So... Blake sends me a text Friday afternoon, though I didn't get it, and asks me about it when I got home. I go over and read it, and his boss wants to send him to IRELAND for a week to learn something new!
I am freaking out in a good way, wanting to join him on this business trip to 1- not be away from him, and 2- be in IRELAND! It would be an amazing deal for me to go since we really just have to pay for my plane flight and then any money I spend on what I do there, and all of his stuff is paid for as well as both of our food as long as it stays under 50 a day. What an amazing opportunity!
He was not at all excited about going, and was trying to get me to really tone down my excitement since we didn't have dates yet or it confirmed that he was going, his boss had to check and make sure it was approved etc. Yesterday I find out that 1- yes he is going for sure, 2- Its actually a really good week for me, since it is SAT week at my school which means I am not really doing much teaching at all. Today I went in, and talked to my principal about it, got the week cleared, got a substitute... and it looks like we will be going to Ireland on April 10th!
I can't believe that it is all happening so fast, and I had no idea that this was even a possibility with his job. The downside is that he will be working during the day so I will be off on my own adventures, but even so, I am through the moon excited.
Some last details at home including finding someone to care for our pets, booking flights, etc. but yeah... I am spending so much time looking up public transport in Dublin, things to do, and just getting more excited every minute!
Here are the things I am looking at now:
A walking tour that takes the group through a bunch of historical locations in Dublin, while explaining the history of it as well.
Dalkey Castle where everyone who works there is in costume and in character as they take you on a tour of the place and explain what everyone would be doing at that time.
Hop on Hop off bus for most of the rest of the visit, because it is just a continuous circuit that you can get on and off at any of the stops, and stay at each stop however long you want, as long as buses are still running. I think this will help me get around as well as see a lot of Dublin in basically 3 days (I know, so not long enough... but I have to go with what Blake is getting paid to stay there for).
I am also familiarizing myself with the different forms of public transport in Dublin, and there are a lot, and trying to make sense of all of them lol. They have a light rail, a public rail, and a bus system as far as I can tell. For many places, I will use a combination of different ones to get around.
Anyways, I am just super excited, and plan to post lots of pictures when I get back, and wanted to share my joy with anyone who reads my blog.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Family Photo, part 2
Yesterday our DMV papers came back, which meant that today we wanted to do a final push to get everything in... including the family picture.
We had a few more misfires:
Using the amazing draw of food, and the realization that the cats couldn't be held in the picture for it to work, we finally got this one:
We are all in it, and its not a bad picture of anyone! Yay, cross that off the list... and hopefully our packet to the Home study agency will be in the mail this week!
We had a few more misfires:
Using the amazing draw of food, and the realization that the cats couldn't be held in the picture for it to work, we finally got this one:
We are all in it, and its not a bad picture of anyone! Yay, cross that off the list... and hopefully our packet to the Home study agency will be in the mail this week!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
The Rest of March's CSAs and a minor challenge in our adoption journey
Here are the boxes for the last three weeks:
Here is the raised bed that Blake built with staggered plantings of beets, some swiss chard, and eggplant among other things:
As far as adoption goes, we are currently waiting for one document we sent in to come back, and then we have a few things left to do on our own. Most are easy, or at least should be easy... but one is very tough lol.
We need a family picture, and it is supposed to include pets. We did this before with Ellie, but it doesn't work too well with our current cats. They are afraid of people, and they don't like to be held. Which means that we have to use a self timer, and try to not let them hurt us too badly while also trying to get Roxie calm enough to sit for this picture. Here are our tries so far:
The last one is the best so far... but we will keep trying!
Here is the raised bed that Blake built with staggered plantings of beets, some swiss chard, and eggplant among other things:
As far as adoption goes, we are currently waiting for one document we sent in to come back, and then we have a few things left to do on our own. Most are easy, or at least should be easy... but one is very tough lol.
We need a family picture, and it is supposed to include pets. We did this before with Ellie, but it doesn't work too well with our current cats. They are afraid of people, and they don't like to be held. Which means that we have to use a self timer, and try to not let them hurt us too badly while also trying to get Roxie calm enough to sit for this picture. Here are our tries so far:
The last one is the best so far... but we will keep trying!
