You make me happy to be alive!

I picniked a few picture with the lyrics to what has become kind of Lee and I's song... Firefly by Jimmy Needham.
His new album is coming out soon & we're both really excited... we're planning on listening to it the entire way to my parent's house... a 10 hr drive. haha

Home cooking!

I'm still cooking.... every single day in fact, I just haven't been updating as much.. and this summer I'm afraid there's going to be less updates for this housewife, considering my house is being taken away.  But as of now I've made a few things lately that I'm pretty proud of!

1.  Jerk Chicken and Fruit Salsa Sub!  This is my very favorite sandwich.  They serve it at the Owl here and Lee and I love it so I decided to try to make my own version and it came out very successful if I do say so myself :)
To make the salsa I cut up
tomato, red bell pepper, watermelon, and cantaloupe -put it in a jar with some vinegar and honey and shook it up really good and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours.
For the chicken I just used a packet of jerk seasoning I got at the grocery store and mixed it with some soy sauce, lime, and oil. 

2.  Pumpkin soup and cream cheese sandwiches - pumpkin soup is a new addition to my cooking rotation, appearing about once a month... replacing tomato soup, which I like and Lee doesn't so much.  Some days I just really feel like soup and a sandwich!  When I made the soup I had planned on just having grilled cheese, but then I felt like something different so I googled sandwiches made with cream cheese and found one that "Kids Love!" haha sound like Lee and I so I made it & we did love it!  It's cream cheese with cucumber, carrot, and apple cut up in it & you could add nuts but we didn't have any.
ps. note my little cactus display and my magazine basket I made :)

3.  Texas Road House night!
Ok so the only thing that resembled Texas Roadhouse this night was the steak and cinnamon butter...  but it was still good, and you gotta make do with what you have!  We had, steak, potatoes, corn, and cornbread.  I forgot to buy rolls at the store so we ended up having cornbread that I made on the stove top... it turned out delicious, just a little stuck to the pan... and the cinnamon butter was soooooo good. I think I want some right now...
I just melted some butter with a little honey and stirred in cinnamon & put it back in the fridge to get a little harder again.
For the steak I actually marinated it in Italian dressing and soy sauce... some recipe I found online & it was great! not quite as great as Roadhouse, but close. 

and for some reason the photo is rotated the wrong way... how do I fix this?? anyway, you get the gist.

So...now I'm off to find something interesting to make for dinner tomorrow night!

a real housewife

I've been getting more and more house-wife-y/mother-ish as time goes on....
I notice myself doing things I can't believe I'm doing. 

For example, right now I am up at 7 on a Sunday so I can do laundry... we have scheduled laundry times once a week (to conserve water b/c of the drought) and I initially signed up for Saturday night 10-1am, because lets face it, I couldn't remember a time when I went to bed before 1am... but lately I've been going to bed early and getting up super early! it's very unlike me!  Yesterday I got up at 7am to go running before the heat of the day (which at 7 it's still too hot I found) so last night I was tired by 11 and went to sleep, having only done one load of laundry.  I knew no one was signed up for laundry this morning so I figured I could get mine done before church and I am.

There are lots of other things I've been doing & thought oh man that was just like my mom! like:

• The way I do dishes and clean things... I've been using my fingers a lot more.  I can remember watching my mom scrap food off of a plate with her fingers and thinking how gross it looked & the other day I was doing dishes and there was stuff left on a plate and I just started gathering up all the goop with my hands rather than finding a spoon or something to use & after I did it I thought.... why did I do that & why didn't it gross me out more?? 
• Raw ground beef... I hate to touch ground beef.  I used to find any way of making a hamburger patty without actually touching the raw meet & now I just dig my hands in there and squish it up. yuck. 
• Cooking new & unusual things & then eating it too! 
• Getting excited over new pots and pans

I'm really getting sad about leaving Grenada for the summer, mainly because Lee and I will be staying with family for almost 3 months and won't have our own little place.  I like it just the two of us and having complete control over the kitchen and what we eat and when and what we do... Lee's family eats dinner together every night & I just think it will be weird for Lee to come home from work and the entire family sits down for dinner that his mom cooked.... but I also think it would be weird to stay in the basement while they eat & then cook a separate meal for the two of us.  I guess I'll cook dinner sometimes for the family.... and Lee will probably have to work late some days.
I just know I am so excited to move into our apartment for next term!! Our first REAL apartment with a full kitchen and everything!  but then once we're finished in Grenada..... we're moving in with my parents for a while until Lee's clinical rotations start & so that will be weird all over again.... not so much for me, but probably for Lee. uugggghhhh medical school.
at least we'll be together :)

Q & A

I've been a little MIA in the blogging world lately... I've just been so busy!  But I think this Q&A is just what I needed to to jump start some more blogging!!

