Project 365

Jan 3rd: Cupcakes! I needed dessert for dinner with Josh and Sarah...so I decided to try out the new cupcake stand I got for Christmas from Brent's dad. FUN
Jan 3rd: Dinner with Josh and Sarah. My famous Cajun Chicken Pasta with salad and garlic bread...YUM!! This is the ONLY reason my siblings come see me at home.
Jan 4th: Apparently Brent couldn't wait to give me my birthday present. I came home and this was where my old knife block was...omg these knives are AMAZING!! yay!! Best boyfriend ever :-)
Jan 5th: My 22nd Birthday Cake. Chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and a thick slab of chocolate on top...YUM! I ate way too much of it.
Jan 5th: my adorable little brother Nivio while he and brent were working on his rc car...which he broke by driving it into a wall.
Jan 6th: spent the great majority of my day rereading this book...I'm a fantasy nerd...and if you are too you will love this book series...NOT THE TV SERIES!! that show is so wrong. lol.
Jan 7th: Brent got his new Google Nexus One. Its actually a pretty cool phone.
Jan 8th: Went to dinner with Melody and Jon (and Brent of course) and this apron is my birthday present from Melody! This is me with one of my knives that I got for my birthday. Yay!!

Jan 9th: Hung out with Jennifer and her fam at her house. Haven't spent time with them in SOO long!

Jan 10th: First real food i've had in a while...spaghetti is WONDERFUL!
Jan 11th: So Brent and I went to this Italian restaurant called Savianos with Melody and Jon and Brent got this minestrone soup as his appetizer...I ate it all...and I wanted more. SO I tried to make my own. Not near as good or addicting as the soup at Savianos, but defnitely great!!
Jan 12th: I was Skyping with my mom...this the first time we've SEEN each other in a while :-/ MOVE TO TEXAS MOM!! or at least the lower 48 :-)
.Jan 13th: The first step is admitting you have a problem...well i have a problem..this is it..hah! I am goign to have to uninstall this game before school starts!!! It's so addicting!
Jan 14th: This is how i felt when i got home from work. One of the two days that actually worked as birth control at the gym.
Jan 15th: My grocery list for my menu...surprisingly i had a lot of stuff already

January 16th: Went shopping with Jennifer...these are a few of the things that i bought...those shorts WERE $98...i got them for $9..heck yes. Also that comforter is my new comforter that i got from Marina for my birthday.
January 17th: Filet mignon with garlic mashed potatoes. it was sooo good!

January 18th: Breakfast!!! I decided to make pancakes and bacon..delish!
Jan 19th: had a migraine ...took nyquil...solved the problem after like 3 days.
Jan 20th: Decided to make a breakfast toaster when i got home from my one class on wednesdays...eggs, bell peppers, green onions, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, cheese and bacon!!! delish!!!
Jan 20th: Dinner! slow cooked bbq beef ribs...sooo good!!! could eat them for hours!!
Jan 21st:Root beer float! my decadent dessert to myself! :-) nothing beats vanilla ice cream and good ol' Mug root beer

Jan 22nd: This is how I spend my friday nights. Chatting on skype with my siblings...video chat with my 8 year old brother Nivio and IM chat with Meaghan...sweet!

Happy New Year!

So, I was reading a food blog...as usual...this afternoon and the author had posted her New Year's resolutions. Not surprising since it was posted yesterday...which was January 1, 2010. But...One of her resolutions was to participate in something called Project 365, take at least one picture every day for the entire year to help remember your year..and give me something to do! So I've decided I am going to participate. Good thing I read it today so I'm only one day behind...but not really because I took a picture of what I did yesterday!I used my rice cooker that Josh and Sarah bought me for Christmas. However, I did use rice that I already had rather than opening one of the three types they included in the gift. Not going to lie...I LOVE IT! (I also love the fact that I also have about 25 lbs worth of rice in my pantry) I cannot cook rice properly to save my life...I can cook virtually everything else, just don't ask me to cook rice the conventional way. Also, this rice cooker has a steamer! I can cook veggies and shrimp/chicken aswell!! I'm so totally stoked! I can buy fresh veggies and eat them steamed!

