Arizona Day 2

In addition to eating lots of good food on Day 2 in AZ, I also went to an arboretum (sp?).  I saw some cool stuff including:

 

We also saw:

 

 Afterwards, we went out to lunch.  Next to lunch was the World's Smallest Museum.  Our plan was to eat, then visit the museum.  Unfortunately, when we were done with lunch the museum was closed.  :-(  So sadly, I cannot say I went inside the World's Smallest Museum.  I did however, peek in the window so technically, I saw some things in the museum.  We are all ready compiling a list of things to do on my next visit so perhaps that will have to go on the list.  :-) 
 

 

After not visiting the museum, we went to the mall and did a little shopping.  Do you know what I bought?  A sweater!  It was 90 degrees in Arizona and I bought a sweater.  Who does that?!  But it was only $8.00 and it will be cold next winter so I'm sure it'll get worn eventually.  But yes, such a ridiculous thing to buy on a 90 degree day.   

Donuts, Cookie Dough, and bye bye extra room in my jeans

On Day 2 of my Arizona trip, I was treated to a delightful (and large) breakfast.  Options included: donuts, French toast casserole, fruit, bagels, juice, bacon, and I think I could have had eggs if I'd wanted.  I like eggs, but there were plenty of options as it was.  I confess I ate too much (1 donut, a small piece of French Toast casserole, 1 piece of bacon, and fruit).  Normal breakfast for me is either: a serving of Cheerios (I actually measure it out) or a bagel or English Muffin with some sort of spread (usually cream cheese or peanut butter).  Once in a while on weekends, I'll splurge and make scrambled eggs or pancakes or French toast.  But not all of them.  On days when I want to be healthy I'll have a spinach pineapple smoothie (it's actually quite good, though I know it sounds weird).  I hadn't had a donut in months, in fact it's possible it's been longer than that.  I ate 2 while I was in AZ. I'm lucky I only gained one pound that whole trip with all the delicious unhealthy food I ate.  Hopefully, I don't gain any more!  Speaking of food, lunch was grilled cheese and French fries.  Dinner:  Crock-pot orange chicken, zucchini (okay that part was healthy), rice, and a glass of wine.  Dessert:  cookie dough.  Yes, cookie dough.  Natalie had a recipe for eggless cookie dough that was safe to eat straight.  There were five of us in her house and one of those people didn't eat any.  She doubled the recipe and still the cookie dough was gone before Wednesday.  I fear I am no longer going to be in first place in The Biggest Loser contest I am participating in because I have to weigh in in less than one week.  I'm going to have to eat lettuce for the next 5 days!  By the way in case you are wondering why I only blogged about food and not about any of the fun things I did on Day 2, the truth is I haven't uploaded my pictures yet, but I had time to blog so I figured I'd get a post in.  I'll try to load the pictures soon so I can blog about things besides food.  I ate a lot of good food on vacation, but I did fun things too.  In the mean time, I need to go burn some calories.      

Visiting "Famous" Places and a Vacation of Food

So as I wrote in my last blog post, I recently went to Arizona to visit a friend.  The first day I got there was kind of low key, which was fine with me since I'd been up since before sunrise in order to catch my flight.  My friend who I visited has a blog and unlike mine a lot of people read hers.  She's semi-famous (okay I may have made the famous part up, but she has a lot of followers).  Her blog is great and she often writes about things in her house so I felt like I was visiting a historic site or something because I kept seeing objects, rooms, etc., I'd read about in her blog.  It's like when you see a famous place on tv or read about it in a tour book and then you go there.  Anyway, the theme of this vacation was too much food and that began right away on my first day.  Natalie's cousin (who I'd actually met the last time I was out there) was having a party at her house so there was a bunch of food out when I got there and as I'd been up for 12 hours and only had a bagel, the standard mini peanuts and pretzel bags they serve on the plane I was starving.  Natalie had made me special blondies too.  Delicious!  Despite eating all this great food, we still went out for Mexican food later (also good).  And not too much later I crashed.  It had been a long day (mainly because of my crazy flight plan) filled with good food.   

