Welcome to Hogwarts!

Along with lego Hagrid's Hut, I also acquired The Burrow (Weezley's house) and the Hogwarts School (in 2 parts).  They were both very excellent!  The detail that they put in is really incredible!!  I haven't decided yet if I'm going to get Diagon Alley, I really want it, but I'm just not sure yet.  Enjoy! :) I know I did, they were so fun to build!

 (the legs on the turkey come off!!!  haha!!)

 Dumbledore's office...Isn't Dumbledore cute!?! His beard is a separate piece too!!

The Burrow!

 

More pics of Hogwarts...with dementors in the background waiting...hehe! 

Filch, his cat, and Harry in his invisibility cloak..haha!

Voldemort, his snake and Lucious Malfoy as a death eater (you can turn his head around and put different hair on him to be a normal guy).

FANTASTIC!!!

Hagrid's Hut

This red knob on the left makes the light in the fireplace come on!

Inside Hagrid's Hut (thats right!!  It folds open.)

 

Aragog...

The lighting was poor, but here's harry and hagrid.

Ron, Hermione and Scabbers...(notice Hagrid's pink umbrella next to Hermione, and Norbert at the bottom left)

The Forbidden forest...

And something completely un-Lego related!
Here is my oh-so-beautiful not-rice rice-bag...I use it to warm up my feet at night.  Its not pretty, but it does a really really good job. 

The outside is made of denim material (an old pair of work pants I wasn't going to wear any more).  I picked denim because its more heat resistant than other fabric and should stand up well to oven temperatures.  I usually heat up my rice bags in the microwave, but we do not have one, so we have to cook everything in the oven and on the stove.  I also had to pick something that would stand up to the heat, I didn't figure rice or corn would last long, so I decided to use acquarium gravel.  I picked the kind that looked the most like natural rocks (no paint because I didn't want to cause an issue with the paint burning or something like that).  We have a gas stove/oven, so I set the temperature to 200 degrees F, put the rock bag in right on the middle rack while its preheating.  When it reaches the correct temperature I set my timer for 18-20 mins.  When its done, its very nice and hot.  It does a fantastic job at warming my feet!  Also, I've done up to 300 degrees, its a bit too hot, so is 275, but I'm still trying to find the perfect temperature. 

Christmas is here!

I am pleased to announce the arrival of my Christmas tree!  I am very excited!  We usually hate Christmas for various reasons, I love everything about the season but I hate Christmas!  Hubby has been especially grinchy this year, he has not allowed me to get a real tree.  But he approved the making of a construction paper tree yesterday.  And I made the tree today!  Observe... (P.S. Thank you Google images for the ornaments!)

Beautiful, isn't it?!?  Some ornaments of note include (see if you can find them!): Lego angel at the top, 3 super mario characters/items, lego Dobbie, female and male hippos, 3 robots, moose on a skateboard, gingerbread house, yoda, the Lego enchanted flying car, cupcakes of course, and the hogwarts express.  As you will also see...there are presents already under the tree! 

I would also like to mention one of our favorite low calorie beef dishes that we've had recently.  Very delicious and extremely simple!  Its like our travelling tacos, but different.  We do 4 ounces each of ground beef, so 8 ounces in a pan, warm it up.  Add a whole can of pork and beans and some taco seasoning.  Thats it!  Warm it all up for a few minutes and serve with some tostito rounds. Its very filling and quite good!  Overall its about 530 calories, which I guess isn't all that cheap, calorically speaking, but its really good!

Some random stuff

Well, in trying to figure out what to write about on this on a regular basis I thought I would add some random pictures of things that hubby and I like.  Also some features from our most recent vacation.  (Side note, we're super dorks and pretty redneck, which I enjoy).

This picture is from when we went down to Salt Lake City to support my brother in law. He put his truck in one of those dyno contest thingies and he got like 880 hp.  He did soooo good, it was very unexpected but we were thrilled for him!  Isn't that a beautiful cloud of smoke? (sorry nature people...)

This is from our most recent vacation, we like to go to Twin Falls, ID.  I know there's not really anything fun and exciting to do there, but I think that's why we like it.  Its quiet and we can just be away from everyone and enjoy doing nothing.  Anyway, on our vacation, we were able to meet with a guy out near Idaho Falls that has mini-cows.  Someday we hope to own some.  Here are a few facts about mini cows that make them make a little more sense to own.  You can do like 2.1 mini cows per 1 full size cow for the same amount of feed, you get more of the valuable and desirable meat, and for me, because I'm a hair over 5 feet tall, I should be able to handle them a little better than the larger ones, as they only grow to be about 3 1/2 feet tall.  And they're cute, and the calves should be freakin' adorable and so teeny!  I'm excited to own some and raise them from babies.  And pygmie goats, and maybe a pig or 2, and rabbits, and many many chickens...

