Garden Update....

The Garden is coming along nicely. I already have a few strawberries. I can't wait to make strawberry shortcake.  I'm thinking I might plant some herbs after the corn cycles through.  I found some great ETSY items that I might purchase once I plant some herbs...

Herb Garden Stakes (20.00) FromArtisansHands shop on ETSY. Aren't they great?

Square Foot Gardening. I'm so excited.

Today I started my square foot garden! This book is awesome.
April 26th was my birthday and my sister lent me her copy of this book and bought me a kit to build my own square foot garden. I had to buy the special mixture (mel's mix) of compost, vermiculite and peat moss. Today I got the square foot kit put together, attached weed paper to the bottom and  mixed all the soil up.

Later this week I will go and buy all the plants I want to put in my garden. I'm amazed at how much you can actually plant in this four by four square. If all goes according to plan, I will have enough for a full salad everyday of the summer! Totally amazing.

The best part about the square foot garden is that you can use the same soil year after year. You can plant and harvest in each square three times a year! And no WEEDS! 

I'm planning to plant tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, green and red peppers, onions, strawberries and carrots.

Geocaching - The Modern Day Treasure Hunt

I have decided I need to get more consistent with my blogging efforts. I really enjoy writing about the events in my life but hardly ever make myself sit down and write. The days all seem to run together lately. I think it is great self care to sit down and be quiet with my thoughts away from the tv, job, gym, boyfriend etc.

This weekend I went camping and Geocaching with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew. We had a great time! What's Geocaching you might ask? Geocaching is a world wide treasure hunting game. People hide these caches (cashes) of treasure all over the world and you use your GPS device to find the cache! We were staying at an obscure state park this weekend and there were seven caches within a half mile of us. The actual "treasures" we found were trinkets, tracking coins (part of the game) and log books to document that you found the cache.

In my opinion, the best part was the actual process of hunting the cache. We had so much fun! I plan to do a lot more Geocaching. I downloaded an app for my Iphone for geocaching and discovered these caches are everywhere!

Christmas Pictures With a Funny Twist!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

EEEKKKK

Had to share this picture! Think I was scared????

Gaurdian and Protector!

Whew, I have been so busy lately. No time to blog. Thought I would post about taking the Meyer's-Briggs test. This test identifies your personality type and helps employers, therapists etc. learn more about who you are as a person. There is an online version here that is very accurate. It nailed my personality exactly. Turns out, I am an ESFJ (extroverted, sensing, feeling and judging). The emphasis was on feeling and sensing.

According to the test, I am a Guardian and Provider! People like me "take it upon themselves to insure the health and welfare of those in their care, but they are also the most sociable of all the Guardians, and thus are the great nurturers of social institutions such as schools, churches, social clubs, and civic groups. Providers are very likely more than ten percent of the population, and this is fortunate for the rest of us, because friendly social service is a key to their nature.

Wherever they go, Providers happily give their time and energy to make sure that the needs of others are met, and that social functions are a success. Highly cooperative themselves, Providers are skilled in maintaining teamwork among their helpers, and are also tireless in their attention to the details of furnishing goods and services. They make excellent chairpersons in charge of dances, banquets, class reunions, charity fund-raisers, and the like. They are without peer as masters of ceremonies, able to speak publicly with ease and confidence. And they are outstanding hosts or hostesses, knowing everyone by name, and seemingly aware of what everyone's been doing. Providers love to entertain, and are always concerned about the needs of their guests, wanting to make sure that all are involved and provided for.

Friendly, outgoing, neighborly - in a word, Providers are gregarious, so much so that they can become restless when isolated from people. They love to talk with others, and will often strike up a conversation with strangers and chat pleasantly about any topic that comes to mind. Friendships matter a great deal to Providers, and their conversations with friends often touch on good times from years past. Family traditions are also sacred to them, and they carefully observe birthdays and anniversaries. In addition, Providers show a delightful fascination with news of their friends and neighbors. If we wish to know what's been going on in the local community, school, or church, they're happy to fill us in on all the details. Providers are extremely sensitive to the feelings of others, which makes them perhaps the most sympathetic of all the types.

I'd love to hear about others who have taken this test. I find personality types so interesting! I guess that's why I'm a therapist.

(the print above is by Sparklehen on ETSY)

My Latest ETSY Acquisition and an Update on Dream Dinners

I've had my eye on this vinyl wall decal from singlestonestudios for quite sometime. My lovely sister bought this for me and I put it up on my living room wall over the weekend. I think the colors are fantastic with my blue walls! I hope the light doesn't melt it. So far so good =)

The Dream Dinners experiment is going well. So far we have made the Steak Gorgonzola and the Toasted Pecan Chicken. My boyfriend exclaimed "This is six servings?" I replied with "yes, honey this is six normal size servings". (He eats like a horse!) We were both full after we ate the steak with a side of roasted potatoes and we actually had leftovers! The gorgonzola butter sauce was fantastic!

The Toasted Pecan Chicken was also delicious. I thawed the meal the day before, took the chicken out of the yummy marinade and coated the chicken in the Pecan/Bread Crumb mixture! It was delicious. How can you go wrong with toasted pecans? I served it with a side of baked potatoes and salad.

Overall, I still feel that the price and ease of preparing these meals is well worth the price. The clean up was simple. Basically, throw the freezer bags in the trash.

