Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Ten Thanksgiving Thought Tuesday

I love Thanksgiving dinner, and I love to host it at my house. This is the fourth or fifth Thanksgiving we've hosted (well, minus the first one I hosted by myself in my college apartment). There is nothing healthy about our dinner, at all. And to prove it, here is our menu for the big day! Mmmm...I can feel my arteries clogging up and the Triptophan getting me ready for nap time.

1. Turkey. Adam usually brines the turkey a day or so before Thanksgiving. Brining a turkey makes it very moist when it cooks. Adam also puts an apple, onion and rosemary in the turkey, making it extremely flavorful.

2. Gravy. Probably my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner (besides #4). The recipe is my Gramma's, and is the best gravy I have EVER had. It starts with Giblet Soup...I take the giblets (heart, liver, kidneys, neck, and I'm sure some other disgusting thing) and cook them for a couple hours with onion, celery, water, and a few spices. After the soup has cooked, I take the broth and mix it with the drippings from the cooked turkey. I bring it to a boil and taste it to see if I need to add any boulion, pepper, worschestershire sauce, and maybe a little "brown" flavor. After it's ready taste-wise, I add the cornstarch to thicken it. I put it on pretty much everything!

3. Green beans. Should be healthy, right? WRONG! I cook the green beans until they are just a tiny bit crunchy and drain them. While they were boiling, I've cooked up a few pieces of chopped up bacon, which I add to the beans with a little bit of the grease after they've been drained. I also add a bit of pepper to them. Tasty!

4. Sally's potato casserole. OH MY GOD! Everytime we host a holiday meal, I ALWAYS ask her to bring her potato casserole. Even my little bro, Sam, requests her casserole! She's managed to cut half of the butter out of the dish, but I can't tell. It's always so amazing!

5. Hockey pucks. AKA dinner rolls. I'm not 100% sure why Adam's family calls this particular roll a hockey puck...I think it has something to do with the first time Sally made them...they were rock hard and shaped like a hockey puck. All of the hockey pucks I've eaten were quite tasty!

6. Green Jello. Another one of Sally's dishes. I don't even know what she puts in the green jello, some kind of cheese, nuts, maybe a type of fruit...All I know is it is so tasty! And it's green...does that make it healthy? *Papa, you would really like this dish! I know how much you like jello!

7. Gramma's stuffing. Mom is making this dish this year. It has the best flavoring and just makes me happy! Paired with Gramma's gravy recipe, I think this could make the world a happier place if everyone just took a few bites every day!

8. Salad with dressing from Cafe Girasole. Feild greens and the most amazing raspberry vinagrette made by my good friend Leslie DuPonte, owner of Cafe Girasole. Such a simple dish, and yet, so good!

9. Cranberry Sauce. Homemade. Not from a can. That stuff will kill you! Off course, it's an Alton Brown recipe that Adam found for our first Thanksgiving dinner 4 years ago. It uses real cranberries, orange juice, a little bit of sugar, and some other ingredients I can't remember off the top of my head. Last year we had some cranberry sauce leftovers...Adam sat down and ate the rest of them on Friday before I even had a chance to have any. Won't happen this year! I'm going to hide them!

10. Pie - Pumpkin AND Pecan. Adam makes the pies every year...no matter if we host or not! The Pecan Pie is awesome! I'm sure the Pumpkin Pie is very good. I would personnally be happier if he just made more Pecan...never have been a fan of the Pumpkin. It's the perfect way to end a blissfully decadent meal...of course, pie is usually served a few hours after dinner!

So, as you can see, we have a very full day of cooking and eating ahead of us on Thursday. Maybe I should boycott food until then! If I don't blog again before Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Scarf Swap!



This is a great idea! Click on the image to go to the sponsoring website if you want more info or want to participate.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Ten Thought Tuesday

1. I spent way too much money on things I didn't need today.

2. I think dressing rooms have special mirrors that make you think what you are buying looks good on you.

3. Which means I hated pretty much everything I bought today when I re-tried it on at home.

4. Which means I'll be taking all of the things I didn't like back tomorrow.

5. I hate it when that happens.

6. Although this time, I'm okay with it happening because I really didn't need to buy this stuff today!

7. I miss Adam. He left this morning on a business trip and won't be home until VERY late tomorrow night.

8. I have a really hard time sleeping when he's not home. Snuggling with a pillow just isn't the same!

9. I have a really early day tomorrow with a breakfast meeting at 7 a.m., which is hard on a good day, but is even harder when Adam is gone AND when I've stopped drinking caffeine!

10. Geeze...I miss caffeine!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

I'm having a blue night...

I've been looking at my friend lists on MySpace and Facebook tonight, and see many people that I used to be so close to, and have lost touch with. It makes me sad to know I'm no longer close to these people who I spent so much time with. They helped shape me into the person I am today. I wish they were still such a large part of my life, and I wish I was still such a large part of theirs.

My newest project is to try and get in touch with some of these people and see if I can reconnect. I think it's important to let the people who mean so much to me know that they do and that I think of them often. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to rekindle some of my friendships that have lapsed over the years...and I won't be so blue!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

10 Random Long Thought Tuesday

1. My work schedule this week and next is insane! I belong to the Carson Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Carson Chamber of Commerce, the Young Business Professionals Association, and the Downtown Business Association of Carson City. I'm also thinking of joining Women Entrepreneurs of Nevada. Between all five of these associations, I have two events tomorrow, one on Thursday, one on Saturday, three next Wednesday and one next Thursday. Yowza!