I'm Not the Only One With a Bad Sense of Direction

So I recently went to Arizona to visit a friend from college.  I had a great time and you can (eventually) expect to read about it in future blog postings.  For now, I'd like to whine about the flight out.  The flights themselves weren't terrible, a little bumpy and one was late leaving (but I managed to make my connecting flight--thank goodness it was close by, and at a smaller airport--flash back to the two times I've had to RUN through the terminal in Atlanta), but I'm not sure how the airlines think sometimes.  They made me go south to go north to go south again.  Does that seem confusing to anyone else?  I'm fine with not having a direct flight, but you'd think they could at least head me in the right direction and stop somewhere in the middle instead of all over the places before heading me in the right direction.  I suppose it could be worse.  I once met a woman in Seattle who had to fly from Seattle to NY via Atlanta (um, what?!  I know my geography isn't that great, but come on, that's a little ridiculous).  I also don't know what my deal was, but I was getting RESTLESS on the flight.  I had a book, my music, etc., but I was struggling.  There are places I want to visit that are more than 12 hours away and if I was getting restless on a flight that wasn't really that long, it makes me wonder how the heck I'll manage a 12 hour flight some day.  See I can't sleep on a plane--even if I'm exhausted and woke up BEFORE 5am, I still can't fall asleep on the plane.  Fall asleep in a car, no problem (don't worry, I wasn't driving), but put me on a plane, make me tired, and still the sleep will not come.  Even if it's a red eye, but I am getting way off topic so good night for now.   

A Wedding Tid Bit

Not a whole lot to report on the wedding front, but I figured since I hadn't given any updates yet, I'd get on it.  And give you a break from the recipes.  We are meeting with photographers soon.  We also got some stuff for the table when people sign in.  We saw this cute idea where people write you a note on a postcard and put it in a suitcase (in lieu of or in addition to) a traditional guest book so we're working on that.   We have the suitcase and I've been going through old postcards, which has been kind of fun.  That's all for news now on the wedding front. 

Dish 30 Peanut Butter and Banana French Toast

So the title sounds tasty, right?  Yeah, not so much.  Peanut butter tastes good, bananas taste good, and French toast tastes good, but put them all together and it wasn't that great.  It was a bit of a let down.  :-(  I didn't finish eating it.  I will not be making this dish again. 

This is a little late in coming, but just want to send thoughts and prayers to Boston, one of my favorite cities (and once upon a time my home). 

Flying: The Good, The Bad, and the Ahh

I recently purchased a plane ticket and shortly after started thinking about the whole process of flying, which of course lead to an idea for a blog that "shockingly" is not about food or wedding planning.  Anyway, flying isn't my favorite thing in the world, but I don't hate it.  I mean the red eye, the bathrooms and food leave something to be desired--actually, the food on Aer Lingus wasn't bad, and I don't work for them and am not making any money to say that, I just actually found their food decent when I flew them a couple of years ago.  The food on the plane in Iceland was decent too.  And the reason I don't like taking a red eye is because I cannot fall asleep--even when I am exhausted, talk about annoying!  Anyway, the first time I flew I was 9-years-old.  My family and I were going to Disney World.  I was SO excited about the trip.  I had a calendar and I was counting down the days and everything, come to think of it, not much has changed since then.  Now instead of Xing days off my calendar when I am excited about a trip, I just count them and keep track in my mind or ocas on the computer lol.  I was nervous about flying for the first time, but my uncle tried to reassure me that all would be fine--and it was though the flight home was rather bumpy, but my brother and I thought it felt just like being on another ride at Disney. I still get nervous flying alone sometimes. The first time I flew alone was not too long after 9-11 so I was quite nervous then, but I made it safely to my destination.  There were only 39 passengers on the plane, which was odd, I hadn't been on a plane that small ever.  Little did I know I'd be on one smaller than that a few months later when I went skydiving (yes, I went skydiving, I even have a video and pictures to prove it) or a couple of years later when I was in Belize (a 14 passenger plane, really?!  yikes!--it was much better than the boat ride though! ugh, even thinking about that boat ride makes me feel blah, that was pretty much the only part of the trip I didn't like, but I'm getting off topic).  So yeah, flying has its annoying parts, but it has its good parts too.  Get from point a to point b in 1 hour instead of 12?  Yes, please!  (Though I'd prefer NOT to go broke doing it, exactly how many surcharges are there on tickets now?)  I love traveling with my friends and my fiancé, but on the few instances where I have to travel alone, there can be something peaceful about it--IF you do NOT get stuck in the middle seat, especially when you are sitting between two people who know each other and want to talk across you for half the flight, but don't want to switch seats with you.  Several times when I've flown in recent years, I've been lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me.  It's kind of nice to hide in a book or put on ear phones and listen to music or watch a movie or write in a journal--because the only time I seem to journal any more is when I am on vacation-and not have any distractions and just go ahh.  You just kind of put the world on hold for a couple of hours,  And usually if I do fly alone it's because I'm going to visit a friend or relative I'm excited to see so it's nice to have something to look forward to at the end of a long ride.  Of course this all goes out the window if the weather is crappy and you hit turbulence or if you have to go the bathroom and the line is LONG and let's not even get started on delays and lost luggage, but instead of worrying about that, I think I'll just charge my ipod and grab a good book for my next trip.  :-) 

