Friday, April 25th, 2014

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "There's no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder, or control the firm resolve of a determined soul."

So my birthday is coming up next week.... I'm going to be 32 and honestly, since I hit 30, I have had to literally do the math in my head to figure out how old I am when somebody asks! Lol! It took me until this year to stop saying I was 30 and then I'd quickly do the math in my head and then say, "Ah, I'm 31!". Maybe that's age or maybe it's just that I don't feel 31, okay almost 32!

Events such as birthdays often make us sit down and take count of our lives.  We look back at where we've been, what we've done, and many times, and we feel like we're not where we're "suppose to be".   Far too often we don't consider the many things we've done, the experiences we've had, and just the everyday things and people that have made us who we are.  Pondering such things lead me to the following:

 

50 shades of Christina

Who Am I?

I am a Christian,

A wife,

A companion,

A romantic,

A mother to two dog children,

A daughter,

A sister,

An aunt,

A cousin,

A friend,

An advocate for the poor,

A graduate,

A blogger,

A colleague,

A boss,

A social worker,

A writer,

A volunteer,

A determined mind,

A loving heart,

A board member,

A planner,

A candle-maker

A cook,

A coupon-er,

A gardener,

A DIY'er,

An organizer,

A prepper,

 An animal lover,

A clearance rack shopper,

A list maker,

A seamstress (though not very good......Yet!),

A budget maker,

A saver,

A renovator,

A wood-worker (with the help of my loving husband),

A lover,

And a fighter, 

A jewelry maker (just beginning),

A yoga every morning wannabe,

A hoarder (but only a little),

A bread-maker,

A camping in the cold junkie,

A bug hater (literally, most bugs terrify me!),

A rock collector,

A wine enthusiast,

A traveler,

A reader,

And a people watcher (I know that might sound funny but don't act like you haven't enjoyed just sitting in a coffee shop or bar and enjoyed just watching people and the things the do!).

 

So, the next time your soul searching, if you're on a journey to discover yourself, if you're getting older and wonder what you've done with your life, where you're going, and what will come next, just sit down and start writing who you are.  I have to admit, when I had the idea to do this, I thought it would be hard to come up with 50 things but I ended up at 50 and was still going.

You are so much more than you think, embrace your awesomeness!

Friday, April 18th, 2014

President Bartlet (The West Wing), "If I cook stuffing inside the turkey, is there a chance I could kill my guests?  I'm not saying that's necessarily a deal-breaker."

So it's Friday and we thawed out a pound of ground beef for dinner, but we don't know what to make with it!  

 

We are totally against wasting food, so a lot of times I let Damon get creative so we can use up whatever it is that's been sitting around in the fridge or freezer too long.

Since we hadn't actually planned ahead a dish for tonight, Damon got his chance to get creative.  He took a look around to see what we had in the fridge that had been in there awhile.  We had a little lettuce left, a half of a block of pepper jack cheese (left over from when we made our homemade ravioli), and some frozen Texas toast flavored with some type of spicy buffalo wing flavoring that had been in the freezer taking up space for quite awhile......

Damon decided that this might could make a pretty tasty, if not slightly unconventional, cheeseburger!  Damon cooked up the patties and I put the toast in a fry pan and heated them through.  We cut slices of cheese from the block of pepper jack and melted them onto the top of the patties.  We dressed the toast with just mayo and some lettuce,  just to try to cool down some of the spice from the cheese and the spicy toast.

 

Anyway, this turned out to be one damn good burger but it was also one of the messiest burgers I've ever had.  Maybe this frozen toast isn't meant to be used for a sandwich because the sauce/flavor is on the outside of the bun which makes it quite a mess to handle.  I thought the flavor would somehow be baked into the dough but regardless, we used up the rest of our lettuce and the rest of the block of cheese before it went bad, and that toast had been in the freezer taking up space for quite awhile, so it was nice to use it up too.

