Good Eats

So I thought I would share a couple of  blog and Pinterest finds that I have made lately that turned out delicious.  And as soon as I went to type that first sentence our 40lb dog, Sadie, hopped up on my lap.  (she usually only does this at the vet) And while it's cramping my style, literally, I'm kind of enjoying this since she never wants to be held.  Anyhoo, back to the recipes at hand.
The first one I'd like to introduce I found on Pinterest.  Double Dark Chocolate Merlot Cookies.  For a dark chocolate lover like myself these were YUM!

And here's the link:  http://www.simplyscratch.com/2012/01/double-dark-chocolate-chip-merlot.html
The only differences were that I only had light brown sugar on hand rather than the dark and I conveniently had a bottle of Cabernet already open so that's what I used instead.  Things I also learned while doing this are that: 1) You need to let cookies set a few minutes before you put them on a rack or they will fall apart. 2) I need another silpat because I get bored waiting for the cookies on the one and only silpat to cool.  3) I used parchment paper to speed up the process since I have more baking sheets than silpats and it did just fine, but there is something cooler about the silpat.

Secondly I made a small version of skinny chicken enchiladas and they were, in my opinion, yummier than my favorite Mexican place (and I l-o-v-e my favorite Mexican place) but these were fantastic!

And here's the link for these which I found from a blog I follow:
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/02/chicken-enchiladas.html
I would put the name/link of the blog post underneath but sadly I'm not that savvy yet :(
The only modifications I made here were that: 1) I used a rotisserie chicken (b/c they were on sale at Publix last week). 2) I used a can of rotel sauce in place of one can of tomato sauce for the enchilada sauce, it gave it a nice kick! 3) I forgot to use greek yogurt on the top in place of sour cream like I was going to and I forgot to use the green onions I had bought but they were a slam dunk full of flavor without them.  4)The cheese I used was Cabot 50% reduced fat jalapeno cheddar.

I am planning on making a larger dish of the chicken enchiladas tomorrow.  I ate them this week while Jon was gone and I felt guilty that I wasn't sharing!  So tomorrow I will share!!


                                                        



                                                      

It Feels Like An Eternity

     It feels like an eternity since I got a good night's sleep.  Jon is in Boston for one week out of the month now and guiltily I always look forward to sleeping alone, stretching out, but then I realize I have to get up at 5:30 a.m. and go to work and all guilty dreams are shattered.
     Does anyone else ever dream of checking into a hotel, getting a massage and drifting off to dream land undisturbed?  That is now my dream.
     I used to sleep without a television in my room, made a world of difference.  And no pets in my bed.  No lights, no sounds.  Now I sleep in a circus!  Many nights I go to sleep with the lights of a computer beside me and tapping sounds of a keyboard.  Because even though I can't sleep with these things, I also don't like to fall asleep with Jon in another room, so inevitably I ask him to bring his work or whatever he's doing, into the room and lay beside me until I fall asleep.
    Then once I fall asleep I am good for about four hours, then I wake up to go to the bathroom.  Then I have a difficult time falling back to sleep and this comes from either hearing Jon breathing heavy or snoring; or sometimes our dog, Sadie, snoring!  Then just as I drift off I realize it's almost time for my alarm clock to go off for work and then I get anxious about whether or not I set it, whether or not it will ring, maybe I should just get up, etc. etc. etc!!!  Ahhhhhhh!
  Anyways, Jon is gone for the night and I just climbed into bed thinking, well since I slept so poorly last night maybe tonight will be my night!  But then, Sadie climbed up and curled up next to me.  So now I can't stretch out, and yes, she probably intends on sleeping there all night.  It's just something she does in the Winter.  And I am too in love with her to kick her out of the bed.  But at any rate, cheers to dreamland hopefully some day because even though I need sleep I could never trade in Jon or Sadie!

I Totally Just Cried...A lot....

