New Goodies Next Week

Just a quick note to let you all know that I'll be adding a lot of new sets and ruffle diaper covers as well as a few rufflers. So stop buy the shop next week to check them out.

A Review: Fondue Pot

I told you how I was going to get to review a new fondue from csnstores.com pot a while ago. Well, I finally was able to round up meat eating friends to test it out. We did it when all my company was in town so we ended up needing to use both the new and old pot which really made the differences and the goodness of the new one stand out.

Rival 3 Quart Stainless Steel Fondue Pot
First off I absolutely love it. I'd recommend this fondue pot to anyone. It's large but I didn't fill it and it still worked fine so I think even if you weren't looking for such a large capacity it would still be good. Using it next to my old fondue pot which I liked a lot and used for many years I loved this this new one so much more. Here's my break down.
Pros

• It's electric. This means no running to the store last minute because you're out of sterno or fuel and no need to pre-heat the oil on the stove or re-heat the oil durring the meal to keep the temp up. We re-heated the old (sterno) pot multiple times during the meal while the new one maintained heat strong the whole time.
• It's big. We can feed more people at once. We probably could have all used the one pot but the shape of our table would have made the reaching super awkward.
• Adjustable temperatures. Unlike the sterno/fuel style pots if it's too hot you can turn it down if things are cooking too slow you can turn it up, this was awesome.

Cons

• The plug is really short maybe 1 foot and it says not to use it with an extension cord but I don't know how on earth you'd use it without one. People couldn't fit around the pot with it that close to a wall outlet and the outlet would have to be in the middle of the wall. 

If you have any questions let me know. I just have nothing but good reports on this fondue pot so if you were thinking of getting one I definitely recommend this one.

Fitness Journal: Week 1

Some years ago I lost a bunch of weight by working out a lot and eating like half a cup of soup for meals it was never unhealthy or obsessive numbers but it wasn't pleasant, at all. After I got married, got on birth control, ate almost every meal with a boy and just got older I gained back some weight. I want to get it off but I don't want to forfeit my love for food and cooking so I don't plan on losing the weight the same way as I did before. So now with the help of my trainers at Workman Multisport Institute I'm ready to do it again. yeah I've been working out with trainers for a year now and not lost weight but I haven't had my food in check and I didn't do all the cardio they told me to. I have learned how to run and gotten way stronger and more skilled in exercising but I decided it was time I got myself in check.

There's lots of reasons why I want to get back in shape, a thinner shape.
1) I've got a ton of cute clothes that do not fit, I want to wear those.
2) I don't like seeing pictures of myself so I've shyed away from documenting stuff, well at least taking pics with me in them and I hate that
3) I think I'd like to try to have kids in the near future and I don't want to be that person who people can tell if she's pregnant or just chubby (just being honest).

So I'm going to try to report weight loss/fitness related info once a week.

Weight:
7/21/2010 153. something
7/27/2010 151.2 (woohoo)
by the way I'm 5'5' I'm barely overweight on BMI things but I've got a small build (small hands and feet) so I really do need to get rid of some of this extra weight.

Nutrition Breakdown:
Calories ave. 1392 cal (1600 cal)
Carb ave. 158g (200g)
Protein ave. 55g (70g)
Fat ave. 65g (58)

Exercise:
W Strength and Conditioning class at WMI
H Swim Drills
F Biked for 60 mins
S Swimming 45 minutes
S Day Off
M Strength and Conditioning class at WMI
T Running Group (a little less than 5K)

(the chart  is my food log, yup every little thing I put in my mouth. If you click on it it'll get bigger, you can click on it twice to make it legible)

Rae Gun Finds: Harry Potter Birthday

(patronus poster from 3lambsgraphics)
Harry Potter's Birthday is July 31st. Yes I'm having a party to celebrate. Yes I'm obsessed with all things Potter. So in celebration of Harry's birthday week I present a few of my favorite Potter inspired goodies from Etsy. Also I'm still trying to figure my menu and decorations so if you have any fun ideas for food or decor let me know.

1. Marauder's Map tee
2. Liquid Luck necklace
3. Gryffindor hair clips
4. Hogwarts class ring ( I want this SOOO bad)
5. Harry Head earrings
6. Charm Necklace
7. Hogwarts Decal
8. Expecto Patronum charm
9. Harry Hat

What's for Dinner: Week 44

 (Pasta Salad oh so yummy)

For those of you are new  to my blog I write these weekly plans to help me spend less (I kinda of love grocery shopping, yea I know I'm weird), to save time and to try and help us eat in more often. Also I love knowing what other people eat so I thought it would be fun to share. For a while I'll be adding my plans for what greens I'll be eating since one of my resolutions is to build a habit of introducing more green veggies into our diet. Maybe some day it'll be so normal for us that I won't have to mention them any more.

We ate out a couple times last week. I've been dying to make empanadas and potstickers from scratch but I keep on thinking I need get ahead on the sewing stuff first before I take some time for time consuming cooking. Soon though hopefully.