My sister Amanda posted this on her blog today, and she has had some really great posts lately, so check it out if  you need something to make you smile.... :)

You can copy and paste these questions and answer them on your own blog!

1. When do you feel happiest?

2. How do you take care of yourself?

3. Are you internally (by yourself) or externally (by others) motivated?

4. What do you do for fun?

5. What intimidates you?

6. What is something you're proud of?

7. Finish this sentence. I never _____________.

8. Favorite vacation spot.

9. Today is a (rate from 1 - 10).

10. Finish this sentence. If you knew me really well you'd know _____________.

 

My Answers!

1. When do you feel happiest?

 I feel happiest when I am with Lee and neither of us has something else to do or anything to worry about... the feeling we had on our honeymoon and will hopefully have when this semester is over and we have a few days to ourselves before we fly back to Toronto. I also feel happiest when I do something that impresses Lee or he is proud of, which isn't too hard to do actually...

2. How do you take care of yourself?

In Grenada -sunscreen and smoothies :) and prayer, thank you Jesus I don't have to do it all on my own or depend on myself too much

3. Are you internally (by yourself) or externally (by others) motivated?

I am mostly internally motivated when it comes to things like reaching a goal, something that makes me happy, but I am externally motivated for things like -working.  I only need a job to have money.

4. What do you do for fun?

for fun... I like to go snorkeling and take pictures and watch movies and blog and draw  anda anything creative.

5. What intimidates you?

I am a bit intimidated by people who have very different opinions or beliefs than me... I never know what to say because I don't want to offend anyone, but I also don't want to cover up who I am or what I think... and I also don't want to not be friends with someone just because we don't agree on everything... it's tough.

6. What is something you're proud of?

I am proud of myself for finishing all my requirements for college in less than 4 years with a 3.7 gpa... even though I changed my major like 4 times.  I am proud that I allowed myself to go into a creative field that I love rather than settling for something else just because other people thought I should.  I am proud that I married such a wonderful man and didn't settle there either.  I am so proud of Lee for getting into medical school & doing so well and I am proud that I have been able to help him reach this goal and can make life a little easier on him when I can. 

7. Finish this sentence. I never _____________.

I never smoked a cigarette, even though truthfully I have wanted to. and I often tell Lee when I am stressed that I need a cigarette and he gets really super angry, lol. I'd probably die from it immediately, I'm very sensitive.

8. Favorite vacation spot.

Cozumel, Mexico... because it was where we honeymooned and it was the most perfect week of my life.  But hopefully in the future Grenada will be our vacation spot... it's prettier than Cozumel

9. Today is a (rate from 1 - 10).

today was an 8.  I slept until almost 10oclock -which is late for me now!! and I stayed home all morning (which is also rare!) drawing in my sketchbook and watching Dexter & got to be here when Lee came home for lunch & made us grilled cheese . At 2:30  I went to Limes.  Limes was pretty good today... the kids were wild and crazy, but I had a small group of 1st & 2nd graders and taught them what rhyming words were (they didn't know before) and we rhymed tons of words and had lots of fun! I then came home and made dinner - Chick-fil-a chicken sandwiches and potatoes, I even made my own homemade honey mustard with honey, mayo, mustard, vinegar, and sweetened condensed milk & it tasted like Tim Horton's!! -today was only an 8 because it was incredibly hot & I was no where near the water all day and didn't get to see Lee much. He's at a study session now & when he gets home he'll study for a few more hours :(

10. Finish this sentence. If you knew me really well you'd know _____________.
I am a pack rat.  I love stuff. stuff stuff and more stuff! It's surprising all the things I've accumulated here.... shells, sea fans, branches, tin cans, cacti, magazines, toilet paper rolls........... yea.

 

Pumpkin Soup

Last week a friend and I went downtown and ended up at the smoothie shop, I have yet to go to St. George's without a stop there... it's so hot outside and smoothies are so refreshing!! but they also serve different soups for lunch (not quite as refreshing in the heat..) it was only 10:30 but my friend Chris is almost 9 months pregnant so it was lunch time, we asked if we could have a taste of the pumpkin soup because I had heard it was good... and it was! 
A couple days later I was in the grocery store and they had several chunks of pumpkin in the produce section, and it was really cheap! so I asked the lady who was putting the produce out how to make pumpkin soup.. and she replied in very Grenadian fashion with something like "just cut it up, boil it and add spices"
ok... so that's what I did! and then improvised... I added onions for flavor and after it had cooked for a while and was looking pretty thin I decided to add a little cream cheese and milk to thicken it and make it a little richer, and it was delicious!  Lee liked it and he was very skeptical about the pumpkin soup...
I got enough pumpkin to make a pot of soup for $4EC! that's like $1.50!
I found a website with several different recipes and I want to try a couple of them whenever the store gets more pumpkin in!  http://www.mom-mom.com/pumpkin_soup_recipes.htm
Hopefully pumpkin soup will become an autumn staple in our family.... or at least around the holidays!
I took a picture... but it doesn't do it justice, it just looks like baby food :)

