Day 2...Much Better

So yesterday was the first day of the fall semester. This happens every year it seems, but that first day, and sometimes that whole first week is just exhausting. I only taught three classes yesterday, but by the time I got home I was totally wiped. I sat down on the couch and fell asleep until Brad got home. Which since that was around 6:00 and I had done nothing for dinner, led to us having macaroni and frozen chicken strips for dinner. Thankfully, I think Brad kind of likes macaroni and frozen chicken strips :) We ate that somewhat frequently during our first year of marriage.
Today seems much better. I got home today and took the dogs running. We ran 1.5 miles and walked about another 0.5. When we got home I made some sweet and sour pork chops, which are smelling delicious in the oven right now.
Now to be really productive and get things ready to put in the crock pot tomorrow morning so dinner tomorrow night doesn't have to come out of a box :)

On the road again

So this week I've been trying to get in the routine of running again. It's been quite a few years since I've really tried much running, so I figured I would try it and see if it caused much knee pain. My real motivation for running really is laziness, as odd as that sounds. I figure if I run instead of walk, I'll get done twice as fast :)
Monday I had both dogs with me and we did our usual 1.5 mile course, running for a bit, then walking. It took us like 20 minutes. Tuesday we went at it again, despite a little rain. On Tuesday we ran the whole thing without any walking and finished up in 16 minutes. Wednesday I had to work late, so I just did some walking at work. Today, I must admit I ditched the dogs and went by myself, and ran the whole thing in about 14:30. So far, the knee feels pretty good.
The dogs, specifically Lucy, are not the greatest partners. Lucy really really wants to come, but refuses to keep up. So I'm kind of dragging her down the road, which might be fine if I was in a little better shape, but I'm already working pretty hard without dragging 50 pounds on a red leash.
So with school starting on Monday, we'll see if I can keep this up. I'm usually only good about working out for like two weeks at a time.

Walgreens Deals for 7/18

You know that you're kind of getting old when your birthday excitement includes going to walgreens to snag some good deals. Here's what I got today...
5 Pack Expo Dry Erase Markers (in some fun colors): $5.99 - Cat discount - $3 Walgreens coupon - $1 printed coupon = $1.09
Two 2 packs of Pilot G2 pens (my favorite pens) $2.38 - Cat discount - $2 Walgreens coupons - $1 printed coupon = negative $0.98 (free money for me!)
Colgate toothpaste = $3.50 - Cat discount - $0.75 printed coupon - $3.50 register reward (essentially a rebate that prints that you can use later) = negative $1.28 (free money for me!)
Since they won't actually pay you to shop at walgreens and you have to have as many items when you check out as you have coupons I also picked up some shampoo, conditioner, and two 5 packs of Bic highlighters to get me into the positive. All in all I paid $2.46 out of pocket ($1.01 of which was sales tax) and got myself some fun school supplies, and I figure I can donate the extra highlighters when they're collecting stuff at church. I think I need to start taking a calculator with me when I go, though, because both times at the register I had to run to grab something more to cover my coupons or make my total positive...bad math on my part...

Walgreens Deals for 6/26

Now those that know me well, know that I love saving money. Some might even say I'm cheap...okay, I'm definitely cheap. So lately I've been following this blog at www.moneysavingmom.com. It goes through ways to use coupons go get items free or nearly free as well as posting links to printable coupons and freebies. They are always talking about the great deals you can get at Walgreens, but I had never really tried it out. Today I stepped up to the plate and it was FANTASTIC. Good deals just make me happy. So here's what I did:
1) Reach toothbrushes: I got two marked $1.50 each. There was an in-flyer coupon to make them $0.99, so that subtracted off $1.02. I also have a Cat discount card for Walgreens which takes 15% off everything, so it took 15% off the original price subtracting $0.30. Then, I had a $2 off 2 coupon for Reach toothbrushes, leaving the grand total at $-0.32...meaning they paid me to take those toothbrushes off their hands :)
2) Dove deodorant: I'm hooked on the fancy Dove clinical deodorant which unfortunately is like $7 normally, even at walmart. So there was a deal that if you spent $15 on Dove products you got $5 in "walgreens bucks" for your next purchase. They had my deodorant on sale for $5.99, which was pretty good to begin with, and then I used my Cat card which brought them down to $5.09 a piece, and then I had three coupons - two for $2 off and one for $1.50 that I had printed online. So I got all three for $9.77 and got $5 in Walgreens bucks, so it was like getting all three for $4.77...and I had the $0.32 overage from the toothbrushes, so really only $4.45.
3) I decided to go ahead and spend my $5 while I was there, so I got two bags of Lays potato chips that were onsale for $1.99 ($1.69 after Cat discount) and a Hallmark card, and since I had my $5 to pay with, all that only cost me $0.52.
So I spent like $11.33 out of pocket, for things that normally would have cost me at least $30 at Walmart...and all things that I would have been buying (eventually) anyways. So that was my fun for the afternoon. Obviously I don't need to buy three deodorants every week, but it was such a deal I just couldn't resist. I may have to look into more Walgreens stops in the future...at least when I can match up good sales and good coupons.

