It has been some crazy week here!
We hit this Awesome store called Chef Smart. It is sort of like Costcos, but not as big and you do not need to have a membership there. They mainly sell to restaurants, but anyone can shop there. Everything was so cheap. I’m actually considering not to get my Costcos membership refilled. That would save a hundred dollars a year in membership fees.
Next we hit a store called World market. I have only been there a couple times in the past to browse. It’s set up by country. They have the Spain area that sells stuff from Spain. Then the Japan area, England area, Italy area,etc.. It is such a great place to find unique foods from other countries, as well as intricate items that you would not find elseware. I found some great espresso cups and some tea mugs. They also had a great variety of silk scaves, and market bags that I was oggling over!
After that, we went to Platos, which is the only place that I can find unique jewlery, which has become a hobby for me. I like things that are different and jewelry seems to be something that should not have to be expensive to have the ‘wow factor’ or whatever it is called. I prefer silver and tribal-ethnic looks, which are actually pretty hard to find. Platos seems to be a place that I find them, as well as on ebay from Tibet, or India. Such beautiful looks! Today I found an great necklace that reminds me of a sun dial, and it was only five dollars!! Yay!
Tomorrow morning is my first Zumba class! I’ll have to blog about how that goes tomorrow evening! How bad could it be, Right?
Sunday we are taking the kids to see Avalon in Concert. They saw Chris August and tenth Avenue North last week. They are crazy about concerts, and I’m thankful that they are enjoying such smart music..unlike my teenage concerts that included, Metallica, Ozzy, and Red Hot Chili Peppers! OH, and I did see the Eagles live, but that is as wholesome/smart as it got. *G* My mom use to go to Elvis Presley concerts & Stevie Nicks! Gosh I feel old!
I’ll be posting a grocery shopping blog up on Monday. I need to upload all the pics.
Someone captured the funnel clouds and placed them on youtube.
The news today is all about the damage that has happened in several counties near us. Many homes were destroyed in six different states and there has been over 250 deaths. This happened between 4-8pm yesterday, and then again over night.
I don’t know any Stephanie but started praying for her..I keep thinking if she was someone specific in one of the tornado’s. Only the Lord knows.
My (6yr old) told me this morning that while daddy was driving in the storm yesterday and the rain was hitting the van so hard, along with the wind making the van shake.. She thought we were going to crash and all die! I kept telling all the kids that we were all going to be fine, and this was just a passing storm, but I was actually thinking worst thoughts. I think I wuld have rather been at home.
So today these are the things that I have been reflecting on with the kids…while the little ones are drawing pictures of things they saw yesterday.
The Eensy Weensy Spider…crawled up to greet me twice..
I freaked out and screamed…and reached for the bottle of spray..
Squirt… Squirt.. Squirt..Squirt.. They were pretty well drenched..
But they dried themselves off…and began to haunt me again..
Squirt… Squirt.. Squirt..Squirt.. drenched them down once more..
A hour later I checked..and they were no more…..
These little pups just made the news again. They are the most popular animal webcam on the net right now. 27 million viewers!
What is everyone doing for Easter? My Dh’s family do their own thing each year. My mother lives in a different state and always goes out to dinner each Easter, and my father works every Easter, as well as lives in a different state. Soooo–That just leaves us, so I generally invite people over for dinner each year, which is what is on the agenda for this year too. Lots of cooking and baking!!!
We are also taking the kids to a flash light egg hunt at church tomorrow evening which should be fun.
Getting ready to find some eggs!
I decided a few days ago that I was going to surprise a friend (tomorrow) with one of her favorite casseroles. It was a casserole that I’ve never heard of, and maybe I’m the only one, because I mentioned it to two other friends earlier, and they both have heard of it. *G* What is this mystery dish? Reuben Casserole!
SOMEONE Tell me that I’m not the only one who has never heard of Reuben Casserole before. Back home (up North) we have the Reuben sandwich which is very popular, and I guess this is a sister to it perhaps.
My friend shared the recipe with me a few months ago, so it really is going to be a surprise..in more ways then one too! You see, I went to the store tonight to get everything and found everything except the corn beef. I saw the little sticker to where it was, but they were all out. Must be popular! I asked an employee if corn beef hash is the same stuff because they had plenty of that. The guy said it was, so that is what I got.
I’ve never had corn beef or hash, I don’t think…so I wouldn’t know the difference. Evidently people eat hash with fried eggs a lot, from what I’ve read. Something else I have never heard of.
So I decided to Google Reuben Casserole with potatos, to see if there was a simular recipe and I did find one here. For anyone looking for something new to try. But the exact recipe that my friend goes by is this below, simular, but with rice instead of potatos, and has a couple other things in it.
So, if anyone is looking for something new to try! This is what I am making, but am using corn been hash, instead of plain corn beef.
after the rice is cooked, mix in the next two items.
Bake at 350 for 30mins.
Let me know if anyone makes either one! I’ll probably post over the weekend how it goes tomorrow!!
Sorry about yesterdays post disappearing..I had a change of ❤.
On a lighter note, I thought it would be nice to do a coffee post. If you are not a coffee drinker, then this post will bore you to tears.