Tomorrow night is the Beef Bolognese Pasta! I can't wait =)

Dream Dinners

I had a wonderful night last night! I decided to go to a Dream Dinners session. I'm always struggling with cooking meals for two people. I find all these wonderful meals I want to cook so I go out and buy all the ingredients needed and make a great meal. Inevitably, I always end up throwing out half a bottle of this and half a jar of that after a few weeks of not using the ingredient again.
Dream Dinners is a Godsend! This place is fantastic. You go to their website, pick out 36 portions on their menu. I chose 6 meals of 6 portions. They offer nutritional information for all of the meals. I chose mostly the heart healthy options since I am a lifetime Weight Watchers member and need to keep track of my points.

When I arrived at Dream Dinners I was greeted by a very friendly employee who welcomed me and explained the process. There is a station set up for each meal they offer. I went to my first session and she explained that I place a gallon Ziploc bag inside of a canister. From there you fill bag according to the recipe in front of you with the ingredients in front of you. Everything is prepared, chopped, minced, grated etc. Easy as pie. I made all six meals in under 1 hour. I placed them all in freezer safe packages along with the defrosting and assembly/cooking instructions. I brought them home ready to serve as soon as we are ready to eat them.

I'm hoping they'll taste as good as they appear to taste. I will need to remember to place each meal in the fridge 24 hours before cooking.

My only complaint would be the lack of sides accompaniments. When I signed up I assumed there would be something to accompany the dishes, but no luck. They did have frozen sides available for an additional cost but I decided not to purchase those.

Overall, I feel it was worth the $172.00 I spent. This comes out to about $28.00 a meal. This sounds like a lot but when I factor in all the food I throw out, time spent at the grocery store, time spent cutting, chopping, CLEANING up, etc. It is totally worth it.

I plan to share the meals and my satisfaction here on the blog for anyone that's interested. I chose the following meals for my first Dream Dinners experience:

Baked Fish and Chips with Tarter Sauce
Toasted Pecan Chicken
Beef Pasta Bolognese
Savory Honey Grilled Chicken with Sesame Honey Butter
Steak Gorgonzola
Slow Cooked BBQ Beef with Rustic Country Rolls

Iguana! This is Awesome!

This is so cool! Might want to mute it before watching, the song is a little annoying.

Love This! Top 100 YouTube Videos in Four Minutes

Book Review: Blue Bloods

I've been so busy lately and totally ignoring my blog. First, I have been reading this series of books by Melissa De La Cruz. These books were recommended by my coworker, who knows of my Twilight obsession.
This is another teenage series about vampires. I found all three books interesting and the plot twists intriguing. The story was complicated and original enough to differentiate it from other vampire novels. These vampires are all extremely wealthy and they are actually angels that were banned from heaven! That's different, huh? In this series there is no way for a human to become a vampire. I felt the books were missing that subliminal fear, when reading vampire stories, of eeekkk this could happen to me!

I've also been spending a lot of time with my family lately. Celebrating the last few weeks of warm weather. Last weekend we had a crab cooking and picking party. Before that we went out on the boat and rode inner-tubes. We also went to a comedy show featuring Theo Von. (He was on the real world/rode rules shows). I thought he was pretty funny. My sister, on the other hand, spoke to him before the show and said he was a total jerk, lol.

I hope everyone has a great rest of the week!

Giveaway! Pacha Mamma's Handmade Baby Creations

The Winner is Tami from http://agodlyhomemaker.blogspot.com! Congrats!

Janie from PachaMamma is having a giveaway!

Here's a little about Janie:

"I have always loved creating; sewing, crocheting, cooking, music... When I found out I was pregnant, I was so excited to make things for my baby boy! Bibs, burpcloths, toys, clothes, slings, the list goes on and on! I have loved all of these items that I have created, and I have used every one of them with my son. They are unique, purposeful, and such a joy to create! I created this shop, PachaMamma to share these wonderful items with other mothers, friends and children!"

Janie is giving away this fall orange and brown shoulder bag, great for back to school, or Halloween, trick or treat. A value of $20.00!
To enter this contest you must:

1) Visit PachaMamma's shop, on Etsy, choose your favorite item, then return here and tell me which item you chose and why. (Remember to add your contact information or I won't be able to contact you if you win.)

Additional entries are allowed by completing the following:

2) An additional entry for those who post the giveaway to twitter.
Ex:
http://www.hypnotransformations.blogspot.com/ is hosting an awesome giveaway! A $20.00 value!

3) An additional entry for those who blog about the giveaway and share a link to this contest on their blog.

4) An additional entry will be given for those who follow this blog and post a comment that you are now following.

5) One last entry for those who follow PachaMamma's blog and post a comment that you are now following.

The winner will be chosen using Random.org on October 4th at 10:59 pm.

Evil!

I was visiting Strawberry Anarchy's Blog and ran across this hilarious video. My boyfriend saw this and said "This gives me a great idea, muhhaww". Uh oh.

Last vacation day and a beautiful storm....

I'm sitting here on my last day of vacation waiting for a storm to clear. We've had perfect weather the whole time.

This storm was quite a nice surprise, absolutely beautiful. We could see the rain coming across the ocean for about an hour. Then all of a sudden the sand was blinding us and then the thunder and lightening started.

We made a mad dash to the room and watched the rest from the balcony. This is the view out of the room right now. The locals say it should blow past in about thirty minutes.
Arrgghh, I really don't want to leave tomorrow.