While watching Kim Kardashian's wedding!! Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!   Sad, but true.  I have no idea why.  I used to cry at everything and then that left me for a while and now it's back, with a vengance.  Weddings, babies, graduations, funerals, anything that brings up the idea that life is short and oh so sweet makes me cry, cry, cry.  Last weekend I was with my bff, who lives in Roswell Georgia and we were at this little house, sitting on the front porch, eating dinner and watched parts of a wedding across the street.  I cried.  We left after eating and pased another little mansion with a carriage and a bride in it waiting to pull into her dream wedding, I cried.  My bff Brandy is about to have her first baby, a girl, I cried.  I saw little clothes, a highchair, wedding photos, etc. all over her house and I cried.
   Tonight the Kim Kardashian wedding hit me hard though, I don't know her, I am not sure I even like her, but I cried.  At first I felt her pain when they were planning the wedding and in love but kind of fighting a lot too.  Good grief we fought a lot right before our wedding!! 
   Then there was the deceased parent issue; she was missing her dad, at my wedding we were missing Jon's mother.  She and her fiance took flowers out to her father's gravesite.  Jon and I lit a votive candle and said a prayer for Jon's mother right after we saw each other for the first time and before our wedding officially started.  I cried then too.  You are probably thinking that i must have cried during my entire wedding, I would have, if not for the gift of modern medicine :)  Thank goodness for a good PCP with a prescription pad and good medication!!!  Anyways, I could say so much more but my eyes are puffy from so much crying.  Life is special!

          Right after we lit our candle and said our prayer for Jon's mother

Right Now

Right now I'm waiting on my husband to finish his workout so that we can finally eat dinner.  Who am I kidding, this would be considered an early dinner for us, and the fact that we are both home to eat it is beyond amazing.  We have been all over the place the past few months.  It's been go, go, go around here and honestly we haven't had a lot of time to be by ourselves; it seems like there is always someone else stopping by, having dinner with us, visiting over night, or meeting us somewhere when we go out.  It's been fun, don't get me wrong, glad that we have friends, but I am also craving some major alone time with Jon. That is the honest truth. We have a 10 hour drive to Orlando coming up in a couple of weeks and after we get the phone calls out of the way maybe we will actually get a chance to learn something new about each other.  The cell phone, a blessing and a curse!  Anyhoo, right now I am patiently waiting on Jon to finish his work out so that we can eat dinner together before anyone calls or stops by.
     I made a pot roast tonight and I'm pretty sure it's amazing because I've already sampled it.  I've only made pot roast once before, a couple of years ago, for Room in the Inn, for church.  I was going through my RCIA classes at the time and Jon and I were hoping we could bring dessert, salad or bread but we got stuck with cooking 4 pot roasts.  The lady in charge gave us a recipe and grocery list.  We used the crockpot per the instructions given.  We cooked them over a 24 hour period if I remember correctly and then took them to the church.  We never tasted them.  I have no idea if they were edible.
     This past weekend I happened to catch http://thepioneerwoman.com/ doing her new show on The Food Network and she was making a pot roast, mashed potatoes and blackberry cobbler!!  I went back and forth as to whether or not I should make this today because it's still warm outside but since we will be busy all weekend going here and there and next week Jon won't be around and I won't be around next weekend either I figured I had to go ahead and make this pot roast.  The only thing I did different was add extra salt and garlic at the end, next time I will salt the meat more and add garlic cloves before I put it in the oven.
     Also I haven't been eating a lot of meat lately, it's just grossed me out really.  Even this pot roast grosses me out a little.  It tastes great but still, it's meat, flesh, eewwwwww.  But my finger nails are falling apart again, as they always do when I quit meat, so now I'm in the phase where I kind of close my eyes and just eat it really quick without thinking and try to hold it down.  I have no idea why this happens to me but it does from time to time; sometimes it's short lived and other times it's not.
    Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well, I have lots of things from this summer to blog about to catch up!  Let's hope that it happens.

                                                  

Almost 2 months!

 It's been almost 2 months............................... since I blogged and I have so much to share (hahahahaha, gotcha didn't I?).  Jon is having a "guy's and Wii lunch" tomorrow so I am keeping myself out of the house for awhile and thinking that a trip to Starbucks with my laptop will be in order and hopefully I can do some update posts there.
But I wanted to get back into blogging with something easy so.......
Ive been reading this on some other blogs and here it goes!

