Every Post Sounds The Same

I haven't been blogging. I know. I just can't wrap my mind around blog posts when I'm working on big projects at work. When I get home, I just need to eat, drink and relax with the TV. I'm certainly not going to blog about work and since there isn't much else going on...it's hard to come up with something to talk about.  I cannot wait until my onsite trip next week is over so I have some time at home again. For once I'm saying that I'm happy to be back at work this week.

Last week I was in Bethesda, MD getting some of our new software installed.. To say it was a struggle is probably minimizing the amount of time and energy a whole bunch of us put in to get the system working properly. Thankfully, I got to enjoy some good company while I was in town.

Wednesday night I spent the night with my best friend Lauren and her husband. We played with her new camera (Canon 60D) and ate delicious Thai food from Nava Thai. Lauren had the one curry dish that made me re-think my aversion to curry - Panang Curry. It's the blend of coconut milk with the curry that I think did me in. Steve and I both ordered the Drunken Noodles and spent about an hour trying to cool off our mouths. The menu says 2 peppers for heat. I say they lie. I ate half of Lauren's rice to cool my face down and then started drinking her curry (which really made her happy...) Next time we'll probably order the same dish but ask for it to be a little lighter on the spice.

Thursday I finished up work around 2pm and headed up to my friend Christine's house for the night. She lives near Philly and is about 2 hours from where we were going on Friday, so it was worth it. I might be in love with her dog. I didn't take any pictures of Lola because I was too busy being molested by her. Here's one snatched from Facebook:

On Friday, Christine and I trekked out to Ikea. It was only my second experience ever with Ikea. I think I like it. I was extremely good and only bought two things. One was something I went for and the other was an impulse purchase. I bought this fantastic picture frame that is deep like a shadow box and has a space for a 12x12 picture or scrapbook layout. I kind of wish I had bought two now but they were $19.99 each and I didn't feel like spending $40 on picture frames that weekend. This was my impulse purchase:

Ribba Frame from Ikea

I also bought a blanket. It's so soft and light! It's my new addition to my scrap room for the winter because it gets super chilly in there. Have you seen this blanket before? It's stretchy and feels great. This is going to sound weird but a lot of baby photographers use this blanket in their baby photos, that's where I first saw it. I wanted to touch it in person when I got to Ikea and instantly fell in love.

Ofelia Blanket from Ikea

After our Ikea run, we went back to Christine's place, packed up our cars and headed down to Gettysburg, PA for a crop! It has been so long since I have scrapbooked and it's been too long since I've seen some of my favorite scrapbooking buddies. I also got to meet one of my favorite online friends (who is a CTMH consultant, as well) Melissa! Beverly, Jenni, Christine and I all met online as well and our friendships have really grown since meeting a few years ago for the first time. I love these women.

We made one of the other girls who wasn't with our group come outside with us to take our picture. You know, natural light and all that. So, we found a tree to stand in front of. :)

Before this next photo, Beverly said, "Let's jump!" This is what happened...

Laughter is always the best medicine.

We spent Friday afternoon, Saturday all day and Sunday morning scrapping. My plan was to go in and complete a whole load of cards for Christmas gifts. I ended up making layouts of our wedding. I made one card - the one we were given as a make and take. I think this coming weekend, I may unpack all of my stuff and continue working on these layouts, though. I'm really happy with how they turned out. I have to take some pictures of the layouts I have done, even though some are not completed yet (they need titles). I'll post those separately sometime this week.

Spending time with friends I don't get to see all that often really makes me treasure those friendships more and more.

Welcome to My Awkward Life

On Sunday I went to the early service at the church I joined recently. This service has very few people in attendance because the 9:30 service is so popular. The 9:30 includes a full (and fantastic) choir, children's services and coffee hour afterwards. It is also the service that precedes bible study. This was my first time attending the early service and started things off well by tripping over an older man on my way up to communion. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Unfortunately, Reverend Greg saw the whole thing. Fantastic. On the way out of service, Greg and other members of the Ministry were standing outside the church, saying hello to everyone, shaking their hands.