And Then There Was The Time I Drove a Truck

Yes, you read that subject line correctly Mintmegan.  I really did drive a truck once and I'd be content never to do it again, well, with perhaps one exception.  So a few days ago I was flipping through the stations on my radio while going to work and stopped at a country station.  I confess I like some country songs, not all, just SOME so I've been known to stop at a country station from time to time, especially when all the other stations are playing commercials.  Seriously do they plan it that way?  Why do almost all the stations have to playing commercials at once?  Anyway, there was a song playing about a guy who drives what I assume is his father's truck.  His father died and he drives his truck when he misses him or wants to remember him or something, you get the idea.  So I started thinking about the song and the meaning and thought well, if someone I loved died, I'm not sure I could drive their truck, I've never driven a truck, then all of a sudden it dawned on me, that I did drive a truck once...
Ten or so years ago--good grief can really have been that long ago?  It might even be more like 11 years now  When did I get so old?--I was visiting my grandfather and step-grandmother over Canadian Thanksgiving weekend--or as they say in Canada, "Thanksgiving weekend."   (Sorry BAD joke)  My step-grandmother was at some convention that Saturday and Grampa needed to go pick up his tractor (it was getting fixed, he lived well out in the country and had a legit need for a tractor) so he told me to get ready and we were going to go get his tractor and I needed to drive his truck.  What?!  I should preface this by saying it was a pick-up truck not an 18 wheeler or anything, but still I'd never driven a truck and as I was in college at the time, I still didn't own a car.  I drove my parents cars during summers and vacations, but relied on buses, trains, my feet, and friends when I was at college.  I certainly couldn't afford a car with my part time low-paying job.  Anyway, I told him I couldn't drive his truck, I didn't know how to drive a standard.  He told me, "It's not a standard, it's a regular."  (I really had thought it was a standard, thinking back on it now, I have no idea why I thought this.)  I told him I wasn't sure he'd want me driving his truck, did he really trust me?  (I hadn't been home in two months and thus I also hadn't driven a car in two months.)  He said if my father allowed me to drive his car then he would too (Grampa was less strict than Dad about a lot of things so he had a point there.)  He ended the conversation by saying something along the lines as, "I sure as h*ll wasn't driving the tractor so I had to drive truck."  He had a point.  I certainly would NOT want to drive that tractor.  So I drove the truck.  It wasn't far and it wasn't that bad though God help me if I'd had to parallel park it. I have no desire to drive a truck ever again, but 5 years after he's passed away I still think about Gramps quite regularly and if it meant seeing him again, I just might drive his truck one more time.  :-)     

Dish 29 Sweet Potato Casserole

This one was GOOD.  One of my co-workers brought some for lunch to share with a few of us earlier in the year.  It was delicious so of course I asked her for the recipe.  The first time I made it, I didn't do a terribly good job with the mashed sweet potatoes (I didn't let them cook long enough) so while it turned out okay, it was a little chunky.  I made it another week or two later and had much better results--good thing since I was having company when I made it.  The company liked it too.  I've made it one or two other times since then, including most recently on Easter.  The main ingredients are mashed sweet potatoes, brown sugar, milk, butter, and pecans.  I think I'm forgetting something, but those are some of the big things.  So it's sweet, but not obnoxiously sweet.  :-) 

