Upcoming Event

In about a month, my family will once again be participating in a 5k walk to support the American Diabetes Association. Last year we walked and had a lot of fun. General Mills is once again hosting the event.

As many of you know, my sister (the beautiful blushing bride) was diagnosed with diabetes about a month before she went off to college. She has been fortunate to have a minor case (pancreas is still creating some insulin), but still has to check her blood sugar several times a day and give herself shots of insulin.

If you would like to sponsor our team here is a link!

Food for Last Week

Inspired by my friend Amy, last week I made a menu plan for the week. I may have mentioned this in another post that Ben and I are trying to eat at home more often (take advantage of our awesome kitchen AND try to eat healthier). So here is what we did...

Sunday: Chicken
Monday: Left over soup
Tuesday: Spaghetti
Wednesday: Cheese and jalapeno quesadillas
Thursday: Eat out (happy hour with friends)
Friday: Home made pizza (home made dough and everything!)
Saturday: Eat out (using gift cards)

On another note, somehow my facebook account got spammed/hacked/virus'ed... I think it's due to an "video" that I got "from" one of my friends on facebook. I have emailed them to try and get my account back. In the meantime, don't worry, I'm still friends with you and don't try to watch any videos from "me."

Fun with Fish

Every morning before I leave for work, I check on the fish tanks. Why? I'm not sure. I don't expect to find anything. This morning was a different story...

I walked in the room and quickly realized (due to lack of "white" noise) that nothing was on. No pumps, no heaters, no anything. What?! My brain was kind of working this morning, so I realized that the circuit had been tripped (not sure if that's the right term - the whole room is on one of those outlets that when too much current is drawn it shuts it down and you have to push the "reset" button on the outlet). So, I reset it. And it turned off again. We haven't changed anything since the big move, so I was very confused. I tried again (if at first you don't succeed...). Still didn't work. Hmmmm.... So I thought of some things that weren't "necessary" for the short term and unplugged those items. After unplugging and resetting a few times, I finally got everything to stay on. So I raced off to work (cuz now I'm running late).

On the way to work I text Ben so that he knows what is going on. Just as I returned to my desk after my 8 am meeting, he calls to find out what circuit I'm talking about. So I tell him and tell him what I unplugged. Turns out the one thing (pH probe) I took out, also turns on the heaters. Oops! So I decide that between all of my meetings today, I would run home and turn the heater back on.

I got home and was talking to my mom (van broke down in Iowa last night on the way home from Virginia) and noticed right away that something didn't sound right. I let Zoey out (she was going crazy) and went to see what was making the noise. I nearly slipped on the floor because it was wet!! (Enter frantic/panic mode). I unplugged the pump that was making all the noise (because it was out of the water). Panicked for a little bit then called Ben. He was able to cancel some of his meetings and come home. In the meantime, I cleaned up all the water, started to replug things back in, make salt water, scratch Zoey behind the ears, etc.

By the time Ben got home, everything was up and running except the part that circulates the water between the tank and the sump (big thingy that holds extra water and rocks to help keep the tank perimeters steady). We got that working again. And everything is happy once more.

So what happened?
1. The heater in the sump died. For some reason when heaters die they draw more current, thus tripping the circuit. (The heater is now replaced).
2. The syphon that pulls water out of the tank broke (we have no idea how). That caused water to stop flowing out but water still flowed in until the pump was out of the water. The tank overflowed resulting in water on the floor.

The "funny" thing was that these two events are completely unrelated! They just "happened" to occur on the same day. And the pump that ran itself dry just "happens" to be close to the top of the water, so really we only lost about four gallons of water (all on easy-to-clean linoleum).

I'm just so thankful that I checked this morning because otherwise our little fishies probably would have been very unhappy (aka dead).

Kitchen Experiments

One thing that we noticed as we were packing... we have a lot of food that we never eat. Some of this is due to free GM samples that just don't appeal to us. But mostly it's because we forget what's in the cupboards. So, we are changing our ways and trying to eat what we have.