A.  Age:  31

B.  Bed size:  Queen;  at the beginning of the night it feels too large and by 3 AM it's too small and I want to stretch out, in the middle of the bed and Jon seems to want to do the same!

C.  Chore I hate:  Mopping and dusting.  But fortunately I have a really great housekeeper named Hilda who does most of it.  I had to break out my own mop, a steam mop this morning when Sadie threw up. (thankfully on the tile in the kitchen and not in the carpet, yay! for small wins).

D.  Dog:  Yes, sweet Sadie.  She weighs 40 lbs and is ten or eleven years old and completely snuggly and cute.

E.  Essential start to my day:  Peace and quiet; I am a slow starter and I really don't want to talk to you that early.

F.  Favorite color:  Grey and dark, dark orange.

G.  Gold or silver:  Silver; but I have a fabulous gold Movado watch that I can't seem to match.

H.  Height:  I think I'm 5'5". But the lady who did my physical last year for life insurance said I was 5'6". Who knows?

I.  Instruments I play:  I used to play the oboe.  I can still kinda play piano.  I've also played the clarinet and Marimba.  They are all closely related.  I can't seem to play a guitar to save my life. 

J.  Job title:  RN- neurobehavioral   a.k.a. psychiatry; I switched jobs at the end of January and now work in a mostly geri psychiatric unit.  We mostly have patients with dementia, which isn't always interesting to me but every now and then....when the moon is in alignment with the stars.......we get a flood of "real psychiatric patients" like we have right now and then I get a familiar taste in my mouth of why I love psychiatry and feel like I am in my element again.  It's like an adrenaline rush and I feel so relaxed and at ease. 

K.  Kids:  Not yet but hoping to be ready to start trying sometime this year but I have a blood clotting disorder that makes me prone to miscarriages and automatically puts us in the high risk category and means that I will have to take injections of blood thinner medication (anticoagulants) twice a day throughout my pregnancy and possibly before to make the pregnancy "stick" so to speak.I already take these every time we travel and it's nothing new but....twice a day for 9 months is a little bit longer than I'm used to.  Because we use NFP my doctor is requesting that I go for a "pre-conceptual consult" to the high risk obstetricians soon just in case we should get a "surprise!" and because they like to plan before you plan.  Whew!  I say I want 3 kids but......we will see how the first one goes and go from there.  Not ready just yet......but having 2 of my best friends pregnant and being surrounded by all of these other pregnant women are definitely making me jealous, jealous, jealous.  It's a weird, difficult to describe feeling.

L.  Live:  Nashville TN

M.  Mom's name:  Pamela

N.  Nicknames:  Shug (from my brothers), Bratley (from Jon)

O.  Overnight hospital stay:  when I was 19 or 20 for 4 nights after I developed blood clots in my legs, a.k.a. DVTs.  This is when I found out I had the blood clotting disorder.

P.  Pet peeves: dirty dishes, irresponsibility, ignorance, people not using their 5 senses all at once, people who lack non verbal communication interpretation skills, slow drivers, bad pet owners, slow checkout lanes, my schedule/routine being turned around.

Q.  Quote from a movie:  "where we're going we don't need any roads."

R.  Righty or lefty: ambidextrous,  depends on the moment

S.  Siblings:  2 brothers, i have no sister skills in me and i'm okay with that

T.  Time I wake up:  If it's a work day then 5:30 a.m.; non work days are between 6:30-9 a.m.; yes I know that's a broad range but it varies

U.  Underwear:  Usually

V.  Vegetable you dislike:  any that are cooked to death and most peas

W.  What makes me run late:  Jon, Jon, Jon!

X.  X-rays:  recently just my teeth.  I had a few in my 4th semester of nursing school when I was in a car wreck and broke my wrist but not too many since then. 

Y.  Yummy food you make:  I love to cook and most of the things I make are pretty yummy.  I love to take a normal recipe and modify into a lower fat, higher nutritional content recipe.  One of my favorite things to do is to make something that tastes really yummy and also has a lot of goods nutrients in it.

