The "Hot" Top 10

Given that I HATE the cold and much prefer warm weather, I'm not one too USUALLY complain about the heat (though having a broken ac in my car has been a bit annoying when I drive home from work).  Anyway, here's my (really lame) top 10 list for you can tell it's HOT around here.  I was trying to make it an even 10 so some of them are kind of ridiculous.  And to all my friends out west, I know we have nothing to complain about as you've got us beat my many degreees so my apologies in advance.  This not a complaint, merely a list of observations. 

-The heat is the number one (and two and sometimes three) story on the news

-At least 75% of your conversations with co-workers start with them making some comment about the heat

-You work up more of a sweat walking from your car to  the gym than when you're working out in the gym

-You can get a close parking spot at the gym, even during the busy time of day because it's too hot for people to exercise

-It's so hot people are NOT going out for ice-cream because they don't want to leave their air-conditioning

-A school district near you cancels summer school due to the heat

-You find yourself having "lazy" meals because ''it's too hot to cook in your kitchen because there is no a.c.in there"

-You consider paying the $98 to see what is wrong with your car a.c. even though you hate spending money on your car and think spending that much for them to not even fix it is ridiculous.

-You want to do a happy dance because your room at work doesn't normally have a.c., but they have put a temporary a.c. in for you. 

-You write a blog about the heat even though you think all the news stories, fb posts, etc are getting to be a bit much--you've joined the crowd. 

Say Yes to What?

Several of my friends co-workers, etc. have told me that I must watch Say Yes to the Dress.  They say this will be especially helpful since I'm not really sure what I want my wedding dress to look like.  So I've seen bits and pieces of it here and there, but last night I finally watched a couple of episodes.  OMG, do these people think I am coming in to some sort of inheritance??? 
One woman on that show last night bought at $15,000 dress!  Um, that could be a down payment on a house in some places.  That would be the cost of dinner for everyone at some weddings.  I CANNOT afford to spend $15,000 on a dress, I will wear for fewer than 10 hours.  Heck, I wouldn't spend that much on a dress, I was going to wear for more than 10 hours.  There was another woman on the show that BOUGHT not one, not two, but THREE dresses.  Um, I'm worried enough about finding/affording ONE, never mind having to get three dresses.

Dish 39 Easter Basket Rice Krispie Treats

I feel like this dish is a bit of a cheat.  I've never made this exact dish before, but it's made from Rice Krispie treats and I've made those many times, in various forms.  My fiancé and I hosted Easter dinner again this year.  He cooked the ham and I did pretty much everything else.  Men!  I still love him though.  It was a bit of a crazy day as we went to a wedding the night before and spent the night at a hotel near the wedding with a bunch of our friends so we had to hustle when we got home.  So anyway, I made these and they were good, BUT I could not get the licorice to stay on (the licorice is supposed to be the handle on the Easter basket) so I ended up not putting handles on a lot of the baskets.  They tasted good, but per usual we had too many desserts.  There were 9 people and three desserts:  a cake shaped like the Easter bunny (Mom makes that every year), cupcakes shaped like bunnies (I made those too), and my Easter Basket Rice Krispie treats.  Oops!  Hey, at least they all tasted delicious.  :-)     

How Pinterest Lead to a Party

I was poking around my friend Natalie's Pinterest page a few days ago and I saw that she had a section on the 4th of July.  She has some cute food ideas on it.  It got me thinking, hmm...I didn't get invited to any 4th of July parties/cook-outs/gatherings this year.  Well, why not throw my own.   I love hosting parties, but it was so last minute people probably had plans, maybe I'd just have a couple of people over and grill and I could try to make some of her cute 4th of July themed dishes.  So I e-mailed a few of my friends to see if anyone was going to be around on the 4th, 5th, or 6th, and as it turned out most of the people I e-mailed were going to be around and did not have plans.  Let the planning begin.    I put my fiancé in charge of grilling the hamburgers, veggie burger (mine), and hotdogs.  A couple of people also brought sausage.  I made a peanut butter cream cheese dip and shaped it like a flag.  I served that with pretzels.  I also made fruit kebobs out of blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. One of my friends brought mango salsa and quesadillas and Tostitos.  For side dishes I made macaroni salad and a 4th of July salad (spinach, cheese, cucumbers, blueberries, strawberries, and poppyseed dressing).  Another one of my friends made her "famous" taco dip (salsa, cream cheese, cheese, and I don't remember what else but it is AMAZING).  For dessert, I made firecracker cookies (cookies made out of cake mix with red and blue sprinkles), Star-Spangled pie (graham cracker crumb crust with a cream cheese, cool whip, sugar, and red and blue M&Ms filling--okay there were a few more ingredients, but that's the gist of it), and a 4th of July trifle--it's 4th of July because it has blueberries and strawberries in it hence the red, white, and blue, hence 4th of July.  I also made sangria (first time ever making that).  The food was good, but I think the biggest hits were:  the taco dip, the flag dip, the quesadillas, and the cookies, and even though it's not a food, all 20 servings of the Sangria were consumed too.  It was a little too hot that day, but otherwise, people seemed to have a good time eating, drinking, hanging out, conversing, and playing with the two kids that were here.  I didn't post pics of a lot of the food because some of them will be featured in future blogs, but here are a few pics from the evening.  I also didn't take too many people pictures, but nonetheless, here are a few pics. 