More on Chocolate

I believe it was March 21st when someone brought me a plate of brownies as a gift.  In her defense, she did NOT know I had given up chocolate for Lent.  They looked SO good.  I gave a few to some people at work, shared some with my fiancé, and put the rest in the freezer.  It was so hard not to eat them, but I managed.  Unfortunately, the following weekend, my fiancé and I decided to go to a bridal show at the last minute and I ate ONE chocolate covered strawberry.  He said we'd just heard Sundays didn't count.  I'm still not sure if that's true so you could say I cheated again.  I was doing SO WELL too.  The night before Easter was the wedding I mentioned.  I had white cake with white frosting so no problems there.  However, I THINK one of the pastries I had from the pastry table had chocolate on it.  I say think because at that point the lights were dim so it was hard to see.  The pastry itself was not chocolate nor was the frosting, but there was a decorative design on top of the frosting and it looked brown to me, which I assume is chocolate.  So to sum up I did mostly well with the no chocolate, but not 100% well.  I had:  one chocolate ball, a taste of pie (I did say I might have to cheat on St. Pat's Day originally), a wedding pastry, a lick of frosting at the wedding food tasting (both of which I allowed in my original plan anyway), a chocolate covered strawberry, and possibly 1 M&M.  Yes, one.  See here's the thing, I had a white cupcake with white frosting that was shaped like a bunny.  The nose was an M&;M.  When I got home that night, I really couldn't remember if I ate the M&M or not.  I remember thinking oh, I better not eat the M&M, but I can't remember if I threw it away, left it on my plate, or accidentally ate it.  So I can't say I was completely successful this Lent, but I was more successful than any other Lent.  I even avoided the chocolate desserts at our work dinner at the end of March and passed up on several more brownies and cookies toward the end of Lent.  The Monday after Easter, I went a little crazy and broke into those previously frozen brownies.  In fact, all of last week, I ate kind of crappy so time to get back on track this week.  Well, with perhaps the exception of Saturday night...We're having company and I can't make the dessert I wanted to make because someone who is coming is allergic to peanut butter so my next choice was cheesecake, but someone coming does not like cheesecake so I think I might make this chocolate lasagna thing I saw on my friend's Pinterest.  We'll see how that goes.  Hopefully, there aren't many leftovers.  :-)    I might still make the cheesecake for everyone else because I'm slacking on my new recipes.  I should be in the high 30s by now and I'm only in the low 30s.  So if I do the chocolate lasagna and a new cheesecake that'll give me two.  My mother also just gave me a whoopie pie recipe book, oh, dear, this could get dangerous.  I'll keep you posted on which desserts I make in future blogs.  :-)

Dish 28 Cinnamon Bread

I was SO excited to try this recipe.  People have made me cinnamon bread before and I have really enjoyed it.  Unfortunately, that was not so much the case with the recipe I made.  I mean it was all right, but it wasn't great.  The kind someone gave me for Christmas two years ago, was moist, delicious, etc.  This one was kind of dry.  I followed the recipe and all, but yeah, it wasn't all I'd hoped for.  Perhaps, I need to find a different recipe.  If anyone has any good cinnamon bread recipes, send them my way.  :) 

Dish 27 Gingerbread Men Cookies

Okay so it is possible that as a child I may have helped my mom make gingerbread cookies.  I know she made them once (possibly more) when I was a kid and it wouldn't surprise me if I helped her since I liked to help bake when I was a kid.  However, this was the first time I made the cookies myself so I'm counting it as a new recipe.  I'm not a huge gingerbread fan, but the gingerbread flavoring wasn't overpowering so I liked these.  I brought them to work and my co-workers enjoyed them. They said they tasted a little different from other gingerbread cookies they'd had, but they enjoyed them.  (I don't think they were just being polite because some of them had seconds.)  Unfortunately, I hadn't checked ahead of time for things to decorate the cookies with so I just used what I had in the cabinets, but I think it worked out okay. :-)