Weekend!

Only two hours until we leave for the conference! Woohoo I can't wait! Just praying we have no car problems or setbacks.

Only two bullets for you today:


Number 1.
Snow tubing last night? Was. Incredible. I believe Hubs and I, along with my mom, set the new course record for how hard you can crash into the barrier that keeps you from going into the parking lot after the lanes end. We had some serious luge action going on! In fact, we hit it so hard the employees tried to make a new rule that you couldn't do "trains", joy stealers! We ignored them though cause we are rule breakers!

Plus, we liked crashing into the wall, nothing more depressing than having your ride stall out half way down the run because you're a light weight and having to WALK the rest of the run! I swear, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

At one point, we did a four person train (each person's legs stick out the front of their tube and go underneath the arms of the person in front) and somehow the front two people got turned around half way down and the third person in the train (my sister) practically had both her legs broken from being tucked under my arms when my tube violently whipped around! Craziness.

There was a wonderful light rain on and off that kept most of the rest of the people off the course so we had very little competition or wait time on any of our runs. Sadly though, I was not about to get my phone out and snap some pictures with all the moisture in the air, that thing was waaaaaay too expensive to ruin! Ya'll will just have to picture it in your heads!

Number 2. *warning mini rant ahead*

Ok, now lets get down to business. What has been with all the attitude lately in the blog/twitter/facebook world??? I am not talking about sassafrass attitude here. I'm talking hoity-toity, I'm-better-than-you, lets put others down and diss them because they are sooooooo not as cool as us. Particularly among the new moms (please all new moms do not take that as a put down, I do not mean all new moms cause lots of you are totally fab! I'm just saying I've been seeing A LOT more of it amongst the new moms lately). Seriously, what is with all the nonsense? You think it's ok because you have 123214124214 followers/fans to knock other people? Please. It was ridiculous in middle school and high-school and makes you look plain silly now.

And as an additional footnote. If you take something from my blog that I took the time to find/research/post/come up with (you know who you are), I'd appreciate that you link the source (thank you to all the lovely ladies that already do), I think we all learned about that in English 101. Please and thank you! :)

Happy Weekend Ladies!

Wednesday Bullets

A list of bullet points for you today!

• I really really want to give this blog a make-over. Fingers crossed it will happen soon! Not only a face-lift but a better layout for bigger photos and a whole bunch of other changes.


• I can't wait for our tax refund to get here, I am chomping at the bit to get my new camera and lens! Good grief, at this rate I'll have the bag(s) to put it in before it even gets here!


• I have never been tubing before and Hubs and I decided on a whim just now to hit a daredevil course up tomorrow, I am reaaaaaaally hoping we don't throw out our backs before this next point happens!


• Friday we are heading out to a Family Life Marriage Conference that goes the whole weekend. We've been once before and had loads of fun, we are super excited to be heading back again and I am loving the idea of a weekend get-away romancing with my man!


• Another month of being DINKS, strangely, we're getting to the point where we're ok with it and sort of ready to throw caution to the wind and travel and live and just enjoy the two of us. If we're not going to have kids, well we'll be darned if we're not going to have a blast not having them. Does that make sense? Nothing changes the longing but we've been having so. much. fun. lately that it's lessened the regret a lot. PTL!


• I ordered the canvas for our bedroom and it should be here any day now. I polled a number of people on twitter and I can't wait to show you guys which one we picked!


• Our wedding album is shipping on Friday!!!! It has been a long time coming but from the sneak peeks I've seen, it is absolutely fabulous! Next up, gallery wall!


• I just scored this pair of TB reva's on super sale, I am so excited! I love them!




• I've decided that these will be my next pair:





• I may or may not have swooned over this dress when it popped up on the Anthropologie site, definitely going to be one of my next purchases from them! Perfect for Easter!





• Lastly, I am loving this little bit of preppy goodness from LEC!

After the last round of snow we got I am feeling Spring! At least in the form of retailers and their spring lines. Bring on the sunshine and warmth!

A Bit of Randomness and a Kelly Moore bag!

I am ashamed of my unreliableness as of late but there are just so many wonderful things going on right now that its hard to set aside regular time! On the other-hand, if I don't write it down, did it ever even happen???

