Pinterest Nums

In the Bland house, we use the word "nums" a lot.  It originated from my mother, in feeding pets as I grew up...num nums was the name for food to all cats and dogs.  Dave and I adopted the word apparently.  We used say it just to Frodo when we put his food out but now it pops up in our everyday language when talking food.  Hence, the title of my post this evening - Pinterest Nums!

I hate for our food to be bland, ironically enough;) I don't like making the same thing twice in a few weeks time, and I really enjoy trying out new things when I have the energy.  Today was one of those days.  I wanted to make a yummy yet healthier type meal, so instead of finding new recipes on Pinterest, I looked at my own boards to try to make something I have already liked and pinned.

Here are the two I have tried:

Cheeseburger Wraps



Pinned from here.

To go with it...

Black Bean and Corn Salad



Pinned from here.

These are pics taken from Pinterest.  Of course, I forgot to take pictures of the food because we ate it quickly. Both recipes turned out amazing!  I used whole wheat tortillas for the wraps and since we don't have a GF grill, I just pressed them in a warm skillet to make them golden all over.  I also used organic ground beef from Wegmans.  Gotta make sure our meat is healthy and grass fed, no extra junk in there!

My family loved the wraps and there is so much you can do to change them up...I am thinking mushrooms, Dave is thinking bacon...lots of variety possible.  The corn and bean salad was light and yummy and even though I didn't have any avocados, it was tasty.  Avocados would have made it yummier though!  You could even break out some tortilla chips and get your salsa on with this salad, or serve it on tacos, or even put it INSIDE your cheeseburger wrap!  WHY didn't I think of that earlier?!?!

So that was my culinary adventure for the evening.  Lets see what else I can get into!

Life since...

My poor blog.  It's so neglected.  Life has been so busy, not so Bland as usual, and the blog just seems to be the thing that gets the back burner.  Today I am really sick, and am in need of things to keep my mind off how painful this cough is.  Here are some things I'd like to share to catch you up on our lives, nothing too earth shattering!

1.  I joined a gym.  Planet Fitness.  I try to go 3-4 times a week to work off all this flubber.  It doesn't seem to help but I keep trekking through it, some day I'll be skinnier;)
2.  I am trying to change my family over to mostly organic, clean eating.  It's hard to do.  It's expensive.  It will be worth it in the long run.  We definitely don't stick to it all the time, since we love to eat out and order in a lot, but we are getting better.  We eat a ton more fruits and veggies then we ever did, which is a good change.
3.  I love mushrooms.  Who knew?  My whole life I hated them, then when I changed the way I shop and eat, I fell in love with them.  Give me mushrooms sautéed in olive oil and/or red wine, and I would be good for life.
4.  Downton Abbey has found it's way into my heart.  And my parents hearts.  And my friends.  We are all obsessed.
5.  Raising an 8th grader is seriously tough work.  Especially when she lives in a different place half the week where we have no way of teaching her how to be responsible.
6.  Do we want a baby?  People keep asking.  Everyone is having babies, its the thing to do.  But us?  We go back and forth.  We want one, one day.  When God says we are ready.  We still aren't trying all that hard, but we aren't preventing.  Doesn't mean we don't or can't, just means we want it to be right.  I've never been the kind of girl who just wants to be a mom.  I do want to be, but I'm not obsessed about it, plus we have our hands full with a 13 year old which a lot of people our age can't understand.  It'll happen when it happens:)  You've been officially filled in.
7.  MSA is coming up over the next two weeks.  I'm the alternate coordinator and official helper.   That means I doubt you will hear from me again before it is over;)
8.  I'm writing a book.  Except that has been on the back burner too.  But I have an idea, actually TWO ideas, and I am excited to see where it takes me.  Probably no where, but it'll be a fun adventure.
9.  I'm going back to school.  In the fall.  Maybe.  I'm crazy for going beyond my Master's degree, right?
10.  I have about 25 to-dos for the house, like always.  Like repaint the kitchen (yes...I know, I just painted it last year) and doing DIY board and batten on the stairs and our stairwell gallery walls and painting the master bath and fixing that darn hole above the microwave and getting the man cave back in order...I need to make an official list.  I love our house.  I love decorating it.  It'll be a never ending job;)

That's my life right now.  I promise to blog more.  I love blogging, really!  Toodles!

Christmas comes in January too!

