little asia restaurant here in town, and especially their eggrolls.

So, I decided to make my own.

Jamie was really worried they would turn out like the homemade ravioli. 

Lame.

I found a great baked recipe on allrecipes.com, which makes them much healthier.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 cups grated carrots
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can bean sprouts, drained
• 1/2 cup chopped water chestnuts
• 1/4 cup chopped green pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 cups finely diced cooked chicken
• 4 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 16 egg roll wrappers*

Directions

1. Coat a large skillet with nonstick cooking spray; add the first six ingredients. Cook and stir over medium heat until vegetable are crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Add chicken; heat through.
2. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch, water, soy sauce, oil, brown sugar and cayenne until smooth; stir into chicken mixture. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes; remove from the heat. Spoon 1/4 cup of chicken mixture on the bottom third of one egg roll wrapper; fold sides toward center and roll tightly. Place seam side down on a baking sheet coated with nonstick cooking spray. Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling. Spray tops of egg rolls with nonstick cooking spray. Bake at 425 degrees F for 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Here are my ingredients.

There were a lot.

The first thing I had to do was make the chicken.

 I went back and forth on how to cook it, but in the end I just decided to throw it in a skillet.

While that cooked, I put the rest of the filling together. 

I decided to half the recipe, which I never do when I make a recipe for the first time.

But, I didn't know what the heck we were going to do with 16 eggrolls.

And i was still freaked out, because the above picture is 1/2 of the recipe.

Yeah. It was a lot.

After I added the chicken, I started the sauce. 

The first ingredient was cornstarch.

Can I just take a moment to say that I hate cornstarch?

Every time I cook with it, it messes up.

Every time.

So, I was nervous about using it again.

But, somehow, miraculously, it worked out, and blended fine.

Once I added this to my filling,

 It was time to start the rolling.

I had to use the back of the eggroll package to figure out how to do it right, but once i got it, it was really easy.

And here they are on the pan!

I'm SO happy I only made half.

I ended up having 12 eggrolls. 

I would have had way too many if I had made the whole batch.

They looked great after I baked them!

I took them to Jamie at work, and we had a dinner date.

hahaha, he loved them. He ate 3!

It was really nice to get to have dinner with him.

But, I had an ugly little surprise waiting for me when I got home.

My dog decided to get into the trash, and spread it all over the floor.

I was not happy. At all.

But, how can you stay mad at this face?

hahaha, love her.

So, while they were a lot of work, the eggrolls were a huge success, which is nice to have in my life right now. 

♥

Impromptu Broadripple Trip!

Husband surprised me with a trip to Broadripple last night. 

It was so great. 

We hung out, ate Qdoba and Red Mango (yum!), walked the Monon a bit, and went into a few little shops.

It's been so nice having him home these past few evenings.  

I miss him now that he's back at work.

So excited for this summer, when I can see him more.

I am one paper away, and for better or worse, the semester will be over for me.

Jamie has a week and a 1/2, and then he is done.

I love him.

Can't wait to have an opportunity to show him that more. 

♥

Things that make my heart happy.

Even with all of the really awful stuff mentioned in my last post that has been happening, I have been really thankful that it is spring break.  

It has giving me a great chance to relax, have a little fun, and deal with things a little more calmly. 

Here are some things that have really helped me, and made me smile again.

Getting to go to church.

Eating out with my love. It's killing my calorie counting, but it's oh so worth it.

Going to concerts. Amos Lee was so great.

Planning to go to concerts. Ray Lamontagne, here we come! July 14th!

Planning our summer getaways. Chicago and the Carolinas, we're headed your way. 

Getting to sleep in. This has been wonderful.

Getting to just hang out with my friends. Can't wait for Saturday!

Finding out that my friend Emily will live 5 houses down from me this next year. Awesome!

Shopping. Always good.

And, taking a risk and making a change, that totally payed off!

Love my new haircut!

