Dish 15 Pumpkin Bread

I've made several types of bread, but prior to this fall, I had never made pumpkin bread.  Clearly, I've been missing out.  That stuff is DELICIOUS!   I made it once for "52 recipes in 52 weeks" and liked it so much that I made it several more times.  I think I may be making it every fall from now on, it's so good.  It's definitely one of my top four favorites in the dishes I've made so far. 

Dish 14 Strawnana Bread

What is strawnana bread you ask? Why it's a combination of strawberry bread and banana bread.  No, I did not make this up.  I was looking for some type of new dish to make that involved strawberries and I came across strawnana bread.  As someone who loves strawberries, bananas, and many types of bread, it sounded like a winner to me.  I was quite excited to make it, okay, truth be told, I was more excited to eat it.  It was good, but not quite what I expected.  I expected more of a strawberry banana mixed flavor like you find in strawberry banana yogurt and I can't quite explain the taste, but the strawberry and banana flavors, while present didn't blend in the way I expected.  I'm not saying it was bad, just that it was different than what I'd imagined. 

Washing Machine Part 2: It Finally Arrives

The appliance store mostly delivers during "typical" business hours.  In other, words, when I am at work.  They did offer Saturday deliveries, but I was going to be out of town at a wedding the following Saturday.  My recently retired father agreed to be at my home to meet the delivery guys.  We set up the appointment and three days later, my dad called to say he couldn't be there then.  I rescheduled the appointment and the delivery guys gave me a 4 hour window (between 10 and 2, guess when they arrived?  1:50).  Guess what else happened?  The machine wouldn't fit through the bathroom door.  It would fit fine once in the room, there was plenty of space, but apparently my bathroom door is smaller than a standard bathroom door.  Who knew?  Clearly NOT ME.  Dear ol' Dad was "thrilled."  A couple of phone calls later, a new machine that would fit was picked out, scheduled for delivery and of course cost $170 more.  That Saturday the delivery guys showed up between 9 and 1.  Which means 12:15.  They literally took some doors off my house, left another door wide open so I could freeze while one of them smoked, installed the new machine, made a "nice little" mess, which they did NOT clean up.  They put the doors back on, left, and I cleaned up the mess.  I was SO HAPPY to have a functional machine again.  I did 8 or 10 loads of laundry that weekend.  :-)  And all was peachy for about a week and a half when I tried to dry some towels and they wouldn't dry.  I figured it was because towels take a while to dry, even in my parents' nice dryer I have to run them through more than once, but after three times through and still wet, I was slightly annoyed.  On to a smaller load w/o towels and same problem.  Long story short, someone came to look at it yesterday and the cord short circuited (or something to that affect) and will be fixed as soon as they can get someone over here, possibly Saturday.   

Washing Machine Part 1: Not What I Really Wanted for My Birthday, but such is life

So as you may remember from a few blogs back, my washing machine died last month (the day I got my car back).  I was understandably annoyed, but what can you do, right?  I couldn't afford a new one right away (remember I'd just spent big bucks getting my car repaired).  Thankfully, my parents live close by and they have a functional washing machine, which they let me use a couple of times (including on Thanksgiving, nothing says Happy Thanksgiving like Hi Mom and Dad, I'm going to do 3 loads of laundry in between eating turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc).  Additionally, one evening not too long after the machine died my fiance and I had plans to go to his parents house so we brought some laundry with us.  Someone (actually two people) suggested I call someone in town who is good at fixing washing machines.  I called him the week before Thanksgiving and after playing some phone tag, finally arranged for him to come look at my machine the day before Thanksgiving.   Like the cable company, the man gave me a 3 hour window (I'll be there between 9 and 12) and called around 11:55 to say he'd be there in a few minutes.  Can you imagine saying that to your boss?  I'll be in sometime between 9 and noon today.  Anyway, he showed up, told me what was wrong and gave me an estimate of how much it would cost to fix.  And for him to do that cost $60 dollars!  Can I please make $60 to show up for a 5 min appointment?  Don't get me wrong, the guy was nice enough, I knew it was going to cost $ for him to look at it, etc, but seriously, I pretty much threw $60 away.  He also told me to call Kenmore and see if I could find out how old the machine was because it were really old, I might want to get a new machine since they only last so long.  It took some searching, but I was finally able to find out that my machine was 19 years old.  I would have much rather spent the $260-$320 to have the machine fixed than spend the over $1000 for a new one (it's a washer/dryer combo so I couldn't just buy a washing machine), but since the machine was so old, it seemed best to get a new one.  Bring on the empty checking account.  Lucky (or not) for me, my birthday was close by so my parents and my fiance's parents offered to give me money in lieu of a gift to put toward the new machine.  Thank you parents and future in-laws!  So two days after Thanksgiving, it was off to buy a new washing machine/dryer combo or what I like to call, "time to empty my checking account."  My fiance and I picked one out, paid for it (it cost $200 less than we thought) and all looked good.    (Of course as you can probably tell from the title having a "Part 1," things didn't go quite according to plan, you'll just have to come back tomorrow to find out what happened). 

The Third Call's a Charm

Once we'd book the reception location, we wanted to book the church.   I called and spoke to a lovely woman there who told me what I needed to do, but also informed me that they weren't booking for 2014 yet.  She said I should call back in the middle of October and then they'd be able to help me (it was July or August at the time of my phone call).  On Oct. 16th, which is almost as middle of October as you can get, I called the church and they were very nice, but told me that they book still hadn't come in yet and it SHOULD be in by early November (they thought it would have been in by now).  She wrote my info on a piece of paper with a note to get in touch with me and said if I didn't hear anything by Thanksgiving to call then.  So the Monday after Thanksgiving, still NO news so I called again.  I was told that the book had come in--yay!-- and I was on the "to do" list for that week.  A few e-mails, some paperwork, and a small check later and the church was booked.  Woohoo 2 decisions made.  Now it's on to djs, photographers, dresses, food choices--well, you get the idea. 