Here is me standing next to some that are eating, they are so short, its awesome!

After we saw the mini cows, we drove through Blackfoot and checked out the Idaho Potato Museum.  It was pretty awesome!  We learned a lot about where potatoes came from and what sort of farm equipment was used back in the day, as well as many other things. 

This was also a feature at the museum, if I recall correctly, it was the world's largest potato crisp. Awesome!

And I guess I don't have a picture of Elda on my laptop or anything like that, so I'll have to grab the picture from my computer at work.

Beauregard

We think we might have a ghost in our apartment.  (Probably not, but its a better explanation for some weird noises).  We've named him Beauregard.  Beau for short.

Stay tuned for some pics of some mini cows that we went to see at our vacation in August as well as possibly a picture of Elda.  One of my favorite first batch chickens.  She was a white leghorn meat chicken, but she sure was a sweetie. 

End o' coupons

Coupon Day 3: Commenced on Monday November 21.  I had a ginormous list of groceries to get, and a fair amount of coupons in my wallet.  I saved, I think, about $5.00.  Two of those dollars were on some small Pyrex baking dishes (for when we do small brownies again, or cakes, or pie, or...oh my!).  Also, I saved .40 cents off 2 small Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, .50 cents off the red Tide liquid laundry soap (because I think I need to try a different kind), $1.00 off Drano snake, and $1.00 off 2 Lysol disinfectant wipes, Okay, so really $4.90.  Maybe I'm just really bad at this coupon thing, that or maybe I'm just too particular.  ALSO!!!  I saved $15.88 (no coupon), at our local grocery store, if you bought $100.00 worth of stuff you got a free turkey, and I of course spent over that, so that was really exciting! (p.s. the turkey is sitting partially eaten on my stove).

And so, I cancelled the newspaper subscription on Monday.  However, it won't stop coming until this Sunday, so I will get 4 more that day.  AND, unexpectedly (it being Thanksgiving day) I got 4 this morning!  Weird!  P.S. I'm not a day after Thanksgiving shopper...unless you count some much needed ice cream, but I think we'll have enough leftover pie that ice cream will be unnecessary.  And as far as the diet goes today...its a free/cheat day!  We've been doing really good.  I think the average daily caloric intake last week for me was 1700-ish, and hubby was 1400-ish.  I think we're getting there.  It sucks because the numbers aren't going down as fast as we like, but its a lifestyle change, not a quickie fix, so it will take time.  Plus, the other day I went and got a recumbent bike, so maybe we can inch that in there somewhere, maybe while we're playing Nintendo.

Speaking of Nintendo, I was really naughty the other night, because we only had 3 games before for the Super Nintendo.  I went to Graywhale, up the street, and got 7 more Nintendo games!  A couple of really dumb ones, followed by some super awesome ones, we got Super Mario all stars, Zelda (which I was particularly excited about), Mario Kart, Tetris and Dr. Mario (which Dr. Mario is way fun), and Donkey Kong 3 - Dixie something or other.  I haven't been playing too much, but that is okay, I find I get bored really easily, so its probably better.  Hubby's been playing Zelda a lot, which is cool, I kind of like watching him, and he likes having me watch.

Another bit of news!  Hubby got offered an internship with John Deere!  It will start next May and last for 3 months!  I'm not excited to have him gone for that long, but it will be a really great opportunity for him!  Hopefully he'll get a job there for after he graduates!  That would be so wonderful!  :)

Small batch brownies...

Since hubby and I are counting calories now, I'm always in search of delicious desserts.  I found a bunch of cookie recipes in my christmas cookies book that are pretty cheap, I think I might try some of them here soon.  Yum!  Also, so far today we've been pretty low on calories, only like 1000, so we decided to kind-of-but-not-really splurge on some brownies.  I halfed a box of regular fudge brownies and only did one egg (well, about 1.8 ounces of egg substitute), 1/3 cup oil, and 1/8 cup water, I baked them at 350 degrees for about 18 minutes...  They are done and cooling on the stove.  I am very excited!  We figured that the whole box of brownies, brace yourself, is 3400 calories!  So if we halfed the box it would only be 1700, and if we each had half of the half, we could get away with only 850.  And since we're so low already, it would still be in our diet!  Hehe...Sneaky, Sneaky..  I'm very excited!  And I usually don't like brownies all that much, but we get to eat a whole half pan!!!  Yeah!  Calorie count for the end of the day will probably be around 1860!  We had freezer stuff for brunch and a hugenormous salad for dinner. :)

I get my (probably last) round of 4 newspapers tomorrow, I might cancel it on Tuesday. 