Let's just hope that the week continues to be good. 

I need it.

And here's hoping that I can get all of this stuff figured out, with a little help from upstairs.

♥

My husband is a jerk.

This is a conversation that happened this weekend, when our niece Natalie was with us.  I love to cook, and I consider myself a good cook, but I always have to ask Jamie if he likes it, and he never comes out and compliments me about it. It's something I find really important, and that I can be really self conscious about. It's really important to me that he like my cooking. Hence the following:

Nat: "I don't know anything about cooking."

Jamie: "you know who's a really good cook?" [points to me, and smiles]

Me:[Get a huge smile on my face, and super excited because that is the first and only time he's EVER complimented me about my cooking or said I was a good cook without being prompted. Super, super excited!]

Jamie: "Her mom!"

Nat: [laughs]

Me: [realizing what has just happened, my jaw drops. Uggh. seriously? Now I'm hurt.]

What a jerk.

Okay, he was kidding, but seriously. It didn't mean nearly as much when he told me I was a good cook after that. It's a good thing he makes me laugh most of the time. I was able to let this one go.

Husbands. seriously.

♥

Turtle Trails Crisis, and some good eats.

I went grocery shopping today.

And... for the second week in a row...

THERE WAS NO TURTLE TRAILS ICE CREAM!!!

But...

not only was there not any there, and a big empty hole, like last week...

There was no hole!!

I am just going to tell myself that some poor, ignorant stock boy mistakenly filled the space where Turtle trails goes, with some other, lesser ice cream, and that it will be there next week. 

Because if I couldn't have this glorious, amazing, delicious, fantastic ice cream anymore....

I would die. Really. I think so.

On another, non-related note, I made a new stew for us tonight. 

I make something really large, that will last us a few days, on Sunday nights when I'm off, so we have something to eat throughout the week.

Well, Misty, I think I may have found a soup/stew substance that even your anti-soup husband can enjoy. For real.

Hearty Italian Lentil Soup

• 1 cup lentils
• 1 1/3 quarts water, divided
• 2/3 cup uncooked long grain white rice
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
• 3 tablespoons Italian bread crumbs
• salt, to taste
• ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 quart tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese for topping
• 
  
• Place lentils in a pot with 3 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and cook 20 minutes or until tender. Drain and set aside.
• Bring rice and 1 1/3 cup water to boil in a pot. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. 
• In a bowl, combine the ground beef, beaten egg, garlic, 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese, parsley, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper. Form ground beef mixture into 1 inch balls. Place meatballs in skillet and cook 5 minutes or until evenly brown.
• In a large pot, bring the tomato sauce and 4 cups water to a boil. Transfer the browned meatballs to the pot. Mix in cooked lentils and rice. Return to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining Parmesan cheese to serve.

Ta-da!

It was a bit hectic at first, because I put the lentils, rice, sauce/water on, and started the meatballs all at once, because it would have taken forever otherwise. 

It was also my first experience with meatballs, and other than being a little large, they turned out awesome. 

We ate it with Italian bread and butter, and some white Zinfindel (that was already open in our fridge).

It was delicious.

My one tweak for next time would be to use a garlic flavored tomato sauce, and add some parsley or something, because the sauce was a bit bland.

Other than that, it was fantastic.

Definitely looking forward to eating this all week.

See Misty, how could Tim not like a thick soup with meatballs?

♥

Quick break...

I'm taking a homework break.

Yep, this is the part of the semester when I actually try to do all of my reading.

Hah!

Well, this week has been crazy. 

The class part of my school sucks, that's to be expected.

But I met the students and teacher of the class I am to be student teaching in.

and it is Wonderful!

It's an ESL school, so they bus Hispanic students in from all over the city. 

I am a major minority in the school, let alone my class.

and I love it!

The kids were so fun, and I am so excited to learn from them.

And my teacher is amazing.

