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Category Archives: House & Home

Naturally Slim, Round 2

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When it’s time to get serious about Naturally Slim again. Plus I already have my walk in for the day. #icandothis #ididitonceicandoitagain #failureisnotanoption #facebookaccountability

Lunch!

20 minutes later

I posted the above on Facebook and within minutes, a friend suggested we support each other by checking in via text message. I knew a bunch of my friends were all wanting to reboot as well, so asked who would be interested and quite a few were so I decided to start a Facebook group where we can all post and commiserate and help each other out. I think by the end of the day we had maybe 25 people and a week later we are around 50!

There is such a thing as a too-big marshmallow.

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We saw these huge marshmallows in the store and thought they’d be great for s’mores—I am always annoyed at having to get two marshmallows to cook evenly at the same time. But this was a huge fail (no pun intended). It was harder to cook the huge marshmallow because it was so thick…and it kind of overpowered the rest of the s’more. 🙂

A nice day means burning wood, playing outside, and s’mores

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It was a nice day so Tom was burning some scrap wood and playing football with the kids…

And a little dance:

Which meant when I took a break from my Facebook party, I was sitting out there enjoying the smell. And getting the coals ready (I’d already run to the dollar store to get marshmallows for roasting).

But before s’mores there was a costume change:

And then it was time.

Our purple has arrived!

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With all the back issues Tom and I both have (plus his new shoulder issues) we’ve been looking at getting a new bed. We love our Purple pillows and have been dreaming about trying the mattress so when they recently came out with upgraded mattresses we jumped on it.

I did a Facebook Live “unboxing” because I had a bunch of friends who I knew were interested in the whole process:

And then I did the infamous “egg test”:

Of course, the company’s official videos are much, much better. 🙂

Stay tuned to see if we like it…

Dinner tonight…as threatened!

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I’ve threatened to buy one the next time I saw an orange sticker…and today was the day! A glorious 2.28# of ribeye. Getting the sous vide ready now!

Someone is also interested…

Just sea salt, garlic powder, pepper, topped with an onion slice then cooked sous vide for five hours. Then Tom will take a torch to it to sear it!

It turned out absolutely delicious. We momentarily thought it was too rare and we going to toss it in a pan quick but we took a taste test and immediately decided it was perfect.

Welcome to Illinois Axe Murderer Dinner

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Our Tivo friends Jami and David prepared a dinner in our honor to welcome us to Illinois. It was originally going to be our first dinner there…until we ended up going last-minute to one of their previous dinners. As usual, everything was DIVINE…and we came home with leftovers once again. 🙂

I wanted to try my infamous selfie shot but we went the easy route since the kids were with us—Owen was our group photographer.

The Menu

Searing the sous vide prime rib.

Checking on the kids who were being amazing in the living room. They had their iPad, Netflix, and pizza…the kid trifecta.

Part of the aftermath.

I hate when they get off their sleep schedule but I have good memories of sleeping in the car on the way home from family events (and being carried into the house by my dad) that I feel it’s only fair they get to experience it, too. 💗 Katie was out within five minutes; Owen took about 10.

Internet axe murderer friends are the very best.

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We have some foodie friends who always make the most incredible-looking meals and we are always jealous when we see the pics on Facebook. But tonight our wishes came true and we were invited to a dinner! (It was last-minute as fill-ins but we didn’t care—if Jami and David ever invite you to dinner, you do whatever you need to do to make it happen!! In our case it was get a last-minute sitter to pick up the kids from Parents Night Out at the rec center and take them home and put them to bed.)

Holy shitballs was that an amazing multi-course meal. Here are just a few pics…and yes, I missed a few courses because wine. We might not need to eat at all tomorrow, though the leftovers will be tempting. Totally worth the 2.5 hours of drive time. Internet axe murderer friends are the very best. 💗

Sesame butter and radish chive tea sandwiches. Aged Gouda. Chorizo foam and goat cheese chantilly with bread sticks. Prosciutto-wrapped artichokes.

The first bottle of delicious wine…

Sous vide pork belly on smoked gouda mac and cheese

Sous vide potatoes and filet mignon (missing bearnaise in the pic)

We then ended the evening with a super fun game and were on the road home by 9:30. A great time was had by all…and we can’t wait to do it again!

My first Instant Pot lasagna.

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I just did a quick taco lasagna with taco meat (from the freezer), ricotta and Mexican cheese blend, and some enchilada sauce at the last minute because I had no “sauce” in my layers (just meat). It cooked for 20 minutes, did a 10-minute natural release, and then I didn’t let it sit any longer because we were hungry, so it started to slide apart. But it was yummy. Owen even wanted seconds. Of course Katie didn’t like it at all.

And now a new water heater.

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You know what sucks? Not being able to take a decent hot shower because the hot water runs out really fast (like less than 10 minutes).

You know what sucks even more? Discovering the hot water heater is…23 years old. And it was last serviced four years ago.

You know what’s cool? Tom is handy enough to know how to drain the sediment.

You know what sucks? Draining the sediment didn’t help.

You know what sucks the most? Discovering a slow-ish leak four days later after Tom had gone to bed. So I hooked up the drainage hose to a bucket and put something under the drip. I decided to check the bucket before I went to bed and it already had 2″ in it so I moved the hose into a 25-gallon garbage bin and went to bed, figuring it would be safe. But it apparently turned into more of a spray overnight and by the time Tom got up and checked at 5:30 the 25-gallon bucket was overflowing. We have some wet carpet—unfortunately some is in a place we can’t easily get to and dry (under 300# of loaded shelving) but nothing was damaged. And thankfully we got someone here early and it was a simple fix. (Apparently due to the age and type of tank, you have to unscrew/rescrew the tap a few times to get the gaskets aligned right.)

You know what’s the best? Our landlord, who is now replacing the water heater.

So if you’re keeping track, he’s replaced the garage door, repainted Katie’s room, has planned to replace a few windows, has replaced the kitchen/dining floor, and is now replacing the water heater…

Yay for new kitchen floors!

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We got new kitchen and dining room floors while we were away! The grout in the original tile floors was disintegrating so the landlord agreed to put in new floors. Imagine our surprise when we walked in and saw this:

There’s a new vent in front of the sliding door! Huh? It had obviously been covered up by the tile?! Strange. They tried to get rid of the transition piece but couldn’t do it. They were able to get rid of it between the kitchen and front room though and it looks great!