 

Flag made out of fruit--patriotic and healthy

 

Festive Nails

 

 

'

 

Summer Goals (again)

So last summer, I gave myself a goal of reading 10 books and watching 20 movies.  I liked that goal so much that I decided to set that same goal again this summer, but per usual I didn't blog about it a couple of weeks ago when I thought of it.  So I'm off to a good start.  I've read four books and watched four movies and it's only been two weeks.  :-).  With a little luck, I'll have 6 more books read and 14 more movies watched by Labor Day. 

Dish 38 Marble Cheesecake

Well, you got a sneak preview of this in my chocolate lasagna blog.  I had only made cheesecake a couple of times before so I thought I'd try it again, but this time I would make a different flavor.  I found a recipe (can't remember where! think it was in one of my cookbooks) for marble cheesecake.  Well, mine wasn't as pretty as it was supposed to be.  It tasted fine, but mine did  not have the pretty swirl in the middle--I tried, I swirled and all, but when it was cooked, the pretty swirl was gone.  :-(   Anyway, I enjoyed it and my co-workers enjoyed the leftovers, though I think they are a little annoyed with me unloading all of my leftover sweets on them.  They keep saying I'm causing them to gain weight.   

Week 37: Chocolate Lasagna

Okay if we're being honest, some weeks I did not make a new dish and some weeks I made three new dishes.  It's all evening out in the end--though truth be told I may not get all 52 dishes made in 52 weeks, it might be 53 weeks because I have four more dishes to make in 5 days to reach my goal.  That doesn't make me a failure right?!?!?  Just slow???  I have plans to make a couple new dishes this weekend, but I'm not sure I'll do all four, but I'm sure going to try.  Anyway, the reason I mention this is because I made this dish and dish 38 for the same event...
  We finally managed to convince a couple of my fiancé's friends to come up here for dinner (they live an hour away from us).  We also invited a couple of his other friends who didn't need so much convincing.  :)  I had dinner planned out, but I was debating what to do for dessert.  One of his friends (and his wife) have two kids so I asked about allergies.  He said the only allergy was shellfish.  Not a problem, I wasn't planning to serve any.  So then I happened to mention some dessert I was making, that had peanut butter in it.  He told me his daughter was allergic to peanut butter!  WHAT?!  Peanut butter is NOT a shellfish, you said ONLY shellfish.  Grr, so much for that idea.  So I decided I would do cheesecake.  Guess who doesn't like cheesecake?  So your daughter can't eat peanut butter and you don't like cheesecake (well, I still did cheesecake, but we'll blog about that tomorrow or the next day), so much for my dessert plans.  I figured I could still do cheesecake for everyone else, but I needed another dessert.  I didn't want to do my usual cookies, brownies, cupcakes.  So I did what anyone would do in this day and age and I went on Pinterest.  :-)  Natalie to the rescue.  She had a dish on her pinterest page called Chocolate Lasagna.  (I like to tell her she is the reason I can't lose weight--not my lack of willpower, but the fact that she has so many delicious looking recipes on her pinterest page).  I told someone at work about my chocolate lasagna plans and she was completely grossed out; she thought it was real lasagna with chocolate on it.  NO, no, no, it was a dessert.  I gave her some leftovers to try and she liked it quite a bit. 
Anyway, the chocolate lasagna was a hit.  The adults liked it, the kids liked it, my co-workers who helped me eat the leftovers liked it.  Come to think of it, I should make it again. I think my friends would like it.  It's too late to make it for my 4th of July fiesta (which is actually being held on the 5th of July), but perhaps for the next gathering.  It's also not too hard to make.  If you're looking for a new sweet treat, I encourage you to make it.   