First things first, Kelly Moore is offering as $30 credit to her store if you share your love of her bags on your blog (offer ends at the end of Feb). This is a no brainer for me because I adore every single one of the Kelly Moore Bags and stare longingly at them on her website all the time! In my last post, I included a picture of my personal top choice of the moment but they are all so pretty! Which one would you pick? Anyone else out there already have one? I think I need at least two.... ;)




Secondly, yesterday I spent the good majority of the day working on two projects. The first? Stocking the freezer with cookie dough. I did rolo cookie dough, twix cookie dough, m&m cookie dough with valentines m&ms (my favorite!), peanut butter and buttermilk cookie dough. Judging from my taste tests, they are all going to be AMAZING. They may not ever actually end up being made into cookies.... ;)

The second project? Well yes, that would be uploading and backing up and cataloging 7000+ photos... yeaaaah, it's needed to be done for a very long time. I'm just relieved I did before I suffered a camera/memory card/computer malfunction!

Tonight will be spent battening down the hatches, we had 50+ mph winds whip through here on Saturday and rip some gutters and shingles off and surprise surprise, we're getting 7+ inches of snow tonight. Joy joy! Why is it always on a Monday night/Tuesday morning??? Any other day I'd be fine with it, maybe even enjoy it (not the shoveling the 1/4 mile driveway part but the staring outside the window and look at how pretty it is part!), but it does not make getting down to the produce docks and loading cases of produce up very easy!

How was everyone's weekends?

Valentines Day Accountant Style

Happy Belated Valentines Day! I'm still catching up on everyone's posts but its like everyone had a wonderful time celebrating! Hubs and I had quite the busy weekend.

Saturday morning started out with a zumba class (more on this later this week), followed up by a four hour nap, followed by a chinese gorge fest/birthday celebration for my sister and grandmother.

Sunday included lots of errands, cleaning and our early valentines celebration in the evening: doing our taxes and stuffing ourselves with fondue. It was perfectly us and I loved it. :) What better way to spend your day then to find out that these will be coming soon:






What was originally supposed to be my birthday present turned anniversary present turned Christmas present was continually pushed back for the sake of frugality. I'm so excited at the prospect of setting up shop and testing out our new toys. My computer has been on its last breath for months now and I one of these days it will let out one last loud complain-y beep and be done. I'd really like to have the new computer set up and everything transferred over before this happens.

I'm working on my sister to "gift" us the whole photoshop package with her student discount with the promise to "gift" her money back for being the best sister in the world. I'm sure I'm going to be needed LOTS of advice but in the meantime, I'm blissfully excited at the thought of having a camera again!

Setting the Table

Way back when, Hubs and I registered for all the necessary and more frivolous home items when we were getting married. The fine china we registered for is Kate Spade Union Street and our every day dinnerware is a combination of Kate Spade St. Kitts Nags Head & Pinney Beach.




We also did the whole register-for-crystal bit and we chose the Vera Wang Duchess pattern.


Choose being the operative word. We were very blessed by friends and family at our wedding and received nearly all our china and dinnerware. *happy face* However, we did not receive a single piece of our crystal. *sad face* I've been thinking that I'd like to start getting a few pieces here and there, while we are still DINCs, but in the meantime, since we aren't committed to a single pattern, I've been doing a bit of browsing. With Valentines Day coming up, (and a romantic evening in planned) I've decided to pick out something a little less expensive to use for the evening and future candlelight evenings while I'm saving up and stock-piling.




This set is my top choice, unfortunately the detail doesn't really show through in the small picture. But it has some beautiful swirly etching and it's only $12-14 a piece. Clearly it's not in quite the same category in terms of quality as the Vera Wang but I think it could work beautifully in the meantime. I've seen them in store and they are very very pretty but I've also read reviews online that say they do run a bit fragile.

Does anyone have any crystal or stemware that they really like (besides from Ikea, I didn't even get out of the store before half of them were broken)? I would love recommendations!

Behind the Scenes

First things first, Callie could use a lot of prayers and support right now, please see her blog for details!

I don't have a lot of enlightening or deep things to say today, I'm so tired my brain hurts. Hubs had a hockey game last night that we didn't get home from until after 1am. Setting that alarm clock and having it tell me how few hours I had to sleep before I had to get up and work on produce stuff was devastating.

