Thanksgiving Thursday Thoughts

Happy Thanksgiving!

• Too much food!
• Yummy yummy food!
• Pumpkin pie and noodles :)

It's a very thankful day and we have much to be thankful for! Hope you and yours count your blessings and enjoy the thankful season!

Thursday Thoughts

Hmmm, I've been pretty quiet lately. No real reason other then life and living it. I find that the holiday season starts earlier and earlier every year and this year is looking like no exception. I am quickly penciling things in my December calendar and even November is pretty taken up. I am also making sure I am keeping some down time I think last year I neglected to do that and this year I plan to schedule it!

We finally have been able to enjoy some cooler weather, it actually feels pretty nice most afternoons but the mornings are a bit nippy, I like it, sort of! I am not so big a fan of the the cold but I do enjoy the cool. The evenings have been so nice, we have really enjoyed that! I love sweatshirt weather as I like to call it! It's definitely got that crisp feel to it!

Thoughts:

• Thanksgiving - one week away!
• Ready for some pumpkin pie for sure
• Ham will be the meat of choice we don't do gobblers!

Hope you're having a great week and keeping it real in your world!

Day 26 - Temptation

I hang out with a group of ladies who decided to participate in a little fall festival at a local elementary school and do an upscale bake shop. We signed up, forked over some $$ and are setting up for business.

While fun, it's been REALLY, really, really tough to not sample the products. Okay maybe NOT that hard, but hard. We have some awesome bakers in our group, I am notsomuch one of them, but I can come up with a solid item or two to contribute and I did! Can you say yummy pumpkin cookies, dipped pretzels and little pain in the bum acorns along with gingerbread and regular rice crispy treats? Yep, that's me!

 Working on the acorns!

 The very labor intensive acorns!

 A few of the dipped pretzels, which were kind of fun to make :)

We went with a fall theme so our scrumptious items included pumpkin spice cupcakes, turtle, caramel apple and pumpkin cheese cake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin and snickerdoodle cookies to name a few. It's going to be fun and since the weather is changing to a little bit cooler temps it might even feel like fall and that's gotta be good for business, or at least we hope!

 My FAVORITE pumpkin cookies!!!

Happy Friday to you!

Explanation of the Day+# posts here!

Day 15 - Favorites

I like many things, but there are some things I REALLY like, I guess you could say I have favorites. Truly this is not an all encompassing list. My taste change, I change, my surroundings change and so one. Today these are a few of my current favorites!

Bath & Body Works Body Sprays

Vera bags for travel/meetings

Wine is a favorite and currently Chianti is what I'm enjoying!

Veggies I love them...pretty much anyway you fix them or not fixed at all!

 This is a two-fer, I love, love, love pizza AND the guy holding it :)
 

Chobani yogurt preferably pineapple but apple is nice as well! 

(And I do love whipped cream as well)

Hmmmm, seems I favor food and drink...yeah, no wonder my scales are not my friend :( I seriously cannot even begin to list all the things I love. there are so many. It's almost embarrassing so I think I should stop!

However, I will leave you with the RW&B...because I do love my country and am so blessed to be an American and military spouse. Life doesn't get much better then this in my world! Maybe it's not so ordinary after all this life I lead, in fact truth be told I know it's not...this life I am allowed to live is anything but ordinary but I tend to try and believe it is.
 
The Day + # posting thing going on is explained here.

Day 10 - Cooking

I enjoy cooking! I used to do it much more frequently. I am not so much of a baker though, I wish sometimes I was especially when I need to take something somewhere. I do have a couple standby recipes and that's normally what I show up with. Seems more often then not when you are asked to bring something it's a dessert!

The schedule we keep doesn't really allow for me to make what I call sit down meals much anymore, which truly is better for our waistlines! Seriously, in our younger days our meals were meat, potatoes w/gravy and a veggie or two along with rolls/bread. If I ate like that now it would be serious trouble. So I only cook that way occasionally! MiB still enjoys meals like that so it's a treat when he gets it!