Vacation - Part 4

Okay, where were we...
Friday and Saturday of vacation were our big snorkeling days. We started out at trunk bay at 7:30 in the morning on Friday...even beat the lifeguard there. Also beat the guy who collects the money, so we got to go for free. Trunk Bay is where the cruise ships stop and is the most "touristy" beach with a snack shop, lifeguards, and what not. There is also an underwater snorkel tour. It's pretty short, but kind of cute with little plaques underwater telling you about different kinds of fish and corals. We snorkeled around the tour and also out and around a little island off that beach. We got to see a turtle here as well, and it was beginning to seem you could see a turtle everywhere you went. We chilled at this beach for a while, but we hadn't brought our cooler with us, so once we got hungry we headed back to the car and went down the road to Jumbie Beach. The parking was full here (only like four spots) so we went up the hill and parked at Peace Hill. There's a hill (clever name, right?) you can climb and see some ruins and where there used to be a big Jesus statue. Jesus fell down during a hurricane and the park didn't want to put him back up. We ate lunch up there with a nice view in all directions, and then walked down the hill to Jumbie. I really liked Jumbie....not a very big beach, not fancy, but good snorkeling, not too busy, and a nice view. We saw several turtles at this one and even made a movie with one that seemed very curious about us. After a long day at the beach, we decided to just do some sandwiches and salads from a deli this night for dinner. I got this sandwich called a pink cadillac that was kind of slimy but super tasty. It had cream cheese, salsa, guacamole, turkey, and cheddar cheese on pumpernickel bread. Awesome combo.
Friday we went out to the farthest beach on the North Shore Road where you can swim out to Waterlemon Cay...yes, it's really waterlemon and not watermelon. It was a decent little walk to the beach (at least if you're carrying your beach chairs and cooler), and then from the beach it was a good quarter mile swim or so out to the island with some decent currents. We made it out there and started to swim around the island, and I started to doubt my swimming abilities when I hit some strong current. So I turned back to the little beach on the island and on my way there saw a HUGE tarpon! Seriously, at least five feet long...he was one big guy! But he seemed thoroughly disinterested in me since I was swimming amongst millions and millions of these little silver fish...so many little fish you could hardly see where you were going. So I relaxed on the beach and waited for Brad to make his way around. When he got up to the beach he said it was the best snorkeling he'd ever seen and that the current wasn't too bad once you got to the back side. So off we went for my first lap and Brad's second lap around the island. He was right - the back side was awesome. So many colors of corals, so many fish...it was beautiful. After lap number two, we swam back to the beach, very hungry and ready for lunch. At this point it started pouring and blowing, to the point that I was hiding behind a tree. We scarfed down our sandwiches and packed up, and by the time we were about half way down the trail, the sun was shining again :) We headed over to Francis beach, the next closest beach on the north shore road, and settled in for an afternoon of reading. It was a nice peaceful afternoon...except for the little black bugs that devoured my right arm leaving me with like forty-some bug bites. When we headed back to Lavender Hill to clean up, the rain started up again. The place we were planning for dinner was mostly outside seating, so when we got to the Banana Deck, there was no one else there. They found us a table in the covered part up by the bar and we had a nice quiet dinner watching the rain. We had this awesome chicken quesadilla appetizer and then both had some good ol' american cheeseburgers.

