just being

Is it bad that all I've done over break is sit around and do much of nothing... and a lot of Pinterest browsing? I hope not. I am enjoying myself soooo much. It is fabulous! I love a good break. I love chilling and seeing family. I love talking leisurely strolls with my hubs and puppy. I love being able to read, for fun, if I want to. I love not having any pressure or responsibility. I love being. I feel like it is something that I haven't been able to do in a while, so while I might feel 1.1% guilty for not doing any work over break, I'm trying to let it go. It is break after all : ) Oh, how I love this moment, this break, this time. Why can't it always be like this? ... I suppose if it were I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I am enjoying it right now. Although, I don't know. This is pretty wonderful.

Anyhow. I'm off to write my Christmas Wish List for the hubs. I think I've got a pretty good idea of some things I would like to open up on Christmas morning : )

I hope you all have had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a Happy Black Friday ;p (I do happen to have a story about that, and I will share it with you soon, promise).

It's Thanksgiving : )

Happy Thanksgiving!! I am so thankful that it is today : )

There are a few things I am thankful for today:

My hubby
My puppy
My family and that I get to see some of them on this very special day
That there is a break from school
Sleep
Yummy food
Making yummy food
Eating yummy food
Blogging again :)

I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!!

A little poem

I just finished a unit on poetry with one of my classes. So I thought I would write a little poem myself. 

I'd Rather Be

Sitting alone upstairs

Work screaming at me 

Bossing me around 

begging to be finished.

Laying on the couch so fair

Just chillin' in his favorite Tee

Football sounds abound

All worries diminished. 

Not that I really care

Football to me is not key

But I want to be found

- watching the game 

by his side.

golly geepers

It's been a while. I apologize. I won't say anything else about that.

But I will say this: I love Christmas.

I used to think the stores were a little over zealous when they started putting our Christmas goodies before Halloween. Now, I think it's wonderful. It's the best feeling walking into a store and seeing happy little snowmen and penguins, Christmas trees and stockings. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It also gives me hope. Hope that I can make it through anything. Christmas is a cozy and hopeful time of year and seeing all of the cute, pretty, and festive decorations and treasures out and about gives me that hope, even though Christmas is still two months away.

So I don't care if stores set up and display Christmas things before Halloween. I Love it. It makes me happy and cheery. I love feeling cheery and right about now I can use all the cheer I can get. I might be making daily trips to the store to get me some cheer. Actually, I probably won't be doing that, but, I will enjoy the Happy Christmas Joy when ever I am lucky enough to make it to the store.

Happy Christmas thoughts to you : )

pick something!

Yesterday I had a job to do: go to the store and pick out a baby gift. That's all. Simple really. All I had to do was go to the store, print out the registry and pick out the gift. No big deal. Quick trip. No brainer. Except that when I am in the picture, it is never just a quick trip and it is never does not involve the brain. Which I suppose is a good thing. Except it's not. I stood in front of the bottles for an hour trying to decide which ones I should get.

I knew I wanted to get one from the registry, so that's not a problem. But, which one? I found one that was on the registry but here's where the problem comes in. I wanted to get the little liner bags for the bottles too. But, they didn't have any for the size bottle I found. What should I do? Get the bottles and no liners? Get the liners and no bottles? Get both even though they aren't really made for each other, even though they were both on the registry. Or get something else all together? I just couldn't decide.

Then I saw a bonus package. Five bottles for $10 with 50 some liners, the same exact kind that were on the registry. But this awesome bonus package wasn't on the registry. The bottles that were on there were sold in packs of three for $12.99. I was torn. The bottles were great, but the one I really thought would be great (or thought was a better deal, cause let's face it, it was) wasn't on the registry.

So I called The Hubs. I needed to talk this out.I hung up after it rang. I knew what he was going to say. Make a decision and come home. When he called me back two minutes later he said exactly what I knew he would. No help. So I stood in front of the bottles for another hour trying to decide what to do. Finally I had had enough of my shenanigans and yelled at myself, "Dang it, Hannah! Pick something. Just pick something, buy it, and go home. Now. You have one minute. One minute. 60, 59, 58, 57, 56, 55, 54, 53 ...."

And I did. I picked something off of the registry, and took it to the counter. It didn't take me that long. Once I had made my mind up that I was going to just pick something and buy it.

Needless to say, they better like the gift. It took five years off my life. Seriously. Why can't I just make a decision? Quickly? Do you know how long it would have taken The Hubs to get a gift? Two minutes. I'm not even kidding. Oh well. I am me and I am indecisive. That's just how it is. eh...  

But I am excited about the baby shower. I have a bunch more coming up. Everyone I know is having a baby. Okay, maybe that's not true. I might be exaggerating just a little bit. But it's pretty much the truth. Anyhow. That's what I'm up to tomorrow.