She has been at this same inner-city school for 9 years, and her class has ALWAYS had the highest I-STEP scores. Not to mention the fact that she has really high expectations for the kids, and they call her strict, but they all adore her. She's awesome.

I'm so excited to learn from her, and she seems really excited to be teaching us.

I couldn't have asked for a better placement.

I have missed Jamie a lot, it's been an adjustment. 

Plus the poor guy is sick, so he doesn't feel like doing anything.

Our house is falling apart, again.

When you are gone as much as we are, that tends to happen.

My goal for the day is to do homework in the morning, and clean in the afternoon, before work.

I am going to cook again tomorrow night. 

Last Sunday, I made a big batch of Corn and Lentil Soup.

I was going to do a blog about it, because it is a super cheap, easy recipe, and is really really good for you, and Jamie loves it, which is a good thing. 

But, we had a surprise intrusion visit from the in-laws.

After running out to the church so that Jamie could give Stephen a drum lesson (pretty excited about that, Misty) and then went grocery shopping, and when we got home for a nice quiet evening, they were outside of our house. Phone call would have been nice.

So, I hurried and put the soup on, while my mother-in-law cried for 10 minutes about her baby not coming to seeing her, and how she needed him.

My life is ridiculous sometimes. 

I was going to take a picture then, but I forgot, and then I tried to find one online, but none looked even remotely close to mine. Oh well.

And I baked four pieces of chicken, and we just ate them and the soup throughout the week. It was really nice!

I had an awesome "last hurrah" before school started last weekend!

I won a party at Howl, downtown, and it was a blast. Even some of my old friends from Ball State came! (And of course my IUPUI friends, as usual.)

(haha, poor Amanda. She doesn't take very good pictures at bars.)

It was a great way to end Christmas break.

I will leave you with this picture from this morning.

One, to show you how behind we are on housework. We forgot to put our bedclothes in the dryer last night, (okay, okay, I forgot) and we had to scrounge. These are the pink sheets I used at Ball State. haha!

And two, how cute Minnie looks when she sits like this, because she crosses her front paws. 

I love it.

♥

Asparagus Carbonara

It's been a while since I've done a recipe post.  

I think my last one was homemade ravioli that ended in disaster, here.

I haven't had much time to cook, but now that school is done for the semester, I am going to try and go back to my one recipe a week attempt.

This week was...

Asparagus Carbonara!

I got the recipe from a Rachel Ray magazine.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

3/4 pound spaghetti

1 bunch asparagus, halved lengthwise and cut crosswise into 2 inch pieces

2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

5 slices bacon, coarsely chopped

3 cloves garlic

1/4 cup dry whit wine

Salt and Pepper

Hint:

I didn't use the whole bunch of asparagus, because it was HUGE. And, I found it much easier to cut it into 2 inch pieces first, and then cut it in half lengthwise.

Also, I used turkey bacon instead of pork bacon.

Easier to chop, and significantly healthier.

And make sure you put your water on to boil during the chopping, because otherwise you have to wait on it. (yep, did that.)

Step #1: In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and cheese. 

Cook pasta until al dente, adding the asparagus during the last minute of cooking.

And make sure you break your pasta in half. I made this mistake (again) and burned some of the noodles before i could get it pushed down in the water.

The asparagus is hard to mix in. 

Add the hot pasta and asparagus mixture, and toss to coat.

Step #2: In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the bacon and cook until crisp. Stir in the garlic.  Add the wine and cook until slightly reduced, about 1 minute.

Stir the bacon mixture into the pasta, adding enough hot water to moisten; season with salt and pepper.

And...

voila!!

It tasted awesome! 

Jamie and I ate it for lunch and dinner for 2 days straight!

I'm so glad to be cooking again!

♥

Everyday Adventure, and Random Thursday Thoughts...

Our Washer broke last week.  

Seeing that it is 20 years old, and we bought it at a garage sale,

I'm not shocked.