Vacation - Part 3

My plan was to get up early on Thursday and hit Trunk Bay before it got busy (and if you go early, you don't have to pay). When we woke up, it was raining...so we decided to sleep a little longer to see if it would clear up. When we got up, it was still raining, so we packed up our things and put on our suits and decided to head towards the beaches any how. We started at Hawksnest, the closest beach to town on the North Shore Road. It was raining, but not too hard, so we grabbed our chairs and our snorkels and set up camp. We headed out on the reefs and saw our very first turtle! Of course, we didn't have our camera with us at the time since it wasn't very clear and we thought we wouldn't see much, so I headed back to shore to get the camera while Brad chased the turtle. By the time I made it back with the camera, Brad had lost the turtle...as it turns out, this was just the first of many turtles we would see, with some more shy than others. The rain picked up so we decided to pack up and head down the road. We stopped at Cinnamon Bay, where it was still raining, so we left everything in the car except for our snorkels and headed down to the beach. There is a little island just off shore here so we snorkeled around the island in the rain. Lots to see everywhere we went...saw pretty much all of the fish on our little identification card :) We packed up and kept driving, figuring the rain was a good time to do some exploring. Since it was pouring, we parked where we could see the water and ate our lunch in the car. We were near some ruins of a sugar plantation, so we figured we were already this wet, we might as well get out and walk around. The camera was waterproof, so a little rain couldn't stop us :) By this time, it was midafternoon and I was ready to be dry, so we headed back for some warm showers, dry clothes, and some reading where the pages don't get wet. For dinner, we walked around town trying to decide what sounded good and ended up getting a pizza and some ice cream and eating in front of the tv...maybe not gourmet, but it was tasty and relaxing.

Vacation - Part 2

The adventure continues...
We got up on Wednesday and walked into town to pick up our rental car. It was a snazzy bright yellow jeep wrangler. It was really pretty nice, so we headed off to town with me shouting reminders of "drive on the left" and trying to read the map of how to get to the grocery store with all the one way streets. We made it to the store and bought our snacks and sandwich supplies for picnic lunches for the week and worked on making our way back to Lavender Hill. We decided that was maybe enough driving for the first day and planned to walk a "short" trail to the beach. While the trail was only about a mile long, hiking in the tropics at noon takes a bit more effort than we planned for. I'm pretty sure all of my sun tan lotion was sweated off by the time we made it to Salomon Beach. We made a mental note that we need to be in better shape and do some training before we go back to St. John. Our first snorkeling adventure was great...saw all kinds of little fish and some pretty good sized parrot fish. The reef was really close to the beach so it was easy swimming and there was some nice shade to relax in on the beach. Once we got our snorkeling fix in, we wandered a little further down the trail just to see what all we could see. We saw another beach, Honeymoon Beach, as well as the Caneel Bay Resort - where the rich people stay. We hiked our way back to Lavender Hill to clean up for dinner and walked into town for our first meal out. We saw this cute place just down the street that we hadn't heard about before coming, but it looked good. It was Cactus on the Blue and we had a great meal. We started with a salsa sampler - four different little things of salsa with chips. There was a guacamole, a mango pineapple salsa, a pico de gallo, and some kind of roasted tomato salsa. There were fabulous! I love chips and salsa and I was starving from all the hiking and swimming, so it was a great start. I followed with some chicken tacos and Brad had some kind of flank steak. There was really no food left on the table when we finished :) We then wandered around some of the shops by the ferry dock, scoping out who had the best t-shirts. We retreated to our condo for our nightly routine of reading up on beaches and trails for the next day, watching the cubs, and reading our novels. It was so wonderful to just have some time to read. I read two novels, four magazines, and the better part of my two books about st. john during the trip.

Vacation - Part 1

So Wednesday we got back from our long anticipated trip to St. John. Here's a recap:
We headed up to Chicago the night before our flight so that we wouldn't have to get up so early on Tuesday and wouldn't be driving in the morning rush hour. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency which is attached to the Rosemont Convention center. This place was HUGE and very nice. We were able to park in a parking garage which was nice for leaving the car for the whole week. After we got checked in, we were starving so we headed out to find a McDonald's. This was good practice for all the walking we had coming up on vacation...we headed the wrong way at first and it took us forever to find a McDonald's. We finally succeeded, though, and man they have good fries (we hadn't had McDonald's in like three years). In the morning we took the shuttle to O'Hare and started a very long day of traveling. We flew to Miami and then from Miami to St. Thomas. We picked up some customs forms at the airport so that we'd be ready to go when it was time to come home. We grabbed a taxi...which is really just a 15 passenger van, and headed for Red Hook and the ferry. The taxi wound through the hills of St. Thomas and we realized just how mountainous the Virgin Islands are and experienced the craziness of driving on the left hand side of the road - should be fun for driving. We caught the ferry and headed to St. John and Charlie from Lavender Hill met us at the dock to give us a ride to our place. It turned out we were really close to town, we just didn't really know where we were going so it was nice to have a ride. Lavender Hill was awesome - two balconys, a king size bed, cable tv, full kitchen, a pool, a/c, really close to town...it was great. They even had this big binder full of menus for restaurants, fliers for boat rentals, and info about the island. It was after 9:00 by the time we got there, so we pretty much just crashed for the night. Tomorrow the snorkeling could begin :)