Side bar to help you understand me (if that's possible): My old last name is tied to a couple of very famous actors. I have spent a lot of my life getting statements from people like, "Oh, are you related to such and such?" Or, "Any relation??" It gets old fast, so I just got in the habit of ignoring what came after the word "relation" or "related" and just immediately saying something to the effect of "I wish" or "If I was, I'd be a lot richer!"

I made my way down to Greg and he said, "Good morning, I'm Greg." (We had never formally met before). I very gracefully said, "Oh I know who you are, I'm in your newcomer classes. I'm Jill." Apparently I it was important to tell him that yeah, I already knew him even if he didn't know me. Good start.

He asked my last name. I said Hopkins and he asked if I was related to Ben Hopkins. I immediately responded with, "Yeah, I wish." He looked at me with a smile, but I could see the confusion in his eyes. So, I quickly followed that statement up with, "Well, I just recently married into my last name." I could feel the conversation was really headed downhill after I made that random statement. Sigh. I gave him my best grimace and started to walk away. He said, "Well, it was nice to meet you, Jill!" as I walked away.

source

I walked to my car and started getting the feeling I get after any awkward conversation. First, I get warm and sweaty as I think, did I just say something stupid? My stomach starts to gurgle a bit and I begin to analyze the conversation. My conversation with myself went something like this:

Did I just say "Yeah, I wish" to our reverend? Did I really tell him that I already knew who he was and that I was in his newcomer class? Nice job, big applause for the super-bitch. It's a wonder I have any friends at all!

Who is Ben Hopkins? Is he a famous person...Oh please, please, please let Ben Hopkins be a famous person who is super rich.....Oh crap, I don't think Ben Hopkins is famous. I bet you he goes to this church. Oh nooooo....I did it....again.... Why, why must I keep doing these things over and over again? My stomach hurts. 


Can I have a re-do? 

Wait, did I also say something about marrying into my last name? Why did I say something about my last name? What is wrong with me? I'm going to pretend today never happened.

I came home and explained the story to my husband who spent about 2 full minutes laughing hysterically at me for my utter awkwardness. That's when I told him he had to go to church with me from now on so when I make awkward statements, he can make his move that makes us a perfect couple and fix whatever awkward stuff I start. He might or might not have agreed to that...

What's Going On

I've been pretty slack on blogging recipes and such for the past few weeks. I got out my post about soup but that was it. Work has been extremely busy for me and three of my co-workers this week as we roll out this new product that I'm installing at a station in Maryland next week. We have been working extremely hard on this project with fixing, updating, adding and testing to get it just right before sending it out the door. Hopefully all of this hard work will pay off and make for an easy install on Monday. It's been a week of really long hours and I can honestly say, I haven't minded them too much. I enjoy working hard on a project when we have a strict deadline that must be met. It's also interesting to be the first in and the first out a couple days this week and seeing just who works what hours. I can't wait until I'm back to my normal hours again and can start making some delicious foods to blog about again.

We really haven't done much else this week. Our days are pretty long because our alarms are going off at 5:20 every morning. We get up and are out the door to walk by 5:30. We're back at the house by 6/6:10 and Hops gets ready for work while I make breakfasts and lunches for the day. I head out around 7:15. Hops was working late days this week, as well so our evenings consisted of him getting home, taking care of the dogs and then waiting for me to get home. It's usually the opposite and I normally have dinner ready or close to it by the time he gets home. Since we've been off our usual schedule this week, here is what dinners have looked like:

Monday: We went out to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Patriots win.
Tuesday: He made grilled cheese with bacon and (for me) tomato with tomato soup.
Wednesday: was "the day you fend for yourself." I got home at 7:45pm and he was upstairs on the phone. I found a piece of pizza swirl bread I had made last weekend for our football festivities. He ended up eating a Fiber One bar and an apple for dinner. Aren't we a healthy bunch?
Thursday: I made Zucchini Pesto Pasta because I made it home before 7:30pm.