Most meals as of late with our little bit cooler weather are homemade soups. We love veggie soup and will eat on a big pot of that for a few days, also chili, we enjoy homemade chili, usually vegetarian! I love the roasted veggie version and MiB will take it anyway he can get it, beef or veggie kind! I won the base chili cookoff earlier this year with my roasted veggie version, thankyouverymuch! I made an African Stew recipe earlier this month that was awesome served over a scoop of quinoa! It was a new recipe that may continue to make an appearance on our table.

We aren't vegetarians but I would say it wouldn't be a stretch for us to be. We don't eat much meat. It's just not something we feel we have to have. Not anymore anyway. Now that's not to say that MiB doesn't fire up the grill and make us a great little petite filet to go with a baked sweet or white potato and green salad. And I also love a good hamburger and so does MiB (which IMO is not that easy to get so I usually stick to getting them at only places I know they rock) at White Grill in my hometown.

It's a part of ordinary life to cook, I do enjoy it but I do not find myself in the kitchen preparing meals so much as I once did. It's all good, it's just a season, I'm sure making meals for two will once again be part of my ordinary life again, maybe sooner rather than later~

If you are thinking what's up with these Day + # posts go here to find out what's up!

Day 3 - The Scales

I have a pretty strong dislike for the scales but I also find they are necessary for me. I already brought up my love hate relationship with exercising on Day 1. It's a struggle. I try NOT to step on the scales everyday, I know in my head it's not good to do that; but most days I find myself doing just that! I skimmed through a book my neighbor had not too long ago and it had a lot of good points, it made me rethink some thoughts on food. I'm going to borrow it again soon.

For me having the scales on the floor in the bathroom is a reminder for me to keep it healthy, though I often times think I should relocate them to the floor in the kitchen in front of the fridge... sometimes they do not serve as a reminder; they make me feel guilty.

I find that I absolutely have to watch my white carb intake. That's very hard for this carb loving girl, pizza is a HUGE favorite of mine! I love to enjoy it but I cannot indulge in it very often or I cannot sport my clothing in a way that makes me feel comfy. I also enjoy crunchy salty things, my body loves them too as they immediately show up in the most inopportune locations. Therefore I try very hard to stay away from them. Thankfully, chocolate is not something that really appeals to me. However, cheesecake, cinnamon rolls, donuts, those do and I could eat way more then you can imagine in a very short amount of time, I stay far, far away from them or I would be in huge trouble.

I have struggled with keeping my weight in check for years, scales are definitely part of my ordinary life!

If you are not sure what's going on with the DAY +# postings check this post!

Thursday Thoughts and TOES :)

Great day to you, temps are still warm but not so HOT, makes this girl smile. Love the coolness of the mornings as I am for my morning run/walk, it's sooooo nice! Today was Attic day, I was so excited to see the girls as it's been two weeks since I have been able to go. Life has been full as of late. Going to the Attic is something that I so totally enjoy. Even when I hear grumblings. But really I don't hear many, seriously. I mean there are somedays when you hear more then others about not so great things. And sometimes I happen upon circumstances that I can assist with and that always makes for a good day. Amazing, what a phone call can do when someone has been trying for weeks to get a pay issue straightened out or a housing maintenance issue that seems beyond ridiculous has been going on for weeks, it's good to be able to help out, I like that :) 

I also enjoy hearing about experiences by way of conversation. Today a young Airmen met an Airmen of the Month board for the very first time. Hearing about his experience was awesome, he was so proud and excited and was very complimentary of his supervisor who had walked him through the process "took care of him" so to speak. He actually felt sorry for the other two candidates as their supervisors had not given them insights into the process and they were nervous and ill-prepared, he was gracious enough to share with them what he could as they were waiting. THAT is a GREAT WINGMAN, This young man will go far!

Another perk of being at the Attic is seeing all the babies. Today there were many, some with painted toes, it was adorable!

. These are pretty toes :)

Those toes belong to New York...isn't she adorable!

More adorable toes!!!

Those belong to Wyoming :)

Thoughts:

• I'm gonna miss this...
• Fall is coming, I know it!
• Proper supplies have been secured :)

Happy day to you, I'm fixing dinner, black bean soup, yummy!

