January the third

One of our "goals" this year is to be more healthy, especially in what we eat. So on December 31st, I spent a good deal of time looking up recipes for all natural or raw foods that we might be able to start incorporating into our diets. This week has been fun to try some new things I wouldn't even have thought to make- like this carrot ginger soup here. Granted, it was still a little bland for my taste (even after adding cumin, red pepper flakes, oregano, garlic salt, and the green onions topping), but it sure felt healthy going down. Chris liked it just fine though, and he even took a big container of it to work with him the next day. I found that a small bowl was great for dipping organic spiced crackers into, and the soup sure made my lunch box smell nice and spicy!

For anyone wanting to check out more of the healthier recipes I've found, here's my Healthy Recipes pinterest board. So far we've also tried the edamame dish and the jazzy pinto beans, both of which weren't amazing, but still came out tasting okay. We're just not used to eating non-processed, non-salted down dinners yet. :(  I do have high hopes for the french lentil soup, though Chris says he's a little "souped out" right now, so it'll be awhile before we try that one. (And I have three containers of my spicy chicken noodle in the fridge right now to go through first.) I did try to make my own chicken stock last weekend, with the leftovers from a grocery store Rotisserie chicken and the odds and ends from some carrots, onions, and celery. It smelled amazing in my kitchen that day. So far we've only used the broth in the carrot soup, so I'm not sure how much different tasting it is than the boxed kind. I'll have to try it in my spicy chicken soup to really compare.

Happy eating this new year!

January the second

Last time I did a year of Picture of the Day, I often ended up at 11:30pm frantically looking around for something interesting to take a picture of, kicking myself for not getting a shot of something while it was still daylight and my photo could actually look good. Then there were other days when I had multiple photos for the day, and had to narrow it down to the picture of the day. Much hemming and hawing ensued over which picture I would use. 

This year I decided, screw it, I can have as many pictures as I want for each day. The whole point is telling stories anyway, right? And since I am T minus 24 days away from getting my iphone, which will surely result in a much higher picture per day ratio, I figured why stress myself out with what would inevitably be a daily decision that I just don't want to have to deal with for the next 365 days?

So here's day two- all three pictures from January 2nd.

First up: Chris and I took down Christmas yesterday. For us, it's a fairly quick task of taking our 8 ornaments off the tree, un-fluffing the tree, and shoving it back into the box. These are our Christmas 2011 ornaments (the first year we started collecting/creating for our tree) packed in the box and ready to go to the attic for the next year.

 Reason #448 I love my husband. He knows I love taking pictures of silly, normal things going on around the house. So when I was sitting in a lawn chair out on our porch, reading in the glorious, practically summer sunshine, and heard the tell-tale click-click from down the hall, I was a happy wife. He was shooting from the other end of the house with the 85mm, in case anyone was wondering. And let's again reiterate that it is January 2nd, and it was a gorgeous practically summer day. Perfect for reading on the porch.

Had to get one of Chris. Ignore the giant splotch of window light that's smacking him in the forehead. This is what he was up to while I sat outside in the sun: manual labor in the kitchen. Silly boy. We have very different ideas of what should be done on the last day of Christmas vacation.

New Year.

Hello, 2012!

You will bring me many things this year. Among them: my very own iphone, a Master's Degree in Educational Technology, and a real grown up job. Let's do it.

January the first

Real.

Real is my word for 2012.


(To be expounded on later.)

Christmas once again in Yucaipa

Happy Christmas, everyone! We're up at the Trementozzi's house to celebrate for a few days, but don't get any ideas of sneaking into our house- my sister's standing guard for us with a couple of ferocious(ly cute) kittens.

If you're new around here, Trementozzi Christmas is an all-day event. We're gearing up to have some breakfast and start the present unveiling soon here. Then some lunch, and more Christmas presents. Then some dinner, and more presents. There's a system here. For Chris' take on it, here's last year's blog entry, and here's the awesome video he made from setting his camera up on the china cabinet and using the remote to click throughout the day.

Fingers crossed I get an iphone!

(Just kidding. I have to wait till Jan 27 for that thing. Silly upgrade policy.)

Christmas (with Kittens)

The kittens love the new Christmas tree. You'll notice that there are no actual ornaments anywhere near the parts of the tree they can get to. Our tree is very top heavy with ornaments.

Sawyer has developed a thing for my socks. He loves pulling open my sock drawer and grabbing the closest sock. Then the next closest sock. And the next. Until he has a pile of socks outside of the sock drawer. But his favorite socks are these Christmas funky colored ones I got from my roommate Jen two Christmases ago. When he gets a hold of one of those, he tugs it around the house with him, and we end up finding it in the strangest places. As you can see, he also likes pulling it up to the bed and cuddling up for a good nap with it.

The kitchen pictures... really have nothing to do with Christmas. I just thought it was funny that I set myself up in the dining room to get pictures of Jack being bad by getting up on the counters. And other places. Have fun playing where's Jack with those pictures!

You'll also notice you're seeing a lot of Green Mouse in these photos. Green Mouse (as Chris calls him, not the green mouse), is the current favorite toy. This is actually the second green mouse. We got a two pack when we first got the kittens, and they liked them enough, but both were supposed to have little bells on their tails that were missing. Green Mouse 2.0 has a full functioning bell, and Sawyer especially carried that thing around with him everywhere he went the first day we brought it home. (Sawyer might be a hoarder, now that I think about it.)

Merry Christmas, from Jack and Sawyer!