Sunday, March 6, 2011
CSAs [Insert numbers here]
Life has been intense around here lately with a lot of adoption stuff, mostly the training, Blake training someone at work and my preparing for Open House at school. If I have a free minute, it is not typically used on the blog (obviously :p). But we are almost done with training, and almost done with all of our paperwork on this step, Open House is over, and Blake's new guy is getting the routine down, so life has gotten calmer around here... I even had a chance to start a novel this weekend! Yay!
Here are the last few CSA's we have had (Oldest to newest top to bottom):
You'll notice that they are very greens heavy, with lots of kale and swiss chard in them, but it has given us a desire to branch out and try new recipes with those greens that have become new favorites of ours since starting the CSA (so not so new anymore, but still relatively new).
Two of the more exciting uses of those greens are potato lasagna and Swiss chard and feta pie (both pictured below):
(I know this doesn't look that appetizing... but it tastes AMAZING!)
(This tasted every bit as good as it looked)
With the beets, we had a really good meal of Penne with Beets, beet greens and goat cheese:
and another great recipe we made recently was southwestern quinoa stew with squash , black beans and corn... it didn't use anything from our box... but tasted great! :-D
In other news, our adoption training encourages us to try the food of our child's culture, because they might like it when they get home, and also it gives us a feel for how they might be uncomfortable trying our food. We like a lot of food, so we didn't really expect to have any discomfort with new food, but were happy to try one of theirs, so we made jollof rice (which is a typical Ghana dish). Really, it's rice with vegetables and chicken (although sometimes they make it with fish) and we really enjoyed it.
Also, just while I was taking some pictures of the other stuff, I decided to take a picture of how we (ahem... I) plan the meals for the week and go grocery shopping. I got these amazing little papers from Michaels for a dollar in the discount racks by the front, and I love them!
On the left is what day of the week we plan on making each meal and as you can see, if I need a page number, I add that too. On the right is a space for a grocery list.
So, what I do is first I gather a variety of cookbooks/ scattered papers that I have printed out in the past and bring them over to wherever I am going to sit down and plan the week's meals. I also bring the camera that has the most recent CSA picture on it, so I know what veggies I need to stick in there. I have, in general, a good working knowledge of my favorite cookbooks, so it is more of finding the recipes I am thinking of instead of looking for recipes with that ingredient, but sometimes I just thumb through it. After I get a few meals picked based on the CSA, I then spot check and go through a mental checklist:
Did I plan a leftover meal? - One meal a week is always our leftover meal that we pack up and put the leftovers into tupperware containers and eat for lunches, saves money and we have tasty healthy meals all week long.
Did I plan a bison meal? - With a freezer full of it, it is foolish to have even a week go by without at least one meal including our beef substitute.
Did I plan for a fast dinner on Thursday and Sunday? - Blake and I play a video game online with friends and we meet up relatively early on these two nights, so I have to make sure dinners are relatively fast so we can make them and eat them, and join with friends on time.
Are there any foods in the box I missed?
Are there any sales on proteins at Sprouts that I wanted to use?
Did I plan a chicken meal? (We have one almost every week, not every week, but pretty consistently because we like chicken, and we buy frozen chickens at costco).
As I go through these questions, I usually can piece together both the order of the meals, and what we are eating every day. Some weeks when the box is light, like this week, I give up and ask Blake what we should eat... but this is mostly just when I give up, because he plans very very simple dinners when asked (this week, it was quesadillas).
So, I have picked all the meals that we need to eat, keeping in mind any special occasions that mean we are not making a dinner that night, and I write them in on the left. Then I go through the recipes, with knowledge of our pantry, and write any ingredients that we need on the right. Sometimes, I am not sure if we still have that ingredient, so I write it on the right anyways, and add a question mark, and plan on checking it before we leave (doesn't always happen, so sometimes we are at the store, and trying to remember if we have it or not, and based on our guts, we either buy another one or chance not having it in the recipe).
I really enjoy planning meals this way. We never eat the same two weeks in a row, and I am constantly finding and printing out new recipes (if I haven't found a meal I want for kale or something else we need to use, I will find one :-) ). Also, it saves money because we almost never give into temptation to just eat out because we already have a plan for the night, and we already bought the ingredients or took the meat out of the freezer or need to use that vegetable from the box. Also, we have days designated as eat out days, and we can use self control and wait till those days to get to eat out.