My point being, there are people everywhere starving... not just in other countries either, people right here, in your country, in your state, in your city!  So stop wasting food, get creative if you have to, but use your groceries up before they go bad and if you have too much and know you can't eat it before it goes bad, then consider donating it. Damon heard the other day that 40% of groceries people buy from the grocery store, end up in the trash and that's just plain stupid and unnecessary!

And please, don't throw food away because it's the day after it "expires"! Those dates are "best by" dates, not "turned poisonous overnight" dates! Your eggs don't know what day it is, so they don't just magically go rotten the day after this date, your milk either.  Check your food and make sure it's not rotten, but don't just assume it's bad because it is past it's "best by" date.

Wake up tomorrow and try to waste less!

Friday, April 11th, 2014

President Josiah Bartlet (The West Wing), "Their going to come after me with vegan food and pitchforks."

It's Friday Night in Winslow Ya'll!!!!

Nothing too exciting going on tonight, but we did try a new dish and it was pretty awesome!  We like to cook and try new recipes together but we've been so busy lately we have just been cooking our standard meals.  Tonight, we had a glass of wine and tried made new dish, Damon tried to not fine tune it while I tried to stick to the actual recipe.

It's Pea Pesto Pasta; some pasta, green sweet peas, parmesan cheese, olive oil, spinach, grape tomatoes, sausage, and salt and pepper to taste!  It was really good!  In a food processor (we used our new Ninja), you blend together half the peas, some parmesan cheese, and some olive oil to make the pesto sauce that gets mixed into the dish at the end. Then you just cook the noodles, drain off the water, toss in all your vegetables, then toss it all in the pesto sauce!

It was yummy and a very pretty dish!

Goodnight Winslownians!

Friday, April 4th, 2014

Thomas Deloney, "God sends meat and the devil sends cooks."

Another Friday Night in Winslow!

That's right folks, it's Friday night and we're in the little town of Winslow with nothing but the sounds of our dog, Molly Brown, barking at the leaves rustling in the wind, down the road, the donkey's "eeyore" and hillbillies revving their engines and firing their shotguns.... Ah, Winslow.

Anyway, tonight we make homemade ravioli for the first time!  If you remember we made fettuccine with success a few months ago, now we want to conquer ravioli, mostly just because we can think of millions of not so good for you fillings for them!  I chose to go with spinach, provolone and pepper jack cheese, with bacon bits! First we threw all of that stuff into our new Ninja food processor.......

And viola!

It doesn't look that appetizing but we'll see!

We just put that mixture in the fridge and were on to making the pasta.  We used our larger Ninja, threw in the water, oil, eggs, salt, and flour and let'er rip!  After it's mixed together well, you have to knead it a little and then you end up with a perfect dough ball!

Next we rolled the dough out.  We weren't able to use our cool pasta roller because we used a different recipe for the pasta this time, which included oil, and it just wouldn't go through the roller right, so we did it the old fashioned way, with a rolling pin.  Once we got the sheets rolled out we placed them on our new Ravioli press, filled them, put the other sheet on top and roll again.

                                                                                                           

And that's that! Beautiful little homemade raviolis

We took about a dozen of them and boiled them for just a couple minutes, then tossed them with some olive oil, parmesan cheese, and red chili pepper flake, they came out tasting awesome.  The good thing is we made a ton of them, so we were able to freeze some for another time!

Goodnight all!

Monday, March 31st, 2014

Mother Teresa said, "Life is a game, play it."

Another day in Eureka Springs!!

It's not over yet people, we still have plenty to tell you about and pictures to share.  The first thing we did on the day after our wedding was to hit Local Flavor Café for some lunch. They were rated the number one restaurant in Eureka Springs according to Trip Advisor. We haven't been that great in the past at leaving reviews but we decided that we use them so much to help us make decisions on where to eat and stay that we're making an effort to review every single place we go!  So make sure you check out the links for my honest to goodness opinion!