Dish 13 Cranberry Chicken

Despite the name, the dish didn't taste a whole lot like cranberries.  Two of the main ingredients were cranberries and chicken (gee I bet you'd "never" have guessed that) along with a dressing.  The dish was good, but I really thought it would taste more like cranberries, you know like a version of Thanksgiving dinner with chicken instead of turkey.  Oh, well.  On a scale of 1-10 (10 being highest) I'd rate this one a 6 or 7 so I would make it again, but not immediately.  Maybe a once or twice a year dish. 

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I LOVE Christmas time.  I loved it as a kid and even now as an adult, I love decorating for Christmas, listening to cheesy Christmas music, watching cheesy Christmas movies, baking Christmas goodies, Christmas shopping (except for those people that are REALLY hard to shop for), and of course Christmas/holiday parties.  The stress that comes with the shopping and baking it, not so much, but otherwise I am a Christmas lover.  Merry Christmas!  I'll be back with some more blogging later in the week.  :-)

Did I Really Just Run Out of Gas?

If you've read my blog regularly (or even not that regularly) you know I've had some shall we say car issues over the years. Well...a couple of weeks ago, my fiance and I were heading to meet his family for lunch at a restaurant that is about halfway in between us.  We were about 10 minutes away from the restaurant when the car died.  As if that isn't bad enough, we were getting off one highway and onto another one and we were on the left side and could not get to the breakdown lane.  People could still get by us, but they were a little annoyed because it forced them to merge a car length earlier than usual. We thought we were out of gas because as the car died, the gas light came on.  I'd never run out of gas before and felt like a fool, but what can you do.  My gas needle had been a little off lately so I was just going by miles.  So I called AAA and they said they'd send someone within a half hour.  Sure enough a half hour later, AAA came with the gas.  I told him what happened and he said he didn't think it was the gas.  He opened the hood, did some stuff, and said it was NOT the gas, but rather looked like it was something electrical.  So he called another AAA truck who towed the car (after a state police officer came by and hit our car to the break down lane--yes, hit it with his car, who knew?  Last time my car died, the police officers PUSHED me out of the way) and then my fiance's parents came to pick us up and bring us to lunch.  A broken car is a good form of weight loss because I was so nervous about whether the car could be fixed and how much it would cost that I didn't eat much.  I managed to eat a little and later went out with my fiance to his friend's house where we had a good time.  His friend thought it was probably something wrong with my fuel pump and wouldn't make me completely broke.  The mechanic called me at 7:15am (GRR) the next day (a Sunday as in a day to sleep late) to tell me they wouldn't be able to get to my car that day (you couldn't tell me this at 9?  you don't even open 'til 8 on Sundays?!).  Monday morning I found out I had a broken fuel pump, a dead battery, and did I want a transmission flush since I was due for that now too. Tuesday after work, I had my car back and the mechanic assured me the fuel pump would work for years to come as would the battery.  Approximately, 6-6 1/2 hours after I got my car back, my washing machine died.  We'll save that for another blog though.    On a happy note, for the first time in a few years, my car passed inspection without needing anything fixed (as it should have since I'd just spent over two weeks' pay on car repairs the week prior). 

I'm Thankful

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I really should have posted a Thanksgiving-themed blog so here it is a little late.  Despite my many complaints that you can often read about in blogland (hopefully with some humor thrown in) I do have a lot to be thankful for:
-My friends who make me laugh, are fun to hang out with, and of course keep me busy.  :-)  I am forever appreciatve of your love and support (though I could do w/o some of the nicknames and bad jokes)
-My family, who yes, they drive me crazy at times, but isn't that what family is for?  If our families didn't drive us crazy, what would we whine to our friends about?
-My fiance, kind of like the family, he drives me crazy sometimes, but I don't know what I'd without him. 

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all.  I hope it was a good one. 

Dish 12

My oven was still not working when week 12 came around so I perused the crock pot cook book and found a dish called Company Seafood pasta.  The pasta cooked as it normally would on the stove and the seafood part all went in the crock pot.  I made way too much (it was just for me) and I don't think I finished all the left overs, though I did try.  It came out pretty good.  It had shrimp and crabmeat, two seafoods I like mixed with a few other things (don't have the recipe in front of me at the moment and it was the end of September when I made it) and then you mix it in with the cooked pasta and enjoy. 

Let Us Give Thanks...No, REALLY Let us.

I like Thanksgiving.  I also like shopping.  And like many other people, I go out on Black Friday in search of good deals, unfortunately, I tend to buy stuff for myself in addition to other people.  Some years I find more good deals for me than Christmas gifts, but I digress...I've noticed more and more stores opening on Thanksgiving.  What is the deal with that?  I mean I know sometimes we can only take so much "family time," but Thanksgiving is a holiday.  I worked retail once upon a time and they only days you were guranteed to have off where I worked were: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.  Now those poor employees can't even have Thanksgiving off?  Really?  I was at a store a few weeks ago and the woman who was ringing up my fiance said she wasn't celebrating Thanksgiving this year because she had to be at the store that night.  Now, that is depressing.  I know doctors, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, soldiers, etc have to work on holidays, but really do you have to make all the store employees go in on one of their few days off?  I hope they pay them well.  And I hope even those working folks managed to enjoy at least some portion of their Thanksgiving.   

