Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Blogging Anniversary #3

Wow, where does the time go?  Did you know this is my 3rd year of blogging?  I almost forgot!  Turns out, back in October my blog turned 3!

Just like life, blogging has an interesting way of taking different paths over time.  Especially a random blog like mine.  At times I am more focused on activities around the city where I live, other times health & fitness, and even a book review here or there.  Lately I have very little time to consistently post, unlike last year.  And I seem to often be blogging about being a parent, something I tried to veer away from in the past.
 
But with this new blogging year, changes are coming.  There's a lot going on in our personal lives.  Things I would like to post but have to wait for the right timing.  So until I can share these ideas & plans, you're just going to have to take the blog for what it is and has been.  And to help you do that, here are a few of my favorite posts from the past year:


Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!
:) Danica

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Pre-Cooking

Today I decided to pre-cook dinner.  I must admit it was strange standing there alone cooking a casserole just after lunch.  I'm used to scrambling to whip up a meal somewhere between my daughters bath time & bedtime.

I've considered pre-cookinng for a while now.  See, two days a week my kid has sports after school which gets us home just shy of dinner.  I often end up making the easier things in the fridge, which usually has little taste or variation of color.  Doesn't sound too appetizing, huh?
 
I tried pre-cooking one other time this school year and something happened with the milk in the lasagna mix and I didn't dare feed it to the family.  Then I had the pleasure of walking around all day smelling like lasagna and yet had nothing to show for it.  Much more, it was a complete waste of food.
 
This morning on the way to drop my daughter at school I decided I was going treat the family to something different.  Even though I know they'll both complain and I'll end up eating the same meal for the next two meals.  See, I cook to survive not because I enjoy it.  I'm not a talented or creative cook so I tend to stick to what I know or buy a box mix with the instructions and spices included.

Standing at the grocery store this morning I scanned the box mixes and a couple stood out, but I was in the mood for a casserole and had the time to cook so I settled for something new in the assortment.  Chicken Mozzarella  & Tomato Macaroni Casserole... sounds good, looks good,  and possibly my families worst nightmare, ha-ha!  But we agreed when she turned 5 she needed to expand her diet (and this includes us also).
 
The casserole is finished and waiting for us to return home.  All I have to do is heat it up in the oven during bath time and voila we have a yummy dinner!  Getting hungry thinking about it... which wasn't the case while cooking.  I found little pleasure randomly cooking in the middle of the day but I know the results are worth it!

-Turned out that my husband refused to eat it, my daughter panicked when I said it would be her dinner tomorrow, & me, well, I had two huge servings and thoroughly enjoyed it!-

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!
:) Danica

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Pumpkin Contest

I know I'm running late with this post, I'm just happy to finally find the time to write one!!!

 
One of the first memories I have of my relationship with my husband was carving pumpkins together in his parents back yard.  And since that time (many years ago), we have decided to share this fun time together with our daughter.  Her school was having a pumpkin carving contest and we happened to have a free weekend afternoon so we headed out to the farms and bought a few decent sized pumpkins.  In years passed we didn't take it so serious, but this year we wanted her to have something worth entering.  So of course my husband and 5 yr old picked out the biggest pumpkin they could find.  But see, we forgot just how hard it is to carve a thick pumpkin without the proper tools.  (Hey... Halloween only comes around once a year, it's easy to forget.)

 
We started with the medium sized pumpkin to practice.  And like I said, this year we weren't joking around so we even printed out templates to help with the design.  But after the hard work & time my husband put in just to get this pumpkin carved we realized the large pumpkin was going to be quite a challenge.  (The medium pumpkin turned out well, and looked quite scary at night!  But due to the strangely warm weather it rotted fast.)

 
 
Due to the amount of work, we decided we weren't going to carve the other small & medium pumpkin, we were running out of time & patience.  So instead of tracing around a template to cut, I just drew the template onto the pumpkins and let my daughter color them in.  (By the time she was finished coloring you couldn't see the template anymore, but she had fun.)

 
 
Now it was time to carve the large pumpkin, the one we actually wanted to enter in the school contest.  But we were tired, it was almost dinner, and none of the templates I could find seemed simple yet prize worthy.  Then my husband came up with the great idea to carve the school initials into the pumpkin, brilliant!  (It was the only one like it in the contest, we were quite proud!)


Did we win the contest?  Unfortunately no... but hey, the pumpkin hamburger deserved it.  Did we have fun?  Yes!  Did my husband come up with an idea for next year?  Yes, but that's our secret!

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!
:) Danica