I have no idea what we are going to do tonight. I have some pizza dough in the fridge but it all depends on what time I get home. It might end up being a peanut butter and jelly sandwich type of evening.

Today I found out I won something from a blog I follow. Talk about the weird item of the week. It's from Uncommon Goods and well...I love it. I think there needs to be hot chocolate in that mug if there are cookies in the mouth, though. Thank you, Mrs Adventure! :)

Oh and one more thing. I was following a couple of twitter feeds this week and one thing I saw continuously was that people love having Facebook pages for their websites. The consensus was that even if you're not a fan of Facebook yourself, a lot of people are, so it's a great place to find new readers and keep up with your loyal ones! If you're on Facebook, hop over to my page. I'll use it to update you on new blog posts and am considering using it to update on local events going on in the Raleigh, NC area. Check it out!

This weekend is a typical almost-fall weekend-before-Jill-travels weekend. Our only plans together are breakfast Saturday and football Sunday. We are going to drive out to Chapel Hill to get a southern breakfast treat on Saturday so we can participate in the Nosh Girl Party. I'll give you a hint. We're going for a combination of these two items:

source                                         source

Saturday evening, I have plans with a good friend of mine to go to a Pampered Chef party to get ourselves some fun cooking supplies. Well, we'll probably get something for me and something for her husband. My friend's husband is the chef in her house. Lucky girl!! Then, we're going to Raleighwood to see Bridesmaids! She's seen it but I haven't and I'm super excited because I hear it's hilarious. Raleighwood is fantastic though because it is a place where you can get dinner and a movie all in one place. They also offer a full bar service. 

On Sunday, I'll be packing and we'll be entertaining ourselves with these two very important occasions:

psssst....GO RAVENS!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. If you're on the east coast, enjoy the Fall-like weather! 

Chicken Paprikash Soup

Yup, soup. We're not big soup people in my house but earlier this year, we visited my Gram in Ohio and she mentioned this soup she had from the local Greek restaurant. I went over there to see if they had any but it had been a daily special and they were out. I obsessed on this idea until this past weekend when I decided to make some. I definitely took the long way with this recipe. It was a lot of work but it is worth it. I'll be freezing a bunch of it for winter when we're feeling like something homemade and tasty to warm us up.

I made this on Sunday for the sole purpose of having something else to concentrate on other than the one important football game of the week. If I don't have something else to do while the game is on, I tend to spend all 3 hours shrieking at the TV. This way, I shriek only when I see or hear good or bad plays.

For this recipe, I made my own chicken stock. I figured I could get the chicken and the stock for the soup out of one place, so I bought a small chicken from the grocery store and roasted him at home. I stuffed the chicken with salt, pepper, thyme and garlic. I then placed him on my makeshift baking pan. I didn't want to pull the big turkey roasting pan out of the closet of doom (er...storage closet) so I put a cooling rack on top of an old cookie sheet and tada! Instant roasting pan.

I shook some salt and pepper on top of my chicken and put him in the oven at 350 for 2 hours. I just followed the instructions on the turkey packaging for cooking time. I did check his temperature before finishing the cooking process, though to make sure the whole chicken was at least 160 degrees.

I know it's so bad for you but I ate some of the skin from the top of the chicken. So good!!!

I carved up my chicken and pulled as much meat off of the bones as I could. He was done just perfectly, so most of the meat fell right off. I piled up the meat on one plate and the rest went into a big stock pot. My kitchen has horrible light unless it's between 7:45am and 8:16am so there are no pictures of my stock. I just used what I had around the kitchen for my stock base flavors. I added the skin, bones and fat to the stock pot and included a chopped bunch of fresh parsley, a rough chopped onion, a green pepper that was a day away from tossing stage, a couple of garlic cloves and a good shake of sage. I covered all of this with cold water and turned on the heat to high. Once the stock was boiling, I turned the heat down to low/medium-low (you know, that in-between spot) and let it simmer for five hours. Other than stirring it around a bit I did nothing to it other than let it simmer. Once it was done, I tasted it and it had some excellent flavor in it. I placed a mesh strainer over a large mixing bowl with a spout and poured the stock into it. I have to say, although stock takes a while to make, it is so worth it. You can manage the salt in it and it's so much cheaper to make it at home than it is to buy it in the store.

