Go Green!

This year me and my lovely sister, Mel celebrated St. Patty's Day by going to the parade and then a mini pub crawl. We laughed, we cried, we drank green beer, or rather, she did. I stuck to Guiness all day! Here are a few pictures from our day! Hopefully tomorrow I can squeeze a little more St Patty's fun in :) Don't forget to wear your green!








O, and I even got Dixie's hair done for the occasion.

Dinner For One Orange Chicken Bowl

Tonight while force-feeding Mike gatorade and popcicles I made dinner for myself. I found the recipe in the Spring issue of Kraft Food and Family that just came out.

I enjoyed my dinner and the beer I had with it...and even better my view of my hubby layed out on the couch day 4.

Orange Chicken Bowl

1lb boneless skinnless chicken breast cut into strips (I used organic and cubed it)
1/4 cup Kraft Asian Toasted Sesame Dressing
1/4 cup orange juice
3 cups frozen stir fry veggies
3 cups of cooked rice( I used minute brown rice)
1/4 cup of Planters cocktail peanuts

Heat large skillet on med/high heat. Add chicken and stir fry 5-7 minutes, or until done.

Stir in dressing and oj, bring to a boil. Add in veggies, cook an additional 5-7 minutes or until heated through, stir occassionally.

Serve over rice.

Simple, healthy and tasty!

It's tough being two people

My poor sweetie was infected with the plague Friday after we worked out. We came home, had some dinner and within about a hour Mike was out. His tempeture sky-rocketed, body aches kicked in, headache, chest and cough. We went to bed pretty early and I hoped that he'd kick it by morning so we could enjoy the beautiful weather and our St. Patty's day celebration we'd planned all week. Well, I realize how wishful thinking that was now on Day 3 of the plague. Mike is pretty delirious, his fever is fluctuating from 100 - 102 and he's been talking to himself a bit today.

I keep disinfecting but I'm pretty sure that I infected myself today when I chugged a bottle of water...only to discover it was the bottle he'd been refilling since Friday...ugh.

Anyways, it's Sunday night and I am beat. Mike does so much around the house that it's been hard keeping up with it all myself. Mike does the dishes, takes care of the dogs for the most part, helps out with Kira's feedings, takes out the trash, gets me stuff (LOL) It's just been a lot for me to do all by myself.

I'm going to round up all the animals, tidy up a bit and get everyone to bed, hopefully catch up on some sleep and hope I get my sweetie back tomorrow.

Body For Life

My friend Julie has been using Body For Life as a base for her workouts and meals for some time now. She's sent me some info in the past, mostly about the workouts and I've picked up a few tips.

I've been tracking my daily food and exercise on My Daily Plate for the past couple of weeks and I have been trying to get my protein up and carbs down which is actually quite a challenge. I went to the Body For Life website to get some meal ideas and made one this morning for me and the hubs. We used spray butter and sugar free syrup to add a little kick. I thought they were really good! If you're looking for IHOP, well, then, go to IHOP but if you want a pancake that's not overly sweet and wholesome tasting you will enjoy these!

Pancakes

1 whole egg plus 2 egg whites
2 Tbs applesauce
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tbs brown sugar (i used splenda brown sugar)
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
cinnamon to taste
1 tsp vanilla extract
Blend all ingredients together. Use batter to make about 3 pancakes.
Topping: @ 2 large strawberries, 6-8 red grapes, 2 Tbs applesauce and puree in a blender. Serve over pancakes. Use other fruits for variety.

Let Love Rule

The gay marriage ban has made it to the supreme court, oral arguments ended yesterday in California. It looks like the 18,000 marriages that took place during the brief time gay marriage was legal will be upheld. As far as overturning proposition 8, I have my fingers crossed.

I heard about this video while listening to Democracy Now this morning. A California group who heads the Courage Campaign asked people to send in personal images along with the message "Don't Divorce Us" and created this video.

In my opinion, I wonder why people are so concerned with how one chooses to live their life? If you don't like gay marriage, fine, whatever, then don't marry someone of the same sex. Why does it have to go any further than that?

Sometimes I wish I lived in Canada, eh?

A couple of cute pics taken over the weekend

I find her here every morning.





I found this picture on my camera, Mike must have brushed the beast and thought this was impressive. GROSS!



But he is cute....

we both gasped a little

Tonight, my sister Mel and I decided to try out Graze for dinner. Graze specializes in martinis and serves a variety of appetizers or small plates to share.

First things first, we selected our martinis. There were so many to choose from but I'd been craving a Pomegranate martini. The mix master used Three Olives Pomegranate Vodka, PAMA pomegranate liquor, sweet and sour and cranberry juice. Mel had to incorporate a little bit of Captain into hers so she order the Honeymoon in Vegas. Her concoction consisted of Captain Morgan, orange curacao, orange juice, sweet and sour with a Cinnamon sugar rim.

Mel and I browsed the menu for a bit and decided to keep things simple. We ordered the Grazing 101 option. All of our small plates were brought out to us about 15 minutes later. Grazing 101 looks like this:

Food Guru’s Chicken Lips
Grilled Pepperoni & Portobello Pizza
Mediterranean Salad
Big Island Burgers

Everything, except the pizza, was served on a stacked appetizer tower.

All the dishes were very good and then the waitress brought out dessert. I had to bust out the camera. They don't call it Big Ass Ice Cream Pie for nothing!