Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshine to a beautiful day yesterday - I can't wait for a few in a row...currently it is cloudy and makes me want a nap.

Sunshine my dad coming up for a visit and bringing Sophie dog with him so that I could see her. I miss her SOOOOO much. Obviously it was great seeing my dad too. He is always fun to have around!

Creep to my dad having to take Sophie with him when he left.

SUNSHINE to Ross and I deciding to clean out our house and put it on the market.

Creep to not having anywhere to go if it sells.


Creep to Grand Forks' real estate market, currently there are less than 100 total homes for sale right now here. Typically, there are over 300, and there are ZERO homes we are interested in or can afford on the market right now. It is seriously depressing. Hopefully we find something at just the right time! Otherwise it is off to the in-laws we go!

Sunshine to possibly buying my Aunt's car. She is looking to upgrade and we are looking to buy...anything. Ross is driving his brother's old car right now and it is a PILE OF JUNK! That is an understatement. I won't go in it unless I have to, seriously. Poor Ross.


Sunshine for the weekend! Yay!

Creep to the all night cleaning sessions this week and the ones to come this weekend. We are moving lots of stuff to the storage unit so we are making progress I think!


Creep to me being a bad wife and never cooking this week. The one night I did I made the most horrible new recipe. YUCK! Again, poor Ross.

Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshines & Creeps

• Sunshine to getting a card in the mail from UND's Panhel gals for advisor appreciation month! Bonus that it had a Starbucks gift card in it!
• Sunshine to finding a new recipe this week, that was yummy.
• Creep to this crazy rollercoaster weather, please warm up! I am ready for sandals and sundresses!
• Sunshine to Ross getting up early on Tuesday (his day off) to get me a Starbucks :) I'm spoiled
• Sunshine to using my magic bullet this week, definitely one of my top birthday gifts of all time! Thanks Aunt Candy!
• Creep to Sophie dog being away (on a vaca with my parents and her BFF Brega, their dog) for almost a month now :(
• 
• Sunshine to Ross patching our dog spots in our yard. It took him a long time and he worked hard!
• 
• Sunshine to my little niece Sophia and her being so cute. I love when babies mimic things they do in real life - it is soooo cute :)

Uhm Creep to the weird formatting in this post...Sorry I don't know what happened!

Pizza Casserole

Ross absolutely loves Pizza - I wanted to try something a little different so I searched for a pizza casserole recipe to try. This was a keeper - super easy too which helps!

The only thing I really modified was to substitute canadian bacon for the pepperoni and I added chopped black olives and canned mushrooms to make it more like our regular pizza order. I also added crushed red peppers because I love everything with a tish of spice!

Ingredients

• 2 cups uncooked egg noodles
• 1/2 pound lean ground beef
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup sliced pepperoni sausage
• 16 ounces pizza sauce
• 4 tablespoons milk
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Cook noodles according to package directions.
3. In a medium skillet over medium-high heat, brown the ground beef with the onion, garlic and green bell pepper. Drain excess fat. Stir in the noodles, pepperoni, pizza sauce and milk, and mix well. Pour this mixture into a 2-quart casserole dish.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 minutes, top with the cheese, then bake for 5 to 10 more minutes.

Fried Rice

I made stir fry last week and tried my hand at fried rice while I was at it!

It couldn't be easier. I followed the recipe below, adding a tsp. of sesame oil, peas (frozen), green onion, carrots and mushrooms. I cooked those up in stir fry oil first to get them nice and soft.

Final product was Delish! Enjoy some for me tonight!

Serves 4 to 6

This is a basic recipe for fried rice that you can add to as desired. If adding other ingredients, increase the number of eggs to 3.
Need a bit of help? Here are step by step photo instructions showing how to make basic fried rice.

Ingredients:

• 1 - 2 green onions, as desired
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Pepper to taste
• 4 tablespoons oil for stir-frying, or as needed
• 4 cups cold cooked rice
• 1 - 2 tablespoons light soy sauce or oyster sauce, as desired

Preparation:

Wash and finely chop the green onion. Lightly beat the eggs with the salt and pepper.