Fruit dessert

Well, we've been watching our calories and have been doing pretty good the last few days, I think we've been doing this since sunday, so almost 4 days and I think we've averaged about 1600 a day..  I never realized just how many calories are in everything, its CRAZY!  I just had a can of western family mini ravioli (I ate every single little bit on my plate, even all the sauce!), and before I probably wouldn't have hesitated about eating a second can.  But, since we're watching calories I looked and one serving (about half of the can) is 240, so the whole can is 480!  Thats a big chunk!!  So, no way I'm gonna think about eating a second can. 

On that note, here is what we've been having for dessert the last few days...its very very good! 
1 large apple, 1 medium banana, 1 large pear, a serving of frozen strawberries, a small kiwi and 2 yoplait light yogurts (about 100 cals each).  We cut it all up and separate it out equally and that is just enough for one person!  Yum! and its about 320 calories!

4 cal per gram

I realized that all sugars are about the same, calorically speaking. 
Even the ones that say they are "no calorie."  Here's my reasoning:
Before me lies a box of packets of "stevia in the raw."  On the side of the package it says "Each serving contains less than 4 calories which the FDA considers dietetically zero."  Eack packet is 1 gram (of almost everything in a packet, Sweet 'n Low, Equal and Splenda), and almost every package I looked at last night at the store had the 4 calories and under verbage on it.  So...1 gram is 4 calories.  1 tablespoon=12 grams, there's 16 tablespoons in 1 cup, 12g x 16T=192 grams in 1 cup.  So 192g x 4 cals=768 cals per cup.  Regular granulated sugar is about 4 cals per gram, granulated Equal is 4 cals, Splenda, the sugar blend for baking, is 385 cals per 1/2 cup, so thats 96 grams in that, so you divide those and get about 4.01 cals per gram.  (Most of this information was taken from the 2006 edition of the Calorie King Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate counter book.)  It could not be true (meaning my facts could be incorrect), but it seems right, I always figured that they were all about the same.  It looks like xylitol would be the best bet, calorically speaking because (based on several web sites I just looked at) it only provides 2.4 cals per gram, so that is quite a bit of savings!  So, instead of 768 cals per cup, its 460.8 per cup!  Plus, I've heard bad things about aspartame and sucralose (same thing), so I usually just opt for sugar. 

P.S. Hubby and I decided to start watching our calorie intake.  Man, its really reeeeally hard!  Everything is so calorically expensive!

Slight correction (several days later): I can see why people would use the stevia and aspartame and all that, they say its like 200 times sweeter than sugar, so 1 gram of them would do the same job of 2 teaspoons of sugar, so that kinda makes sense.  Overall, if you used it based on that ratio, it would definitely save you a lot of calories.

Coupon day 2

Went shopping on monday instead of tuesday this week...
I think I saved a whole total of $7.50.  I saved the most on 2 boxes of Delimax Taquitos from Walmart. They were about $5.50 a box and I had coupons for $2.00 off each package, so I saved $4 on those...That was the most exciting!  Then, I saved .75 cents on any gallon of milk, .40 cents on each of the 4 pouches of cookies that I bought (Betty Crocker), also like .75 cents off 2 boxes of Betty Crocker streusel muffin mixes, and .25 cents off any Charmin product.  All of that stuff was on my list to get anyway (well, I lied, not the cookies or the muffins, but we eat them and we were almost out anyway).  Some rules that I've seen on couponing say that to get the most out of the coupons, get the smallest of the product that the coupon will allow, in this case the smallest of the toilet paper was a 4 roll pkg that had 176-ish 2 ply sheets per roll (FYI, I don't usually pay this much attention to that number).  They were $4.25 each.  And the same size rolls in a package of 12 was $9.50.  So, as you can see, I can pay $16 for the same amount of toilet paper and save $1.00 with coupons, or, I could get the $9.50 one and save .25 cents and make it only $9.25.  I ended up buying the mega rolls of toilet paper in a package of 12 (there's like 386 2 ply sheets per roll too!) that was on sale for 12.99, used the .25 cent coupon and it was only $12.74.  But I'm happy with my purchase..More for my money, I think.  And, I spent all my money, except for $8.00, so I'm afraid I won't be going shopping next week.  OH, and the only coupons that I used that came from the newspapers was the taquitos, the cookies, and the charmin product.  So as far as the coupons go, we actually did save the most from the newspapers rather than printed from the internet this time!  I think our best bet is turning into just continuing to shop smart instead of with the coupons.  I'll still get them, I think, but just print them off the internet instead of with the newspapers..
Sorry coupons, strike 2.  :(

Disappointing dinners

Unrelated to dinners, we lost power yesterday morning at about 2 am and didn't come back on until 7 pm, so we had most of the day in the dark.  No tv or anything like that so it was pretty exciting and I made dinner by tea light (because we didn't have any real candles).