Happy New Year!! Can you believe its 2013? I really can't. Time moves too fast for me. My Christmas break was awesome, but felt like 1 day instead of 11. I have to say, I LOVE the schedule of being a school counselor. I love that I get the benefits of the school year calendar and get to do what I love which is help kids! Yipee!

I digress. I wanted to say YAY because I am blogging from our very own, brand new IPad!! It's really a late Christmas present to the hubs and I. We upgraded our IPhone 4 to IPhone 4S each, and Best Buy bought our old phones for almost $200 a piece!! Word of advice, if you upgrade your phone ever, take your old one to Best Buy. Anyways, we've always wanted an IPad but never really wanted to spend the $ to get one because we always thought of it as a glorified IPhone. I guess it is sort of, but it is much more too. We love it! We bought this cool light up keyboard thing and I feel like I have a brand new laptop!! Like my old, dear, departed Apple Mac I lovingly called Mango. We are honoring her memory (she was one of the only Mac laptops ever to blow up, and was unfixable. Only me...) by calling our new IPad Mango 2-0-1-3. Not 2012, 2-0-1-3.

So Merry Christmas to us. We've spent the whole evening playing games, downloading apps, and loving on it. I know, I know, we are waaaaay behind the times, but we wanted to wait until we thought the purchase would make sense money wise, and since we had an unexpected almost $400 gift card to Best Buy in our hands...we figured it made sense;)

I love that I can blog from it. New avenues of blogging have been discovered!! I can't wait!! Be back soon with some of the goings on in our NotSoBlandLife!!

Merry Christmas!!!

 

December has been a crazy, busy month for The Blands!!

I'll be back in January to update on all the wonderful things we have done, including but not limited to:

• Disney trip
• 31 Acts of Kindness (Dave,  Ash and I have been doing 31 Acts, one for every day in December, and have been halfway successful in doing them - its a challenge to do it everyday but it's been helpful in making me think about kindness more than I ever have! Then, after the CT tragedy and the new 26 Acts thing going on, we have new motivation and ideas)
• Christmas traditions
• Elf on the Shelf mischievousness - how to make this fun for adults and a teen
• New resolutions that probs won't be successful but we'll try anyways

 I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and get to spend lots of time with the people you love.  Cherish every moment!  This month has taught us that we never know how much or little time we have.  Also, remember that Jesus is the Reason!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE BLANDS!

Sunday catch up

 

Life is busy again!  I've been fighting a cold for the past week, but I've been trying to power through.  This week has been an upper and a downer.   I played "Wedding Planner" last weekend for two of my grown-up kids from my youth leader days - Jon & Rebekah - they shared a beautiful wedding with all of us and it was fun to see some faces I really miss from those days! 

Work was rough last week - one of the hardest weeks I've had as a school counselor, but I survived and lived through it;)  Nothing major happened, it was just a bad week.  I've never had a "bad" week until now, but I hear it happens!  I guess I was due;) 

Breaking Dawn Part 2 came out on Thursday and I went to the 10pm showing (genius on the theater's part) with Dave, Heather and Katie.  We love us some Twilight stuff!  Dave & I actually went and saw it again on Friday.  He really is a keeper!  He deals with my insane obsessions with books and musicals and movies...he really does love me.

I had a great weekend to make up for my bad week.  Yesterday I spent the day with mom, we shopped and had lunch at Liberatore's (we met dad there, he always has to be involved when we go to Libs) Today, I made a huge Thanksgiving Feast and had my BFF Heather & Marcus & the girls over to eat with us.  It was good to hang out with another couple, we rarely get to do that because our schedules are so opposite.  Now we are relaxing and watching the Ravens.  Life is good.  I love Thanksgiving week, its my favorite time of year.  Plus, we have Disney coming up in 24 days - it'll be here before we know it:)  I don't have any pictures to share, but I didn't want that to keep me from updating!  I haven't done much in the house lately, so I have have nothing to show!  I have been reading a lot - reading the Twilight series over again.  I'm almost done, when I finish it I'll have a huge list to get through!  I'll post those books in a few days.  I get excited when I have new GOOD books to read!!

P.S.  I have always wanted to write a book.  I secretly want to be an author.  Well, I guess it's not so secret anymore, since I just told you;)  It's one of those things that I always say I want to do, but never do it.  I am happy to report that I have started writing one.  Who knows if I'll finish it, or how long it will take, or if it's going to be any good, but the point is I started.  I'm excited to see how it goes!  Wish me luck!

Tah-tah for now!