Chili in a Bread Bowl

Yow know what’s ridiculous? Chili in a bread bowl. You know what’s even more ridiculous? Homemade chili in a bread bowl. For real.

First we made awesome chili. Do you have a favourite chili recipe? We throw multiple varieties of beans into a pot with ground beef or turkey, onion, mushrooms, pasta sauce, and spices. It is a definite hit at our house.

Next we made a bread bowl. We used a loaf from our bread machine, cut it in half lengthwise, and hollowed it out in the shape of a bowl. I think it is over the top and awesome that we did this, but please know this was John’s idea. My brain wouldn’t come up with something this awesome/ridiculous, as I usually think foolish things like: “I can’t eat half a loaf of bread.” I sometimes underestimate myself!

We toasted the bead bowl in the oven (after basting it in a garlic powder/olive oil mixture) and then we put chili in the bread bowl!

We had a crazy fun dinner and laughed at how silly we are sometimes.

My Adorable Small Town...

There are many pluses to being in the country. Easy access to nature, ample space, many beautiful places to walk, bike, and take photos. Another plus (for me) is the lack of conveniences; if I want a Tim Hortons it is at least a 12 minute drive, a 90 minute bike ride, or a 2.5 hour walk. And don’t forget it’s the same time/distance back.

Well this is no more. A Country Style doughnut shop opened a 5 minute drive away. This means I am 5 minutes away from doughnuts AT. ALL. TIMES (within store hours). Plus, that five minute drive is a bike ride I’ve done loads of times. It takes maybe half an hour. HALF. HOUR. FROM. DOUGHNUTS.

So, my new life goal: bike to doughnuts. They’ll be carried in my backpack for the ride home, so maybe I’ll avoid ones with drippy icing. And because I’ll have rode my bike there and back, I get to eat all of them! YAY!

This is the doughnut I ate doing research for this blog. You're welcome!

I Must Have The Look

It is Elmvale Fair weekend in these parts, and though I wasn't attending the fair, I was in Elmvale yesterday to pick up some Library goodies.

As I exited my car, I had the following exchange with a young father, who was with his 3-year-old-ish son.

"Hey Kidless!" He jokingly called to me.  "You want a kid? Maybe you could take him to the fair?"

"Uh...I'm okay" I said politely. "Thanks anyways!" 

And we both laughed.

Musical Bears

Fact #46 about our kitten: she has two names that she goes by equally, Gary and The Bear.

Fact #72 about our kitten: Everything in our house belongs to her. It is something we accept in order to experience the joy of being in her presence on a daily basis.

Having said that, I give you: Musical Bears!

This might look like my Wii drum kit, but it is actually a cat pillow!!

This might look like John's guitar case, but it is actually Gary's office.

It Was a Pretty Popular Movie

I am always in the market for new notebooks, as I am quite obsessed with them and often have ten or more on the go. When purchasing notebooks, I flip through them to see and feel what the pages are like.  That is how I found this awesome leave behind by another shopper at Dollarama the other night:

Neat looking notebook:

Awesome leave behind:

 

People in Midland are funny!

Always On A Timmy's Run

I have been going to Tim Horton's almost daily over the past few months, which is more times then I was there over the entirety of last year.  There are some valid reasons for my dramatic increase of Tim Horton's consumption.

Reason One: I make my own schedule right now and when I'm in charge, there is always time to stop for coffee.  When I was working, the day started at 8:00am sharp, and when one leaves the house at 7:48am for a 15 minute commute - there is no room for a drive through visit!  (I know the math doesn't make sense, but I was hardly ever late for work).

Reason Two: my mother underwent hip replacement surgery at the end of May, so I have been back and forth to Barrie every few days to spend time with her, clean up her apartment, and help her in her recovery.  As per reason number one, I make my own schedule for this, so I often stop at Tim Horton's on the way.  I stopped drinking coffee in January, but running the roads, the stress of being one day here and the next day gone*, sweating the small stuff (my dad's car battery died while I was driving, I ripped a tile out of the wall of their bathroom, as well as a few other choice things), and not getting enough sleep (or sometimes too much) has found me frequenting the drive through line.  Like the countless others before me, I've turned to a stimulant to help me cope with the stress of my life. 