Cookin'

Sometimes I feel like we never have "real" meals. MiB comes home late, I fix food but it's not IMO or his a "meal". Sooooo Friday I made him ham n' beans with fried potatoes and corn bread. He was in heaven. Then today I fixed tomato steak with boiled potatoes and corn, he was again in heaven. Food definitely speaks to this man :)

Tomato Steak :)

Honestly, I think at our age we just cannot eat this way so much anymore or it starts to show. I have been trying to take weight off not gain and eating these "meals" is hard on my efforts!

Life is good! Cooler temps have hit for a few days there is a touch of potential fall in the air!

Houston they have landed!!!!

Bud and LilBlue have arrived in Houston!

Welcome to Houston :)

We made it our hotel for tonight and met up with the Curtis Clan for dinner.

 

 CC arrival, they number 10 but were minus one!

We really, really like LaBrisa in Texas City. They have the VERY best margarita's ever, seriously, they do! And their bacon wrapped shrimp is to the most yummy, too!
 

 We left with very full bellies!

LilBlue was the only one who had a take home box, hope she shares with me tomorrow! :) YUMMERS, seriously some really good food and great conversations, always nice to see friends from way back when!

Little J the youngest YouTube fan I have ever known!

I might be afraid!

So I have an iPhone, I do like it and for the most part I know how to use it...I still learn new things on it ALL the time and I do really love it's capabilities. I do NOT like updating the iOS. Every single time I have done that there's been a glitch. Usually I nearly having a coronary and we end up spending way too much time trying to get it figured out. Thank goodness for my tech savvy MIB. There are other things I very much dislike about my phone! I do not like having to pay for a data plan AND a texting plan, I think that's a rip off but I like both features so I pay it every single month. Grrr

So why might I be afraid? Well you see, I have been getting this message on my phone about an expiration date...

I have of course googled it cause google IS the CIA you know! LOL Anyway this message may be an issue and I may or may not have a serious problem. I love the ambiguity! Boards, forums and yahoo answers are wonderful aren't they? So while we are off to the beach next week, I may or may not need to make a stop at the Apple store! In addition, IF we HAVE to make that trip to the Apple place do not fret for not all will be lost as SPRINKLES is just down the road  :) I will not be able to be that close and NOT go,. I am fearful as there could be s'mores cupcake in my future, or a lemon coconut, or pumpkin or carrot, oh geez, do you see how this could be bad? Very bad, just sayin'

It's hump day and the we are having couples night in the neighborhood, looking forward to it! Not to mention we are meeting up for the movies on Friday :) Maybe even have dinner first, these ENA (Eastside Neighborhood Association) folks are awesome!

Pass Over Dinner = Veggie Enchiladas

I bought quite a bit of produce last week and have eaten a lot, however, since we are going to be gone next week I am trying to clean out the fridge. I made a big pot of veggie soup on Friday. MiB loved that and we ate it Saturday and Sunday. I also made a big pan of roasted veggies that we ate on over the weekend as well. Then today I roasted another pan of veggies and made vegetarian enchilada's with homemade enchilada sauce. Before you think I am all that, I didn't realize until AFTER I was home that I did not have a can of enchilada sauce in the pantry. Soooo since I live in the boonies AND it's Monday and the commissary is closed I decided I would just have to make my own sauce. I've done that before so it wasn't that big of a stretch. But I didn't know where that recipe was, I sort of remembered what was in it and I googled it to refresh my memory and it was all good. It turned out yummy.

 My enchilada sauce...it turned out such a beautiful color and my oh my did it taste fabulous!

Vegetarian enchilada filling...tasty!

I wasn't  really planning for dinner to be anything more then dinner, but after some news late this afternoon, we decided to have a "pass over" dinner. Won't go into details but take it for what it's worth, once again we have been passed over, it is what it is. Honestly it is just making the decision to pick a date for the BIG R that much easier to do. Though I try to bear in mind, it's not about us...but sometimes it seems very personal. We shall see. Back to the enchiladas! They were tasty, though MiB says leave out the broccoli next time!

Right before they were popped in the oven, they looked so pretty!

They were filling and yummy and even though I would have preferred using corn tortilla's I did not because MiB prefers the flour. I hope to start using the whole grain flour ones but they aren't quite there on taste but they have come a long way from when we first tried them for sure.

 There were some leftovers which may be a tasty breakfast!

