My boss is on vacation this week which, inevitably, leaves me feeling like I have oodles of time to get the things done that I need to get done this week. As a result? I've been so super productive it's a little ridiculous. Even amid all of the stress swirling around us at present it's felt pretty good to cross a number of things off my list at work lately.

We know we're about 11 months from our lease expiring on our current place, and D/J want to buy the place.. but we already know it's time to move. I'll be honest, I'm even looking already. Just keeping my eye on what the rental market is doing right now. We realize that we'll need to start being serious in our hunt in the next 7 months or so, but browsing will give us a sense of the direction we want to move when the time comes.

This last week has been a pretty boring one. Mike works, I work... I come home and work out, he comes home and plays fetch with the dogs. That's about it. I know we're boring lately... but not to worry, I'm sure things will pick up. They always do!

If you're a lurker of this blog, you'll note that some new pictures will be popping up in the flickr photos on the right of this blog. I've finally rediscovered the desire to finish processing wedding photos. I'm sure you're all very excited at the prospect of this.

I'll be posting them to Shutterfly, as usual, so that y'all have access to purchase what you'd like. Thank you all for your patience while I slog through this task with minimal photo editing software to use. Flickr's partnership with Picknik is awesome, but it doesn't really give you the fine tuned control that actual editing software does. Since it's cost-prohibitive to own such software all of my processing will be done via Pikinik, so I still love them.

The shutterfly link has made it's way to the right side of the page... somewhat under the flickr shortcut, but it's there.

When I popped onto my favorite morning blog today, I didn't anticipate seeing an embedded Youtube video of a Glee flash mob. I expected even less for it to have been done as recently as 04/10/10, and I never saw it coming that it was a bunch of Seattleites who got together for it.



WOW, who knew! I'll admit, it's not as good as the Sound of Music flashmob done at a train station in Antwerp. But it was still super fun to watch.





A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.

Finally, we've even seen flashmobs used in advertisments for the company I work for. Granted it was our UK division... but it was still interesting.




Happy Friday everyone! Hope you enjoyed the treats this morning!

We were set to start our big push to get conditioned for one of the larger hikes we want to take on later this season. To get our new boots on Saturday and start breaking them in, so we don't hurt ourselves... then it struck. Injury.

I'll give you the short of it for me... since we're not really sure what the long of it is. Torn rotator cuff. OUCH! I'll add the caveat here that it's a super minor tear. No surgery is scheduled, no cortisone shots... just a lot of rest has been prescribed, whith an icing regimine that I'm having a hard time sticking to. We still got our  boots Saturday and even started the lovely process of breaking them in. However, I will say that I didn't realize how much you use your shoulder until it's injured.

Next up, hubby injured himself. Apparently he couldn't leave me in pain alone and felt the need to join me... by attempting to break his knee at work. I don't have all the details there either, suffice to say he is not walking well.

We'll be picking back up where we left off when he's less limpy. . . and that just about wraps up the last week.

Have fun out there!

I love food blogs.

There it's out there. I can't take it back now and I'm not sure that I want to. I truly and honestly LOVE food blogs. If Mike and I cooked fun things more often, I would totally have one. But we don't, so I don't. Which is fine, I just lurk on other people's food blogs.

I was lurking, as I am wont to do, over at Tales From the Fridge, Connie cracks me up and usually has some fantastic commentary on the foods she's tried. Today, I discovered her Tuesday Tastes post about the Ultimate Grilled Cheese. It made me stop and think for a moment, because saying a grilled cheese is ultimate brings two things to mind... 1) umm... has she been watching Tyler Florence? 2) An ultimate grilled cheese better be pretty darned ultimate!

So, Connie got this from an Oprah show a couple of years ago, and now she's posted about it herself... I'm going to give it a shot this weekend. Recipe below... feelings about the sammy to follow after trying it.


The Ultimate Grilled Cheese Sandwich


 1 slice Havarti cheese

1 slice mozzarella cheese

1 slice Danish fontina cheese

1/2 Tbsp butter, softened (for best results, use high-quality butter)

Honey from a squeeze bear bottle

1 tsp. fresh basil, chopped

2 slices tomato

2 slices bread (organic multigrain bread works best)

 Sauté pan large enough for 2 slices of bread


Butter bread on one side with melted butter. Place in pan, butter side down, over medium-low heat. Place mozzarella on one half of the bread and fontina and Havarti on the other. Cook until golden on bottom and cheese begins to melt. Place tomato on mozzarella side and honey on fotina/Havarti side. Place under broiler for a few minutes to heat up tomato. Sprinkle basil and assemble sandwich.