Dish 11 Raspberry Drumsticks

Don't let the name fool you, raspberry drumsticks don't really taste like raspberry.  The recipe was fairly simple as it only had a few ingredients and one of them was raspberry jam, but it didn't taste much like raspberry.  I'd rate this recipe as okay.  My fiance and I ate them, but I haven't made them since and he hasn't requested them.  I wouldn't say I'd never make them again, but I think it'd be something I'd only make two or three times a year. 

And then one day I decided I liked candles

I didn't used to like candles.  Okay, it's not that I didn't like them, it's more that I never used them.  People often gave me candles as gifts for various things and I put them in a closet, cabinet and there they stayed.  And then one day I became a home-owner and I discovered a use for candles.  You'll still never see me put candles on my Amazon wish list or any Christmas or birthday lists, but I actually like them now and I use them.  Maybe that's not such a good thing because recently Mom and I made a trip to the Yankee Candle factory.  I'd been there several years ago with my now-fiance, but she'd never been and mentioned wanting to go.  So we took the several hours drive out there.  It was a nice, pretty ride.  We joked that we looked crazy walking around lifting up all kinds of candles and smelling them, but everyone else was doing it too.  Where else can you go and just randomly smell all kinds of things like that?  Well, I liked a bunch of them and I had a coupon for either $15 or $20 off a $35 purchase so I bought too many votives, as in 24.  As in I shouldn't need to buy candles again for years.  Oh, well, at least my house will smell nice.  If you had told me three or four years ago that I'd buy 24 votive candles in a day, I'd probably ask you if you were on drugs or were just crazy.  Who knew! 

How Long Does it Take to Fix an Oven?

On Sept. 20th (yep, I'm a little behind) I started to make a dessert dish for a bachelorette weekend to be held that weekend at a friend's lake house.  I pre-heated the oven, mixed in all the ingredients, and put the Chocolate Crunch Brownies in the oven to bake.  I cleaned up and a few minutes later I was sitting in another room when I heard a loud popping sound.  My fiance and I tried to figure out what the noise was and after a few minutes realized it was the oven.  Strange we thought.  We tried to turn it back on, but no luck.  Yikes!  I'd heard stories of people's oven not working and fires resulting.  So I took a deep breath, remained calm, and hoped for the best--YEAH RIGHT.  I texted my mother who was all ready asleep (it was a little late to be baking) and got no response.  So I texted my uncle who as he puts it, rarely sleeps.  He told me to try the fuse box.  I did that, no luck.  He also assured me that since I had an electric oven and NOT a gas one, my oven was not likely to blow up, etc.  My fiance and I looked on-line at oven prices, I tried not to cry, and eventually we went to bed and I decided to do a crockpot appetizer instead of a dessert for the bachelorette party (which was a success).  Fast forward to a few days later:  my fiance talked to the guy who installed my dishwasher and had me set-up a time for him to come check out my oven.  In the mean time, he told us some things to try to see if the stove worked.  It did so bring on the pasta!  A few days later, the aforementioned man came over and said since the stove worked and the oven wasn't too old, I probably just needed a new part not a whole new oven.  So he agreed to order that and come by a few days later to install it.  In the mean time, the crockpot, quesadilla maker, toaster oven (who knew you could do chicken in a toaster oven?  Okay, maybe you did, but it was the first time I ever cooked chicken that way), and stove got some good use.  We did go out to eat a few times too.  And since I had promised to make some people apple bread, my parents were kind enough to let me use their oven one evening to make the bread. As planned, Mr. A showed up to install the new oven part as scheduled one Wednesday evening in early October.  Yay--or not.  The part wouldn't fit.  What?!  The man who ordered the part accidentally ordered him (and thus me) a part for a GAS stove, I have ELECTRIC.  So much for making that pumpkin bread that weekend.  He promised to put in a new order the next day, but he was going to be away for the holiday weekend.  Not a big deal, after I'd been ovenless for two weeks, what was another week at this point?  I wasn't going to be around that Tuesday so he said he could probably come by on Wednesday.  Unfortunately, Wednesday came and he wasn't there.  A few minutes past the time whe I thought he'd be there, I got a phone call informing me that the part hadn't come in yet.  He tracked it and it was in MA, but not at the store yet and was supposed to arrive in another day or so.  So he said he could install it Saturday after work.  I said that was fine, but at this point I was a little annoyed as 1.  I'd promised to make a birthday cake for a friend for Friday night and 2. Another friend was coming over on Saturday and I was going to make a nice meal and tell her all about Iceland because she was going there in a few weeks.  So it was back to Mom and Dad's on Thursday night where I baked whoopie pies and a birthday cake.  They weren't going to be home on Saturday so they said I could come by then and cook the chicken crescent roll casserole I was planning to make.  A normal person would have just done sandwiches or ordered out for pizza, but not me, I have to make things difficult.  The whoopie pies were good as was the cake (even though I dropped it on the way in to my friend's apt, but I saved most of  it), and so was the chicken (and then I had leftovers for a few days since I STILL had no oven).  Yep, Saturday evening came and no phone call, no oven, nothing so I called him.  No answer.  Weird.  I texted him a little later and oops, he'd left the part at the store.  Oh dear.  Get that crockpot back out.  Thankfully, on Wednesday evening, Mr. A came by after work (he got there before I did) and at last I had the correct part and a functional oven (and he even gave me a discount for the delay). Woohoo!  I was a baking queen that night:  brownies, pumpkin bread, baked shrimp.  So to answer the blog title: just under a month (about 27-28 days).