Saturday night, I made (from Campbell's 1-2-3 cookbook), the homestyle beef stew recipe, included carrots, potatoes, stew meat, thyme (I used basil and oregano because I didn't have any), bay leaves, beef broth and I think that's it.  You let it simmer for like an hour and a half and then add the carrots and potatoes, then another half hour.  It was not very good...well, in all honesty, we didn't eat it, it didn't smell delicious, so I put the lid on and pretended it didn't happen until today when I threw it away.  In lieu of the stew, hubby had egg noodles and butter and I had chicken pasta roni.

Tonight, Sunday, I made a recipe I found online.  With my newspaper subscription, I get it every day and am able to read some of the articles in it.  I found this article about this girl who did a year of slow cooking, and of course it intrigued me and I looked at recipes on her blog.  I also thought that maybe she might have the same taste buds as me, because her taste-o meter sounded kind of like mine might, she gave it 4 stars out of 5, so I hoped I would like it too.  I found one called Honey Garlic Chicken and all the ingredients sounded like it might be good.  Anyway, so we made that today and it wasn't very good.  The chicken was nice and tender and juicy, but the flavor of the sauce that was infused in the chicken too just rubbed me the wrong way.  And hubby at least tried it, but he didn't care for it either.  I was really disappointed because I was very hopeful.  Hubby said that on his mission (to Chile) there was someone that did their chicken in the slow cooker with milk and garlic, so we might try that sometime, also something with barbecue sauce would be good too.  I also thought that even just doing the chicken in water or whatever would make it good too.

So, I put most of the chicken that we didn't eat in 2 trash bags, along with the yucky stew and we pretended the whole thing didn't happen.  The "good" dinner consisted of country fried steak from the freezer and egg noodles with salt and pepper.  It was pretty good, obviously not awesome, but good nevertheless.

On the bright side, I made peanut butter candy cookies (Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie mix in a pouch) plus a bunch of candy.  Mostly sixlets, white chocolate chips and milk chocolate m&ms.  Hubby's crazy, it was his idea of course, but they turned out really good!

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Found a recipe at work for super duper easy pumpkin spice cookies... I made them tonight. Yum!!!
Here is the recipe:
1 pkg spice cake mix, 1 15 oz can of pumpkin, and chocolate chips.
Mix together thoroughly and bake at 350 deg. for 12-ish minutes.
Yep!  Thats it! (I also added dashes each of nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice, I also used white chocolate chips in my part of the cookies).  These cookies are highly recommended!  Hubby quite liked them too!

Also, recently discovered a blog about slow cooking.  Thinking of trying some of her recipes in the next few days...

Mmm..Meatloaf!

Well, its been an eventful evening. 
First. I finally decided what I was going to be for the Halloween lunch party at work tomorrow, where there is a costume contest and prizes.  I'm usually a party pooper, but I decided that I should probably dress up this year!  I'm going to be a hillbilly...the costume will be a little too easy, as I already have everything, overalls, hair ties, plaid shirt and even straw.  Creepy, huh?  Makes me wonder if I really am a hillbilly....I'm okay with that.  But, I think I'm gonna run by the store and see if I can find some hillbilly teeth and a straw hat, that would add to it I think. 

Second. Hubby, who most of the time acts like he's 12 but I love him for it, has been playing SimCity on our Super Nintendo quite a bit lately.  He has made almost every effort to get his population over 500,000 but hasn't made it over like 420,000.  In my online search for tips to assist his game play, I found THIS web site.  It has a ton of tips on how to beat the game and how to cheat your way to the top, to which we owe everything in the following pictures to. 

Notice the population number..500,560!!

Yaaay....officially a Megalopolis!

AND...the coveted Super Mario Statue!!!  ..I was a little too excited about this.

Thirdly, and finally...I made, I think, the best meatloaf I've ever made.  Observe...

Isn't it beautiful? (sorry its kinda blurry)

Here is how you make the same thing...

3 slices bread, crumbled by hand into kind of small pieces (I used bread heels for this)

1 pkt meat loaf spice mix (western family)
half medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c ketchup
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 egg
1-1 1/2 pounds ground beef

Glaze:

1/2 c ketchup, 1 tbsp dijon mustard, 1/4 cup-ish apple cider vinegar, 1/2 c packed brown sugar

Put everything but the glaze in a big bowl, mixed together by hand, formed into loaf and put on roasting pan with slots in the bottom to let the fat drain away.  Mixed glaze and used half to glaze the loaf before I baked at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes, then glazed with the rest of it and baked for another 20 minutes (or until it reaches 160 degrees inside, mine was just fine).  Let rest for 10 minutes and serve. 