Lists

I feel like I have a lot of lists going currently. I made it through finals...everything is graded and posted, but now there is a list of things that need to be done for summer school. I've made a lot of progress on that list and feel pretty ready for summer, I think one more morning of work and I'll be set to go. I have a list of things that need to be done before we go on vacation on Monday...when someone stays at your house while you're gone, you really can't leave your house looking like a pit. I also have a list of things for McClary while we're gone, things like put the remotes on the window sill or they will be promptly eaten when you leave the house. A list of things to pack in my little duffle bag and a list of things that I have already shipped down to where we are staying. But vacation lists are a good thing...it means you are about to go on vacation :)

A Birthday Feast

For Brad's birthday, I asked him where he would like to go out for dinner or what he would like to have at home. He asked to have some tacos out of our Rick Bayless cookbook. There were some that I had tried once before and never got around to making again, so I decided to make those and some home made salsa. I made some copies of the recipes and headed to walmart after work where I bought more produce in a single trip than I think I ever have before.
I started with roasted tomatillo salsa. I roasted the tomatillos and garlic in a skillet and then tossed them in the blender with a chopped up roasted poblano pepper. Blended those up and then stirred in some super finely chopped onion and salt. The recipe also called for cilantro, which I had, but forgot to put in. The salsa turned out super delicious, a nice change from the usual red tomato salsa. Not very spicy, but very flavorful, and went really well with the tacos.
So the tacos...roasted two more poblanos and cooked up a bunch of onion in a skillet. The chicken was seasoned with salt and pepper and then cooked in the skillet. Once it was done, I added fresh squeezed lime juice and chopped garlic and let it cook down to a nice glaze on the chicken. Chopped up the chicken and stirred it in with the onion and chiles for some tasty taco filling.
At the East Peoria walmart, I found some different shells to try. They were locally made (Sterling, IL) which is always nice to be able to support. They were pretty cheap so I grabbed both flour and corn for a little variety, and also picked up some queso fresco (white crumbling cheese) to top off the tacos.
It was a fun meal...more food than we needed for two people, but all very tasty. I really enjoy cooking like this, I'm just not very fast at getting it all together. I think maybe once I've made some of these recipes a few more times it will get easier, once I know what I can be working on simultaneously.

The Thrifty Gardener

Hostas are such a wonderful plant. Today was splitting day for the hostas at my house. I "made" five new hostas and moved one other. It's such a wonderful thing to have a bunch of new plants without spending any money. I added all the new ones in the back to fill in some holes to get a whole variety hosta garden going across the back of the house. The ones currently in the back came from our old house on Springfield Road, so they're some nice reminders of our first house. Hopefully I can keep Midas from stepping on the new ones and the deer from eating them, and everything should look nice in the back this summer. We've come a long way in four years!

The Four Step Plan

I think spring weather gets me itching to be in shape and be more productive and all around a better person. So I am working on four things...1) Exercise more, 2) More time for devotions, 3) Less tv, 4) More fruits and vegetables. Really, #3 is kind of a by product of the first two. If I spend more time doing other things, there's just less time for tv, which tends to happen every year as the weather gets nicer. We spend more time outside and less time on the couch. I've been to the pool a couple times lately and went for an hour long walk today with the pups (they were REALLY tired by the end). I also subscribed to a new little magazine type thing to help give me some focus for daily devotions. It takes you all the way through the bible in two years. I met a guy on jury duty that was using it, and decided it seemed like something I could use. I'm currently reading through Deuteronomy, as well as a psalm and a few verses of proverbs each day. I do much better with a plan, so I'm really liking this. And then there's the vegetables. I just feel like I should eat healthier. I think that some of it is having so many work friends that are very into nutrition. We've definitely come a long way since the first year or two of marriage...I feel like we eat way more fresh stuff and just generally healthy. So I'm trying to get one fruit and one vegetable at both lunch and dinner. It seems like a good start. I'm not planning to do anything crazy like giving up fruit snacks, just adding some carrots and bananas here and there :)

Mystery Burgers

Tonight for dinner I grilled some turkey burgers on the grill. The ground turkey was mixed with egg, onion soup mix, soy sauce, pepper, and garlic powder. It wasn't until Brad was within about one bite of finishing his burger that I commented you couldn't really even tell there was no beef in these burgers. He gave me a somewhat odd look and asked what was in them. I admitted it was turkey and he said that explained why they didn't taste like beef. He didn't say they were bad, but did say he'd rather eat a burger made with beef. I thought they were pretty good...I'll admit it's not the same as a hamburger, but not bad. Gives us a good option for grilling on No-Beef-Wednesdays. And you can buy ground turkey super cheap...a dollar a pound in the freezer section. That makes for a cheap meal.