Addiction

In case you haven't noticed I have a very addictive personality. 
foods, candy, shows, people, places..... I change my addictions a lot, but I am easily hooked.  Another excellent reason for why I don't drink... and that I had an alcoholic Grandfather.
Everything else: My anti-drug.
example: smoothies. Before coming to Grenada I was not a smoothie drinker. milkshakes yes, smoothies no.  I was convinced by someone to try one and it was instantly obsessed. How had I been missing out on this amazingly refreshing drink my entire life??
other examples over the past few years: cinnamon crunch bagels from Panera, crispy chicken sandwiches from Wendys, Heroes, Prison Break, Project Runway, Sour Gummy Worms, Facebook, blogging, bathing suits, dresses, our wedding, making christmas ornaments, making necklaces, goodwill, running....
life long addictions include but are not limited to: sweet tea, magazines (and I can't throw them away... so I have thousands at my parents house), pizza, shoes, and Lee.

My entire family suffers from addictions, thankfully none are too self destructive at this point - except my Dad is/was addicted to Pepsi and chocolate, so severely he got diabetes.  We're talking constant pop drinking and numerous candy bars a day.... seriously, and this happened after he quit smoking. sugar filled the void.  He is also fully absorbed in fantasy football, Ebay, and downloading off the wall music.  hours upon hours are spent in front of the computer dealing with his ebay business, football research, and music....their computer's memory is completly full and he probably has a 1000 burnt CDs laying around. he's retired so I guess it's ok. In the spring he gets obsessed with the yard... planting flowers and a garden that never quite turns out as planned.  He used to be completely obsessed with his chickens, but I think they've taken the back row now.  My Dad is pretty funny actually.... everyone is always saying he's so 'interesting'.  and he really is, and at almost 23years old I still believe that my father knows everything. except when to stop eating candy.
My mom... changes, but she is definitely hooked on Coke-a-Cola and buying useless items (I should talk.)
My brother is addicted to mainly politics and sports. My mom calls him a radical conservative.
My oldest sister is addicted to Starbucks, Sonic happy hour, and living a 'green' lifestyle -which is good.
My other sister has several too... buying clothes for her daughters, pizza, trying to find ways to change her hair, re-organizing rooms or taking on huge projects at midnight, house shopping/moving -she's been married 9 years and has lived in about 7 different places, buying the majority of these houses.
My oldest brother loves to fish, he fishes a lot... and he likes to be in charge.

My Uncles all have odd little addictions too -vitamins, antiques, hunting, genealogy...

We are definitely a family who take hobbies and interests to an extreme.

Which brings me to my latest..... online window shopping.  We have no money, so I can't shop, but I love to look and 'snip' things I like and re look at them over and over and over............ it would be a problem, except I have nothing else for this to interfere with. So I thought I'd share a few things that I wish were in my closet right now....

and I want these dishes more than anything.... can you believe they're from Target!? :(

bad housewife ?

I feel like I've been a bad housewife lately...
I was sick for a good week straight & didn't do much...  & I just get so busy doing other things & come home and am so exhausted I don't want to cook or do dishes!
I even have a maid that does the cleaning! and we are banned from doing laundry monday-friday because of the drought so I don't even have to do that until Saturday!
but I still dread the thought of dishes!!!!!!!!!!
yesterday was unusually bad........
we went on a trip with the SOs about an hour away, and spent the entire day in the sun and heat & then on the way back our bus over heated and we had to stop and it was hot and riding a bus over mountains is no fun so I didn't feel great and I came home and realized that we had NO clean plates and our only skillet was dirty. no clean dishes=no dinner.
It's not that big of a deal for us to have no clean plates because we only own 6.
so I was whining to Lee about the dishes (I'm ok to admit that I whine sometimes) and he said "it's ok, you've had a rough day, go get chinese food from the bus stop"
yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
I have the best husband.
and even better... later that night HE did the dishes :)
he loves me too much.

I'm usually not that bad, I typically do the dishes twice a day because we have so few they all get dirty quickly, but yesterday, I was through with dishes. and got a delicious dinner out of it.

Today I cooked beef and noodles for dinner, a first since being in Grenada.  I found beef tips pretty cheap at the store so I thought I'd give them a go... I left them on low cooking while I went to the grocery today and when the housekeeper came she turned it off so they didn't cook quite as much as I would have liked, but still turned out good.  I had planned on making mashed potatoes too, but once again, the only pot I own had the beef and noodles cooking in it. ugh.
and later after dinner I made us peanut butter milkshakes with our new blender :)

In other news, I paid the deposit for our apartment today!! yay for a place with an oven and pots and pans!