I also made real mashed potatoes with 4 medium potatoes, skinned, cut up, and boiled for about 30 mins, then mashed with salt and half a stick of butter (real butter...mmm!). 

Also, of course, a can of green beans split half between the 2 of us.  

I'm not one for pretty pictures and super duper beautiful plating, but this looks pretty darn good to me... 

Enjoy! :)

Oh, and fourth.  I got my 4 newspapers this morning.  Felt like a super dork picking them all up and taking them into the house. 

First coupon shopping trip..

Ok, so since I'm not sure what to regularly talk about on this blog, and nothing exciting is going on in my life, other than we finally moved out (its great!), I made my first real chicken pot pie (Thank you again, Betty Crocker) and I finally checked out that "the Stocked Kitchen" book from the library...Because of that, we get to talk about this coupon experiment once a week.  Shopping day has moved from Wednesday after payday (twice a month), to probably every Tuesday, because I drive by 2 stores a day in my new commute and its way more convenient than it used to be.

Ok, shopping list consisted of the following items: pears (because they were on sale and are delicious), potatoes, chicken, lunch meat, bread, sloppy joe sauce (because it was on sale for .99/can), granulated garlic, cereal, veg. oil, Excedrin (because we were looking for a ibuprofen alternative anyway, I had a coupon, and it was really cheap), dry milk, olives, corn, refried beans, pork & beans, cheese, ritz crackers, napkins, orange/cinn. rolls, shampoo and freezer pizzas (those Totino's party pizzas).  That list was exciting, huh?!?!

After everything was rung up, it came to $100.10.  I had I think 5 coupons that were relevant and they took off a whopping total of (!!!!!)... $5.40.  On my overall purchase I saved $14.97, because I'm already a super frugal shopper anyway...Example.  Last night I had 2 coupons to save $1.00 off a package of 14-16 oz Gold 'n Plump chicken.  Okay, great!  I'll save $2.00 because we're out of chicken and need 2 packages, its on sale for $3.99 so that's only $3 a package, essentially per pound! So far so good, then, I look over and see that the store packaged chicken breasts are $2.09 a pound!  So, I'm planning on spending $6.00 anyway, so I might as well get an additional pound for the same price!  So...I spent $6.10 for 3 pounds instead of $5.98 for almost 2.  I don't feel bad.  :)  SO...after we put in the 5 coupons, my total came out to be...(dun dun duuunnn...) $94.70!!  $5.30 that I can roll over into next weeks shopping trip!  ..Yaay!

Sorry coupons...Its not looking too good.  But, don't worry, you still have time to redeem yourself... (get it...redeem! haha!!)

As I promised...

Finally, the pictures I've been threatening of the newer former flock.

Group Picture!!!!

Mottled Cochin Bantam hens (a little different, but really awesome!)

Patty...My little Silver-Laced Cochin Bantam hen (she has such a great personality...had)

Golden speckled bantam couple...not sure what kind they were but super unique and really cool!

These were kind of Aracauna (what with the flippy feathers on the cheeks), but I'm not sure, they're bantams, hens, feather footed...

Silver/blue sebright-ish hen, not sure what kind she is/was either

Golden sebright rooster, isn't he handsome!

And...as an honorable mention, Henny Penny, in her nest, upset that I'm going to get the eggs from her.  

Isn't she beautiful?

I miss my babies...

Chicken Enchiladas

I think I made the best chicken enchiladas so far last night...Super duper simple, and they were really good!
The recipe includes like 3 cups of chopped chicken, 2-3 cups of shredded monterey jack/cheddar cheese, 1 can of cream of chicken soup, multiple spices, water, and of course, tortillas.  Shredded the cheese from the block, set aside, chopped the chicken, set aside, then made the mixture of the sauce.  In the cream of chicken soup, mix enough water to make it relatively saucy (like tomato sauce consistency), then take it to the pantry and dash in a whole bunch of spices.  I think we had sage, paprika, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, cayenne pepper, cumin, onion powder, lowry's season salt, ...I think that's it.. But we just dashed in a bit of each of them and it turned out really good, I think next time we should do a tiny bit less of the cayenne pepper and cumin (only because my tastebuds are really sensitive).  Then put most of the sauce, except for like 1/3 cup or so in a skillet, mix in the chicken, cook til warm, warm up your tortilla, put down a bunch of cheese, then your chicken mixture, roll up, and put in the pan.  In the 1/3 cup of sauce you had leftover, mix some more water, so its more soupy (you like my words? soupy, saucy...oh yeah!), and pour over the top of your enchiladas...put a little bit of cheese on top and bake at 400 for like 11 minutes or so, 'til its slightly golden brown and delicious!  It has a zing to it, but it was just there, it didn't get worse or anything like that...Actually really good! 
Anyways..that was exciting, huh?!  We just always have a hard time finding good chicken enchilada recipes, you can always find beef ones, but not chicken (at least that we think are really good).