Reason Three: I didn't admit to myself that I started drinking coffee again ("it's just a treat!"), so going to Tim's was my only option as I hadn't set up my coffee maker at home.

Thankfully for my finances, John and I plugged in our coffee maker last week, so I am a regular coffee drinker again.  When I gave it up in January I was drinking 2-3 cups a day, but so far I am sticking to only one cup (not 8 oz, a real cup!). If I feel like a second cup, I go for a tea, and so far that is working for me.  Even though I make coffee at home now, I'm already thinking about the Timmy run I will be making on my way to Barrie this Saturday.  One day at a time...



*Yep that is a Tom Cochrane lyric**

**Not Rascal Flatts (well, yes them too, but I was quoting Tom Cochrane).

I Like What You've Done With The Place!

I visited the great city of Toronto yesterday to attend my beautiful friend Natalia's wedding.  The bus schedule got me to town earlier than needed, so I took the opportunity to explore the city I used to call home.  A spot I have been itching to check out, which happened to be a 5 minute walk from the wedding, was the Maple Leaf Gardens Loblaws.

I love groceries and I love grocery shopping, a trait I inherited from my mother.  I love checking out the weekly flyers, I love walking down the grocery store aisles, I love looking at all the possible foods I could eat! Or deals I could get! I just love the whole experience.  So my love of groceries coupled with some high expectations about the new Loblaws based on some photos I had seen, got me pretty excited to be on Carlton street in Toronto yesterday.  And my excitement and expectations were met entirely by what I encountered throughout my twenty minute visit!  First case in point: when I walked into the store I was greeted with the sites and sounds of an Elvis impersonator doing a show.  Amazing!!  And Like a good tourist, I took a bunch of photos!!

Elvis was just doing a show in the lobby. Obviously.

The place is gigantic and beautiful.  There is a full LCBO, a coffee shop, a Joe clothing store, and many incredible specialty sections.  Oh and just an entire regular grocery store as well.  I was completely overstimulated by the site of so many fresh foods and prepared treats, countless varieties of meats and cheeses - my heart be still till the next time I'm in the T-Dot.  Oh and they have free wifi if you want to surf the web while shopping. I loved it.

Wall of Cheese!  So many choices!!

Classy meals to go section.

An actual deli in the grocery store - did I mention the Loblaws is really big??

 Everything in the store is classy.  Even the signs that indicate what aisle you are in are classy.

Looking for ice cream cones has never been so upscale!

They also pay homage to the history of Maple Leaf Gardens with a giant blue maple leaf made out of the former seats.  It was a neat touch.

Go Leafs Go!

I live in a small town, so the other highlight for me was the variety of foods in the international foods section - and how inexpensive they were!! Next trip I am bringing some reusable bags and loading up!  Memo to Maple Leaf Gardens Loblaws: I will be back!

Have you checked it out?  What do you think?

This Week in Random/Awesome/Educational

Random: John came and met me for lunch on Friday.  There was free pizza at my office, so we scored some slices and drove to the parking lot behind the mall for a romantic meal together.  We we talking and out the window we saw the most adorable little dog, happily running towards our parked car.  I rolled down my window, greeted him with a proper "hey buddy!" and asked where his person was.  He didn't respond, he just continued on his parking lot run, blissfully unaware of the potential danger the parking lot could offer.  To be fair, the lot behind the mall does have a lot of space where there are no cars, but it is still a parking lot with cars driving through it, and I judge it as not the safest place to be running around.  The dog didn't care about my concern, ran blissfully, pissed on some light stands, and eventually ran over to what must have been his person's car and got a ride home.

Awesome: I spoke with my nephew Earl on the phone last week and he was playing pretend with his little sister.
  Earl: "Liz is the Princess and I'm the Knight.  But I don't have any armor right now, so I'm wearing my
  pajamas.  My pajamas are actually pretty good armor, so it's okay."
I agree with Earl, my pajamas are some of the best armor I own; defending my right to naps and lazy Sundays!

Educational: My Mom baby-sat my niece and nephew all last week and throughout each phone conversation we had, there was a repeated message that I read loud and clear from the background noise: "don't have kids!"