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Update:
We tried the sandwich last night and it really is the Ultimate grilled cheese. Dan says the wouldn't categorize it as a grilled chees, more as a warm sandwich... but I really only care about how it tasted.

Lessons learned:
*Don't be shy with the honey!  A couple of people in the house had two sandwiches, which allowed me to use thier first ones as test runs. This was a good idea because we learned that, while seemingly an out of the box idea, the honey really does lend an absolutely heavenly note to it. I'm not saying to drown the poor cheese in honey... just don't be shy about it.

*Salt your tomatos. It didn't call for it, but after the first attempt at this masterful sandwich, Joe mentioned that he thought the tomatos could use a little salt. They did, it was wonderful. We used pepper as well, but got mixed responses on that. Some loved the pepper, others thought that the Basil lends enough bite to the sandwich to not need it.

At anyrate family mine, we all highly reccommend this tasty treat... especially if you love cheese. Mike wants to trade either the fontina or the havarti out for brie next time, so we'll see how that one blows over.

New to the blog this week… me actually writing! I kid, I kid. We’re going to introduce something that I hope that both hubby and I can keep up with : Wednesday Wrap-Ups!

I know that plenty of people use the end/beginning of the week for catch-ups etc, but I rather prefer Wednesdays! Why, you ask? Because I do! Nah, really because it is the least busy day of the week for us to let you know what’s goin’ on in our lives.

Hiking Season is upon us!

Hubs and I are both very excited for hiking season to be basically upon us. As has been previously mentioned, we are both lovers of being in the out of doors, and have been away from it for far too long. We’re going to hit our first trail this weekend as a kick-off to the season, and hope to be out most weekends until the weather turns on us. We’ll be starting with the simple, but often over-looked, Snoqualmie falls trail. We may or may not actually do the one at the falls down to the bottom, I kind of had my heart set on the evac trail that goes up to the falls. We shall see, we shall see.

The acquisition of new boots is imminent, and will likely also happen this weekend, so we may select a much shorter trail to break them in.

Vacation Prepping

We’ll be heading out in just over a month and a half to visit the Wisconsin chapter of the Joneses. I’ve met a couple of them in the past (Elize is my new facebook friend and I heart her for that), but I will be meeting several members of the family for the first time. We’ve discussed our travel plans, and realized that we will need to be investing in some shiny new luggage shortly. If anyone sees a sale, let me know! (I will also interject here that I use any trip as an excuse to invest in new shoes… mayhap some clothes as well)
Battling the Bulge

We’ll be honest, we both managed to pack on quite a few pounds over the winter. Ahhhhh let’s face it… over the last couple years we’ve packed some on. I know that it’s something that happens but darn it, we’re not happy with it! The battle has begun! Nothing extreme of course, neither of us are extremists. We’re simply being more intelligent about what we eat, and more active during the week. My co-worker and I are utilizing lunch times to walk together, I’m hitting the Wii Fit in the morning, and Mike and I are playing with the dogs/walking them in the evenings. All told these are very logical things that we should be doing anyway. We just tend to go into hibernation mode in the winter.


Time with Family and Friends

More than anything else, we are working on spending more time with those people who matter most in our lives. Too often we all get wrapped up in our own lives, and forget that there are others out there who need and want to spend time with us. (You know we’re all guilty of it, a forgotten phone call or e-mail and suddenly BAM we haven’t talked to each other in a few weeks, which becomes a few months and suddenly we’re reduced to birthdays and holidays) To that end, we’re hoping to, not necessarily get everyone together at one time, but perhaps call on each of you. Maybe an invitation to dinner, the park… wherever. You’ll hear from us.
Okay – I’m beginning to get long winded… this is never good, because then I simply don’t stop.

Spring is here, and already strutting her stuff. Keep safe and warm!

I haven't posted in a little minute,which really doesn't keep any of you out there in cyber-world updated on us. I apologize. I will also add that this will, without a doubt, happen every single time I have a week-long training class.

I will say that I am also going to share a lovely new mac & cheese recipe here soon as well. I decided to try it after borrowing a Food Network magazine. Have I mentioned it is lovely? It's also unique: quite a few things wound up in that pot which made be go "huh".

Anyone have any fantastic plans for the Easter holidays? The hubby and I are headed to the great north, where we will labor over farm work prior to consuming our Easter feast. There are sheep that need vaccinating before the humans get food!  Well now, I do believe I may have just labled myself a tad... country. No matter, it's time that everyone knows I'm from the country. I love it there, hubby embraces it like he's from there. My lovely mom still lives there (hence the farmwork on easter). Someday soon I may even share some snapshots of my home away from home. Soon my pretties, soon.

At any rate, I'm off to do training things... and we can all pour a glass of wine and sit by the fire to discuss life when I get back!