So, I think I'm doing couponing in conjunction with all this. 
I'm kind of excited, hubby can't say the same (something about getting 4 newspapers in one sunday doesn't appeal, haha), but we're gonna try it for a little bit.  I just hate how much we spend on groceries for just us 2...it seems unreasonable!  And it doesn't seem like most of these coupon people get real food, they get like 10 bottles of musturd...who eats that much mustard?  So, I'm gonna try and do it with realistic regular food, and not buy things we don't eat just because they are on sale!  So, I've got a month! :)

Well...

Since we sold all of our chickens, (sad!) I need to find something else to talk about on here, so I believe it will be food!  Last night I roasted a chicken (my fave dinner ever, plus the leftovers are super duper awesome-I think we're having enchiladas on tuesday and pot pie sometime next week), and we had roasted corn on the cob (cut off the cob after roasting).  There is nothing like fresh corn!!!  Soooo much more delicious than canned or even frozen (I think, its been a while since I've had frozen).  Mmmm...  Also, I've been really intrigued with a book called "The Stocked Kitchen"...I bought it for my ipod touch, but I don't really like reading books on there, so I might check out the real book from the library.  Also got the stocked kitchen app, but that doesn't do much good because I haven't read it yet, so its temporarily on the side.  Maybe I'll run to the library tonight after work, and maybe I'll also get that "How to Cook Without a Book" book again....That was a really good book!  We'll see.

Hubby and I moved out into our own apartment!  We're grown ups again!  YAAAY!  So I've been doing a lot of baking lately...mmmm!  Plus the dinner options open up a little bit, but they also narrow because of financial reasons.  But we're gonna try to still eat real good even on our budget..  :)

News...

I have some unfortunate news.  We sold all of our chickens a couple of weeks ago...went from 23 to 0.  :(  So sad, but it is the best thing for us right now, we are looking to move out as soon as we can, so we can't take them with us wherever we go.  Especially if we want to move up by Weber State. 
SAAAD!!!  :(
I will post a memorium of all of our recent ones on here hopefully soon!!  :)

Mmm..Vacation!

Just got back from vacation! :(  Too bad its already over! I'm not ready to go back to work yet, and hubby's not ready to start the new semester tomorrow...(we are reluctant).  One weird thing about our vacations is that we don't do anything.  We pretty much just relax and enjoy being by ourselves.  Also, its funny because its like most people don't do anything all the time, so they go on vacation to do stuff, but we do stuff all the time, so we go on vacation NOT to do anything!  Crazy, huh?!  And its really dumb, but we really enjoy it!  The highlights of our vacation can be summed up in just a few words....Cows, Potato Museum, Legos and Ipod.  Yes, you read that right...Cows and Potato Museum.  We met with a farmer to take a look at some miniature cows...they're so cute!  and we made a side stop at the Idaho Potato Museum, got a shot glass and got to see one of the world's largest potato crisps.  Pretty sweet!  It was so nice though, just to get away from everything and not have anything at all to worry about or think about or anything...I love vacation!  :)

Oh!  and I'm officially a licensed title searcher!!!  Yeah! :)

Changes

Well, as you can tell, I recently changed the layout of the blog, my chicks were waaay cuter than the ones in the background.  I still have to play around with it a little bit, maybe I can figure out how to change the picture to some of my own chickens...We'll see though.

The metal home decor business isn't going as well as we had hoped.  But I think we're nearing the end of the season, so we'll see how things go from here.

One of my friends at work is buying her first house!  I am very happy for her and very jealous at the same time, but it is very good for her, and I think the house she found should be really good for her!  :)  Its kind of funny, she is living with her parents too, so we often have the same sort of issues, so its a little easier to complain to her.  Congrats! 

I'm getting my title license here soon, had to go into get my fingerprints taken last week because I'm a moron and didn't do it when they offered it to me after I took my test.  Oh well, its done and I think I'll finally be licensed!  Bonus!  It should make me a little more valuable at work too, so that's nice.

