Highlights of the week

This week it was my turn to host Yahtzee. My theme, if you can call it that, was "shit I found on the internet." I was running around like a crazy person trying to get everything done at the last minute but it all turned out great and it was lovely having time with my girls.

Left: Brownie Batter Dip (yes, those are Lorna Doone cookies on that tray and they were fantastic with this dip)
Right: Tasty's Meatball Sub Bake - next time I might use more sauce but this was super easy!
Not pictured: Warm Bacon Blue Cheese Dip - take a tip from me and double this recipe, Black Bean Hummus with veggies and pita chips, Shrimp Cocktail, beer and wine.

A couple weeks ago Aaron and I joined a different gym. I haven't worked out in well over two years, due to surgeries and whatnot and then just plain laziness. Gwensday morning I got up early and did a proper weights workout at the gym before work. I'm feeling it but it's a good feeling. Of course there's still always this obstacle:

All week I've been thinking about this whole bathroom law bullshit and I knew I wanted to address it here but had a really hard time putting the words together. Fortunately my real-life and blog friend Steph hit it hard in her post yesterday. Some of my favorite parts from the post include:

• "We've all been going to the bathroom with transgender people for years, we just didn't know it because no one is required to flash their private parts to go to the bathroom in a public restroom." This is what blows my mind. If I'm in the restroom with a trans woman, guess what? I'm not going to actually see her genitals.
  
• "Women and children get attacked and raped all across this country every day and no one gives a fuck until now, when people want to pee with people they look like instead of where the genitals they were born with say they should pee." 

The only thing a bathroom law does is allow more hatred and bigotry toward not only transgender people, but also anyone who looks androgynous or just doesn't look like what someone thinks they should (remember SNL's "It's Pat?"). If only the Target protesters would focus their anger and energy on real sexual predators instead of people who just want to pee, now THAT would be productive.

Truth.

Speaking of Steph, she and Jana not only host the monthly Show Us Your Books link up, but they've also started a podcast about books called The Armchair Librarians. There are now 8 episodes and I totally binge-listened to all of them yesterday. My personal favorite is the one with Jana's 9-year-old daughter, who chastises Jana because she "only" reads violent books. Plus I couldn't help wondering how hard it was for them to not curse in that particular episode.


Happy Weekend!

Let's play catch up

Here's what's been going on the last week:

Sunday we had a family reunion on Aaron's side. We were at his sister Cynthia's house, where they have a pond with zipline, a pavilion with picnic tables and a firepit, and lots of land.

Taken from the deck of the house

The kids were just the best. I love it when kids who may not have ever met each other become besties in about 2 minutes. They did a scavenger hunt before the lure of the pond hooked them for the rest of the day.

All girls, except for little Cohen, being held by our niece Lauren

Kate, Julia and Lauren

Zip line!

As you probably know, we have a community garden next to our house. This is our last year for that and there will be houses there soon (living through construction should be fun). Anyway, one of our neighbors planted a sunflower this year and it finally bloomed!

I took this from our second floor window. I love that it
faces the house so I see it whenever I walk past and
it makes me smile.

I started the longer-than-I-want-it-to-be process of reorganizing/purging/decluttering the bathroom shelves. I need some suggestions on organizing. I don't like the wicker baskets that are so big and I can't see anything in there and definitely can't find anything. Here's the before pic:

Here's the recipe for the Blackberry Lemon Trifle I made last week. I got the recipe from The Fake Gourmet.

8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 container whipped topping
1/4 cup frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
1/4 cup water
6 cups fresh blackberries, washed (or frozen, thawed)
1 jar (10 oz) blackberry jam
1 pound cake, cut into 1/4 inch slices

Combine cream cheese and lemon juice and mix until smooth.
Add condensed milk and mix again.
Fold in whipped topping. Set aside.

Combine lemonade and water.

Line the bottom of a trifle bowl (or whatever bowl you want to use) with pound cake. Brush on the lemonade mixture (I spooned it on) and if you're patient, wait a few minutes for it to soak in.

Spoon blackberry jam over the pound cake.

Spread whipped topping mixture over the jam layer, then put blackberries over the whipped topping layer.

Repeat.

Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

My bowl was way too big! But this is delicious and easy!

