Day #5 old photo

this photo was from Chrey's wedding in 2008 so that would be 2 years ago right?

i think this picture was from 2 years ago too. i hate looking at pictures of myself, especially from before my diet i just get disgusted with myself. but it's good motivation (kind of) to loose more weight. huzzah!

Day #4- Friend

 so today's post is about friends. i have some friends. some in low places (name that song) but not really. so here are a couple pictures of some friends:

this is my friend abby ( far left) and I at our friend chrey's wedding.

this is a bad picture but this is of my friend michelle and i. there was a mouse in the house so we did the only logical thing, jumped up on the counter while my dad was being rather girly about the whole situation and joined us on the counter ty had to be the hero and kill it haha. michelle has been a friend for a loooong time since we were like 6 or 7. we do some goofy things and put together we have one full brain! together we discovered that we are not jewish!

Day #3- Date

 So today's blog challenge is to describe your perfect date. I'll be honest, I have NO idea I don't get out much haha. But this looks like I has the potential to be fun:

i have always wanted to skydive and I love scrabble. PERFECT!

Day #2- Something I ate

This is a little goofy, who cares what I've eaten today?! haha NOBODY that's who. I just got back from a meeting, I skipped breakfast then I just had some toasted bread with cheese for lunch (REAL healthy)...Usually I try to eat a little healthier but we need to go grocery shopping so that's what I had. Sticking with the healthy theme here's what I had for dessert:

 it's "sugar free" that might make it worse for me than regular candy but somedays I just need a little candy so this is what I get. It's pretty good actually, just don't eat a lot...dun dun dun ;) TMI

I didn't really eat this but I drank half of it. I LOOOVE V-Fusion V8, hate the regular V8 but I love this other stuff. see so I did get SOME veggies in there ;). The day is still young though I have plenty of time for the healthy stuff later.

Give it a Whirl! Day 1

A friend of mine posted this blog challenge that she is going to start soon and I thought what the hay? I've been lacking on the blogging front for awhile maybe it will help me get back to it, we'll see if I actually follow through! Here's an outline of what you might expect over the next month.

30 Day Blog Challenge


Day 1 – A photo of yourself and a description of how your day was.

Day 2 – A photo of something you ate today.

Day 3 – Your idea of the perfect first date.

Day 4 – Your favorite photograph of your best friend.

Day 5 – A photo of yourself two years ago.

Day 6 – A photo of an animal you’d love to keep as a pet.

Day 7 – Your dream wedding.

Day 8 – A song to match your mood.

Day 9 – A photo of the item you last purchased.

Day 10 – A photo of your favorite place to eat.

Day 11 – What’s in your makeup bag?

Day 12 – A photograph of the town you live in.

Day 13 – Your favorite musician and why?

Day 14 – A TV show you’re currently addicted to.

Day 15 – Something you don’t leave the house without.

Day 16 – Your celebrity crush.

Day 17 – A photo of you and your family.

Day 18 – Something you crave a lot.

Day 19 – Another picture of yourself.

Day 20 – The meaning behind your blog name.

Day 21 – A photo of something that makes you happy.

Day 22 – A letter to someone who has hurt you recently.

Day 23 – 15 facts about you.

Day 24 – A photo of something that means a lot to you.

Day 25 – What’s in your purse?

Day 26 – A photo of somewhere you’ve been to.

Day 27 – A picture of you last year and now and how have you changed since then?

Day 28 – Your favorite movie.

Day 29 – Something you could never get tired of doing.

Day 30 – A photograph of yourself today + three good things that have happened in the past.
 

Here is a photo of me in my brand new coat! super excited for it. It's yellow, it has toggle buttons and a hood and it was half off! As far as my day's gone, it's not even 11 yet but I guess it's going good so far, I'm having an internal debate about my hair. I have always wanted long nice hair but ever since it's been long (4+ years) it's not been nice long hair, it's gotten kind of thin and gross from all the flat ironing I do so I'm trying to decide if I want to get it all chopped off or not. It might have to be a spontaneous thing because I might loose my nerve. That will be a post for another day though. This is the hair I liked when I googled haircuts:

ahhhhh so many choices so little time/money/hair!!

Whooooo are yooou?