But, I had already not done laundry for 2 weeks, because of the craziness of work and final projects.

So, our lovely little washer, decided to break the day I was going to do laundry.

Thanks for that.

Well, while we've been trying to figure out what to do about it.

I ran out of clothes. 

and Jamie ran out of clothes.

And we were out of clean towels. 

and using our last pair of clean sheets. 

So yesterday morning, I got fed up, and decided that we should go to the laundromat, and then buy a new washer this week. So, we took an everyday adventure to the laundromat!

You may think I'm kidding about the volume of laundry, but I have proof.  This is every dirty article of clothing in the house, and we took it all to the laundromat with us. 

It was ridiculous. 

When we got there, I had to run and pick up laundry detergent, because of course we forgot it. 

And then we put all the laundry in.

We took up ALL of these industrial washers, including the giant one on the end, PLUS one more, and an equal amount of dryers.

Again, ridiculous.

By the time we were done, Jamie had only 30 minutes to leave for work, which he was super grouchy about.  We ended up having an argument about his attitude, which he called and apologized about. 

Crazy morning.

________________________

I know in the blogging world, randomness is usually saved for "Totally Random Tuesday" (as can be seen here and here.) But, I'm an individual, and decided to do it today. Plus, I don't want to wait until Tuesday to share my thoughts. 

_________________________

Got my parent's Christmas Card today, and they used on of my wedding pictures on it! I thought it was really cute.

I love that Dex is on their card, when they teased me about my furry kids. haha

_________________________

Minnie has it made this winter.  Last year, Jamie had to shovel her a big flat spot for her to potty in, every time it snowed, so she doesn't drown in the snow.

This year, he took our screen off before the first big snow (not like we will be using it this winter) and made Minnie a "potty hut."

All we have to do is keep the "entrance" clear, and she's good to go.

She said "Thanks, Dad!" by licking him in the face 80 times.

Oh wait.

That's normal. 

Well, either way, I know she appreciates it. 

_________________________

I hate mandatory overtime. 

(That's such a stupid concept to me anyway. How can you REQUIRE someone to work overtime?)

Thanks SDI, for stealing my husband again, just when I was excited school was out so I could see him more.

But no.

He now has to work 3PM to 3AM until the end of the year.

Awesome. Back to falling asleep alone.

Grrrr.

So, because I haven't seen him at all this week, I took Asia Wok (the best Chinese food in town) out to him last night, and we ate dinner together! 

It was awesome.

I tried on his hard hat, and safety glasses. I think I'm going to start wearing them daily. Not. 

_________________________

Monday (yes, the day after that big snow) I was still required to drive to the east side of indy, to go to a meeting at my school for student teaching, because IPS only closes if it's a weather emergency. 

What should have taken me 30 minutes took me an hour and ten. 

When I got there, the meeting lasted 20 minutes, so we went upstairs to meet our mentor teachers, and mine was gone, on her first sick day in four years. Awesome. 

So, I drove home (it only took me 50 minutes that time).  What a lame morning. 

But, I did get to see the school, and get oriented with it. 

I will be in a fifth/sixth combined math classroom.

Oh man.

Talk about a challenge. 

Sixth graders and math.

But, I'm kind of excited about it, at the same time. It's going to be something new and fun.

Just wish I could meet my teacher, so I could stop worrying about that.

_________________________

My Ball State roommate Sarah got engaged this weekend!!

She and Jared have been together 6 years, (so it's about time!) 

She called me the other night to tell me about it, she is on cloud nine!

I am so excited and happy for her, he's a great guy. 

She told me her mom has already made a list of venues, lol.

And, I am going bridesmaid dress shopping with the lovely Amanda, for Amanda and Joe's wedding next year!

We are all going over Christmas break.

So Excited!!!

They are seriously the cutest couple ever, and I am so excited to be a part of their day!

_________________________

Well, I'm out of here.

Have to go clean my house. 

Yay....

♥