Have a great weekend! I know I will because I have my niece Jackie visiting. Look how gorgeous she is!

Curing cancer, one cheap beer at a time

For the fourth year, our neighborhood and friends participated in the Crawl for Cancer (here are some pictures from last year). We had 30 people -- there are roughly 5,000 total participants -- and we usually have a team "draft" at our house the night before. This year, that also happened to be our friend Jen's 40th birthday, so we combined celebrations.

Saturday morning Aaron woke me up way too early and we biked to Ethyl & Tank for breakfast and bloody Marys:

As y'all know, I hate the "official" color of breast cancer, so I've adopted leopard print as my own. My peeps surprised me and we all had leopard print bandannas to wear.

Sunday Aaron wore his patriotic tie to church, as did one of the ministers:

I also made a Triple Berry Kahlua Crisp, from Half Baked Harvest (find the recipe here). I used red raspberries instead of strawberries. It's deeeeeeeelish.

I have no pictures from Monday. I didn't do much, but we did go to see Draft Day, which we both enjoyed. I've been a stalker fan of Kevin Costner since the summer of 1988 and he didn't disappoint.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

The Day After Yahtzee

So last night was my turn to host Yahtzee (see my post explaining this monthly gathering here). Now, in case I haven't mentioned it before and if you're new around these parts, I am NOT the cook in my household. Fortunately I married a guy who loves to cook and is good at it so I'm off the hook most of the time. When I host Yahtzee I usually have an array of cheese and crackers, taco dip, and a go-to dessert that is super easy. For this month's venture I decided to step outside my comfort zone and make a bunch of (still easy) food that I had never made before.

I have a bit of an addiction to fun cocktail napkins.

My drinks of choice were boxed wine, Miller Light for Amy and a sangria slush (which didn't go over that well and why should it, since it's February and it's flipping cold outside).

With as blurry as this pic is, you'd think I took it at the end of the night. But I hadn't even had any wine yet.
The glass was a Christmas gift from my mom. I love it.

I made items that I either saw on Pinterest, or found elsewhere but they're now all pinned to my board. I made a black bean hummus (my first attempt at hummus and it won't be my last - delicious), broccoli cheese bites (in which my broccoli wasn't chopped small enough but they were still tasty), a warm blue cheese and bacon dip (described as "crack in a bowl;" I strongly recommend doubling or tripling this recipe), pizza quesadillas (which I didn't execute super well but I'd try them again) and double delicious bars.

I made the hummus Tuesday night and the double delicious bars Gwensday morning before work. Funny story: when I bought stuff for Yahtzee I did not get chocolate chips because I was certain that we had at least a bag and a half. But sure enough, after I'd crushed graham crackers and I had butter melting, I realized that there wasn't a chocolate chip to be found in the pantry. I also needed some cheap red wine for the sangria slush. So off I went to Kroger at 7:15 am looking like hell because I hadn't showered yet to get two bags of chocolate chips and a big bottle of Gato Negro Merlot. Luckily I live in a 'hood in which that probably wasn't unusual, although the cashier did give me a bit of a once over. Don't judge me.

As always, it was a fun night of laughter and catching up. I took a preemptive tactic against the Yahtzee flu by scheduling today off, and then I just decided to take Friday off as well. You can reach me on the couch in front of the fire catching up on Pretty Little Liars and whatever else I can fit in.

Stay Tuned,

The Gila

Polenta Casserole Recipe, and Makeup Brush Storage Update

A couple weeks ago I posted this picture and had some requests for the recipe. Since I clearly didn't make it (Aaron did) I had to find said recipe, but here it is at last.

Rustic Sausage and Spinach Polenta Casserole

POLENTA
5 1/2 c water
1 1/2 c instant polenta (They're very specific about using INSTANT polenta.)
3 oz grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbs unsalted butter
1 medium garlic clove, minced
Salt and pepper

TOPPING
1 Tbs olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 lb Italian sausage, removed from casing
6 medium garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
8 oz spinach, chopped coarse
1 Tbs red wine vinegar
2 oz grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbs minced fresh parsley leaves