Z.  Favorite zoo animal:  Errr, I don't know.....anteaters maybe.

That's it and now you know WAY too much about me!

Springtime

I don't normally blog about the everyday things we do but I thought I might give it a shot today because we have been having a very busy spring.  Normally I work every other weekend but took some time off in March so we had some extra weekend time.  April has really been the first month, at my new job, that I have been working my complete schedule without taking off any........but I'm taking off a lot in May!  I realized today that we have really been getting out and about and enjoying our Spring weather here in Nashville so I thought I would recap some of those moments right now while I am sitting out on the deck, in the shade, waiting on some corn to grill, and watching Sadie and Jon take a nap.

                      This is my sister-in-law, Arika, she is about 7 mos. pregnant here and we kicked off our Spring by going to Hendersonville to attend and baby shower for her.  Let me tell you, she is one of the amazing pregnant women I know.  She had her first child almost 2 years ago while living in Switzerland!  This is her second child and she makes it all look so easy.  A couple of Jon's parents friends  had this baby shower for her.  The new baby, Alexa Sophia is due mid-May, I think on the 16....my birthday is on the 21st.  Cutting it close!!

Another weekend we focused on detailing our cars and I will not bore you with those details.......it is not one of my favorite or even likeable things to do.  But Jon, as always, being the awesome husband that he is found a way to lure me into helping him with this by providing refreshments!

                                                     Yay for Yazoo Dos Perros Ale

Another weekend we went for a long walk over the Cumberland River Pedestrian Bridge off of Briley Pkwy, near where the old Opryland used to be and where the Opryland Hotel still is and this connects to Shelby Bottoms, one of Nashville's many greenways.  Urban "hiking" at it's best!  We got to walk over this really neato bridge I had been wanting to go over for quite some time.

                                     Cumberland River Pedestrian Bridge from Briley

                                    The Cumberland Pedestrian Bridge, Nashville Tn

You would never guess that this was behind us:

Seriously I took a picture of the bridge and then turned around and took a picture of the interstate right behind us.  Eh, you can't have your cake and eat it too!  After you walk a quarter of a mile you don't even know the interstate is there anyways.  Yay for an urban oasis!   This was an  interesting  actually a boring walk really.  The bridge was neato but other than that, b-o-r-i-n-g.  The most interesting thing to happen on this walk was that we ran into my hair stylist and her posse and the only reason she recognized me, I think, was because she had just done my hair for me the day before and, she recognized my dog!  I don't think we will be doing this walk again, it was just what I said it was, boring.  Not to mention it's about 25 minutes from our house, we have numerous other locations within that same time-distance that are more secluded, more developed and just offer more in general.  Or we could swing for a 45 minute total drive and be at my favorite hiking destination, Old Stone Fort and visit a winery nearby at the same time!!  What's not to love!?
     Today we chose somewhere closer to home, about 10 minutes away, Radnor Lake.  The thing about Radnor Lake is that it's scenic, fairly quiet and still within the city limits.  Not to mention I kept my eyes peeled for homes for sale and lots for sale on the same street.  There were a few but I don't think the lots were really what we are looking for in the future and there was only one home for sale and it was just okay.  So onwards and upwards!  Radnor Lake is perfect if you don't have a lot of time to drive or walk.  It's very short.  Also note, if you haven't been here before that you cannot take dogs on the wooded trails, only on the paved road...........which is a huge drawback for us because I can't really justify going to walk somewhere and not taking Sadie, who goes for a nice walk in the woods and leaves their dog at home, assholes!    This is a good walk though because it's quick, within a very short driving distance and nearby everywhere we had to stop on the way home yet still giving us our "urban oasis", "out of town" feel.  Here are some things we saw:

                                        Radnor Lake, Nashville Tennessee

Me taking a picture of myself on the way there.  Jon has two cars, one of which is an old Miata.  I would tell you the year, but I don't know what it is .  I think the thing is a deathtrap and I don't care too much for riding in cars as small as it. I have known Jon almost 4 years, today was the 4th time in that many years that I have agreed to ride in this "deathtrap".  I was in the kitchen prepping lunch and dinners for the next couple of days because I have to work Monday and Tuesday and all of the sudden I thought, what the heck, Jon loves that little car, why not suck it up and surprise him by riding in it.  Seriously that's all he asks for, what's a few minutes in it?  I had to take several pictures to mark the occasion.