Well, bedtime!  xoxo
ceee

Tortillas

I made my first homemade tortillas today...well, sort of.  We ended up only making like 7 from a batch thats supposed to make 24, but ours were much bigger, and we deep fried them, and threw away some of the dough (thinking realistically and knowing that it wouldn't get eaten).  They ended up more like navajo tacos, er..scones.  I decided to cover mine in cinnamon and sugar and have them that way, and hubby had them with chicken and enchilada sauce on them...he said his was okay, and mine, well...amazing of course!  You can't go wrong with elephant ears!  I had pasta roni instead of the chicken, I am definitely a pasta lover, thats for sure! 

Hubby's brother moved out to his own house here a couple of weeks ago (well, sort of, he still comes by quite often).  We're pretty jealous of him.  And also, hub's mom and dad are gone all week on vacation (at least until they come home early, if they do)!  Sooooo....we have the house to ourselves!!  YAY!  Let the yelling commence!  (not fight-y yelling, fun yelling)  However, I half expect his other brother to come, because he usually tends to drop in for a couple of days to visit precisely when everyone else is gone!  I'm starting to think its a conspiracy! 

Well...

I've been shirking my duties here at this blog, and in place, have been concentrating most of my efforts on the other blog for our "business"... that one is http://heidishomedecor.blogspot.com/
Check it out if you like!  We're doing decently well with it, and hopefully things get way better!!  We have some possibilities, but more than likely, nothing will come of it! :) Oh well..
As an update to our chicken situation, new batman died the other day...we think he got sick or something, he didn't look very good and wasn't acting normal for a few days before that...It made me pretty sad.  We also had one of the brownies die too...we think she got a cold or respiratory issue or something, she wasn't breathing too good several days before, we also think that she was a lot older than the guy we bought them from led me to believe.  Mind you, these deaths happened maybe a week or 2 apart, I hope they aren't related in any way. 
Also, I took the title insurance exams that were necessary to get my title license!  AND...PASSED BOTH OF THEM!!!!  WOOO HOOO!!!!  Its very exciting!!  Now I just have to apply to get my license and I should finally be official!  YAY!!
What else...I'm in a dinner/cooking rut.  And it really sucks!  I have like 30 cookbooks, but I don't use them, but I want to use them, but most of the food in them is unreasonable for us, our tastes, our finances and our situation...Perhaps it would be different in my own kitchen.  Doubtful.  But maybe...I don't know.  I think I just need to go with recipes and foods that we use all the time, and make two 2 week menus...I think that would be best, they will both be slightly different, so we shouldn't get worn out on them.  Plus, with a menu like that, we should save a bit on groceries...I swear, when I get home from grocery shopping, you would think that I was feeding a family of 4 or something like that, not just me and my husband!  My goodness! 
Well, I should go check on the babies (chickies) and gather the eggs.  Have a lovely evening! :)

recent events

Got done with our first full event last night!  We did okay...about as bad as we expected...Started up a blog for the business, so y'all can take a look at that... it is:  http://heidishomedecor.blogspot.com/
We were planning on moving out in August, but that is not going to happen any more...stupid being practical about money!  :(
Our last month for our chickens has been pretty poor...we had a dog or something get 2 of the year olds, and one of the other year (or something) olds died the other day.  We think she was older than the guy said she was, and she was sick, having trouble breathing and stuff for several days before...Its too bad. But I guess it happens. 
Our 16 chicks that we got back on May 13th are doing very well!  We think we only have 2 or 3 roosters out of all of them, which are pretty darn good odds!  And they are so cute!!!!  And getting sooo big!!  :)  I love them so much!  We think we have a couple of sebrights (we thought they were d'uccles before, but they're starting to look like sebrights instead).  We have one silver-laced cochin...I've decided to name her abby, she's so cute and so soft!  We think that we also have a couple of mottled cochins, but they're not quite what the pictures depict them as, so maybe not, but they are really friendly and are kinda weird, but I'm starting to really like them!  We also have a 2 dark cornish chicks...I'm torn about those, I really like their coloring, but I hate the body structure.  I still need to take some pictures of them and post them.  They're so cool!
Henny and one of the brownies decided that they're gonna set on their eggs...I keep pulling the eggs out, but they've got it in their heads that they're brooding...plus we don't have any mature roosters, so its pointless..silly girls!! 

considering

I'm considering medical transcription as a side job...  Not sure yet if I am going to or not! 
Our first event is in like 2 days, I'm so nervous....well, nervous-excited!  I hope it goes decently well, I am trying to keep my hopes low so that when it doesn't go well I'm not too disappointed, but I'm still hoping for the best. If that all makes sense...We still have so much to do, but we're getting close!  And putting things in boxes, so we're getting there, gradually!  Just trying to figure out the smaller things so that we are prepared!  I still have to make some flyers and we still have lots to do.. :) Hopefully its worth it!

