a post entirely devoted to food

the other night i cooked up a bunch of chicken on our panini press (basically a glorified foreman grill, but also used for creating delicious sandwiches). it was SO easy and fast. plus my darling husband cleaned the press/grill (which is my second least fav. job after separation meat into ziploc bags! holy smokes i love him!). sooooooo today i had grilled chicken in my salad. and i'm currently making fettuccini alfredo from annie's eats. and on saturday we'll put some more chicken on our pesto pizza.

as soon as i buy some pita chips, i'm gonna try this new hummus recipe.
we just learned about grilled pizza, so i'm attempting that on saturday night. this recipe looks yummy and her method sounds relatively simple.

our oven got checked today & the part will be ordered/installed NEXT friday. ARGH. that's hard news to handle, being a total dessert baker. oh well, guess i'll have to keep buying ice cream each week....

2 posts in one night= avoiding work

so tonight my friend becca stopped by to pick up her sunglasses & somehow volunteered to separate my big package of ground beef into smaller ziplocs (holy cow, bec, how did you know that's my absolute LEAST fav. part of cooking....! j. usually does it for me, but he was mowing/cleaning outside!)

while she worked, she mentioned a recipe that she got off the kitchn, apartment therapy's food blog. oh my YUM. i can already tell this is going to be the summer of cooking for me.


in other news, i had a heartwarming experience while watching joel's softball game tonight. a little girl whose dad is on team bounded over to greet me and i chatted for a bit, but then got back to work prepping for the last day of school. about 20 min. later i hear a bunch of parents ooohing and ahhhing over how she's covering herself in dusty brown sand of the ball field but are unsuccessful in making her stop. her dad was playing and nobody who knows her was anywhere around, so i decided i needed to intervene... scooped her up (covering MYSELF with the dusty brown sand!) and brought her over to my never-ending-teacher-bag-of-tricks [ok, basically i just had division flashcards, a calculator, and 3 DVDs...] we stayed entertained till the game was over an inning later. success!

as soon as my oven is fixed...

... i'm making this amazing chocolate chip (!!) coffee cake.

hopefully someone's coming on wednesday and i can bake all sorts of yummy things this weekend to celebrate being done my first (semi-miserable) year of teaching. hooray!

reStore

today we had lunch with some of our new-ish friends. they've completely re-done their little house and i was IN LOVE with some of the old-school stuff they featured (doors, windows, etc.). a lot is from craigslist, but they also told me about this store downtown.

totally going there. maybe even next week on my first week of summer vacation. ha!

quick ramblings

this time next week i'll be finished my first year of teaching.

sometime this summer i'll be able to debrief with myself and blog about my reflections.

right now i just can't wait for next saturday!

my husband= the absolute BEST <3

love me some summer weather.

i'm bad at taking photos lately.

nice links

check this out. so funny & poignant.

oh i want a chalkboard map. but not for my classroom because the hooligans would ruin it. maybe for the guest room...?

sometime this summer i may try to pack a picnic lunch using only mason jars. just like this!

i found a round-up of 6 dresses from target. my favorite is this one.

groupon keeps reminding me to remind YOU to sign-up!

groupon. again.

i would like everyone to join groupon for 2 reasons:
1. it gives SWEET deals
2. i can earn rewards if you join because of me.

sign up here.