Plain Coffee is brewed with your standard coffee pot. You can drink it black, (as is) or add sugar and cream. VERY basic! And only has about 4 calories per 4oz.
﻿﻿Cappuccino is an Italian coffee ﻿prepared with espresso, hot milk, and steamed-milk froth. Equal amounts of espresso & hot milk are poured into a cup, then it is topped with foamy milk which could be done with an espresso machine, OR as long as you heat the milk first, you can use a blender or hand help mixer to froth it. Besides the shot of espresso, the most important part in preparing a cappuccino is the texture and temperature of the milk. That will determine how foamy it gets, hence the fabulous flavor and texture.
A Cafe Latte is also an Italian coffee. It’s made solely of espresso and steamed milk. No froth! Latte means coffee & milk.
Personally, my favorite are Cappuccinos. I love all the foamy milk which I place shredded chocolate on top of, or cinnamon & cocoa.
If you have a favorite coffee drink besides the trusty standard, which is it?
Today was one of those days. As stated, we bought a coffee espresso station the other day but realized, in order to have it hooked up at home we needed to adjust some plumbing. DH tried to do it himself, but ended up needing a plumber to come because he didn’t have the tools that he needed, and a valve broke.
DH told me that he was going to wake up early to run some errands while I slept, but would be back in plenty of time before the plumber came. Fine! But, at 7am, the phone rang, I vaguely heard it and figure the answering machine would get it..Everyone knows that I don’t answer the phone that early,so I closed my eyes again, and it starts ringing once more. Which to me means, who ever it was, it must be important..So I got up and it was DH!
He says he’s stuck just outside of town, and the car is over heating, and he has no one that he could call to get him home so I’ll need to get up now, to be ready for when the plumber comes… I said sure, while trying to figure out how many hours of sleep I just had. (This is something that I do every day regardless, just one of those things that I like to keep track of.) 5 hours! I had 5 hours of sleep, which might have worked out if I hadn’t taken that hefty does of melatonin before turning in! I felt totally discombobulated…but life must go on.
I got up to make some coffee, but remembered that we had NO WATER! DH had to shut the water off the previous day, and then a valve broke so we couldn’t get it turned back on until the plumber fixed it… Talk about taking for granted flushing the toilet, doing laundry,running the dishwasher,washing your hands, brushing your teeth,showering, and of course filtered drinking water. Oh my goodness! Was I back in the stone age?
Soooooo, No coffee, because there is no water to make coffee… SoI walked over to wash the dishes..Opps..forgot already! So I go and get dressed while thinking how much I want a shower to wake me up, while forgetting again, NO water…AFTER I started brushing my teeth. I need to rinse my mouth, so decided that I would try some lemon flavored sparkling water from the fridge. It worked pretty good too! But now I needed to at least wash my hands, plenty of sanitizer..Great! Now I need to wet my hair! I thought about using sparkling water, but just wasn’t so sure, so looked over in the bath tub.. My kids had some cups that they didn’t ever dump the water out of, so I took them and poured them over my head before realizing that the awful smell, was actually from the water that was indeed, stagnant! I walked over to the mirror telling myself not to cry…before one of my daughters comes into my bathroom asking me why she can’t flush the toilet still, and she needs to brush her teeth…I hand her the sparkling water bottle that I still had out, before she looks at me strangely, and asks..Eww, what’s that awful smell mom?
Just then, beep, beep..DH pulls up and it is quarter till 8. He brings in 2 gallons of distilled water and tells me that he thought I may need it to wet my hair, make coffee and brush my teeth!!
But I’m not a meany, so thanked him, while walking into the bathroom and starting the process all over again…I came out, still insanely tired and groggy from being up so early, and needing some coffee really bad. So I ended up making a full pot of coffee, and even breaking open these new pre-made espresso shots that I found at Walmart of all places. They add 80-grams of caffeine to your coffee,or so the box claims. The box also says to not have more then two a day. I added the two, and downed 24 ozs of coffee before the plumber even arrived!
When he arrived we told him who recommended him, and he said he didn’t know who those people were. Lovely I thought, does this mean we are going to get charged an arm and both legs? Yep! Sure did!
He ended up having to go under the house, and told us that a pipe busted some time ago apparently, and we had a huge leak and the whole thing down there was flooded. Oh, and the installation needed to be replaced. He said the installation could wait, but the busted pipe needed fixing ASAP.
Look what we just bought a few days ago. We bought it second hand of course, in hopes to open a coffee shop in the future. This would have been the biggest investment, so Dh wanted to act on it when he saw it listed second hand. I could not believe how much it retailed for! Yikes!
The one we bought is 3 years old the women said, and it’s from her coffee shop that just closed 2 hours away from us. We are having it hooked up in our home today to master the art of making Starbucks style lattes, and specialty coffees.
We bought a huge Victorian house. There were wall to wall mauve carpets throughout it. At night while everyone was sleeping, holes would open up in all the carpets and rattle snakes would come out and bite me. In the morning I told everyone about them,while showing them the bite marks and no one believed me. That night I made them wait up with me to witness them all coming out of the holes in the carpets, and when they did, no one saw them but me…….