Have I ever showed you pictures of what it looks like when we're filling produce orders? Everything comes in cases, items are priced per item or weight, depending on the uniformity of the box, orders are emailed in 1-2 days before we pick up all the cases, cases are picked up early early early Tuesday morning, cases are broken down into the orders Tuesday before I leave for work and then orders are picked up/delivered Tuesday and Wednesday.

In between all that is lots of tallying and running numbers, my personal specialty. (you can click the photos to enlarge)





***Not shown is the baby spinach, green beans, portobello mushrooms, eggplant, kale, avocados, broccoli, pears, honeydew or cases of clementines.

When the weather gets warmer we'll add watermelon, peaches, nectarines, raspberries & blackberries to the mix, but for the most part, what you see above is what we're packing up each week.

While the whole process is a tremendous amount of work and I'm still left wondering where all my time seems to go Sunday-Wednesday, it is also extremely rewarding. Experiencing the fresh produce off the docks vs. buying it from the grocery store after it's sat for 1-2 weeks and then been handled by 10 people before it even gets to the floor, much less all the shoppers that touch but don't buy...makes it more than worth the extra effort.

When we buy a case of the green leaf lettuce for ourselves and when we get it at it's peak, it will last a full month in our fridge before starting to wilt and break down. And since a case of lettuce never lasts that long around here, its a very rare occasion indeed that I have to throw anything out. Apples are rarely mushy or bruised and the tomatoes smell like they've just been picked out of a garden.

I also appreciate the fact that I've become so much better informed on where produce comes from during certain months. Also, how to predict rising prices from different weather patterns being experienced globally. California just had a big freeze in an area that a lot of fresh produce comes from in the winter months, consequently, we'll most likely start seeing shortages on berries and citrus (among other things) again.

It's also affected the way I view produce sales in the stores...when we call up and place an order and they tell us they've "cut the prices on ____ but personally I don't recommend buying it as we've had it for a couple weeks." Well what do you know, *insert big name grocery store here* is there buying it up the next day and sometimes not even cutting their prices in store! Just to clarify, that means they're often buying things that have sat on the docks for a few weeks, only to have it sit for another week or so in the cold room before they bring it out...and I used to wonder why my produce couldn't even make it a week!

One of these days I'm hoping we can start buying seafood again, years ago we used to split up cases of fresh salmon, swordfish, tuna and shrimp and other than eating it freshly caught, I've never enjoyed more fresh seafood. But it's also a lot more involved so perhaps we'll wait to do that until after I quit my job to stay home and raise our future kiddies.

How does everyone get their produce?

Fall Recipe Challenge: Panera Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Anyone else out there a big fan of Panera's broccoli cheddar soup? If you're anything like me then you will love this recipe. I love the Panera Broccoli cheddar soup in the bread bowl but the calories just about kill me in that thing. I always end up feeling sluggish and bloated after eating that whole serving. That being said, wow oh wow guys, is this recipe good! It tasted exactly like the Panera recipe but no where near as fattening! I had several people ask me for the recipe at work when they caught scent of the leftovers I ate for lunch. :)


Broccoli Cheddar Soup

6 T unsalted butter
1 sm onion, chopped
1/4 C all-purpose flour
2 C half-and-half
3 C chicken broth
2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
4 C broccoli florets (about 1 large crown)
1 large carrot, diced
2 1/2 C sharp cheddar cheese, grated (mixture of white and yellow) plus more for garnish

Melt the butter in a large dutch oven or pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the four and cook until golden, 3-4 minutes, then gradually whisk in the half-and-half until smooth. Add the chicken broth, bay leaves and nutmeg, then season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered, until thickened, about 20 minutes.

Add the broccoli and carrot to the broth mixture and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Discard the bay leaves. Puree the soup in batches in a blender until smooth; you'll still have flecks of carrot and broccoli. Return to the pot. (Or puree the soup in the pot with an immersion blender-that's what I did and it worked fantastically!)

Add the cheese to the soup and whisk over medium heat until melted. Add up to 3/4 cup water if the soup is too thick. Ladle into bowls and garnish with cheese.