I made this last Friday for a birthday try to guess what it could be!! muhahaha

a sock? maybe an ice scraper cover?

hmmm...more clues to the puzzle but what could it be?

another hint, have you guessed it yet?

how about now? (this is just gonna have to stay sideways blogger is driving me nuts right now) 

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any final guesses?!

okay I'll just tell (show) you. it's an OWL!! hoooot hooooot i looove owls, no joke I even have one that sits outside my window staring at me for a LONG time, kind of creepy. I prefer the kind that can't swoop down and eat my cat so that's what this is.

I made this hat with extra yarn I had then I decided to just give a hat is pretty LAME-O so I found a really quick and easy owl pattern online (thanks raverly!) and knitted him up that night while I watched The Office, Community and Outsourced. I'm a sucker for those types of shows I guess. if only 30 Rock had been on it would have been complete haha. wow that makes it look like I watch a lot of TV but that's pretty much it for the week except for Survivor and AMazing Race. I'll just stop now haha.

It was a super easy pattern to follow and if you know how to knit, purl, K2TOG you could make this no problem. The original pattern just said to use felt for the nose and eyes but I wanted to have it be all knitted/crocheted so I made up my own nose pattern then I just did 2 easy crocheted circles for the eyes.

I have another one almost completed now and I plan on making a smaller one to go with it to match another set of hats I made a few weeks ago. That might be my new thing, making a small toy to go with the hats I make. I have big plans for this pattern I could turn it into a robot, a cat, a dog, a car...the possibilties are endless!

Honestly...

It's all about this blog now. I do have a small post in the works, might post it tomorrow. I'm just not into it right now with all the blogging going on for my brother it's hard to keep up on this silly pointless blog.

Musik

Here's some music ya'll should check out. (Since blogger isn't allowing photos until 5pm awesome)
Mindy Gledhill- All about your heart

Mindy Gledhill- Hourglass

Mindy Gledhill- Anchor

Mumford and Sons- Awake my Heart

Dave Matthews- You and Me

Lower Lights- This Little Light of Mine (Thanks Emily! I love them)

What Heaven See's in You- LDS song (the song our YW in Excellence is all about)

Hope you enjoy ;) I have no idea what to blog about . Acutally I do have one thing to blog about but that will have to wait for tomorrow or Thursday be excited. We'll see if I actually post though.

Southwest Chicken Soup

I'm not sure what's wrong with me these last few weeks. All I ever want to eat is SOUP. I've made cauliflower soup, mexican bean soup, squash soup, tom ka pug soup and now southwest chicken soup. I can usually go MONTHS without eating/craving soup but ever since I restarted this diet it's all I want to eat. It's hard because a lot of soups use butter and flour which are things I stay away from but I've found several recipes that are just perfect. This soup came from my mom who went to a class years ago at one of our favorite restaurants, Bandito Burrito downtown. She made it for a friend and gave her the recipe then she gave someone else the recipe and so on. So last year after thanksgiving we went over to some friends house and they made this soup with leftover turkey. I begged for the recipe then I found out that my mom had the recipe all along! So I made it the other night and it is just as good as I remember! Here's the Recipe for anyone interested (I'll put what I used in parenthesis):


3.5 lbs of chicken (I used 2 rotisserie chickens shredded up)
4 quarts chicken brother or water (3 chick. 1 water)
4 T olive oil
2 T red wine vinegar
3 C onion (1 large chopped)
1-2T minced garlic (3T ;))
1 lg red pepper (forgot it)
1 large yam peeled and diced
3 med. red potatoes diced (I used 2 small)
6 oz. can diced green chilis
2 sm. cans mexican tomato sauce (El Pato brand)
1-3 t. Salt (depending on stock vs. water)
1 t. Pepper
2 T Oregano leaves
1.5 T cumin powder
1 T chili powder
1/2 C chopped cilantro (mine included a fingernail which I chopped off...sorry TMI)
Fresh Limes
Small pkg. frozen corn
1 can hominy
Optional:
Cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips, avocado etc...

