Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Weekend of Celebrations

Hey y'all!  (I wish I could say y'all in real life.  It might be worth moving down South just so I could say y'all.)

I have a bunch of random things to throw together in this post.  First up:  my new favorite breakfast combo:


Scrambled eggs with salsa.  I microwaved a leftover soft taco shell for about 10 seconds, topped it with 2 scrambled eggs, and added some Trader Joe's salsa.  SO good!  With a juicy peach and a cappuccino on the side, this was an amazing brunch.


I put together that brunch after my visit to the farmers' market last weekend.  I love that they have live music there!  So fun.


This time I picked up a pound of organic spinach for myself.


This should last me through the week!


This weekend I got my craft on.  My grandma's birthday was on Saturday, so I made her a birthday card.


My mom's really good friend is an expert card maker - she creates the best designs and her cards always look fantastic.  I think it's so special to receive a handmade card from someone.  My mom's friend taught us the basics of card-making when I was younger, and we have a huge stash of card stock and matching envelopes, stamps, ink pads, confetti, etc., so I rifled through our supplies and put this card together.


I stamped some birthday candles on the inside, too, and glued a piece of birthday cake confetti to the envelope.  I love when I have some time to work on a little craft like this.  My sister got the real creative/ artistic genes, but I like to dabble once in awhile.

I gave my grandma a copy of The Pioneer Woman's book From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story, which I read a couple of months ago and absolutely loved.


Since Sunday was Father's Day, I also made a card for my dad.


I downloaded a free card design from this website and then used double-sided tape to attach it to some heavier card stock so that it would look a little nicer and more polished.  And then for one of my all-time favorite gifts:


I got my dad Snoop Dogg's voice for his GPS.  My dad loves Snoop Dogg, so when I heard that you could download his voice for a TomTom GPS, I knew I had to get it for my dad.  It's so hilarious!  I'm not sure I would actually be able to use it for directions because I'd be laughing too hard, but it's a lot of fun.

On Sunday night, we went out for a really nice family dinner at Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse to celebrate my grandma's birthday.  I ordered the chicken Milanese, which was described as crispy romano-crusted chicken in a white wine caper sauce.  My eyes bugged out of my head when they brought my plate and I saw that I had not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR chicken breasts.  Um, whoa.  So I ate one that night, and it was delicious.  I also had some amazing steamed asparagus, and very yummy bourbon maple whipped sweet potatoes with caramelized marshmallows on top.


And I had three chicken breasts to take home with me.  An unnecessarily large portion, but at least I have lots of leftovers for lunch this week!

Yesterday I made an epic salad.  I used some of the spinach I got from the farmers' market, and topped it with a chicken breast, asparagus, Trader Joe's marinated artichoke hearts, sliced almonds, and zesty Italian dressing.  So.  Unbelievably.  Good.


I will be having this again today... and tomorrow :)

One last thing before I go - yesterday I was outside and heard something which I thought was a little prop plane or something, but it kept getting louder and louder and then I saw the Goodyear blimp fly right overhead!


Things always look further away in photos, but this seemed super close in person.  I'm sure that whoever was inside could see me gaping and running around the yard to get pictures, haha.


Well, I think that's enough random updates for today.  See ya later!

Song of the day:

"Lovely and Blue" by Ryan Adams & the Cardinals.  There's something slightly dark and sinister about this song that I really like.


6 comments:

  1. I love eggs with salsa! Suggestion: add some arugula, I love it with scrambled eggs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooh, that sounds good, I love adding spinach to scrambled eggs; I'll have to try arugula!

      Delete
  2. Love the home made cards! Such a sweet thing to do for someone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jess! I really appreciate receiving homemade cards, so I love to make them for other people when I can!

      Delete
  3. Hi! I've been reading your blog, and I was wondering how you keep spinach for a week! I buy a bag of spinach from the grocery store, and it seems like it starts to go slimy after 3 days, but I like to put it in my smoothies every morning. Do you prepare it specially?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jen! Thanks for reading :) Ah, I hate it when spinach gets slimy!! When I buy bagged spinach (which is what I usually do), I don't really do anything special with it. I try to keep it in one of the drawers in my fridge which seems to help it stay fresh and crisp a little longer. When I buy non-bagged spinach, I wash it and then put it in Ziploc bags with layers of damp paper towels to help keep it from wilting, and I always squeeze out most of the air from the bag before closing it and putting it in the fridge (again, preferably in a drawer). If you do those things and you still have trouble with your spinach, I would suggest freezing some of it specifically for smoothies. This obviously won't work if you want to eat it in a salad, but it will definitely work for adding to your smoothies. Hope this helps!

      Delete