Back in the Chlorine Again

Well I decided this week that I could no longer avoid some good, hard exercising, so I decided Wednesday night to head over to the pool. I had only made it like 50 yards when I started to have some really bad shoulder pain...one joint I've never had trouble with. So I alternated swimming and kicking and was able to get in about 1200 yards, but it wasn't overly enjoyable. It's still been sore for the past couple days, so I decided to head back this morning to see if things would loosen up a little in the water. Today went much better, not great, but better. I got in 2000 yards (1400 swim, 600 kick) in about 40 minutes. My shoulder felt good for about the first 900 yards, and then it was a little sore, but not nearly as bad as Wednesday. Today was good and I was pleased to swim that many yards...I hadn't done that in awhile. It was also nice to get up and going on a Saturday. Right now it's only 11:00 and I've already swam, showered, had breakfast, and been to a two hour meeting at church. I think groceries are next on the list and then perhaps some play time outside to enjoy the sunshine.

Easter Weekend

Looking at my calender here at work, the next five and a half weeks are just solid classes...no more spring break, no more conferences, no more easter weekend. Just a solid block to the finish.
Well this last weekend of some extra time off was fantastic. Friday the dogs went the groomer and I got a bunch of stuff done around the house and errands run before we went over to see my aunt and my grandpa at my parent's house. Saturday I finished my painting project that I started over spring break and got two coats of paint on the other half of the room and the room all put back together. It's nice to have that job all finished, and it turned out looking very nice. The room looks nice and clean. That night, I met up with my friends from high school at Granite City for some appetizers and dessert. It was so great to have some time to catch up, with no kids and no husbands :) We talked for like three hours and ate way more food than we should have! Sunday brought a CRAZY morning with the kids at church, and then lunch with Brad's parents and sister's family. We got to see Reece go on a mini-easter egg "hunt". We headed home late afternoon, and I was in the mood for cleaning out so I went through my closet and came up with a huge pile of stuff for a garage sale or Goodwill. I love the feeling of cleaning out my house :) Then Bethany came over to hang out and watch a movie. All in all, a busy but fantastic weekend. It felt really long...it's amazing what one extra day can do for the weekend. Which makes the summer all the more exciting as I have three day weekends all summer!
Well, I suppose it's time to figure out what I have to teach today. Three day weekends also make me forget where we left off last week...

The Perfect Day

Yesterday, just might have been the perfect day. I had nothing scheduled all day long, and the weather was sunny and warm. So the pups and I headed outside around 9:00 and never looked back. We cleaned out all the dead stuff and leaves from all of the gardens, picked up sticks, swept the porch, and just enjoyed the sunshine. It felt so good to just be outside, completely relaxed, getting a lot of work done, and being able to see a noticeable difference when we were done. The yard looked great, we were all tired, and we were all very happy.
The dogs would take turns keeping me company, Midas laying behind me while I worked in the front yard, Lucy coming up to nose me and enjoy some pets in the sunshine. Then they would get distracted - a truck or motorcycle would drive by, the hawk would fly overhead, or some kids would walk by on the road. They'd trot off to make sure everyone was aware they were outside patrolling, and then wander back to join me or to stretch out in the grass and soak up some sun.
Last night Lucy was so tired she couldn't keep her eyes open to look at you, and Midas slept in extra late this morning. And today, it's cold and rainy - I guess that's good so that I have to stay inside today and work in here instead of heading back out to the dirt :)

Second coat...check!

Yesterday, I took the day and did the second coat on the half of the room I was working on. I came desperately close to running out of paint before finishing, but got everything painted a second time, all the tape down, and the room put back together. That was the goal. That way, even if I don't get started on the second half this weekend, at least the room isn't all in pieces. I really like how things turned out...even if it's not a real noticeable change. The holes that got patched look great after painting - you can't tell that the holes were ever there. And the weird green/blue/tan circle around the thermostat is gone as well. All welcome changes :)
I'm thinking about starting the other half of the room over the weekend. However, with all of my projects this week I haven't really done much house cleaning, so that should probably come first. So if after vacuuming, laundry, and bathroom cleaning there is still time, I'll buy some more paint and continue.

Patching...check!

I didn't have time this morning to get out everything and do a second coat of paint on the room. (That will come tomorrow.) So in the mean time I pulled out all the screws and anchors that were left in the walls from our attempt at curtains. Of the eight original anchors, two had fallen out on their own/gotten pulled out by the dogs. So will all of my strength I pulled out the other six. Some of these had left some pretty large holes in the wall as our old plaster is pretty crumbly. So I set to work trying to make the holes look pretty. Since the plaster is textured, the patches really didn't need to be very smooth so that they would just kind of blend in. So we're all set on hole repair and ready to get back to painting.
The giant holes in the walls from the curtains were one of the things that really bothered me in this room...so getting rid of the holes and getting rid of the last of the blue paint is fantastic :)

First coat...check!