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Fancy Ramen	Grains and nuts: Sandwich bread, pasta Veggies: salad, zuccs, carrots Fish: fish
Monday	Cajun Fish with Cheesy Corn Potatoes
Tuesday	Steak and Pasta Salad
Wednesday	Grilled Chicken and Veggies with Rice
Thursday	Eat Out
Friday	Lemon Pasta with Panko Pork
Saturday	Homemade Pizza

Customer Appreciation Pic: Lady in Pearls

 

When this little one's mama sent me the link to this headband looking to match it I thought this polkda dot and hot pink number would be perfect. And seriously the combo looks cuter than I could have ever imagined. How stinking creative and adorable Although I have to admit this little gal could probably make anything stunning look at that sweet face.

Gosh she's so cute and the photos are so fabulous. Oh yes, I do love customer appreciation pictures. Yes I do.

Show and Tell: Fourth of July 2010

Despite being immensely stressful with the fire and houseful of people we had a lovely fourth of July. Luckily for the girls I had made their red, white and blues early (so unlike me haha). It's probably the last year one of them could pull off wearing one of my rufflers and my sister thought Tira looked too old last year so... At the BBQ Lanna told me to look at her dress (yeah I know it's not really a dress) and that mommy picked it out. I quickly corrected her and said that mommy did not pick it out, rather, aunty made it and told mommy to put it on her. At least she liked it right?

I love love love how Tira's turned out. I think it's way cuter in person, not to mention that she was happily running around with the bigger kids non-stop so I couldn't really get the best picture of it. I love how hers works for the 4th (and Pioneer Day for us in Utah) as well as every other day without looking too holiday-ish. I'll add it to the shop with my next update whenever I don't feel like my heads going to explode from having a hundred thousand things to do and worry about. So there you go Fourth of July.

What's for Dinner: Week 43

(Grilled Fish and Zuccs it was so  yummy and healthy too)

For those of you are new  to my blog I write these weekly plans to help me spend less (I kinda of love grocery shopping, yea I know I'm weird), to save time and to try and help us eat in more often. Also I love knowing what other people eat so I thought it would be fun to share. For a while I'll be adding my plans for what greens I'll be eating since one of my resolutions is to build a habit of introducing more green veggies into our diet. Maybe some day it'll be so normal for us that I won't have to mention them any more.

I had a great eating week. I'll post my log soon. Tonight I'm going to be trying out this recipe for the musicmaker's birthday dessert and I've got everything to whip up a batch of rice crispies later in the week I haven't had those in forever.

I'm a little obsessed with my new grill pan, I made the fish and zucchini above on it.  We decided not to get a grill this year since it would be one more thing that I'd probably try and perfect and I've already got plenty on my plate so this was my compromise and I couldn't be happier.

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Hubby's Birthday dinner observed with family	Grains and nuts: Sandwich bread, pasta Veggies: salad, zuccs, carrots Fish: fish
Monday	Sewing Girls BBQ
Tuesday	Steak Salad (missed this last week)
Wednesday	Taco Mac and Cheese
Thursday	Cajun Fish with Cheesy Corn Potatoes
Friday	Greek Style Chicken Grilled Veggies and Rice
Saturday	Homemade Pizza

Give Me Your Best Picnic Ideas

I'm so excited to be going to watch Ben Folds play with the Utah Synphony to celebrate the musicmaker's birthday this weekend. After all the house headache and constantly being surrounded by people or trying to make up for lost time in work I'm so looking forward to a little relaxing time with my hubby.

The concert outside on a ski slope, so it's picnic styles. I kinda want it to be special so send  me any ideas. What are your favorite foods to take on a picnic, it's just us two so really up game for anything. I'm happy to put some work in it too since it's a special event. We also have to get there 2 hours before the performance starts to get decent seats so any ideas on things we should bring? Any ways thanks in advance.

Life: Fire and Flood...fun times

So here's the reason blogging has been minimal. We had a fire in our laundry room. I've told the story so many times since it was right before fourth of July and we saw so many people that weekend so here's my bullet list from that experience.

 What Happened

• The electrical outlet for the dryer caught fire while we were doing a load of laundry. I smelled burning, opened the laundry room door, saw smoke, heard popping, called hubby and he said it's a fire call 911 
• We were really lucky to have a houseful of house guest since each of us did something that helped minimize the damage
• The firemen were giant and kept saying "you were so lucky" and "this could have spread really really fast" and the best comment "this could have been a good one for us" followed by "the last fire like this I was crawling on my stomach with smoke everywhere and the tv melting around me" in too excited of a tone
• It's really weird to here fire sirens and know they are coming for you
• The clean up process is insane and still on going (I should have taken pics of that)
• Smoke was everywhere even though we didn't realize it until we left the house. They had to send people to whip down every service (I had no idea how far smoke would travel -it got our entire first floor and into our vents and I think we caught it fast) They had this magic air filter that we had to run all night that helped but we also needed to get all our ducts

Lessons Learned

• if you don't have an extinguisher go get one now please, I ran door to door and NONE of my neighbors had one. I swear it was on my shopping list ever since we moved in but I kept forgetting. If you don't have one make a special trip to go get one (or a set at costco)
• if it's an electrical fire turn off the power (we were really lucky that we thought to do this it helped a lot)
• electrical fires (or minor grease fires) you can throw baking soda on to try to help, we didn't do that because the 911 woman would only say evacuate and refused to confirm the baking soda thing
• we opened all the doors and windows and didn't run the air conditioning (which we couldn't since the power was out) but that helped to minimize smoke damage. But let me tell you even with our stuff which they sad was very minimal damage the cleanup is not over we had people in the house for a week all day and they still need to clean all the fabrics and floors.
• NEVER run the appliances when you're not home or asleep. We probably would have lost the WHOLE HOME if we did what we normally do and left while the last load was drying.