Hope your Monday was all it could be. I did get lots accomplished today which is good since tomorrow is a gone all day type a day, even part of the evening. I have to get packed for the beach and tie up some loose ends before we take off. Off to enjoy a little Olympics this evening! Go Team USA~

Food :0)

Italian and Chinese, I love them both! Dinner the last two nights respectively...

 

 We have enjoyed the fresh farmer's market tomatoes for several weeks now! I love this combo, not necessarily together every time but they are great anytime!

 Veggie fried brown rice and pork egg rolls.

They are so much work to make but they are oh so good. MiB was saying how much he would like egg rolls so I caved and got all the necessary ingredients to make them. It took a trip to two off base stores since the commissary did not have egg roll wrappers. First time that has happened in 26 years. They did have the frozen spring roll wrappers but I prefer the fresh egg roll wrappers that are traditionally found in the produce department. They were good, really good! I also double batched our favorite sweet and sour sauce for dipping. YUM. Tomorrow or the next day we will have the leftovers with Chinese corn chowder.

Going to bed now, it's been another busy day and neighborly night as we delivered two more plates of welcome brownies! We are filling up out here, woohoo! Night!

Thursday Thoughts

I had another melon... unfortunately, it was not as good as the first one. I am sooooo disappointed, but it is not going to waste, no siree, it certainly is not!

Red, red melon!

It was a pretty melon, even if it did not taste that great!

So today was another day of things, many things and we did them all, came home and then welcomed a couple new families to the neighborhood. One of our new families is NAVY. Fun, now we have NAVY, ARMY, Air Force and MARINES. It we could just get a Coastie in here we would be purple. It's fun to interact with our sister service folks. The little boy numbers in the neighborhood just rose by 9 in just a matter of weeks. That's incredible.The other family we did not yet officially welcome, I have to bake more cookies and brownies. This will be our third welcome this week!. It's certainly PCS season!

Thoughts:

• It's HOT, really HOT!
• I'm melting from this heat!
• Long days this week, ready for the weekend!
• Did I mention it's HOT?

Happy, happy boy!

MiB got a package that made his day! See a few weeks ago it was International Surf Day and he joined the Surfriders in honor of that day. He has been checking the front porch daily for his membership package swag. That day finally arrived and he is in heaven...

With some of the swag...

All smiles with the GoPro camera!

Other then play with all the goodies in the package today we went and hung out at the pool, which was quite enjoyable! That was only after MiB did a little SUPing and made an airport run.

Playing a little wallyball with the neighbors+1 kids

While at the pool Munsey neighbors showed up, we chatted, read and caught up! Nice to see them again and their boys had fun with MiB in the pool...Marco-----Polo!

We headed home for a late lunch then decided to take in a movie...People Like Us. Based on a true story, moved a little slow, but an enjoyable afternoon nonetheless. Since I needed a few things from the grocery we headed to base and realized we had missed the commissary by almost an hour. Geez, I really think 5 P.M. is too early to close but that is the weekend schedule. So now I will be making sure I get out the door first thing in the A.M. to get that chore out of the way. No worries, I didn't have to have anything this evening. We returned home to enjoy a simple dinner...frozen pizza doctored up a bit with onions on one and onion and home grown tomato on the other. DELICIOUS!!! I'm telling you, we are living the good life and it is so much fun.

Dinner :)

Ciao!

Lunch :)

After we hit up the local farmer's markets we had to have lunch utilizing some of our bounty.

YUM, YUM, YUM, that's all there is to ay about that!

LUNCH

Have a great day! We are off to a patriotic concert and a promotion party! It's a great Saturday in the BLUE!

Thursday Thoughts

HOT, hot, HOT that's what we got here in LA! Plenty of hotness, triple digits this entire week, I am not a fan of heat as with heat comes humidity and with humidity comes bad hair days for Mrs Blue! Heat is NOT my friend!

However, with summer brings the farmer's market and while I have not made it to the big one downtown I did score some great melons at the supermarket. Price was awesome at .98c a piece! I took some in my lunch today :)

 My melons, I cut two, one was way better then the other, but both edible!

It's ALS graduation tonight, I have a BIG to do list so I need to motor, have a stellar day. Say a prayer for USAFA and surrounding area as the wild fires are still a HUGE concern. We still have many, many good friends there!