One last thing - this soup demands something more than just chicken. I don't really like noodle soup, so I figured I would add a German specialty to it - spaetzle. I had never made spaetzle before and if it wasn't so delicious, I may say I would never make it again due to the mess I had afterwards. I have a feeling the same mess will be made again, though.

Spaetzle
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1/4 cup water
1 heaping tablespoon parsley

• Add the eggs, water, parsley and 1 cup of flour to a mixing bowl. Blend the mixture together using your hands until you have a dough. Continue adding the second cup of the flour until your dough is thick enough that it does not drip when you grab it with your hand and hold it over the bowl. You want it to be a good, solid dough that will squeeze through your colander but will not drip out.
• Bring  some water to a boil on the stove. Fill the pot to your normal level for cooking regular pasta and salt the water.
• Using a large-holed colander, press your spaetzle dough through the holes straight into the boiling water. Do this in batches so you are not over-crowding the pasta and you can keep up with spaetzle as it cooks.
• Remove the spaetzl to a plate using a slotted spoon or pasta scoop once it has risen to the top of the boiling water. Continue with this process until all of your dough is used.

Now finally, the soup recipe!

Chicken Paprikash Soup
2 cups chicken, cooked and diced
1 cup sour cream
5 cups chicken stock
1/4+ cup paprika
2 tablespoons flour
1 onion
1/4 cup butter
salt and pepper
Spaetzle
1 tablespoon corn starch (optional)

• In a french oven or large pot, saute the onion in butter until fragrant, about 5 minutes. 
• Add the flour and paprika to the pot and stir into the butter and onion mixture until all of the onions are covered in a floury mixture. 
• Add the stock to the pot and simmer for 30 minutes.
• While the stock is simmering, make your spaetzle or just watch the Ravens beat up on the Steelers. 
• After 30 minutes, take about a cup of soup out of the pot and add it to a small mixing bowl. Add your sour cream to the soup and mix the two together. Slowly whisk the mixture back into the soup.
• At this point, you want to taste the soup. Add salt and pepper as needed. I added about a teaspoon of salt and pepper to the soup and then added the chicken. 
• If the soup is still too runny, take a cup of soup and mix it with the tablespoon of corn starch. Slowly whisk that into the soup to help add thickness.
• Serve soup with as much spaetzle as you want and a sprinkling of paprika on top.
• Store for 2-3 days in the refrigerator or freeze for up to 3 months. I found it definitely tasted better the next day after warming it up a second time.

Weekend Deals

Saturday morning, we got up early to do some deal shopping. Our neighborhood was having a yard sale, so we started off at 7am. We found a few good steals along the way. I got a set of red Fiesta-ware. 4 dinner plates, 4 bread plates and 4 bowls for $5. We also picked up a travel crate for the pups that we needed for another $5. So far, so good. We passed by a yard sale where one of our neighbor girls was giving people lemonade. I asked how much, she said free. I gave her a dollar and I think it made her day. She ran inside and got her piggy bank and set it up on her lemonade table. I have a feeling she won't be giving away her lemonade for free for the rest of the day... :)

We circled the neighborhood and didn't find much else that we really wanted so we headed over to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. While there were a lot of items there, we didn't see anything we needed or any really good deals. We're all about the really good deals. I did find two Christmas decorations from them for $3/each, though. Random to find that at ReStore, I know but they were my style and super cheap.

From ReStore, we went to a Goodwill near Triangle Town Center. I found two yellow plates there for my food pictures for $1 each. I bought them but grumbled a bit over the fact that they were $1/each and I had just gotten a whole set of Fiesta for $5.