Heat a wok or frying pan and add 2 tablespoons oil. When the oil is hot, add the eggs. Cook, stirring, until they are lightly scrambled but not too dry. Remove the eggs and clean out the pan.

Add 2 tablespoons oil. Add the rice. Stir-fry for a few minutes, using chopsticks or a wooden spoon to break it apart. Stir in the soy sauce or oyster sauce as desired.

When the rice is heated through, add the scrambled egg back into the pan. Mix thoroughly. Stir in the green onion. Serve hot.

Happy Birthday Cooper

Our Cooper dog turned 4 this past Tuesday. We made him a cake, but didn't sing, don't worry, we aren't that crazy!

Here is a picture of the happy birthday boy with his cake.

Stephanie Plum - Bounty Hunter

I have a very addictive personality. I think anyone who knows me more than 5 minutes probably can attest to that. I know Ross can definitely give you some examples. Any time I get an idea in my head I have to act on it immediately. Otherwise it just eats at me and eats at me. I can't think about anything else. Sad and a little weak willed, I know.

One of my ongoing obsessions is the Stephanie Plum series of books written by Janet Evanovich. If you haven't read them, you should. They are light and funny, easy summer reads for sure! I have read 13 of the 21 novels so far. I now have in my possession ALL of the remaining books of the series. I can't wait to finish up the series, seriously. Stephanie Plum lives in the Berg, a suburb of Trenton, NJ. She was laid off as a discount lingerie buyer and was forced to work as a bounty hunter for her sleazy cousin Vincent Plum. You can imagine what kind of trouble a former lingerie buyer gets herself into as she attemps to be a bounty hunter, and never really gets any better at it. You will just fall in love with all their characters, including her Grandma Mazer, who goes to funerals like they were spectator sports, not uncommon for this community. She is just as fiery as Stephanie, even when she gets an ice pick to the hand! Unfortunately, I see a lot of myself in Stephanie Plum, not just sharing the same name, we are equally as stubborn and bullheaded. Which probably makes this series one of the more enjoyable ones I have read lately. It is hard to relate to a telepath in love with a hot vampire (Sookie I'm talking about you).

I have read them totally out of order, which I don't really think is a big deal for those of you looking for a place to start. Here is a link to the list of all the books, in order.

They definitely get better as you go along. Maybe because when they start with One for the Money (it was published in 1994) Stephanie Plum was sporting an awesome pager and some bitchin' Doc Martins. Probably super awesome in 1994 but pretty dated when I found it in 2012. Still a great story line though, which is why they made it into a pretty ok movie with Kathryn Heigl.

I must say it wasn't hard looking at Joe Morelli or Carlos (Ranger) Manoso.

So that is my current obsession (among many). I won't be able to stop reading them until I am done. I did this with Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books as well.

It could be worse, right Ross?! A sephora could open in the mall...that would get me and our pocketbook, for sure!

Booksneeze Review #1 Friendship for Grown-ups.

Awhile back I signed up for Booksneeze. It is a great program that allows bloggers to get books to read and review. They tell us to be honest with our critiques and I intended to do just that. I chose Friendship for Grown-Ups: What I Missed and Learned Along the Way by Lisa Whelchel because I loved 70s and 80s sitcoms and she happened to be in one of the great ones, The Facts of Life. The title and description was also appealing. It spoke of the fact that she didn’t have an average childhood and that she had to learn some friendship basics that most of us learn at an early age. It was difficult reading about her childhood and made me feel sad for all the child stars these days who have it much worse in a day and age where everything they do and say is up for judgment instantly on the internet. It is not hard to understand why some child stars turn out to have a rocky adulthood.

It was fun seeing her transition from child star to an adult in this novel as she shares secrets of friendship like that it is ok to need others at times, because we all need it and deserve to have someone there for us.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a little self-help or just a refresher course in what it means to be a good friend. I think we all take our friendships for granted too often and it was great to remember what it means to be a friend. After all, to have good friends first you must be one!

Disclaimer - Although Booksneeze.com provided me this book for my reading pleasure I am receiving no other compensation and the opinions above are my own.