A Decision is (Finally) Made

Well, 11 venues, 1 not quite a spreadsheet table, and many conversations later, we had it narrowed down to 6 venues=2 hotels and 2 function halls.  We decided we liked one of the hotels better than the other so we eliminated that one. Then we were down to 4 places.  One place we REALLY liked.  It was so pretty, the prices seemed reasonable, and they only did one wedding at a time.  Our two biggeset concerns were they didn't seem too willing to do vegetarian meals and the place was a long ride from the church where we were hoping to marry so we sadly eliminated that one.  Another place we liked, but we'd recently been to two weddings there.  We enjoyed the venue both times, but didn't want to look like copycats, we figured we should mix it up a bit.  So we eliminated that place too.  Another place we liked, but it was out of our price range.  We did get invited to a wedding at that venue so we did get to enjoy it at someone else's expense.  :)  So at long last we had it narrowed down to two places.  We liked them both. I ended up e-mailing them both and asking for an estimate.  Essentially, it came down to price and somewhat location.  One place was 1/2 hour away from the church, another place was 15 minutes so we went with the slightly less expensive and closer place.  Yay!  One decision made, 99 more to go lol. 

BLOG 200

So I realized this was post 200.  At first, I felt like I should make a big deal and do something special with this post, but then I remembered what I normally blog about and let's face it, why start doing special blogs now.  So instead here's a jumble of my usual blog topics:  vacation, complaints, wedding plans, and a new dish.
I still need to write about my broken oven.  That will be Blog 201
I'm hoping to go on a cruise this spring.  If I do, it will be a short one, so perhaps it won't take me 2 months to write about. 
The wedding plans are coming along nicely.  Translation:  I have nothing new to report since the previous wedding blog.
Dish #11=Raspberried Drumsticks, despite the name, you couldn't really taste the raspberry

And just for fun, here are a couple of letters...

Dear Mother Nature,
   What is the deal with these October storms?

Dear Washing Machine,
   Please behave.  I can't afford to replace you right now.

Dear Game Night,
  Despite me stinking at certain games, you are good, cheap fun.  :-) 

Dear Yankee Candles,
  Thanks to you and your factory store, I've gone from hating candles to owning way too many of them. 

Dear Pumpkin Bread,
  You are delicious.  Why did I never make you before this year? 

Dear J and J,
   Your Halloween themed wedding was a delight.  Loved everyone's costumes. 

Dear Political Ads,
  I am SO HAPPY you will be done soon.  Can't wait for the annoying phone calls, mail, and commercials to END.

 Dear Readers,
  Thanks for following me for 200 posts! 

The Last Few Venues

As we were looking at the places I'd mentioned previously, I'd also been in contact with some other places via e-mail. One place NEVER responded, even after several attempts, so I just assumed they didn't want my business and stopped trying. At another place, the woman was lovely, we e-mailed back and forth a few times to set up a date, and finally I thought we were getting somewhere and I never heard from her again. I don't know if one of our e-mails got lost in cyber-space or what, but I can't really afford that place anyway so maybe it's for the best. Another place sent me the info I requested, but when I e-mailed them twice re: questions/seeing the venue, NO response. So I gave up on them too. Too bad because their food is good, maybe they'd be good for a rehersal dinner--if I can actually get ahold of them. I did ask one other place for info per the suggestion of my Dad, but the place is too far away. They did send me info in a timely manner though. During the late spring, we looked at four more places.  Honestly, we liked them all.  Two were hotels, and one was a beautiful place that hosted weddings, functions, etc.  Another was a function hall that was also quite scenic.  A few people did suggest some other places to us and I peeked on-line, but by this time we'd seen 11 places in person, researched a few more on-line and it was time to narrow down the location not look at more places (plus some of the suggested places were out of our price range, honestly, everything is out of our price range, but these were extra out of our price range, one place I saw on-line looked more affordable, but I wasn't a huge fan of the set up, plus it might be a little tight if  all of our guests actually made it--and yes, I know that rarely happens)).  So now it was time to bring out the chart and start weighing pros, cons, and costs. 

Dish 10 Orange Chicken with Sweet Potatoes

This was the first time I'd ever made anything with sweet potatoes.  I cooked this one in the crockpot, but I still had to do a good amount of prep work.  My friend told me that she and her husband do crockpot Sunday almost every week.  I kind of like this idea and copied her for a few weeks.  This came in especially handy when my oven broke.  We've gotten away from it recently, but I'm thinking of getting started with it again soon. 
This dish came out MUCH better than the last time I did chicken in a crockpot.  Last time I made chicken that way it was so dry, but this was good.  I thought it would taste a little more orangey, but it was pretty good nonetheless, just a different taste than I expected.  I still can't decide if I like sweet potatoes or not.  I'm on a kick where I really like sweet potato fries and when I've been out to eat lately, I've gotten sweet potato fies instead of regular fries, but I'm still up in the air re:  sweet potatoes themselves. 