Well this morning I got the first coat on half of the room. (The room seemed to big to tackle at once, so I just was trying to get half of it...from the front door to the door upstairs.) I was hoping to only have to do one coat, but looking at it tonight it definitely seems like a second coat will be needed. It is textured plaster, so there are some places where the paint didn't get into all the little holes. It took me four hours to do the first coat on that half of the room, so hopefully the second coat will go a little quicker tomorrow morning.
It looks nice...clean and fresh, but I will admit it really doesn't look a whole lot different. Not that I expected it to look drastically different. I mean, white to cream isn't a big change. It is a little more noticeable at night than it was earlier. But I am still pleased so far :)

Now the REAL beginning of break

It is really hard for me to enjoy time off if I know I have work that needs to be done. I have that problem on breaks and even on the weekends. Since I don't know exactly how much time needs to be budgeted to get the work done, I just keep thinking about it. So I decided I would just do the work I had first this spring break, and be done with it. I had four sets of tests to grade (yikes!). So I graded for a couple hours on Saturday, a couple more on Sunday, and then some this morning. I was through three and a half of the sets, so after I took Christin to the airport I went in to work for a few hours. I finished grading the last set of tests, printed out grade sheets for all of them, updated my gradebook, posted grades online, and did my attendance rosters. So now I feel like I can stop thinking about work - I didn't even bring any work back home with me. So the rest of the week is mine :)
I have a few things already planned for the week - lunch with my mom, some babysitting for a friend from church, a haircut. And with the rest of the time I decided my project will be painting the family room. It's the one room of the house that I haven't painted. So it's still white from when the random guy came and painted our whole house accidentally. So I figured I would paint it the same color as the hallway upstairs - it's called "cream in my coffee", and as you may have guessed it's just a nice creamy color. Not a lot of color, but a little warmer than just white. And I can cover up some of the random blue spots that never got painted. So I went to Menard's tonight to pick up some paint and some supplies. I taped half of the room so the goal is to paint half of it tomorrow morning. The other half is a little trickier, with needing to work around the sofa and entertainment center. I love painting - it's such a quick and cheap way to make things look new and fresh :)

A Walking We Will Go

Last week, Midas had an ear infection so we had to make a morning trip to the vet on Tuesday. I didn't have time to take him home before I needed to teach at noon, so I dropped him off at my parents for a couple hours. When I got back, Midas and my dad were missing - on their third walk of the day! Needless to say, Midas loved it at mom and dad's house...and he had pegged dad as a softie :)
So to try to make our house seem as fun as theirs, and to enjoy all of this nice weather we've been having, the dogs and I have been going on lots of walks. I've been trying to get home at 4:00 most days so we can get in a nice long walk before it's time to make dinner (and before it gets to dark). I think we've been on like 6 walks in 8 days...which compared to no walks for several months over the winter, that's pretty good! It's been so nice to have some time outside, and it's a nice way to relax after work. Once the days get a little longer, we'll snag Brad to come along with us, but right now there's not a whole lot of day light after he gets home...but we're getting close, spring here we come!

So yeah, about that....

When others start bringing it to your attention that you've been neglecting your blog, perhaps it has been awhile since you've shared any thoughts. Since January 29th to be exact. It's not that I have anything against the month of February, nor was it a boring month with nothing to share, it just kind of slipped my mind that I had decided I wanted to share anything :) And sorry, but I have no intentions of catching you up on what you've missed, you're just going to have to accept that you missed out on everything cool and exciting in the month of February. Now where were we...
This past Sunday was our second BIG memory verse check for the sunday school kids. We did on the first week of December over the verses for A-G and this time checked verses H-M. Last time, I didn't think to keep track of how many verses the kids memorized. This time, by my tally, there were 20 kids that participated and they said a total of 84 verses!! Way to go kiddos! It is so fun to hear especially those little tiny kids sharing with you what they have been memorizing. Those two and three year olds can just blow you away with what they can learn! And man can a little toy from the dollar store be great motivation :) I also have learned all of the verses for A-M...though I need some work on my references.
Next week is spring break for us (yay!) so I'll try to keep up with this. I just got back from a wonderful walk with the dogs outside. Sixty five degrees feels amazing after a long winter. I think I am way more thankful for spring because of winter...if I lived somewhere where it didn't get cold, I don't know if 65 would seem as fantastic as it did today.