I hope you guys all had a wonderful Saturday! Happy weekend!

     

Lemon Time

One of my friends had a baby a few weeks ago and we got to visit them at the hospital for a little while. Today I am excited because I get to go and visit my lovely friend and her new baby at her house for longer than just a little bit. I am just pleased as punch that I get to visit! I was so excited in fact that I fixed a whole pot of soup and some bread to take them so Mama could have a little bit of a break and just worry about her and baby.

I asked if she would like me to bring something for dinner, I didn't want to show up at her house with some food and them to already have plenty of it. She was excited about the soup idea so I went to the grocery store and bought the goods. Growing up my mom would always fix the best potato soup with dumplings. It is seriously the best soup ever. I will share the recipe with you some time this winter, soup is after all, the perfect winter meal.

Along with the soup I baked a little loaf of bread. I was thinking about a french loaf, which always tastes amazing with pretty much any soup, but I found a new recipe in my "Taste of Home" magazine that looked wonderfully delicious. I decided I had to try it. It is a a quick bread and it turned out beautifully. Normally I like to stick with the amazing tried and true: pumpkin, blue berry, apple... But I thought I should give a new one a go just to see if held up to the others. It did. I was a little skeptical about how it would turn out because the herb is so strong, but it is Amazing. Bake some. Now. You will thank me later. K?

So, without further rambling, I share with you "Taste of Home's" Lemon Thyme Bread:

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. minced fresh thyme
1 Tbsp. grated lemon peel [one whole lemon grated]
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
Confectioners' sugar [aka powdered sugar, though I'm sure you all knew that. One day I will have to tell you a funny story about that...]

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar till fluffy. Beat in egg. Combine buttermilk and sour cream. Combine the flour, thyme, lemon peel, baking soda, and salt; add to the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk mixture, beating well after each addition. [I dumped everything in the same bowl and mixed it all together, it saved time and bowls and turned out just perfectly.]

2. Dump into a greased 8 in x 4 in. bread pan. Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes. After baking let cool. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

You could always make these into muffins, that would be equally delicious. Or little loafs. I split mine into two bread pans to I could taste it before I took it over.

Anywho. I thought it was really good and turned out well. If you like baking or if you like bread, you should really try it out and let me know what you think! I think it's a keeper : )

healthy and yummy

A while back The Hubs went grocery shopping and bought a very large bag of frozen tilapia. I do not like fish. No. I don't. I never really have. Well, that's not completely true. I used to eat sardines from the tin all the time. They were my favorite thing ever. So much so that I named one of my favorite stuffed animals Sardines. I really loved me some sardines. But then I stopped liking sardines and fish in general. My taste buds changed or something. I mean, I still ate some fishy type meals just cause that's what we were having for dinner and I would rather eat something than be hungry. And what ever was fixed for dinner was what we had to eat for dinner. So I would begrudgingly eat my tuna melts or salmon patties or whatever other sea food was served for dinner. If it were my choice I wouldn't eat it.

But, back to The Hubs' purchase. He saw the fish and thought it would be a good way to get healthy. Fish is supposedly healthy for you. So we bought some marinades at the store to trick my taste buds into liking the tilapia. It tasted terrible. I ate two bites and was full... of fish, so I fixed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to enjoy. But since I hate wasting food (aka money) we were determined to figure out a way that I could fix the fish and kind of enjoy it too. After trying dozens of recipes and marinades and detesting every single one of them I found what appeared to be a little gem of a recipe. The picture looked alright so I thought I would give it a go. But there was a problem. I didn't have all of the ingredients. Naturally, I wasn't about to go and buy them. So I switched a bunch of the ingredients around so much so that I'm sure it tastes nothing like the actual recipe. But, I liked it. I actually ate my whole little fishy.

I thought I would share my recipe with you so that you could try it. You can tell me if it's terrible. I really won't mind. But I still fix it because we had a lot of fish to eat and it's the only way I will eat it. Let me know what you think of it if you try it.

Tasty Tilapia

1/2 cup peaches and juice (or pineapple - I use the little fruit cups that come individually packaged, one of those little guys is the perfect amount!)    
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons parsley
5 teaspoons canola oil
2 teaspoons honey
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
5 green onions, chopped (I've used chives too and it is equally delicious)
fish fillets (however many you want up to 8, I usually fix three for me and The Hubs)

Mix all of the ingredients together (minus the fish). Add the fish, coat, and marinate for about an hour (I usually can't wait that long and it sits for about 30 minutes, which is plenty of time : ) .  Then we normally put it on the grill and cook it accordingly. I'm not really sure how long, just you know, as long as it takes to cook fish. Then you enjoy it while it is nice and hot!

We normally pair the fish with some wild rice and a nice little spinach salad. It makes for a very yummy and healthy meal. If you try it let me know how it turns out/if you like it : )

Happy Wednesday!