More Venues=More Fabulous Places

After our day of looking at a great wedding venues and a not as great as we'd hoped wedding venue, we spent the next couple of weeks looking at five more places.  The first one of those four was a hotel, which we liked, but it wasn't set up for anything so it was just a big empty room and hard to visualize.   The second place we REALLY liked.  I think I liked it more than my fiance, but he said he liked it.  The third place had a nice outdoor area for pictures, but the venue itself seemed a little small for what we wanted.  The fourth place we looked at, we also liked, but the location was in the middle of a city, so we were a little concerned about where we'd take pictures.  We are currently considering that place for our rehersal dinner though.  I must admit that ALL of the people we met with at these four places were REALLY nice, accommodating, and willing to answer questions, offer suggestions, etc.  The only "bad" thing about this was it was getting hard to narrow our choices because we liked everything so much.  :-) 

Summer Movies (Two Months Late)

As promised, here are the 20 movies I watched over the summer (a.k.a. the goal I did reach)

1.  West Wing Season 2 (okay so it's a series, not a movie, but I Netflixed it and enjoyed it, I'm hooked on that show now)
2.  Junior (had never seen this one, it was fumny)
3.  It Had to Be You (cute chick flick)
4.  Ted (a little raunchy, but definitely funny, this was one my fiance wanted to see so I was a good girl and went with him, but yeah, it definitely had a lot of laughs)
5.  Hope Springs (not the new one with Meryl Streep, this is a few years older with Colin Firth, it was okay)
6.  Boys Don’t Cry (one of those movies that makes you think OMG, how can people be so mean, but as disturbing as it was to watch, I think it teaches a good lesson--be KIND to people even if they are diffrent from you, and yes, I know that's putting it really simply)
7.  I Don’t  Know How She Does It (A fun, cute movie)
8.  Sherlock Holmes (not really my type of movie, but I do quite like Robert Downey Jr, this was another one my fiance wanted to see)
9.  Magic Mike (yes, I confess, I watched this movie, but come on Channing Tatum is HOT)
10.  Georgia Rule (better than I thought it would be, I liked it, even if it did deal with a disturbing issue in places, it had some good humor in it too)
11.  Jane Eyre (an older version of the movie, not the new one, I read the book a few years ago and have been wanting to see one/several of the movie versions)
12.  Black Swan (I wanted to see this mainly for the dance aspect, I will confess I had to look away a few times during this movie, well acted, etc, but distubring in places, like when she was stabbing herself with feathers)
13.  Beauty and the Briefcase  (Cute)
14.  The Bridges of Madison County (Good movie)
15.  21 Jump Street (Again, my fiance's choice, not mine, but it was all right)
16.  Eat Pray Love (read the book so had to see the movie, I liked it)
17.  Conviction (Good movie, liked it a lot)
18.  Love and Other Drugs (Not my favorite, but good movie anyway)
19.  Adventures in Baby-Sitting (I had never seen this, good 80s movie)
20.  New Year’s Eve  (Yes, I know it's cheesy, but I liked it)

1 Goal Achieved, 1 Goal Almost Achieved

On July 17th, I blogged about some (rather silly) summer goals I set for myself.  I was going to watch 20 movies and read 10 books over the summer.  I meant to write this blog earlier (you know at the end of the summer), but you know me, I'm always behind in blog life.  Plus then I got excited writing about Iceland, wedding stuff, and my 52 dishes.  Anyway...I only met one of my goals and came close on the other, but no dice.  I'll start with the books, the goal I didn't quite meet and you can check back tomorrow for the movie goal, which proved more successful.  What's that you say?  You don't believe I'm going to write a blog tomorrow because that would mean I blogged two days in a row and I've been slacking lately.  Well, you're right, I'm not going to write it tomorrow, I'm going to do it now, but schedule it to post tomorrow.  :-) 
I only ended up reading 8 books instead of 10.  I think I spent too much time on movies and the computer.  Next summer, I'll do better (I hope!).  Here's what I read:

1.  The Wedding Girl (Cute chick lit)
2 . The Brightest Star in the Sky (this was by Marian Keyes, who is one of my favorite authors when you want a combo of chick lick intertwined with some larger/more serious issues, I enjoyed this book.)

3. Catching Fire (second book in The Hunger Games, it was pretty good.  I originally had NO desire to read this series, but so many people kept telling me I "had" to read it that I gave it a try so of course after reading the first book, I "had" to read the second, now I need to get the third one.)

4. Eat, Pray, Love (I was a little nervous on this one because several people told me they didn't like this book, but I enjoyed it.  I liked the movie too.)

 

5. Fearless Fourteen (by Janet Evanovich, her books are good for a fun/light summer read, I've read her other 13 "Stephanie Plum" novels so had to read this one too)

6. Salem Falls (I enjoy Jodi Piccoult's book and this was no exception, good book)

7. Here Comes the Bride (sequel to a book I read YEARS ago, I liked this book a lot, the main character kind of reminded me of me and where I'm at in life)

8. Plum Lovin' (another Stephanie Plum novel)

Dish 9

There aren't a whole lot of things I cook well, but I can cook chicken.  I like chicken, my fiance likes chicken, and my fiance likes bacon, quite a bit.  So when I found a recipe for bacon wrapped chicken, I thought, oh, yeah, he's going to like this one and that'll give me dish 9 in my "52 recipes in 52 weeks" or "A Year of New Dishes" quest.  So I made it, unfortunately, it made too much for two people and though I usually like leftovers, for some reason this meal reheated wasn't as good as the real deal.  The real deal was decent though, not my favorite of the new dishes, but something I would try again. 

A Quick Post About Dish 8

Well, you  might not know it from the blogs I've been writing lately, but I have continued my 52 recipes in 52 weeks, though I did unintentionally take a brief break due to a broken oven, but we'll get to that in another blog.  So dish 8, which I actually made at the end of August (yep, I'm behind) was chicken pot pie.  Believe it or not, I'd never done a home made chicken pot pie.  I usually bought the frozen kind and stuck it in the oven.  I will admit I bought the crust, didn't do a home-made crust, but otherwise, I made it.  It was pretty good.  I don't like peas so I picked out all the peas.  My fiance does not like vegetables, but he actually ate his.  :-) 

Home Again (Sort Of) Bye Iceland, We'll Miss You!