   4 or 5 Turtles on a fallen over tree

  Sweet Sadie von Hoscheit

              a dam, speaks for itself!

Sadie and Jon at the Visitor's Center

Sadie and Jon taking a nap once we got home.

                                                                  

Growing up is Hard- Part 2

Okay, so I just thought you might want to see a photo of the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, PA that I rode up with Matt.  What part of, "you are riding this thing with a girl who is afraid of heights, this is your chance to hold her close, etc", did he not get?!  
   Before we went on our "date" that night; (can we even call it a date since he didn't seem that interested in me romantically).  I am going to make the decision to stick to calling it a date since we were alone, by ourselves (and it boosts my self-esteem!).  So before we went he came in and met my parents, blah blah blah.  But one funny thing while he was talking to my parents and they were asking about his "church school" etc he asked had I applied to the "church school" before deciding to go to Miami U.  I said, "no, no, I didn't."  My mother jumped up, went out of the room and came back with an acceptance letter in her hand from the "church school".  Crap!  Then my mother proclaimed, "see, yes, you applied, you even got accepted."  At this point I just mumbled something like, "well, it wasn't for me, time to go ride that incline (even if I am scared)."  Truth be told, and I didn't tell Matt this, if I had chosen to go to that school they would have kicked me out starting with orientation on day 1.  My parents had made me apply to the school since it was only 45 mins or so from their house but I knew I was not going there.
    So after our "date" riding the incline Matt did not kiss me or anything when we got back to my parents house and said goodnight.  But I did agree to drive up to his church school later in the week.........
     So Friday came around and we decided I would drive up to the school and see it, meet some of Matt's friends and then we were going shopping for a wedding present for one of his friends.  I got up to this school and let me just tell you, I was not in Kansas anymore; this was different.  The boys and the girls lived in separate dorms/apt style housing.  Matt lived with 3 other guys on campus in this apt like thing where you walked in the front door and there was the living room and behind that a small kitchen and behind that was a hallways leading to the bedrooms/bathrooms and YOU COULD NOT CROSS THE LINE PAST THE KITCHEN!!   I don't want to sound like a hussy, and I'm not but, seriously, where in the world had I landed!?  And, and, you had to keep the door of the living room that opened to a main hallway open and they were only allowed to "co-mingle" or whatever you want to call it on Friday and Saturday nights in each other's place of residences and this was all overseen by an RA type figure that actually was watching!!  I think you could hold hands on campus with your person of interest but kissing was definitely out of the question. Sidenote:  I bet the Duggars, of 19 kids and counting, would like this school.  Then again, the visitation might even be too much.  To me, the funniest part was shortly after I arrived at his place of residence and he offered to show me around and basically pointed to the living room we were standing in and the kitchen (this is where they kept the Kool-Aid..........hahaha, just kidding).  And immediately after he showed me he was kind of like, "well, that's it."  And asked me something like did  I have any questions or something like that and I kind of rudely said, "well, I don't think there's anything else to see here." 
   After the "Tour of Homes" :)  we went to buy Matt's wedding gift.  Then he had the bright idea to take me to meet his parents.  This also included an introduction to his grandmother who was found in a living room watching the Saturday night lineup on NPT.  I thought, well, certainly his parents will be cool and maybe I will see more eye to eye with them.  Nope.  His mother was a nurse and his father was a social worker/counselor/therapist type of man. He even had to leave in the middle of our powow to go and talk someone out of suicide.  This was the last time that I ever saw Matt.  After this night I was completely convinced that it just wasn't going to work out.  A couple of years later I brought his name up in conversation with my mother.  My mother said, "I knew it wouldn't work out between you two the minute I met him, he was nice, but way too boring for you."   Never have I ever laughed so hard.  What truth!!