 

       

Afterwards we went to visit Cosmic Caverns just a little outside of Eureka Springs.  We hiked, crawled, and shimmied through the caverns until we were at depth of some 250 feet below ground.  I was terrified, plain and simple.  The tour guide kept talking about earthquakes and fault lines that ran through the cave and even told us about how the whole thing flooded a few years ago. Not something I wanted to hear while I was in there, I'm just saying!

After that, we checked into the New Orleans Hotel in Downtown Eureka Springs.  We had a lot of fun having some wine on the balcony and people watching until dinner time.

On to dinner.  We decided to go to Ermilio's, it came highly recommended from several people we talked to and has 4 1/2 stars on Trip Advisor.  

After we were thoroughly stuffed from dinner we headed back to the hotel to hang out for a bit and later we went to the Rowdy Beaver for a few drinks and then on to Chelsea's to check out a local band.  We had a great day and got to explore a little more of Eureka and that was cool!!

Until next time........

Sunday, March 30th, 2014 - The Big Day

Mark 10:9, "What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder."

The big day.......

Okay, I'm going to be perfectly honest and tell you that I was getting a little nervous, so I had a glass of wine for breakfast!  After we got up and around we checked out of The Lodge and went on to have some lunch at The Rockin' Pig Saloon.  

Next we met up with my sister and cousin to decorate Forest Hill Restaurant (where we would be having dinner after the wedding).

      

                      

      

                      

Once we got done there, Damon and I headed off to Kings River Chapel to get married.......

 

    

After the ceremony, we went around town with our photographer, Mark McKenzie and took some shots around the Basin Park area, and we even made the Lovely County Citizen paper!!  Next we went on to dinner at Forest Hill where we cut our AMAZING cake made by Kathy at the Rock Cottage Gardens.

We had an exhausting but AMAZING day!  Thanks to our families for everything, we love you so much!

Wow, this is going on and on, isn't it???  Okay, I just want to get my last review of the day in, we stayed at the Crescent Hotel and unfortunately we couldn't get a haunted room but we did get a nice room with a balcony.  I have to admit, as soon as we got to the hotel, we had to watch the season finale of The Walking Dead.  Not very romantic but it was the season finale for crying out loud!!! We had to watch!!

Happy Wedding day to us!!

Remember to click on the links for reviews!

Saturday, March 29th, 2014

Andre Maurois, "Without a family, man, alone in the world trembles with the cold."

Saturday night in Eureka Springs!!!

Tomorrow is the big day!!  We had lunch at at Myrtie Mae's.

  

Afterwards, we took our little caravan up to the Crescent Hotel...

 Then we left the fam to explore Eureka Springs, and we went to go check-in at The Lodge, unpack our bags, and then immediately off to pick up Damon's Tux at I Do Bridal.  After all this running around, I cracked open a box, yes I said box, of wine and enjoyed a glass on our patio and what did we see from our little porch... DEER!

Pretty amazing that from the patio of this little lodge on Van Buren St. you can see deer.  We always see deer at home so it was nice to walk outside and see them in Eureka Springs!  They didn't even care that we were there.  Now, it's time for dinner.  We met up with our best friends and grabbed some dinner at the Pied Piper.

It was a great night, after a very long and busy day.

Don't forget to click on the links for reviews or websites.

  Tomorrow is the big day!!

Friday, March 28th, 2014

Winston Churchill said, "There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened, and maintained."

Our wedding day is almost here and we're excited but a little exhausted too.  We don't have much left to do but tonight we are putting together our favors.  

After the favors are done, we move on to finishing our packing, double checking that we aren't forgetting anything, and then we're going to take a deep breath and relax for the evening.  Tomorrow, we're meeting up with some of my family who will already be in Eureka Springs for lunch and we'll get to go over the schedule with everyone then. 

Unfortunately, not all of our family will be able to make it to the wedding this weekend but most of our immediate family are able to make it and my aunt and cousin are coming in from the west coast. It's super nice of them to come from so far to be with us on our day!

  Sunday is the big day!!