We flew home from Greenland that evening (plane food was decent).  Spent the evening doing a little shopping at the mall near our hotel.  Then because it was our last night in Iceland we decided to go to a local restaurant/bar for food and drink.  As it turned out, nothing was open within walking distance of our hotel (we were no longer staying in the heart of Rek) so we went down to the lobby, had a glass of Icelandic beer (yes, me the girl who doesn't like beer, but when in Rome or rather when Iceland...) and hung out in the lobby looking at brochures for all the places we wanted to go next time.  The next day it was off to the airport (last minute souvenir-shopping) then back home.  Or at least near home, I had plans to go away that weekend.  Go figure our flight home landed EARLY.  My fiance had barely left to come get us since our flight was so early.  Overall, it was a great trip. We dropped my friend off then headed up to my friend's lake house for a weekend of fun.  I somehow managed to stay awake long enough to enjoy myself that night, but was glad to sleep in the next day.  :-)  So there ya' go, two months later, I finally finish writing about an 8 day trip.  Ay ay ay.   

Day 7: Greenland

When my friend and I were planning our Iceland trip, we decided to splurge and do a day trip to Greenland. When else would we have the opportunity to go to Greenland?  I'm sure people go there and all, but I don't personally know anyone who has been there (at least not that I know of, perhaps you've been there and I don't know it).  It was kind of a random spot to visit, but it was only a two hour flight from Iceland and we were both interested in checking it out.  So on our almost last day of the Iceland trip we did a day trip to Greenland.  The population of Greenland is approximately 60,000.  There are cities near me that are bigger than that.  The town we visited has a population of under 300.  The town had:  an airport, a hotel, a general store, a souvenir shop, a school (the school does not house the equivalent of our high school, so students basically have to go to some type of boarding school because you can't really commute from this town to school on a daily basis), a church, a community center (I think), a cemetary, and an assortment of houses.  We saw all of those things (and of course I took pictures of most of those things) as well as a drumming presentation.  We also walked from the airport to town so we stopped quite a few times to take in the views and get some good pics.  You can't really drive from the Kulusuk (where we visited) to any other parts of Greenland so there aren't many cars in town.  There is a helicopter that flies back and forth a few times a day between Kulusuk and another larger town.  There are also boats in town so people can fish, catch seals, etc.  It's a different life than I'm used to, that's for sure.  Anyway, I learned a lot about the town and Greenland as a whole, saw some nice views, took some good pics, and went on a short boat ride that did not require Dramamene.  I feel like I should write more, but instead I'm going to post some pics.  We had a good day trip and met some nice people from Colorado, Belgium,  Iceland, and of course Greenland.  And of course I bought a couple of souvenirs and had a danish (do they call it a danish in Greenland--it's part of Denmark--is that pc?  That's how the woman described our snack to us.)    It was a good day!

Below is a view inside the church.

 The drumming presentation we saw is below.

 Hanging out in Greeland, with the town we were soon to visit in the background.

 

The School

Day 6 You Actually CAN get there from here

You may remember from eight years ago that I mentioned we tried to go to Grimsey Island earlier in the trip, but Mother Nature had other ideas.  Well, we tried again on day 6.  Our plan was to take the ferry to the island and fly back to Ak.  If for some reason the plane couldn't go again because of the fog, we could take the ferry back as the ferry left later than the plane.  We had to take a bus to the ferry stop, which worked out fine in the end, but there was some drama as the lady at the bus station said the bus didn't go back.  The bus driver assured us that it did (as it turned out since we were able to fly home it was a non-issue in the end anyway).  The bus was late so they had to hold the ferry for us, but they did and we successfully boarded the ferry and set sail for Grimsey.  I took my seasick medicine and settled in for a pleasant ferry ride.  WRONG!  Pleasant it wasn't. I mean the people were nice and the movie playing was a good one, but the ride was bumpy.  The medicine that usually helps was NOT helpful.  I was a miserable grump.  I sat in one of the only empty chairs (near the front of the boat, which I know is not the best place to sit when you feel sick on a boat, but it was my only option), closed my eyes and hoped I'd fall asleep.  No such luck.  I spent a good deal of time looking at my watch and trying not to try during the movie (when I wasn't dozing, I kept opening my eyes at the sad parts of "Reign Over Me").  I don't think I spoke more than three sentences to my friend, I felt so miserable.  Three hours is a long ride when you feel sick, but eventually (slowly) it passed and we docked.  And I stepped off the boat and felt fine.  It was like magic or something.  I was afraid I'd still feel a little blah, but nope as soon as I was off the boat, I was back to my ol' self.  We spent some time exploring the island.  We didn't have time to do quite everything we wanted, but we did see the one school, the church, walked part of one of the trails, visited the two shops, from a distance saw the light house,  AND made it to the arctic circle, where we posed with the pole for pictures and got a certificate.  BTW the island is small, when I said the school, two shops, etc, that's because that's all there is.  There is also a small hotel or two and an indoor pool. The population is about 90 people.  I really wonder what it's like living in a place like that.  I'd love to meet someone who lives on a small island like Grimsey and ask them a ton of questions about island life.  It kind of fascinates me.  I could't live like that forever, but maybe a few months would be fun.  Anyway...Thank goodness it wasn't foggy and we were able to take the plane back to Ak.  The plane holds about 20 people.  The airport was small, the staff were very nice--they even took our pics by the plane, the plane was small as in you could see the pilot from your seat, and I'm pretty sure the lady who checked us in also took our pic, loaded us onto the plane, and cleared the plane for take off.  A little different from life around here, but I'm not complaning, just noticing.  The plane was SO much better for me than the ferry (and only a 25 min ride).  We spent the rest of the evening shopping a little bit more, exploring Ak and seeing another famous house (Nonni's house), having delicious treats at a local cafe/bar, walking around a bit more, than having tapas (sp?)--my first time--at a local restaurant and I will admit I finally tried an Icelandic beer there (I'm still not a beer fan, but it was drinkable lol), then it was back to the airport to head back to Rek for two nights.  Oh, and as you check out the pics, it appears that I took a lot of pictures of churches, I think that is because we saw so many on the trip.  :)

