New addition, flowers and some ribs!

So this has been quite a weekend thus far and I want to start by introducing our newest addition. We call her 47 inch LG... If there is every anything good about a car accident it is this. Our insurance check that I got from our car accident afforded us this new toy, (besides who cares about a dented bumper on a truck anyway)! So Friday night we went and picked it up and then the real work began. Because of our crazy entertainment area setup we (we meaning Jay) had to do some minor construction in our house. He drilled a hole and lined it with PBC pipe so that our cords could travel from the lower levels of our shelves up to the tv. I took some pictures of the mess we had going on. I also want to note the ridiculous size of the box! But once we were all done it came out very nicely and it works like a charm. So needless to say we have been watching a lot of tv this weekend.



Moving right along... so I have to brag on my husband for a quick minute. He bought me the beautiful bouquet of flowers Valentine's day and I had to take some pictures. First let me remark how well the flowers and the vase go with my painting in the background. I took some close up shots just because they are so pretty, I just wish this blog had a scratch and sniff feature so you could smell how divine they are!



Ribs. I made some tonight and they were not only tasty but quite attractive. Now the pictures don't do them justice, (it kind of looks like something scary from a horror movie) but I was very proud of the end result. They weren't too shabby since this is the first time I have made ribs... and shout out to Jen here, they were such a good buy too!!!

That's all the randomness I have for now!

One Thousand White Women

Alrighty everyone, I just finished another book by Jim Fergus titled, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd and I must say that it was fantastic! Let me give you the quick run down, and I promise I will try not to give too much away in case someone decides to read it! This fictional novel recounts the story of a woman named May Dodd through her journals. The Chief of the Cheyenne's named Little Wolf meets with President Grant and asks the US government to gift them 1000 white women in order to better mix the indian people with the whites. Although the novel is fictional, this event did in fact take place but President Grant refused, but the novel however, tells the story as if the President had agreed. May Dodd is one such woman who joins the program in order to gain her freedom, and the story recounts her experience. One of the most interesting things about this novel, as well as its author, is that although it was written by a man, but he chooses to tell the story from the point of view of a woman. I love stories involving the great American west and if I were to give this a rating I would say it was 5 out of 5 stars for me. If anyone decides to read this let me know, I would love to hear your thoughts...

Next on my reading agenda is The Miracles of Santo Fico by DL Smith. If anyone would like to read along, let me know I would love to chat about it as we go along!

And finally, I have to throw in this quick bit of randomness, but since last night Jay and I noticed this strange high pitched noise that sounds very mechanical that is coming from his night stand and I swear we cannot figure out what it is. I thought that maybe it was just some random anomaly until a few minutes ago when it started up again. It is driving me crazy. I fell asleep last night trying to think of what it could be, even wondering if it could be something sinister, like a haunting of some sort except the purpose isn't meant to scare but rather make me nuts. Mission complete if that is what it is trying to do. I also have to note that I have begun to wonder about the goings-on at my house before we moved. I have recently noticed that on every door in my house where the metal rectangle thing goes into the hole in the door jam... everyone following me here... the thing that either retracts or comes out when you turn the handle... anyway, all of those things have a Jesus fish drawn onto them, everyone! So I started to wonder why... where they trying to keep them selves safe, and if so from what? Just saying WTF... (F in this case standing for "Freak", not something worse). I better wrap this up before people think I am crazy, or perhaps it is too late for that.

Yummy Bread!!!

Ok so today I had a lovely helper teach me how to make homemade bread! I have to say that my mini loaves were delicious! And since I am a nerd I had to take pictures of the whole extravaganza. I also made some meatballs from Pioneer Woman Cooks, and they were great. So I put two and two together and made some yummy meatball subs. So besides this and yoga, that was my day!

Good Deal

Ok so tonight I went to Aeropostale and I participated in the "Teens for Jeans". I figured that even though I am not a teen, they would probably still accept my lightly worn jeans. The deal is that if you bring in a pair of lightly used jeans they will give you %25 off a new pair of jeans, and your old jeans will be shipped off to Haiti. So I did and I got a new pair of jeans for 15 dollars! I have to say that this wasn't such a bad deal, the jeans were cheap to start off with, but they are pretty cute and my butt can just barely fit into them, so all in all today was a success!

That was annoying

Ok so I finally finished updating my blog and let me say what a pain in the you know what that was!!! I am glad it is finished, and I am am okay with it but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. At least it is done and I can move to other things, I was a little obsessed with it for a while.

In other news, Jay is in the middle of his last week at UMB and Monday he will be starting at USbank. He is pretty excited to move along and get started in his new career. That is about all that is new with us. Let me know what you think of my new blog design.

Have a good day!

YUMMY!

Ok so tonight I made these delicious shrimp tacos tonight, (I mentioned that I wanted to try them out in my last post) and let me just say that they may have become a new favorite in my house! I also served them with this fresh pico de gallo, some white rice with lime and cilantro and a little bit of refried beans. It was light and super flavorful! I would recommend this recipe! If anyone wants to give it a try, I am posting a link to the recipe online. Last week I also tried the turkey burgers with sauteed onions, and those were flavorful and really juicy.


The pico de gallo recipe I used was from my new favorite cookbook called Pioneer Woman Cooks. It was so easy and fresh! This is the first thing I cooked from the book I am really pleased. If you haven't heard of her, I would recommend checking her out. She has a website too and she is always updating it with new recipes and she is a wonderful photographer and takes beautiful pictures of her food.


Happy cooking!

Book Review

It’s that time again, I just finished another book by Tatiana De Rosnay called Sarah’s Key. De Rosnay recounts the story of a young girl and her family who was torn from her Parisian home in the early morning hours of July 16, 1942 by the French police who were acting under the orders of the German Gestapo. Over thirteen thousand Parisian Jews were either sent to the camp at Drancy or to a huge indoor stadium in Paris known as the Vélodrome d’Hiver. These people were held for days before they were shipped off to camps and later to Auschwitz. The novel explores the problems that arise when bringing up secrets from the past, as well as the importance of remembering what happened so many years ago. This is a pretty quick read and I would highly recommend it! If anyone reads this, let me know what you think, I would love to talk about it!

Moving along. So me and a good buddy of mine went shopping yesterday and found some sweet after Christmas sales! Between Target and Hobby Lobby I got some SWEET stuff for 90% off. I got some fake snow for 20 cents and this really cute word thing (I don’t know what else to call it) for 2 dollars. The rest I got from my Nana, so I spent a whopping $2.30 for this cute winter decoration that I put above my fireplace. (Sorry the picture is such poor quality, I just wanted to get a quick shot on my phone!)