Green Chile Chicken Soft Tacos

It has been a couple of weeks since my last attempt, so I pulled out my Mexican Everyday cookbook again this week to make another go at it. This time I made some green chile chicken soft tacos. Essentially, store bought corn tortillas filled with garlic lime chicken, roasted poblano chiles, and onion. We topped them with some queso fresco and some salsa as well. (Rick suggested making tomatillo salsa to top with, I wasn't that ambitious this time).
They turned out pretty tasty. The recipe made enough for like 12 small tacos which fed three people. They were a little spicy, but not too much. The chicken definitely had some nice flavor...I wasn't sure how it would be with just salt, pepper, lime juice, and garlic, but the chicken was definitely flavorful. The flavor was almost more fajita like with the chicken, onion, and chiles.
We deemed it another success. It was a nice change from the usual ground beef tacos around here. While shopping for the poblanos, I noticed that walmart does have tomatillos, which opens up several of the other recipes in this cookbook. The corn tortillas this time were way better (in my opinion) than the ones I bought another time...I tried to pick the most mexican looking packaging, and it seemed to work :) (*There's a little man with a mustache and a sombrero on the front of the package...though they're actually from Texas, but that's pretty close to Mexico, right?)

The zones have arrived

Well the zones to use indoors for training Midas have arrived. We just bought one and essentially it's a little disk that you can set so that when he gets too close to it, it beeps his collar and/or shocks him. Brad was getting it set up so he had taken off both dogs' collars so they wouldn't get shocked. Just hearing the collars beeping, even though it wasn't hurting him, made Midas so nervous that he hopped up in my lap (not just on the footstool as is his norm, but completely on my lap) and was shaking. Poor guy. He just really does not like to hear that sound. (Lucy thought it looked like fun to all be in the chair together, so she hopped up as well and got on the top of the chair behind my head.) So we've used it for two days now, and so far it has worked...or maybe he just isn't interested in the office door anymore. We have it just inside the office door and it is set so that if he gets within about a foot and a half of the door, it will beep at him. We moved his toy box to the other side of the room, so maybe he'll just forget he wanted to get into the office.

Icy Evening

So I don't even have ANY night classes this semester, and I certainly don't have a Wednesday night class, but for some reason I was still so excited to hear that classes were canceled tonight. There just is something wonderful about snow days, or in this case "ice nights". I love that feeling of found time, time that you thought you were going to be at work, but now are at home in your sweatpants, watching the Today show, eating frosted flakes and drinking hot chocolate...but I guess none of that applies here because I don't actually have a class that is canceled and it's not the morning :) But still special none the less...and I am still wearing sweatpants...and eating chocolate...

Day One

Today was the first day of the spring semester. There is something weird about the beginning of a new semester...I'm not nervous about the new classes, I just find the whole not knowing any of the people in the room staring at me / introduction part of each new semester kind of awkward. I much prefer it when we all just know each other. They know what to expect. I know the personality of the class. All that. So day one is over. I only had one class today, precalculus, and it only has 15 kids in it. I'm looking forward to the small class and meeting everyday.
Tomorrow I meet my other three classes...all sections of college algebra. Three more introductions. Three more times talking through the syllabus...they probably remember like 1/10th of what I tell them on that first day. But it's nice to be back to a regular schedule. I didn't swim today, but hopefully on Thursday I'll start that part of the new schedule.

My Five Year Old Puppy

Having adopted both of my dogs from shelters, I've never actually had to deal with the puppy stage. Both of my dogs came house trained, both were able to be left alone inside...well, mostly. I mean, Midas has never exactly done "well" when left home alone, definitely seems to have some separation anxiety issues as he is only destructive when we are gone. He has done a lot better with this since we got Lucy, and he has us well "trained" to not leave anything that can be shredded out in the family room with him. A new issue has come up this week - scratching. Apparently Midas thinks that he would like to spend some of his day in the office...the one room on the main floor of the house that he can't go in during the day. The office also contains one of the nicest architectural features of our house - arched french doors with 15 little windows in each. In Midas' quest to get into the office, he has really scratched up one of the doors. The doors have always been there, but this week apparently the office quest began.
I considered several options of what to do about this. 1) Get a large crate and lock both dogs in their crates during the day...we have one for Lucy, but we don't have one large enough for Midas; 2) Make Midas wear little booties on his front paws so he can't scratch things...he would look just ridiculous and I can't imagine he would just let you put these on without a fight; 3) Put up a gate to keep the dogs in the kitchen during the day...this, however, would require a way to put their beds in the kitchen which I'm not really sure where I could put them; 4) Put up some kind of plexiglass shield on the office door to prevent any further damage...they sell these, but they are not very attractive and it really doesn't do anything to teach him not to scratch; or 5) use indoor zones that work with the shock collars they already wear all day. This is the option I think we are going to pursue first. We never bought any of these for indoor training previously, as we wanted the dogs to feel safe in the house, and not cause Midas any anxiety (he's somewhat fragile). They both are fully trained on the outdoor fence and also respond well when we use the remote control when people are over. So the zones are essentially a round disk that is battery powered that you can put anywhere and set the boundary from 2 to 12 feet. Essentially we would put one in the office and when he got too close to the office it would beep and/or shock him. When we were home and the door was open, we could just turn off the zone and he could come and go as he pleased. So we'll see...I was pretty mad at him yesterday, so if this doesn't work I think I'll continue to work my way through the possibility list.