Friday night we were planning on having soup. It was a dried mix of split peas, barley, Lima beans and seasoning. It was supposed to take 2 hours. But after 4, the beans were still not soft. We were hungry so we gave up and got Chinese take-out. (I think we cooked it at too low of a temp in case you were wondering). Yesterday for lunch we decided to put it back on the stove. We added some salt, pepper and chicken bouillon because when we were tasting it on Friday night it was a little blah. Turned out pretty good. Next time instead of buying the mix, we are just going to make it ourselves.

Yesterday morning we were hungry (unusual for Ben, not me). We didn't have milk, so we decided on oatmeal. We didn't have a lot of add-ins, but we did have brown sugar and chocolate chips. Turns out that this is a tasty combo (a little weird on the texture front, but tasty all the same).

Our final cooking adventure for the weekend was last night. We had some frozen chicken breasts that I had seasoned with "Santa Maria" seasoning before freezing it. I put the frozen chicken in a covered baking dish, added about 2 tbsp of butter and water and a bouillon cube and put it in the oven. In the past when I have done this, the chicken has turned out slightly dry. Not last night! It was great! Even Ben was impressed. He asked what I did so we could duplicate it again. Not sure what the trick was - it could have been the oven (we now have convection, so I put it on "Convection Roast"), or it could have been the things I added. Not sure, but we will cook it that way again. (Note: It was in the oven for almost 2 hours since it was frozen).

Last night we also had sweet corn. Yum! It is the best I have had in a long time.

The Sad Good-bye

Last night we took my parents and brother out to dinner. Today they are leaving to road trip out to Virginia and leaving my brother there for college. I am so sad. I know that he's not gone forever and I will see him again at Christmas time, but I will really miss being able to see him whenever and to spoil him.

He's pretty excited about college (as it should be). And Ben thinks it will be good for him to be so far away. I asked Jake last night if he knew how to do laundry. He said, "Yeah and I have two rolls of quarters!"

So happy for him. Good luck Jake!

Burrito Challange

As I mentioned in the previous post, we got some food at Wal-Mart. Since our kitchen was in boxes yet, we went the easy route and got some burritos for $1 each. Not that you can expect anything too great out of $1 burrito, but they were bad! Neither one of us finished.

A couple of days later (maybe - or maybe the next day? Time is a blur during the move) we were at Costco and picked up two packages of burritos - one that is refrigerated and cost $2.50 per burrito and another that was frozen for $0.50 per burrito.

We have concluded our taste test comparison... The winner is... the expensive ones! Second place goes to the frozen ones. So, I guess sometimes you get what you pay for.

We are slowly working through the boxes that clutter our new house. I thought unpacking would be the easy part, but turns out it's not... It's tough to try and decide where you want things. Sure, we can rearrange stuff, but we would at least like most things to be where we actually want them.

Last night was National Night Out. We went to our "old" neighborhood for a potluck BBQ. It was fun to see everyone "one last time" (but I know we will be around and some neighbors (Robin) we will still keep in touch with). When we left to go home, it was the first time that I felt sadness about our move. I had moments of sadness before, but this time I could feel it. They really are a nice group of neighbors. And I will miss them.

The Move: Day 2 - Movers and Rain

Yesterday we woke up bright and early (and yes, without proper shades it was bright!). We ate a wholesome breakfast of Graham crackers and water on the way to the old place. We met the movers there and they loaded up the furniture. I told Ben that was just about the best money spent.

While they were loading up everything, it started to rain. Great. They did use floor mats and runners, but we still had some tracks on the old floor. Ben told them nicely that the new place was NEW and to try to be as careful as possible. By the time we got to the new place it had pretty much stopped raining. Zoey was going nuts, so we went on a nice long walk while Ben directed the movers.

After the movers left, Ben stayed at the new place waiting for the cable guy and TV delivery guy to come. Zoey and I went back to the old place to clean a little (boy does under furniture collect the dust, hair and crap!) and pack some more boxes.

We ended our day with a trip to Wal-Mart for some dinner and breakfast.