Thanksgiving in July and Christmas in July

My mother is quite crafty.  She used to do plastic canvas, sewing stuff, etc.  Now it's scrapbooking and making her own cards.  Her cards are really nice and I'm not just saying that because she's my mother.  Anyway, every once in a while she tells me I should make my own cards.  I did twice.  I made my own Christmas cards a few years ago.  One year I made my own Valentine's Day cards too. In April, as you know from previous blogs, I went to Arizona to visit one of my friends.  While we were shopping one day, I saw some cute Christmas stamps and after a brief discussion with my friend decided to buy them.  I decided I was going to try to make my own Christmas cards again this year.  Fast forward to this week.  Every year in July my mom and some of her friends do what they call "Christmas in July."  They all get together at her friend's house (one of Mom's friends) and they either have to wear something Christmasy or bring sometime Christmasy or something along those lines.  Apparently, some years her friend decorates a Christmas tree and they'll have Christmas music playing.  Anyway, the reason for this get together is so they can all make their Christmas cards.  Since they are all teachers, they have much more free time in the summer to make the cards than they do in December.  Come to think of it, most people don't have a lot of free time in December.  I've been invited a couple of times, but I was never available in the past.  Go figure this year I have no plans because I'm on vacation and no invite, but I digress.  So I decided since I had this week off, I would attempt to start my cards.  So Monday afternoon, I went to the craft store and bought ink, markers, cardstock, paper, etc.  While I was there, I decided to look for a new 4th of July decoration for my door.  I don't really like the one I have that much.  I didn't like what they had up front too much so I went to the holiday aisle and what did I see????  THANKSGIVING DECORATIONS!  Now I like Thanksgiving, but it is JULY.  This explains why I can never find Thanksgiving decorations in October/November when I look for them, you know when people are actually thinking about Thanksgiving.  When I was at the store, the 4th of July hadn't happened yet and they had turkeys up.  I don't want to be thinking about turkeys on July 1st--no disrespect to the turkeys or Thanksgiving.  And yes, the irony isn't lost on me.  I'm complaining about Thanksgiving in July and yet I'm planning for Christmas in July.  Anyway, the cards are not up to the quality of Mom's, but they're started.  I remembered why I don't usually make my own cards.  It is expensive and time consuming.  I was looking at my Christmas card list from last year and I send/give cards to nearly 60 people.  That's a lot of cards to make!  I think for Christmas 2014 we'll be cheesy and do a Christmas card with a wedding picture or something and the following year I'll go back to buying them at the stores.  If I'm smart, I'll buy them after Christmas 2014 so they'll be on sale and I'll have them cheap for Christmas 2015.  Anyway, I'll keep plugging away at the cards and maybe I'll have them done by Thanksgiving--you know around the time they'll be putting out the St. Patrick's Day decorations.  :-) Happy 4th everyone!  Enjoy your day!  Happy Birthday America! 

Random Lists: The Annoying and The Happy

Things that have annoyed me this week:

-People stealing our parking spot (what's the point of not allowing you to park two cars in your driveway if someone keeps taking your assigned spot?  It's not always the same someone.  It's been three different someones the past three times it happened this week)

-Rude drivers

-People who feel the need to take up the ENTIRE aisle at the grocery store so you can't get by

-Hotel prices going up $35 a night in less than one day (as in if we'd booked last night, we could have saved $70 overall)

-Not finding a new cute 4th of July decoration

-Staying up WAY TOO LATE trying to find a reasonably priced hotel

-Going to the gym at 5:00 only to find out the gym closed at 3 today (um, guess I missed that memo on Monday when I was there)

'Things that have made me happy this week:

-Having 11 days off from work!  :-)

-Eating pancakes with Mom at my favorite pancake place

-New recipe ideas from my friend Natalie's Pinterest page

-Planning a trip (minus the hotel business)

-Planning a 4th of July fiesta

-Having time to read a book

-Having time to catch up on my Netflix

-Trying new recipes

-People being randomly nice at the grocery store (clearly these were not the same people who took up the entire aisle) 

-Being home to watch Ellen (hey, what can I say, I like that show and I'm not usually home from work in time to see it)

-Having time to blog :-)