 

Night 5

We made it to Akureyri (or Ak as my friend and I referred to it because I often forgot how to spell it) that evening. We checked into our guest house, which was all right, different from anything I'd stayed at before. Then we set off to explore Ak a bit. We visited the Botanical Gardens (where my friend befriended yet another cat, in case you forgot since it's taken me forever to blog about this trip she also befriended a cat in Rek earlier in the trip, I think she must attract them or something), visisted a historical house, did some shopping, enjoyed some fabulous ice-cream, and got some sandwiches and some FABULOUS desserts at a local bookshop/cafe.

Day 5

Aren't you glad I didn't go away for a whole month since it's taking me over a month to write about an 8 day trip?  Imagine how long it would take to write about a whole month.  Of course if I were "normal" I'd probably just sit down and write about one day each night, but intsead I throw in recipes and then have the audacity to get busy at work and not blog for a few days.  My goodness!  So day 5, we explored the Lake Myvatan area.  We looked at a look of scenic stuff so I will try not to drone on too long and just let you enjoy pictures.  We temporarily misplaced the car keys (yikes!), but found them a few minutes later (in the tourist info center on the counter, thank goodness!).  We also got a little lost, but since there aren't a lot of roads it didn't take us long to find our way.  Oh, except when we were walking and got lost, not so much lost as somehow ended up on the 6-8 hour hike (with only 1 small bottle of water) instead of the 40 minute hike, but we eventually realized that too and turned around (it just meant some extra exercise lol).  We also saw some more tufted houses.  So here are some pictures from that day: 

 

 

 

 

 

More Waterfalls, Strange Smells, and Some Sheep

Once we got off the crazy road, we made it to two waterfalls.  (Pics below)  Now because of our delay and the fun road, it was after 8 when we got there.  We spent some time there, then drove toward our hotel.  One the way we stopped to take a few pics then around 10:00 my friend saw some famous tourist spot and decided to pull in.  I was thinking, it's 10:00, we've been up since like 6:30, but then I remembered, we're in Iceland, it's still light out.  So on the way in, we saw people camping and then past a few campers and tents we saw this toilet, not a porta-potty, but a toilet, just sitting there near some campers.  Talk about feeling exposed.  Can you imagine if you think it's clear, you're about to go, and the suddenly some tourist comes driving down the road at 10:00 at night when you think the coast is clear.  Well, we got to the Krafla and it was cool to see, but it smelled nasty.  Something to do with the sulfur I believe.  We held our breath, took some pics, and got out of there quickly in hopes of smelling nice smells again.  As we drove back to the hotel, we got delayed by some sheep that felt no desire to get out of the road.  They just stood there, not a care in the world, taking their time.  Some girls soon pulled up behind us and got out of the car and yelled at the sheep and got them to move along.  We eventually got to our hotel, which was nice and crashed for the evening. 

 

 

You Can't Get There From Here...Well, not easily anyway

After the Christmas House, we drove back to town, drove around a little tiny bit, then got some Icelandic hotdogs (this time I tried one) and then it was off to the airport to go to Grimsey Island.  Grimsey Island is in the Arctic Circle AND is home to puffins so my friend was really excited to go as she wanted to see puffins and set foot in the arctic circle.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature (and the airlines) had other plans.  As they say, the best laid plans...I'll spare you all the details except to say I made quite a bit of progress on one of the books I brought to read.  The plane to Grimsey is small and doesn't do well in the fog.  Apparently, it was foggy in Iceland so we sat around the airport waiting for two hours after the time the plane was supposed to depart, but no luck.  The plane wasn't going anywhere so we rescheduled for Wednesday.  We were a bit annoyed at having wasted time, but what can you do.  We decided to do the things we wanted to do on Tuesday that day, then we could do Wednesday's plans on Tuesday and go to the island on Weds.  So we drove to the town furthest away.  What a ride!  Some of the roads are right along a cliff with NO guard rail.  yikes!  We go to Husavik.  One of the museums we wanted to see had moved to Rek (too bad we didn't realize that when we were still in Rek) so we didn't get to do that, but we went to a museum all about whales, which was interesting.  We also got some info on what else to do in the area and directions for a "shortcut" on a road that was "a little bad" to get there.

 

 

 Now, you know how I was just commenting on the roads with the cliffs, well, that was NOTHING compared to what was coming.  Much of the ride was scenic, but then we had about 20 miles on a road in the middle of nowhere, that wasn't paved and could really only fit one car.  If someone was coming the other way (and it was mostly tourits like us coming the other way) you had to pull over so they could get by or they had to pull over so you could get by.  We had stoppped for food before getting on the road and I couldn't even finish my yogurt concoction because the road was so bumpy.  We didn't tell each other 'til later, but we were both praying the car didn't break down, get a flat, etc.  It was a long (approximately) 20 miles.  I was so glad to be on pavement. 