Christmas Vacay By The Numbers

And so it is finally here, my last day of vacay.  What better way to stop thinking about how I will possibly get up at 7:00am tomorrow, than by remembering the good times over the past week.  If you had some time off, I hope it was relaxing and rejuvenating.

Number of days off in a row: 13

Average time slept into each day: 11:00am

Number of car rides to Mom's: 4

Number of Christmas cards received: 23

Number of Entertainment Weekly's read cover to cover: 6

Number of days I ate chocolate as part of my balanced breakfast: 4

Number of new computers purchased: 1 (more on that later)

Number of nieces and nephews hugged: 5

Number of infants I got to hug and be a baby hog with: 1

Number of Wii games played: 2 (Lego Star Wars and Just Dance Summer Party)

Hours spent on a certain Lego themed Star Wars game: 23

Percentage of Lego Star Wars completed over those hours: 54%

Minutes of Aerobic exercise: 30

Number of blog posts: 6 (including this one)

Number of batches of Caramel Popcorn made: 2

Number of treats eaten: all of them

Resolutions made: 0

Source

Everybody Wants Some

To be fair, my Mom's caramel corn is pretty amazing.  Even Gary is getting in on the good stuff:

Namesake

We love nicknames in this family.  We have a thousand for Gary (the Bear, Gare-Bear, Squid, Squidly, Squiddle, Bearis, Lil' Boss, the Gerrorist, to name just a few).  We also have nicknames for each other. Sickly cute things like Baby, The Baby, Pants, The Pants, Baby-Pants, Bum, The Bum, and Bumble.

We were doing some pre-Christmas looking around the stores and found the following:

Cute right?  And then we noticed his name:

I've seen Rudolph a thousand times and didn't know his name was Bumble.  How adorable!  Before Christmas he was $5 and frugal me can't spend that much on something impractical just because it is cute.  But with 50% off boxing week sale, I now have my namesake sitting on my desk!  :)

Name's The Same

On a drive to Elmvale this evening I noticed the sign for the NDP candidate in my neighbouring riding of Simcoe-Grey:

Here's hoping he plays acoustic and sings eight minute power ballads!

Speaking of which, here is my favourite Dave Matthews songs lately:

Multi Purpose Pizza Box

When John and I made the choice to get a pizza the other night, we had no idea that we were actually investing in Gary's happiness.  Not only did she make a bed out of the box, she also found herself a new treat dispenser.  Pretty much my cat's life goals are to sleep and eat, and this pizza box brought those two joys together beautifully.

I think there is bacon in there!

Yep, definitely bacon!

Mmmmm.... hunted bacon...

Pizza Cat!!

You can actually see her tongue in this one... Bear likes bacon.

Pizza Bed

Gary is a pro when it comes to finding weird places to sleep.  I often wonder what could be comfortable about certain places she chooses (for example: sleeping on John's multi-tracker).  Her most recent "bed" doesn't look comfy-cozy to me, but I can kinda see where she is going with it.  Being able to fall asleep bathed in pizza stink (bacon + sausage + cheese!), doesn't sound half bad.

Mmmm.... Pizza bed...

Awaiting dreams of meat and cheese...

New bed sprawl...

New bed = BLISS!

Guarding the new spot...

The Lingering Smell of Bacon

Last night for a Friday night treat, we sprung for Really Good Bacon.  It was thick cut, peppercorn crusted, and hickory smoked.  It was almost $6 for a pound, but upon consumption, it was completely worth it.  Not to mention that I ate my slices atop of a beautifully cooked prime rib hamburger, sharing space with crumbled feta and jalapenos.  The whole meal could be classified as "too good".  And the added bonus?  When I awoke this morning the kitchen still smelled of glorious bacon.  Looks like I'll be going for round two today! :)

An Open Letter

Thursday April 21, 2011

Dear April 21, 2011:

I am not impressed.   See photo below for details.

Love,
Jen

A Change Will Do You Good

Holy Crap March!!  You were a menace full of too much news.  I feel like I am finally finding my feet after a whirlwind of good news, bad news, and having to wear dress pants far more than I normally care to.

I'm leaving the bad news in the past, but the good news is that I am starting a new job on Wednesday.  For the job I will have to continue to wear dress pants far more than I generally care too, but I'm going to take it as a learning experience and possibly something that is a necessity now that I am over thirty.