Once we left the Goodwill, we drove down New Hope road, heading towards Crabtree Mall. I had to stop in there to grab a couple of tank tops and some make-up. Along the way, we saw a sign for a Flea Market. Before we even could discuss it, Hops was pulling into the parking lot and we were walking in. Here, we hit the motherload. The flea market is put on by Crossroads church in Raleigh. It's huge and it's apparently going on every other Saturday until October when it will be open every Saturday. We found some really nice, even brand new, things at the Flea Market. Hops picked out a couple of nice things for under $3/each. I picked up a mug, a plate and a vase - all for under $1 each. I also got a set of really nice, heavy curtains for $2 and a beautiful tablecloth for $1.50.

I bought the vase for a reason. I had pinned this a while ago on Pinterest and really wanted to recreate it:

Link to Pin

So, I recreated it and ... I like it. I cut the ribbon a bit short so I'll have to redo that but for now, it looks pretty good in the dining room on the wood table.

We walked out of the flea market $22 lighter but we walked out with one huge bag of items and one small bag of glass items. We are definitely going to go back in October to see what's new then.

We left the flea market and hit up the mall for me to pick up a couple of things I needed wanted. We grabbed a cheap lunch out at Andy's Burgers and Fries and made one last stop before we headed home - Lowe's Home Improvement. We went to Lowe's to try to find some wood for me to put together a table top I want to use for pictures. As we were walking in, we passed by the patio furniture which was all 50% off. I had been looking at bird seed when I turned around and saw Hops sitting at a little red patio table. He had a funny look on his face. I knew he was sold. The table came with two chairs and everything folded up super small - perfect for storage. I looked the table and chairs over and noticed they had a few scratches on them - they were the floor models and the only one left. The tag said $50 - half off from it's original price. I didn't want to pay full price for something that they had been using as a floor model, so I took it up to the customer service desk, pointed out the scratches and asked for a bigger discount. I expected 10% off. I got 20% off. This is why I usually don't ask for a specific discount up front, you never know what you'll be offered. We walked out of Lowe's with a brand new patio set for $40! I was already enjoying it yesterday afternoon...

Ha ha...I just noticed the plastic foot pads are still on the table and chairs....ooops.


We didn't end up getting what we walked into Lowe's for - the wood. They only had a few pieces of each so we'll have to go to Home Depot for that, we were done shopping for the day, though. All in all, it was a good day of deals. I'm glad we found the flea market at Crossroads, it was a fantastic find and they have a really good mix of items for sale.

Have you found any good deals recently?

San Francisco Vacation: Days 3 and 4

I realize I have been slacking on the vacation recaps. I'm kind of getting tired of talking about us.  I'm going to crank these out but will make sure not to scrimp on them.

Saturday morning we woke up late and took our time getting out to breakfast. We had plans to pick up a rental car at the airport at Noon, so we strolled down to the wharf for breakfast. We finally ate at Boudin.

We found a table in a little corner under the stairs to their lunch/dinner bistro and next to some huge baking ovens. One of my favorite things about Boudin (beyond their bread) is the way they transport bread around the building. They use multiple large stainless steel baskets that move around above the tourists with approximately 12 loaves of bread in them. They're really fun to watch. We ordered sourdough french toast, yogurt with granola and a bread bowl with eggs, peppers and onions and cheese in it. Oh MY. Maybe it's because anything is better in a bread bowl, but the egg mixture was delicious. In the future, we would order just the bread bowl and a yogurt. That would definitely be enough for two people.

As we were sitting at breakfast, I wondered out loud where Boudin stores that famous sourdough starter. We talked about how much of it they must have. When we went outside, we saw this.

Hops said, "I bet you that is where they store the starter." :) Yes, dear.  We walked around the piers and watched some fishermen before we headed back to the hotel to pack up and grab a cab to the airport. We got our rental car and checked out our phones to find the best way over to the coast. We drove through some back roads and finally ended up on Route 1. For anyone who has never been to the West Coast, we both just have one word for you. Wow. It's so different than the East Coast! Rocky, steep and chilly in August.