on the side

I wish I could find something to do on the side that could make us enough money so that we could move out and be adults again...any ideas?

terrible, awful, no good, very bad day

So far... 1) the diet is going terrible, 2) the neighbor's stupid dog got 2 of my chickens (including BIRDIE!!!), 3) living arrangements are very poor at the moment (REALLY wanna move out!!!), 4) the metal wall stuff isn't even close to being done yet and we're coming down to the wire (2 weeks til the first event!!!!! OMG!), 5) the hubby is being VERY annoying!!!!! 
I wish I could find other ways of making money.. I might sell some of my books that I have stored..

I'm finding it difficult to find realistic information regarding a relatively low-carb diet..
Had an egg salad sandwich for dinner....yum! 

groc shopping

Well, so far so good, one of us may have lost almost 7 pounds over the last few days....VERY encouraging, we'll see how it goes...There is a LOT more research to be had though about this low carb stuff...like what we can eat and what we can't (nay...shouldn't) and such.  Keeping carbs to only about 100 grams is the plan, but its very very hard!  EVERYTHING has carbs in it!!!  But like I said, research is to be had this weekend maybe, if I get a chance to do anything, what with all the metal stuff we still have to work on to get ready for the events in a month (we're selling metal wall decor at local city "days"...most of it features pheasants, elk, mooses, ducks, bears, etc..., we've got some pretty cool stuff, I think!).  Anyway, encouraging. 

Spent almost half my budget last night on meat...steaks, pork chops, chicken breasts, sausage...my goodness!!!  Its good though, I break it into portions and freeze it so it might last me a little bit...but with recent events, maybe not! (i.e. diet)
We'll see..Hopefully things keep progressing as well as they have been! 

dieting... :S

Thank you netflix for bringing to light the instant view movie called Fat Head!  An intriguing follow-up documentary to the movie SuperSize Me.  This movie, FatHead really brought to light many of the things that I was curious about watching supersize me (which I am a pretty good fan of).  And the actor who stars in it is a comedian..(maybe I should look up his actual name now...Tom Naughton).  I find this movie very very interesting in that it brings to light that fast food restaurants are not to fault for our fatness....we are!  (obviously...we can say no)  It also brought to light that sugar might be the underlying problem for most of our health issues...which has sparked (dun dun dun duuuunnnnnn) a low carb diet!  However, we are also trying to buckle down on the budget and get the blasted cc paid off...and so...it will be:  The Low Carb Diet On A Budget!  YAAY!!  The hubby and I still have to decide what sort of meals we will eat for the next few weeks and so I will feature updates...We have tried the lower calorie diet a month or so ago, that didn't go very well... :(  So....we'll try low carb and see if anything productive comes of it!  Hope Hope Hope!!! 

pics I promised..

Here are some of the pictures I promised earlier this week.
This is the girls hanging out in the tree last summer...

 On their way up to the top of the tree..

 Henny Penny...(she's a bantam black-tailed buff japanese), she's a beauty..

Her used-to-be significant other...(we got rid of him over the winter, he was kinda mean, but he sure is pretty!!).  To us, he is the epitome of a rooster...

 Another of them in the tree...it was so cool to see them up there!!

We have 2 of these girls, she's a buff orpington..a regular sized chicken, not a bantam like some of the others (p.s. for anyone who doesn't know, a bantam is like a mini chicken..some of the standards end up being like 8 pounds, but these ones are only about 2, so significantly different).

My absolute favorite chicken...berdie, she's all fluff and has a wonderful personality!!  She's a birchen cochin bantam, we had some roosters that were the same kind as her and they were pretty calm and had good personalities too..but we just didn't want any roosters any more over the winter and found homes for them.  One of them we named Batman...It was the perfect name for him :)

Here's Batman...(insert batman theme song here).

 We have 2 of these, silver laced wyandottes.

Haha!  this is a pic of some light brahmas we used to have, this is one of my favorite pics of it looking at me, kinda scary, huh?  They were pretty nice girls though, at least to me, they didn't like berdie at all..

AND.....someone's birthday was this last week and we went to the store and got 16 new little chicks...I didn't plan on getting any more chicks for a few years, but we figured, what the heck!?  Once we get their brooder set up more permanently, I'll take some pictures and post them...many of the kinds we're not sure of, but it'll be kind of exciting to see how they grow up and to see what kinds they are!  YAAAY!  Plus, we figured that after the hubby gets done with school in a couple of years we will probably end up living in little apartments for the next 5 years or so, then we can have our little farm with all the critters we want!

Well, bed time.