I hope this helps some people plan meals, and if not, now you know how I handle getting that random box every week.
Here are the last few CSA's we have had (Oldest to newest top to bottom):
You'll notice that they are very greens heavy, with lots of kale and swiss chard in them, but it has given us a desire to branch out and try new recipes with those greens that have become new favorites of ours since starting the CSA (so not so new anymore, but still relatively new).
Two of the more exciting uses of those greens are potato lasagna and Swiss chard and feta pie (both pictured below):
(I know this doesn't look that appetizing... but it tastes AMAZING!)
(This tasted every bit as good as it looked)
With the beets, we had a really good meal of Penne with Beets, beet greens and goat cheese:
and another great recipe we made recently was southwestern quinoa stew with squash , black beans and corn... it didn't use anything from our box... but tasted great! :-D
In other news, our adoption training encourages us to try the food of our child's culture, because they might like it when they get home, and also it gives us a feel for how they might be uncomfortable trying our food. We like a lot of food, so we didn't really expect to have any discomfort with new food, but were happy to try one of theirs, so we made jollof rice (which is a typical Ghana dish). Really, it's rice with vegetables and chicken (although sometimes they make it with fish) and we really enjoyed it.
Also, just while I was taking some pictures of the other stuff, I decided to take a picture of how we (ahem... I) plan the meals for the week and go grocery shopping. I got these amazing little papers from Michaels for a dollar in the discount racks by the front, and I love them!
On the left is what day of the week we plan on making each meal and as you can see, if I need a page number, I add that too. On the right is a space for a grocery list.
So, what I do is first I gather a variety of cookbooks/ scattered papers that I have printed out in the past and bring them over to wherever I am going to sit down and plan the week's meals. I also bring the camera that has the most recent CSA picture on it, so I know what veggies I need to stick in there. I have, in general, a good working knowledge of my favorite cookbooks, so it is more of finding the recipes I am thinking of instead of looking for recipes with that ingredient, but sometimes I just thumb through it. After I get a few meals picked based on the CSA, I then spot check and go through a mental checklist:
Did I plan a leftover meal? - One meal a week is always our leftover meal that we pack up and put the leftovers into tupperware containers and eat for lunches, saves money and we have tasty healthy meals all week long.
Did I plan a bison meal? - With a freezer full of it, it is foolish to have even a week go by without at least one meal including our beef substitute.
Did I plan for a fast dinner on Thursday and Sunday? - Blake and I play a video game online with friends and we meet up relatively early on these two nights, so I have to make sure dinners are relatively fast so we can make them and eat them, and join with friends on time.
Are there any foods in the box I missed?
Are there any sales on proteins at Sprouts that I wanted to use?
Did I plan a chicken meal? (We have one almost every week, not every week, but pretty consistently because we like chicken, and we buy frozen chickens at costco).
As I go through these questions, I usually can piece together both the order of the meals, and what we are eating every day. Some weeks when the box is light, like this week, I give up and ask Blake what we should eat... but this is mostly just when I give up, because he plans very very simple dinners when asked (this week, it was quesadillas).
So, I have picked all the meals that we need to eat, keeping in mind any special occasions that mean we are not making a dinner that night, and I write them in on the left. Then I go through the recipes, with knowledge of our pantry, and write any ingredients that we need on the right. Sometimes, I am not sure if we still have that ingredient, so I write it on the right anyways, and add a question mark, and plan on checking it before we leave (doesn't always happen, so sometimes we are at the store, and trying to remember if we have it or not, and based on our guts, we either buy another one or chance not having it in the recipe).
I really enjoy planning meals this way. We never eat the same two weeks in a row, and I am constantly finding and printing out new recipes (if I haven't found a meal I want for kale or something else we need to use, I will find one :-) ). Also, it saves money because we almost never give into temptation to just eat out because we already have a plan for the night, and we already bought the ingredients or took the meat out of the freezer or need to use that vegetable from the box. Also, we have days designated as eat out days, and we can use self control and wait till those days to get to eat out.
I hope this helps some people plan meals, and if not, now you know how I handle getting that random box every week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)