Yes, it's cold. Get me out of here!

We drove down the coast, stopping at one or two "do not stop here" spots (ooops) and then quite a few "it's ok to stop here" spots. We passed many beautiful fields, farms and lookouts along the way. We did stop to put our feet into the water and boy was it cold! The ground was all rocks - not much sand to be found where we stopped. No worries, there was a beach a few miles down the road with a beautiful sandy beach tucked in between two big cliffs. So, so cool.

We stopped at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse and then took a detour through Santa Cruz. We ate lunch at a little Mexican restaurant on our way out of Santa Cruz. Definitely a hole in the wall but we appreciated the serve yourself salsa - including pico de gallo.  We had shrimp tacos, fish tacos and nachos. They were enough to fill us up for the rest of the trip.

We cruised along after lunch and quickly found ourselves pulling into Monterey! We drove down to The Cannery area. We did some shopping (hello, Pebble Beach gift shop = awesome Christmas gifts for parents)! We had a great wine tasting with the best view I have ever had at a wine tasting. A view of the bay at sunset. Yes, please.

Once we were done drinking wine and looking at the biggest jaw breakers known to man...

That's my big man hand holding that thing. I don't have child-like hands...

I called around to hopefully find a Hilton chain that we could use points at for the night. I found an Embassy Suites that had a 2 double bed room. Eh, I accepted. It was a ridiculous amount of points but we would be staying nearby and we wanted to spend more time in Monterey the next day, so I went with it. When we got to the Embassy Suites Monterrey, I asked if they had a King room available. They did. Phew. I really didn't want to have to sleep in a Full size bed on vacation!!

The Embassy Suites had a Happy Hour going on so we went downstairs and found drinks were all complimentary. We helped ourselves to a few while we made some calls and found somewhere for dinner. We enjoyed a fantastic meal at The Fish Hopper  which I wrote about as #4 in my 5 Things Friday two weeks ago. We stopped by The Cannery for a pint glass for Hops (to add to his enormous collection) and then we headed home for the evening.

On Sunday, we enjoyed a late breakfast at the hotel and made our way over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I have already shown some of my favorite pictures of the aquarium but I have to tell you, it was just amazing. I have been to aquariums but this one was absolutely fantastic. The colors and the way the designers made the glass and enclosures to skew your view was just amazing. This is definitely a must-see if you are ever in Monterey. It's not cheap by any means. It was $30 per person for adults. We had the cash and we're so glad we got to go. We went to the penguin feeding, otter feeding and 1 million gallon tank feeding. Spectacular events, all three of them. We actually happened upon the 1 million gallon tank at the right time. The other two we received text messages telling us they were going on. That's a really nice feature the aquarium offers. They also send out fun details like when they see dolphins off the back of the aquarium. I showed some of my favorite pictures of the aquarium here. Now, here are a few other favorites. I could not get enough of this aquarium!

After we spent a few hours at the aquarium, we grabbed lunch and some frozen yogurt. What can I say, I'm addicted to frozen yogurt. If there is anyone to blame for this addiction, it's Serena of Big Apple Nosh. Her frozen yogurt Nosh Girl Cross Country Party was the first time I had ever eaten frozen yogurt that wasn't TCBY. I've been in love ever since.

After we scarfed down our Froyo, we headed home. We tried to drive down the 17 mile drive but it was closed off to tourists for car week. Car week?? Who knew!? (other than car people) So, we drove what we could and finally found our way out to the 101 and headed back to San Francisco. We had dinner at the hotel I was staying at that evening and I dropped Hops off at the airport at 10pm for his (ugh) red-eye flight.

It was an absolutely spectacular vacation. If you are ever visiting San Francisco, I definitely suggest you take the time to drive down to Monterey. You don't have to take the 1, like we did but definitely get there. it's so awesome. Can we move there now, please?