 And after we had sorted at least all the appointments to get all the fire related stuff taken care of we discovered that our basement shower was flooding through the walls and floor into the adjoining room. It's totally installed wrong so if there is the smallest backup in the drain instead of pooling around your feet the water spread through the floor out the grout and through the wall. AHHHHH and we don't think the insurance is going to cover any of that. We basically need to remodel the whole shower.

Everyone is safe and healthy so we're incredibly grateful for that and for the fact that our friends were here to help with the fire and to use the downstairs bathroom to find out we had such a huge problem. But we're quite mad at the previous owners. They did a lot of work themselves on this place a lot of really crappy work. We had it inspected but I think a lot of the problems were deeper. It's just a royal pain in the butt to take care of all of this on top of the huge cost it's going to be in the end but we're really hoping this is the last of major home issues for a while.

We're mostly back to normal except for of course still having people in and out to assess, fix, and so on. Anyways that's what's been going on, luckily most of my customers have been super awesome and understanding.

Treasury Love: Etsy Kids Color

(click here to see a bigger/clearer/clickable view)

I love this fabulous collection of goodies from fellow EtsyKid members that Our Little Messes put together. If you're not familiar with Etsy Treasuries they are collections that members put together of various items that they like that are available on etsy. They also happen to be the pool from which the front page collections are usually pulled from. If you're ever bored it's fun to flip through them for a little eye candy. Anyways I really loved this one so I wanted to share it with you guys. Visit it up close here.

What's for Dinner: Week 42

(Daniel Roger's smoked goodness that we ate this weekend)

For those of you are new  to my blog I write these weekly plans to help me spend less (I kinda of love grocery shopping, yea I know I'm weird), to save time and to try and help us eat in more often. Also I love knowing what other people eat so I thought it would be fun to share. For a while I'll be adding my plans for what greens I'll be eating since one of my resolutions is to build a habit of introducing more green veggies into our diet. Maybe some day it'll be so normal for us that I won't have to mention them any more.

Sorry for the lack of posting last week. There were just way more pressing items that needed my attention. I'm hoping that most of the house drama will be over soon but I think (hope) the most urgent matters are over with now so back to some normalcy. I need to get my butt in gear so I'm going back to logging everything that goes into my mouth and any exercise I do and I'm thinking that I may post it here, for accountability sake and for nosey folk like me (I always love to see what other people do food/exercise-wise). So here's to a fresh start.

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Not feeling hungry maybe we'll just munch	Grains and nuts: Sandwich bread, Veggies: salad, zuccs, peas, stir fry Fish: fish
Monday	Chicken and Two Potatoes
Tuesday	Eat Out
Wednesday	Steak Salad
Thursday	Bangers and Mash and Peas
Friday	Grilled Fish and Zuccs
Saturday	Picnic Dinner

What's for Dinner: Week 41

(First harvest of cherries from the tree, turns out they're not rainiers)

For those of you are new  to my blog I write these weekly plans to help me spend less (I kinda of love grocery shopping, yea I know I'm weird), to save time and to try and help us eat in more often. Also I love knowing what other people eat so I thought it would be fun to share. For a while I'll be adding my plans for what greens I'll be eating since one of my resolutions is to build a habit of introducing more green veggies into our diet. Maybe some day it'll be so normal for us that I won't have to mention them any more.

I'm exhausted. I'm going to summarize this last week up in three words -company, fire and parties. Yup we had a fire but I'll post about that later, but yes everyone is safe. Needless to say I was already expecting to be worn out by the number of get-to-gethers and just from having visitors but the fire has rocked me I feel like I could use a couple days of extra sleep just to get my energy normal, but that's not happening for a while. So I'll just try and eat a bit healthier.

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Ate out	Grains and nuts: Sandwich bread, brown rice Veggies: salad, zuccs, peas, stir fry Fish: shrimp
Monday	Fondue, potatoes and peas
Tuesday	Fish Burritos
Wednesday	Campanelli
Thursday	Steak Salad
Friday	Veggie, Shrimp and Meat Stir Fry
Saturday	Stuffed Shells

Customer Appreciation Pic: Happy Fourth of July

Oh my have things been eventful here but for now I'm just going to share this precious picture I received from a customer and wish all the Americans out there and wonderful Independence Day weekend. See more awesome pictures from this awesome photographer at www.throughgrinsandgiggles.blogspot.com