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees with oven rack in middle position
2. For the Polenta: Combine the water, polenta and 1 1/2 tsp salt in a large bowl, cover and microwave on high power until most of the water is absorbed, about 8 to 10 minutes. Stir thoroughly, then continue to microwave, uncovered, until creamy and fully cooked, 1 to 3 minutes longer. Stir in Parmesan, butter, garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Cover to keep warm, set aside.
3. For the Topping: Heat the oil in a 12 inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and 1/2 tsp salt and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the sausage and cook, breaking the meat into large chunks with a wooden spoon, until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook another 30 seconds.
4. Add the tomatoes with juice, bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Stir in the spinach a handful at a time and cook until wilted, about 2 minutes. Off the heat, stir in the vinegar and season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Smooth the cooked polenta evenly into a 13 x 9 baking dish. Spoon the sausage mixture on top and sprinkle with Parmesan.
6. Bake until polenta is heated through and cheese is melted and just beginning to brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes, then sprinkle with parsley and serve.

This recipe came from The Best One-Dish Suppers by the editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine. We've been subscribing to Cook's Illustrated for years and Aaron gets a lot of recipes from them. This book has a lot of great recipes (the chicken pot pie on the cover is delicious!) and you can get it from Amazon.

Click on picture to go to Amazon

Last week I posted step one of getting myself organized beginning with the bathroom drawer. I mentioned that I still wanted to do something with my makeup brushes and Steph at Life According to Steph suggested doing something that's been all over Pinterest. Well, I'm not as prolific with my Pinterest account as some of my friends so I didn't even know what she meant. So I did a search and found this:

From Pinterest via The Home Daybook

Wouldn't you know, I happened to have a rectangular vase and decorative stones and they were doing NOTHING. We bought the vase at Ikea because it was cool but we've never really put anything in it. We do use the stones if we have fresh flowers, but that doesn't happen all that often either, mostly because our cats like to snack on fresh flowers.

So here's the final result:

My vase is a lot bigger than the ones I saw on Pinterest, but I also have this handy dandy windowsill that fit perfectly so I'm not taking up tons of counter space.

There you have it. I actually did a DIY project! Yeah, yeah, I know it's not much, but for me it's huge.

Stay Tuned,

The Gila

Linking up with Helene and Emily:

Monthly Measures #1

I'm joining up with Nicole for her Monthly Measures. The first Monday of every month I'll be posting something related to health/fitness/weight loss. Back in November I embarked on a new weight loss journey; I even thought about doing a separate blog about it, even if just for myself. But I like this idea of checking in on a monthly basis, making myself accountable, and hopefully encouraging others along the way.




Since mid-November I've changed my eating habits. I don't deprive myself of something if I want to eat it (on Saturday I really wanted pizza so we ordered one, and it was delicious and I don't regret it one bit) but I am making smarter choices and doing much better at portion control. In 12 weeks I've lost 14 pounds. I'm happy with that. I'm not looking for a quick fix that will eventually backfire. I'm not quite ready to give you numbers as to how much I weigh, but suffice it to say that I still have a ways to go.

One of the things I've been making sure I do is eat breakfast. It might only be a protein bar, but I try to make sure I eat something that's balanced. To help me stay on track with this, I downloaded an app to my iPhone called Commit ($2.99). It helps remind you to do something (anything you want) every day. Right now my only one is eating breakfast. I once had flossing in there but that didn't stick...yet. I have it set to ask me every day at 10:00 am if I've had breakfast, and at the bottom is a visual guide to tell me how many days in a row I've done it.

Today made 62 days in a row!

I try to switch up my breakfasts so I don't get bored: eggs, oatmeal, protein bar. I also have a new favorite smoothie, which I found at Green Plate Rule. Here's a link to the original recipe:

It calls for almond milk, almond butter, blueberries, greens (I use spinach) and chia seeds. I haven't tried chia seeds yet, but I already have ground flax seeds so I use that instead. I also add whey protein powder, vanilla flavored. And lately I've changed it up a little more by substituting lemon flavored fish oil for the almond butter, making it a blueberry-lemon smoothie. I just love the combination of blueberries and lemons - so refreshing!

Here's the fish oil supplement I'm using. I get the lemon zest flavor, but I'm looking forward to trying other flavors as well. You can by it from the Barlean's website, or Google it to buy from another retailer.

Barlean's Omega Swirl

Thanks Nicole, for hosting this link up! I'll be checking back in next month.

Stay Tuned,

The Gila