A Day Late

on the blog, but it's sort of a month long celebration, anyway. Yesterday, Mark and I celebrated our 8th anniversary!

Eight years ago, we were sitting on a warm sunny beach.
Eight years ago, we were dipping our toes in the Caribbean.
Eight years ago, it was 85 degrees outside.
Eight years ago, we were in Negril, Jamaica!

It's been a fantastic eight years. I could not be happier with my choice of partner, and it's so awesome how our life together just keep getting better with each passing year. Okay, enough schmaltz. How about some photos? (And yes, I Googled the word 'schmaltz', to make sure I was both spelling and using it correctly. Scroll down to 'derived meanings'.)

We celebrated number 8 at Martine, one of our favorite restaurants (and the restaurant we went to on the Valentine's Day we got engaged). It has a romantic setting and fabulous, amazing food. We enjoyed tapas, such as the seared beef filet with carmelized onions and warmed brie, and the smoked duck bruschetta with mission figs and cambazola. And topped it off with the chocolate decadence and grilled gingerbread.

All in all, a good day, and a good life!

It's Been a While....

Since I have all this free time, I thought I'd get out some pictures and do a little scrappin'. I needed some inspiration, and found this sketch challenge over on the PageMaps blog. They are giving away some fun supplies to one person who enters a layout based on this sketch, so I thought I'd give it a shot:



And here's my take:

Still trying to figure out a good way to photograph layouts to post, so the colors look right. This shows the colors pretty accurately, but there are some harsh shadows.  Any suggestions?

The journaling reads:

Elliott’s third birthday was celebrated with a bit of bowling and, of course, presents. He was so cute when he opened his present from me and Mark. When he saw Cookie Monster, he grabbed him out of the gift bag and fell onto the floor with Cookie tightly wrapped in his arms. And he gave us that deceptively angelic look!

I used supplies I had on hand and the Silhouette, which is hands-down my all-time favorite tool. I am slowly learning how to do more things with it. I love using sketches...it makes it easier to move beyond the basic design of a layout and lets me get right to the fun stuff. I also love it when I see a typo only after I have glued everything down. Arrgh! Fixed it, though.

Have a good weekend!

Food Week: Days 6 & 7

Oops. Yep. Didn't get any pictures of the camping food. But it was so good!

Here's the breakdown:

Day 6:
Breakfast: Grape Nuts, Banana
Lunch: Subway ham & turkey sandwich, 6" on Italian
Dinner: (camping food starts here): Filet mignon, baked potato with butter & sour cream, grilled zucchini and yellow squash, s'mores, daiquiri. Pretty luxurious camping food...thanks, Steve & Eileen!

Day 7:
Breakfast: Instant Oatmeal (2 packs), Hot chocolate
Lunch: Tuna salad (in a convenient foil pouch), Ritz crackers, cheddar cheese, salami
Snack: Dried fruit
Dinner: Ramen noodles, chicken salad, daiquiri
Snack: Hot chocolate

Sorry about the lack of food pictures....but I will leave you with this:

Kolob Arch, Zion National Park

Food Week: Day 5

Well, today's eating could only be described as crap-tastic. :)  Cafe Rio for lunch, McDonald's for dinner. Nice.

Breakfast: Oat bran muffin with butter and a protein shake (served in a very cool Joe Cool mug):

Lunch: Cafe Rio Pork Salad (I only at half of this gut bomb):

Dinner: Mark's choice: McDonald's. My choice at McDonald's: Crispy Chicken Sandwich, Medium fries, Diet Coke (Again, only had half of this meal). Man, the Diet Coke is gonna keep me up all night, too. Bad choices happen at McDonald's, that's for sure!

Still, overall, I kept the calories within my goal range. 

I'm going "off the grid" for a few nights, so I won't be posting for the next two days until Sunday or Monday. I'm sure they'll be exciting, though, because it will be camping/backpacking meals! Can you say "s'mores"?

Food Week: Day 4

Wednesday! Whew, over halfway done with this little project. I tell ya, taking pictures of food is not my thing, really. I'm too anxious to eat to keep trying for the perfect shot.

Well, here's today's lineup:

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, avocado, buttered wheat toast
Lunch: Dole Southwest Salad Kit (with less than half the dressing they provide...it's way too much!)
Dinner: Salmon cakes, sweet potato, wild rice and Caesar salad
Snack: Buttered wheat toast and a glass of milk

Dinner tonight was pretty boring looking. Fortunately, it tasted much better than it appears in the photo! I didn't mean to fix a meal that was monochromatic. Ah well. Better planning next time.

Geeking Out

Oh, man. I'm so looking forward to this thing! I confess, I pre-ordered it today. November 17th is the arrival date. It looks so cool.



Yes, I just got a new Kindle (to replace one that failed). But this baby looks too sweet to pass up.

Yay! :)

Food Week: Day 3

Today was a bit rough - I had a busy day in clinic with zero time for a real lunch, so had to make do with a protein bar. While it was better than nothing, it just wasn't enough calories! That set me up to be extremely hungry the rest of the day, and I chose a pretty unhealthy (but sooo good) after dinner snack. Ah well, that's the way it goes, I suppose.

Here are the foods for the day:

Breakfast: Another protein shake.

Lunch: Zone Perfect Caramel Chocolate Cluster Bar

Snack: Carrot sticks

Dinner: Stir Fry (zucchini, mushrooms, cabbage, red pepper, red onion, beef, rice); daiquiri

Snack: Two slices of white bread, toasted, with butter and Mark's raspberry jam

I'm sure tomorrow will be better!