1) heat 2 T olive oil over high heat. Add chicken pieces and brown (I skipped this part since I used already cooked chicken just added the chicken and stock together) Add stock or water, vinegar, tomato sauce, hominy and green chilies and simmer 1 hour. (I simmered it for 10 minutes)

2)Saute onion in remaining olive oil, add pepper and saute until soft. Add garlic and sautee for 30 more seconds (don't want it turning bitter) add to stock

3) Sprinkle yam/potatoes with chili powder and add to stock (I did this before the onions so they'd have more time to cook, I was in a hurry)
4) add in the rest of your spices- salt/cumin/oregano leaves and corn. Let it simmer until yams/potatoes are cooked through. Serve with your choice of toppings. We always squeeze a quarter of a lime into the bowl and have different toppings (cilantro, sour cream, cheese, avocado etc)

All in all this recipe says it takes like 4+ hours to cook but I had it done within 45 minutes-1hr. Their directions are not very clear at all so I had to improvise a little bit. I also added a pinch of red pepper flakes because I like it spicy. It will make A LOT OF SOUP 5-6 quarts. So use a big pot, I used the biggest we have and it was still right at the top boiling over all the time.

Here's a picture of the finished product in my standard soup bowl. It has a lot of flavor and is pretty good for you. If all you do is cook the chicken first (or have the precooked kind like I used which makes it even faster) and throw everything into the pot I'm sure it will taste just fine. Sometimes things are made more difficult than they need to be.


I promise I'll post about something other than soup soon, it's just a phase, promise. I'm really posting for my own records since we tend to loose recipes around these parts.

Funny story, I just posted this on my photography blog...woops! =)

Tom Ka Pug

What is Tom Ka Pug you ask? Well it's a vegetable coconut soup. They have other versions with chicken/shrimp etc...and those have different names but the version I was introduced to is the veggie version. It's a Thai soup and it's delicious. I'm having a hard time finding things to eat on this diet again but this is perfect! I just made a big batch that will hopefully keep for a week or so so when I am hungry and don't want to make anything I can just pull this out! here is the recipe for those who are interested:

 ingredients:
2 quarts chicken stock
1 can coconut milk
broccoli- I use a lot more broccoli than pictured but do however much you want
5 carrots- I love carrots and might add one more next time
1 sm onion chopped
noodles (typically you could use two-four packages of top ramen without the seasoning packet but since i'm on this diet I use brown rice noodles which is just brown rice in the shape of a noodle- note, when I use these noodles I add a little more chicken stock maybe 1/4-1/2quart more)- I get them at Trader Joes
salt/pepper/red pepper flakes
Ginger (either fresh or dried, i always have dried on hand- season to taste 2-3teaspoons for me)

 chop your veggies up. I dice my onions small because I don't like large pieces of it but whatever your preference is would be fine. I cut the carrots on a diagonal so they have more surface area...?! You can use baby carrots too just chop them once or twice to make them a little smaller. First heat a little oil in a pot and sautee the onions with salt/pepper/ginger for several minutes just until they are soft.

 after the onions are soft, add the carrots and let them sautee for several minutes to help soften them as they will take longer to soften than the broccoli. once the carrots have had some time add the broccoli. Let that work together for a few more minutes. You don't have to let it go as long as the carrots they will get softer with the liquid.

once the carrots/broccoli/onion have been sauteed together add 2 quarts chicken stock and 1 can of coconut milk. After dumping the milk in pick up a little liquid with the can, swish it around and dump it back into the pot. Let this get a little warm then add the noodles. I used the whole bag of rice noodles.

Let the noodles cook covered until they are al dente. I let mine go a little past that because I don't like hard noodles so I let mine soften up a bit. With my noodles it takes about 10-15 minutes depending on how high i have the heat on. Make sure it doesn't boil over when it's covered! Also add the red pepper flakes now, this would be to your personal preference I like mine kind of spicy but the rest of my family doesn't so I just put a pinch or two in.

Once everything is cooked and the noodles are done the soup is ready! You could add some sort of protein if you're into that kind of thing but I like mine veggie style. it's so filling and pretty healthy. The most calories are in the noodles (which you really don't get that much of in a serving anyways) and the coconut milk. I might get the lite kind next to cut calories a little bit but it's fairly low cals anyway.

Enjoy!! Sorry the pics don't look too appetizing, it looks way better in person ;)