Baked Kale Chips...YES, indeed

They may not be for everyone, but I liked 'em! 

I first saw them on another board I read and then I pinned them and finally I tried them.

I sort of followed the recipe but then I added to it my own twist in the second batch.
 

 

 My .84c batch of kale!

I washed up the kale, then ripped it up into bite size pieces.

I then followed the recipe I had found for the first batch...oiled it up a little with olive oil, used ground black pepper and sea salt then popped it in a slow oven. Turned them a few times during the cooking or more like rescattered them around to make sure they weren't sticking or getting too done on one side.

 All done and very yummy.

On my second batch I added balsamic vinegar and they were very tasty, I mixed the two batched together and they were totally awesome tasting. MiB enjoyed a few and so did his folks. Not something I want/need all the time but definitely a tasty alternative and yes they were crunchy, some more then others but there was a crunch to them! You can google it and come up with all kinds of other ideas and tips if you want to make these yourself!

Until next time :)

FlashBack

Some things never change...or they change very little. That was the case this weekend. You see, back in the day MiB and his family were stationed here. This weekend MiBs parents are here and we took them all around BAFB and well, things have not really changed. We took them by where their house used to be, we even found the old work center. Also drove them by the elementary school that MiB went to and has some very vivid memories from.

Tried a new restaurant, since we had family in town...won't need to go again. Sad, seems to be the case for many of our food outings here. I don't mind; I prefer eating at home, I really do! But I enjoy a meal out once in a while, but I like a GOOD meal! We did had awesome grilled steaks, baked sweet potatoes, baked beans and wonderful good rolls and salad this evening, right here at home :) No doubt about it a great meal! I am excited about a new Chinese place I have heard about and we will be trying soon! I will keep you posted!

Our weekend has been fun, reminiscing and reliving the "ole days" here. We have been eating again way too much, ugh! Strawberry shortcake tonight! I know, I need to just say NO!

Bowls of Fun!!

Last night we had a really fun time at the EMPTY BOWLS event. Soup was yummers. My fav was the potato leek, I think that is what MiB liked best as well. I also enjoyed the meatball, I did not try the shrimp bisque, I wanted to, I just couldn't get past the smell. There was also a sausage gumbo that I did not try, looked spicy! I did not have a roll, but have it on good authority they were superb! I can tell you that what appeared to be blueberry cheesecake was NOT :( and that the carrot cake was average . There was also a raspberry or strawberry layer cake that was okay. Yes, that is three desserts I tried...enough said.

 

Ms M with her dessert!

The silent auction was fun, we bid on several things, came home with none. However, we did win one of the fish bowl raffle tickets. We were going to do the wine pull, but in light of the fact that my BiL just beefed up our supply for us by stopping at Aldi  before he came this last visit we are really set on wine for many days to come :) It would have been fun, for $10 you pulled a wrapped bottle and you may get a bottle valued at $6-$80.

Wine pulled and ended up with $75/bottle of wine!!

A fun thing they let us do was to pick out an empty bowl to bring home...I really liked the ones I found! The little red one came with the raffle that we won!

Our bowls!

As they were doing the fish bowl raffle I was not feeling like we had a chance and the ones I had my eye on were already gone so when the Subway one was getting ready to be given away MiB says "this is ours" and it was! LOL He is a Subway fan for sure and it's definitely better then some of the other places he chooses for lunch so I know he will enjoy that gift card! Can't wait to try the marinade, roasted garlic chardonnay! Sounds wonderful.

Raffle winner!!!!

Thursday Thoughts

Yep, more company's a comin', EXERCISE, EXERCISE, EXERCISE, Empty Bowls tonight ...it's been a week!

 Looking forward to this tonight :)

It's been very warm too but we did get a bit of rain :) Much needed!!! Unfortunately it appears to be shaping up as a HOT one on the horizon if the last few weeks are any indication of what's to come.

I gotta run, lots to do before the sunsets tonight! Have a great Thursday!

Thoughts:

• Ms H is going to be missed :(
• I want some good Chinese food!
• Ready to do some farmer marketing!
• Love hittin' the pool in the afternoon.
• Insurance paperwork is REALLY killing me!

Later :)