Well let's see...

From the looks of things, you would think that my new year's resolution was to not write any more things in this blog. That wasn't actually the case. And I haven't really been all that busy, I think it just turns out that my life has been in a bit of a boring patch. We haven't had any No-Beef-Wednesdays yet this year, I haven't tried any more recipes out of my Rick Bayless cookbook, the students aren't back so I can't make fun of them yet...
Classes do start up on Tuesday. My schedule got changed up a little this week and now I'm only teaching 14 hours...three sections of college algebra and one of precalc. Perhaps that means I will do a little better on doing the non-school things that I would like to be doing everyday like devotions and exercising. I have these grand illusions of swimming on Tuesday and Thursday mornings before I have to go to school, so we'll see if that happens.
Well it's 7:45 and I haven't taken a shower yet, so I should probably go clean up if I'm going to make it to work by 9:00. I think the early I've made it to work in these past two weeks is 8:30, so it's going to take a major effort next Wednesday when I need to teach at 8:00.

Mexican Everyday Attempt #2

Well, I had leftover fresh cilantro, garlic, and onion from my adventure yesterday as well as salad and creamy queso dressing, so I decided to try another recipe tonight. Tonight's experiment: red chile chicken and rice with black beans. This one tasted very traditional and is a great one pot recipe that made a lot of good food from pretty simple ingredients. This is a pretty cheap meal as the base of the meal is a can of black beans, a cup of white rice, and a couple of chicken breasts. The flavor comes from ancho chile powder, garlic, onion, and cilantro. It's a little spicy, but not overpowering. Brad and I both voted that we liked this one better than last nights, and it certainly seemed to turn my kitchen into less of a disaster :) It seems like an easy go-to meal as I usually have these things in the cupboard, minus the cilantro.

Mexican Everyday Attempt #1

My friends at work got me hooked on the show Top Chef, which led to me seeing Rick Bayless on Top Chef Masters. Brad and I really enjoyed watching him cook and went to his restaurant up in Chicago this fall. A lot of nights we watch his show on PBS during dinner: Mexico One Plate at a Time. So for Christmas, Brad got me his "easier" cookbook...Mexican Everyday.
I thought New Year's Eve seemed like a fun time to try out some fun, new food. So I poured through the cookbook looking for things I thought I might be able to create (with ingredients I could find in Pekin in the winter). I settled on:
-Creamy Queso Anejo Dressing, with some nice green leaf lettuce
-Gulf Coast-Style White Rice Pilaf, and
-Pork Tenderloin a la Mexicana
Making the dressing led to me using my blender for the first time in almost five years of having it (it's very nice, I should be using it more often). It was a creamy oil and vinegar dressing that had a pretty intense tang. Pretty easy to make, and pretty tasty, though not amazing.
The rice was probably my favorite part. Apparently traditional mexican rice is white rice, not the red rice we american's always call spanish rice. This was white rice with garlic and onion and chicken broth, and then baked. Very flavorful, and pretty easy. I would definitely make this one again, though use some of my shortcuts like the frozen onion and garlic powder instead of mincing garlic and chopping onions.
And then the pork tenderloin. This was diced pork tenderloin with poblano chiles, onion, garlic, fire-roasted diced tomatoes, and cilantro. I was glad I had seen Rick roast poblanos on his tv show so I knew what to expect with those. You stick them under the broiler until they get all blistered and blackened, put in a bowl and cover until cooled, and then all that black skin just peels right off to leave this nice roasted chile. I was a little unsure about this one while I was cooking it, I think the smell of garlic in the kitchen was overpowering everything else for me. But it really turned out quite tasty. It had a lot of flavor, but was not really that spicy.
All in all, it seemed to be pretty tasty. Now that I've made one attempt at these things using all fresh ingredients, I feel I can play around with a few things to make them easier for "everyday". So I guess instead of "Julie & Julia", this is "Megan & Rick" :)