Day 4: You Can't Reverse It and Christmas Comes Early

What a title huh?  So Monday morning of our trip aka day four, we flew to Akureyri, picked up our rental car (if you think rental car prices are expensive, try Iceland.  I thought the nearly $400 my fiance paid for a rental car in July for 9 1/2 days was a lot, well, that's nothing compared to the nearly $500 we paid for 3 days, especially since we were originally quoted a price of $300, but I digress).  I have no idea how to drive a standard so my friend agreed to do all the driving and thank goodness for that, because some of those roads...omg, but we'll get to that in another post.  Anyway, we got the car, went to the tourist info center, took a few pics outside, then it was off to The Christmas House (please don't make me type the Icelandic name for it).  So my friend put the car in reverse and...nothing happened.  Strange.  She tried again.  Nothing.  Eventually, she put the car in neutral and I got out and pushed the car out of the space.  Go me. lol  Apparently, we would not be reversing for the next three days.  So as she drove to the Christmas House, I thumbed through the owner's manual (the English version) and eventually was able to find that to reverse you had to lift something on the shifter thing (I don't know what it's called, like I said I've never driven a manual).  She tried it and it worked, yay!  We could reverse.  Still to be on the safe side for now, we parked in a way that didn't involve reversing.  :-)  The Christmas House was kind of cool.   It housed "the world's largest Advent calendar," and "arguably the world's most festive restroom."  I'm quoting from Frommer's.  It also had decorations, a Christmas themed garden, and a store that sold tons of Christmas ornaments and played Christmas carols, yes, even in August.  Since I LOVE Christmas, I quite enjoyed this place and took many pictures.  I'll only bore you with a few.  Gleđileg jól!  (I believe that'show you say Merry Christmas in Iceland, but if I'm wrong, someone please correct me.) 

 By now the car was able to reverse, but just to be on the safe side, we allowed some room to go forward too.

Hmm, I think Santa left his suit out to dry.

Stone People

 "Santa Cat"

 Above, is said to be the "world's most festive restroom." 

 

In Iceland, if boys and girls are really naughty Gryla comes to get them and takes them her cave.  She also has many sons, that come around in the days leading up to Christmas and do things like slam doors, steal sausage, etc.  There names explain what they do (i.e. Door Slammer slams doors, Sausage Stealer steals sausage, etc). 

A glimpse of the world's largest Advent Calendar

Day 3 Exploring Rek

Day 3 we had nothing specific planned, but still managed to fill the day.  :-)  We ventured to the flea market, where we both got some "famous" Icelandic sweaters.  Then we did a free tour of Reykjavik (which we referred to as Rek whenever we e-mailed each other when planning the trip).  The tour was interesting.  Following the tour, it took some doing, but we managed to find a museum that had a lot of interesting info about Iceland.  Since it was Sunday, the museum wasn't opened very late so we only had about an hour to spend there.  I enjoyed the museum though.  After that we walked around a little bit, then headed to Halgrim's Church. 

We couldn't go into the church part because there was a religious concert of some sort going on, but we were able to go to the top of the church and enjoy some scenic views, which are what you see here. 

After that, my friend made a new friend from the cat family.  Yep, she met a cat as we were headed back toward the hotel and had fun playing with it.  I'm allergic so I didn't have as much fun.
 :-p  We shopped a little, walked around a little, then my friend ordered a "famous" Icelandic hotdog.  Apparently, the place where she got it has the world's second best hotdog (I don't know who has the best).  We walked around a little more then had some dinner.  We even splruged and got fancy-looking desserts.  Then it was back to the hotel as we had an early morning the next day. 

It's Breakfast Time a.k.a. Dish 7

Sorry to break up the Iceland posts, but I'm trying to keep up with my 52 Dishes in 52 Weeks and though I'm on schedule in "real life," I'm behind in "blog life."  So far in my 52 Dishes in 52 Weeks project, I had made some dinners and desserts.  It was time to mix it up.  I decided to go the breakfast route.  I spent some time googling and came up with Pennsylvania Dutch Breakfast Cake.  I had all the ingredients and it wasn't too hard to make.  So I made it for me (which lasted AGES because I'm only one person, I ended up freezing some of it).  Post-Iceland I had plans to go to a friend's lake house in Maine for the weekend and I offered to bring a dessert and breakfast dish so I brought muffins and made the Pennsylvania Dutch Breakfast Cake.  People seemed to like it so I'd call that one a success too. I liked it and I think if I ever host a breakfast/brunch again, it's something I would make. 

Day 2: The Conclusion

Are you ready for me to finish with day two and move on to day 3?  Sorry I'm taking so long to get through it.  So picking up from last time...that day, we got to go see a glacier. We spent a good amount of time there, walking around and taking pictures. That was kind of cool. I'd seen glaciers before, but I think that was the first time I ever got to walk on one.  It was crazy foggy that day.       

   

 

We also stopped at a place where we watched a short movie about how the Eyjafjallajökull (I hope I got that right) volcano erruption affected local people.

We stopped to see some Icelandic horses.  FYI, Icelandic horses are pure.  You cannot bring horses into Iceland and if you take an Icelandic horse out of Iceland, it is not allowed back in.  Interestingly, when Icelanders go to horse shows, they do not bring their best horses because then they couldn't bring them back into Iceland. 

Aside from a rest stop, we also stopped to walk/jump on a moss field.  Now that was cool.  It feels weird, but cool. 

Got back to our hotel, hung out for a little while, then asked the front desk for suggestions on where to go for dinner.  The man at the desk found us a place, made us a reservation and off we went.  Dinner was good, but expensive, so it better be good.  Neither of us had dessert or alcoholic drinks and it still cost over $80.  My friend got an appetizer, but really for one app and two dinners, $84?  Yikes!  I had "salted cod," which was good, but definitely salty and it came with "cod cheeks," not entirely sure what those were, but they were yummy.  By the time we were done, it was nearly midnight so we called it a day (after getting only a little lost walking by to our hotel).  There ya' go, three blog posts later, I finally finish writing about one day.  :-p