I have never had a job with a dress code before, so I know this 'business casual' thing will take some getting used to.  Especially since my default outfit is jeans and a t-shirt/hoodie, and my preferred clothes are "comfy." I think I have more PJs than regular clothes, but I will soon have to start balancing out my wardrobe.

Yesterday I began my search for some business casual clothes, but I didn't really know what I was looking for and I am never in the mood to buy clothes.  Grocery shopping? I could do that all day.  Clothes shopping?  It's like pulling teeth.  So I didn't add any business casual clothes to my collection yesterday, but I did find a pair of track pants for only $10 that I have been wearing pretty steadily since I bought them.  I am sure I will buy a few more pairs (there are assorted colours, and they are only $10!), but they are doing nothing to solve my business casual problem.  I'm not worried yet, as I'm sure I can piece together three or four passable outfits, I just have to pick up a few more over the next little while.  And a steamer - I absolutely refuse to incorporate ironing into my day.  Wish me luck!

What is your dress code at work?  Have you ever had to train yourself to wear clothes out of your comfort zone?

Not Kidding Around

I normally use store brand laundry detergent, but I recently got a super-coupon deal on Tide so I started using it this evening.  The jug said to "fill cap to line 2" for large loads.  I thought I had a pretty large load (roughly all the towels we own), so I filled the "2X Concentrate Tide" up to line 2.

And this is the sight I saw during the second rinse cycle!  Tide isn't fooling around! 

I put the towels through the second rinse cycle again to (hopefully) get all the soap out of them.

So... Tide works.  And almost too well!  From now on I'm filling the cap to Line 1 only.

Games People Play

I'm a silly human, so sometimes I like to force new things onto the cat, with the hopes that she will actually take joy from the new thing and add it to her daily routine.  I'm silly, because clearly the cat only wants to play with what the cat wants to play with, when the cat wants to play with it!  Pesky human meddling in her life! Geez!

Gary: Seriously, you want me to do what?

I was at Dollarama yesterday and I saw this activity toy for cats.  Treats get locked into a ball that has treat sized holes, and the cat is supposed to play with the ball until the treats fall out.  They generally fall out one at a time for extended play.  Sounds simple right?

Treats that have fallen out of the ball.

I encouraged Gary to play with the ball.  I pushed it in front of her.  Nothing.  I shook it to indicate it contained treats.  No dice.  As she got more and more annoyed, she glared at me like I was a stupid human jerk.

Gary: I don't care about this.

Gary: Seriously!! Just give me the treats already.

I was not giving up!  I was going to force the cat to have fun, whether she liked it or not!  For the most part I just pushed around the ball until the treats came out.  Gary ate the treats and caught on to the idea that the treats and the ball were somehow related.  She had no desire to push the ball, though; that was something a silly human would want her to do.  Periodically she would sniff at the ball, but it only made her angrier.  I continued to push the ball around and more treats would fall out.  Gary would eat the treats and then resume her frustration.  Finally she put two and two together.

Gary: Okay ball, I don't like you and you don't like me...

Giving it a push.

Gary: Something better frickin' happen!

And then.... success:

A little later Gary decided that there was a much better way to get at the treats.  Leave the ball and the human out of it altogether!

Direct access = Smart Cat

Words of Love

My Grandma has started doing the cutest thing when she sends me snail mail:

The envelope of the most recent birthday card from Grandma

The envelope of a thank you card I received last week

I’m afraid of the internet, so I’ve edited out our addresses, but Grandma no longer puts my actual name on the envelope.  I’m just referred to in variations of “the best granddaughter”.  The mail-lady and I are okay with that.

She also puts stickers all over the envelope, and the back of the most recent one made my heart smile:

She mailed me a thank you card last week because I helped her prepare and present all the food for the family drop in at Christmas.  I really didn't do all that much, but she said she was so happy for the help that she looked around for a special card for me:

I think Grandma has great taste!

When I called to thank her for the card, she thanked me again for “being so sweet”.  I thanked her for being so sweet as well.  To which she said: “Okay, let’s not get sickening”.  My Grandma is a funny and amazing lady!