Five More Hours

It's Friday!!!! This has been such an incredibly long week that is almost done, I am so grateful to have a fairly open upcoming weekend to relax and catch up.

In order to combat the long work hours and general crazy busyness of our lives, Hubs and I have been crawling into bed each night and watching 1-2 episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show while sharing a bowl of homemade Italian popcorn and occasional warm chocolate butterscotch cookies (we save those for the really awful days!). It has been an amazing mini date to look forward to each day, and definitely encourages us to not to dillydally in the evenings getting everything done.

Also, Anthropologie had a big sale Wednesday and I'm super excited for some of these new pretties to be joining my closet! Which one is your favorite? Now if only all the snow and thick layers of ice would disappear!







February sort of snuck up on me before I was ready so my big weekend plans include drafting up our new February monthly meal plan, working on inventorying our closets and dressers, photographing the house, stocking the freezer with some more homemade cookie dough (thinking maybe an oatmeal variety, chocolate mint variety and perhaps a twix cookie variety?) and just maybe a fun little trip to Hobby Lobby! I've been meaning to check out the Valentines day decor.

What are everyone's plans for the weekend? Anything fun or exciting?

Inventorying

I feel like January was a small little blip on my radar. I know most people dislike the month and find it long and monotonous but boy does it sure seem to zoom by for me!

One of the goals I forgot to mention in my last post is my desire to clean house literally and get rid of lot of excess. My initial goal was 101 items but I'm already at 96, not counting the full box of stuff I'd like to sell. I definitely want to push forward past the 101 because I haven't finished tackling our bedroom and office yet and haven't even touched the attic, garage or storage. I know that there will be plenty to get rid of in there!

This goal combines quite nicely with the home inventory I'm working on. Three people I know or know of have had house fires and lost everything in the last few months. And do you know all the crazy loop-holes that insurance companies make you jump through in order to be able to replace things? It's not easy, regardless of the fact that you may have paid for $X00,000 insurance for 20 years with no claims!

I called our insurance company and made them walk me through the exact process of filing a claim and what all it would entail. It took several tries to get them to believe that I wasn't actually interested in filing a real claim, just wanted to know EXACTLY what they would require if I had to file one.

Did you know most insurance companies require receipts? Not just of receipts for big ticket items like a large flatscreen, appliances or furniture. Smaller items too. Our insurance company's response when I asked about wedding presents was that I could try and have the gifter sign a statement as to the value that they gifted... Riiiiiiiight, like I'm going to backtrack through all 400 of our guests and ask them to remember what they gave us and how much it cost a few years ago.

To be reimbursed for clothes, you have to know name brand, year purchased, any other distinguishing characteristics or have pictures/video along with receipts. Don't have all that? Well then you need to attach an approximate value to the clothing/shoes and put a rider in your policy. For example of the X amount coverage I have, Y is the specific amount assigned to clothing. This has to be done BEFORE you ever need to file a claim. But if you do ever have to file a claim due to theft or destruction, you get a check without requiring all the "proof."

I've been working on our spreadsheet for the past month and it's a slow work in progress. I've finished the kitchen, living room and hallway/entranceway, some of the closets and started the bathroom, office and master bedroom. We have way too much stuff though so it takes a while to assemble the list of items, receipts/value, year purchased etc.

I've discovered we were definitely way under insured. I was completely caught off guard by this as I thought I had us way over insured. I've already upped our insurance once and I have a feeling by the time I'm done the home inventory process, I'll be upping it again. Who knew that in such a small house, you could have so much stuff and how much it would all add up! Perhaps its because our coverage is replacement value and the cost of most everything has gone way up in the last few years? Looking up a number of items that I didn't have receipts for (wedding gifts) I was shocked at the difference in price from when we registered for them a few years ago! Many prices had gone up around 25%!

I'm going to upload pictures, videos and scans of receipts along with the documentation to a file storage service online. We're investing in a receipt scanner and a fire safe. Most people when they suffer a loss, lose the documentation right along with their possessions. The last thing I would want to have to do when dealing with something horrendous like a fire or flooding or any other sort of damage or loss would be having to deal with the hassle that can be the insurance company.

Has anyone else done a home inventory? Any tips to make the process easier? Any advice for things you think I might be missing?