2. I LOVE being this involved in my community and this busy! Yeah, I'm a little tired after these kinds of weeks, but it's worth it when everyone knows who I am and I know them. It's weird because the networking saying used to be "It's all in who you know." Now it's "It's not who you know, it's who knows you." I'm going for both!

3. I found a great Pet Supplies and Gifts store yesterday. They carry the brand of food we buy (and it's cheaper than Petco!) and they have a lot of cool products, some of them by local companies. I prefer to support small local businesses when given the opportunity.

4. I hope Jack passes his Canine Good Citizen class. We're working with him a lot on the 10 areas he'll be tested on. I'm a little bit nervous about it...The good news is he gets a practice test in two weeks before his real test in three weeks. If he passes the practice test, then he passes the class and doesn't need to take the real test.

5. Jack was pretty cute at training last night. We're actually enrolled in two classes. Advanced Obedience for Jack (which started two weeks ago) and Basic Obedience for Tarot (which started last night). Since last night was the first Basic class, we didn't bring Tarot. But the Basic class is right after the Advanced class, so we still had Jack with us. He got to be the Demo Dog and I am proud to say he did a GREAT job! He just about turned himself inside out every time Sarah, the trainer, needed him to do something. She runs the rescue shelter we got the dogs from, and he just loves her like you wouldn't believe! I'm pretty sure he would go home with her if he could.

6. I learned at our Advanced training last night that you can bring well behaved, leashed dogs into Bed Bath and Beyond! We walked Jack around the store last night during class to get him used to behaving in a new area. There's actually a number of stores that you can bring your dogs into, two more of them being Lowe's and Home Depot. Part of our homework is to take Jack to different stores to practice his new skills. I'm thinking tomorrow night will be Lowe's, Saturday will be Bed Bath and Beyond, and Sunday will be Home Depot.

7. I'm watching Good Eats with my husband while I'm typing this up. My husband loves this show, and I like it too. The cheesy (no pun intended) themes are entertaining and the recipes (Adam has made several of them and has all of the Good Eats cookbooks) are pretty good. However, it cracks me up how he says "Thusly" at least two times in each show. He always says it after he shows a step in the cooking process. Example from tonight's show: "We will apply a fork, thusly," which he said after forking holes into his grahm crackers before baking. I just heard the second one for the night: "And the wet goes into the dry, thusly," which came after he added the wet ingredients to his dry ingredients.

8. I keep having dreams that the dogs and cats are finally getting along. I know that isn't happening because I usually wake up to the dogs jumping the baby gate that keeps them away from where the kitties hang out and start barking and chasing them around. I'm pretty sure the war will continue for many years. Every now and then I find a cat claw shell stuck in one of the dogs' faces.

9. I've completely lost interest in this season's Dancing With The Stars. I'm not really sure why I don't enjoy it any more. Maybe it was the fact that Kim Kardashian and Brooke Burke were on it...One is a socialite space cadette and the other is a skanky topless model. I guess it just takes the fun out of a family show. However, I am eagerly awaiting the next season of So You Think You Can Dance. I truly love that show! In fact, Adam bought tickets for us to go see the tour when it came to Reno for our anniversary. It was so amazing, I'd love to go again next year if they come to Reno.

10. And while I've completely lost interest in Dancing With The Stars, I've completely gained interest in the renewed 90210!!! It's my new guilty pleasure on Tuesdays. Usually I can get away with watching it without Adam knowing...but he doesn't have class tonight because of Veteran's Day, so I'm busted! It brings me back to when I was younger (Jr. High and High School) and my mom and I would have a girls night and watch 90210 and Party of Five. Ahhh...the days of teenage angst and drama I never have to go through ever again!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I'm evil

I got home about an hour ago from a business meeting that I attend once a month for the Downtown Business Association of the city I live in. I've worked my a$$ off to get into this group, put together proposals so the company I work with can partner with them as their official print sponsor for their association and the events they hold. Because of the hard work I've done, I'm a respected member of their group, my company is the official print sponsor of their association and the events they hold, and I'm like family to a lot of them.

So why am I evil?

Well....my competitors also attend these meetings that I attend. And the only reason they started attending is because they found out I was going to present the program they are currently running with my company. They tried to get onto the same agenda I was on when I attended my first meeting and pitched my proposal. They were shut down. They pitched a horrible program at the next meeting...they were put on hold. They pitched again tonight. They were totally blasted by the majority of the Association.

So why am I evil?

Because I have enjoyed every second of it! I have loved that they are shooting themselves in the foot because they're scrambling now that they finally have some competition in town. I love that they're getting shot down and majority of the group doesn't want to advertise with them. I love that they're fuming because I got the sale.

So, I know I'm evil and I'm enjoying this way to much. But you know....my competitors have been around for awhile and have become comfortable with being the "only pony show in town." I've heard stories from clients that the level of customer service they receive is terrible and are glad to have another option now. I think it's good for them to have some competition to make them re-evaluate the service and products they provide. So maybe I'm not too evil...I'm just working hard so I can encourage them to do the same!

Riiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggghhhhhhhhhhht!

Happy Friday to everyone! Be evil and give your competition something to worry about!

 
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