Yesterday was pretty obviously kind of a boring day for me. Nice relaxing first day of the year if you ask me! New Year's Eve was pretty uneventful too. Brent and I went to Genghis Grill for dinner then saw Sherlock Holmes (really good btw). Brent was dozing off during the movie..poor boy was tuckered out from having to look for a new car the whole day before. His mom sold his '97 Ford Explorer, so we had to find him something new to drive. After a long and arduous search, a fake number, and an extra $2000 later, we got him an '02 Chevrolet Tahoe. Bigger than his last car, and he LOVES it. He was soo excited on the drive home from Burleson. It was a much needed load off his shoulders. Anywho, after we got back from the movie I ended up dozing off on the couch around 10:30, and then just went to bed about 15 minutes later. Happy New Year! :-D

Today has been pretty uneventful. Went to work where we got up to like 110 kids, which is really good! Hopefully that business will continue so we can all work more hours. After I got off work around 2:15ish I got home and CRASHED. I literally took my shoes off and lay down in bed and passed out. In fact, I'm still wearing my work clothing. Slept for a good 3 1/2 hours and when I woke up decided I should make a menu so I can go grocery shopping. This is another part of my New Year's resolution...Keep to a menu (cook at least 6 days a week to cut down on fast food costs) This resolution led to another...while I was looking through my twenty-some-odd cookbooks and cooking magazines searching for what to put on this menu, I decided that searching like that is too difficult and time consuming. Therefore, I am taking upon myself another rather time consuming project. I am entering in all the recipes from these magazines and cookbooks that I like into Microsoft OneNote. Don't worry! I'm not putting in entire recipes..that would take YEARS! I'm simply going through and writing the name of the recipe and then the magazine, month, and page number. So I'm digitally indexing my recipes...fun huh? Wow I'm a dork! But that led me to my second picture of the year....all my cookbooks scattered on the floor before my brilliant indexing idea. YAY!

My final New Years resolution is kind of boring because EVERYONE does this one...except mine isn't to "lose weight" its to convert the weight I gained last year from chunky to solid muscle. My plan is to do at least an hour of cardio every other day, and then about 50 minutes of Pilates/Yoga the other days...50 minutes because thats how long the work out dvd I have is...:-)

So here's the "List"
1. Project 365
2. Keep to a menu
3. Digitally index all my recipes
4. Change chunk in to muscle
5. Try each recipe I have at least once....to filter out whether I want to keep it. :-) (most of the recipes I am indexing are because they sound good...hopefully with this menu thing i'll be able to keep this resolution...but it might take more than a year!! OMG I could be just like Julie Powell....except without the maggots in my sink and a regular daily shower! :-) But I guess posting a recipe or two a week couldn't hurt anyone... )
6. Get another 4.0 or close to it this semester and next.
7. GRADUATE FROM COLLEGE!!!!!!!

Well now that the resolutions thing is out of the way...I'm gonna miss my sisters. I've gotten so used to being able to hang out with them whenever I'm in lewisville cause of work, but they've left for school. Hannah's at her first semester of college at BYU-Idaho, and Meaghan is off to finish at BYU (Provo). I'm really happy for them! But I'm going to miss them...Meaghan, I'm crying right now cause you and Hannah are the only people I hang out with anymore, other than Brent. Well...not crying crying, but tearing up. The last couple weeks have been soo much fun..especially after I got Adam "Things" for Christmas! that is the funnest game ever! I cannot believe how perverted my family and our friends are!! :-) I will also miss Adam, but not quite as much since he just came home for the holidays. Meag and Hannah have been here like...all year though so its gonna take some getting used to not having anyone to play with. Anyway...I'm going to get back to my recipe indexing.

Happy New Year!!!