a little bit of me.

{5 Years}

Eric and I celebrated 5 years on Saturday.

WOW.

Five years ago, looking ahead 5 years in the future felt like forever.  And now it's here.  And while we may not be living where we thought we'd be, or have the family that we thought we'd have, or be doing the type of work that we thought (then) that we should be doing, we are still so very blessed.  I can honestly say that I think we're happier now than we've ever been.  And what more can you really ask for?

Well, maybe a trip to Europe.  ;)  Happy Anny to us.

We'll officially celebrate 5 years while in Europe for 2 weeks this fall...  My first ever trip there.  On the agenda is London, Paris, Venice, and Barcelona.  I am so, SO excited.  ---  psst: any hotel, sightseeing, tour recommendations are welcome...  We've been having a blast looking through tour books over the last few days.  Should be quite the adventure.  :)

{South Dakota}

Back from a little mini-vacay to South Dakota.  (It was SO good to get-away...)  Saw Mt Rushmore and the Badlands, and all the fun tourist-y stuff in between.  Spent 10+ hours in the car yesterday coming home (not fun!)...  have tons to catch up on...  and too many emails to return...  Many more photos to follow, but here's one that I absolutely love -- from an after-dark trip to Mt Rushmore:

...and another super-fun one of Eric feeding a (very-friendly) donkey a sour cream n' onion pringle chip in Custer State Park -- the donkey seemed to like it too, since he then proceeded to try to get in the car with us and have more chips, haha:

{New Recipe #2}

Was in the mood to try a new salad "recipe" tonight...  The original "basis" for this salad came from a recipe in the June '06 issue of "Minneapolis/St Paul Mag" -- but I totally altered the crap out of it...  (which is always fun!)...  Here it is (the salad is really the main dish, and is so super-easy -- but I also served it with a from-the-freezer-section California Pizza Kitchen white pizza - yuuuuuuuuum!) --->

Olive-Pepper Salad:

Mixed Field Greens (I use a pre-packaged organic mix that my grocery sells)

Green Olives - sliced in half (I used .25 lb of an italian-herb marinated variety that my grocery sells on its "olive bar")

1 Red Pepper - roasted, skin peeled, and sliced (or you can use jarred peppers)

Toasted Pine Nuts to garnish (*everything's better with pine nuts!)

Sharp Provolone cheese - crumbled

Dressing is a simple balsamic viniagrette: (this portion is enough to dress salad to serve 4, I halved it for just Eric and me)

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 Tablespoon smooth mustard (I use Grey Poupon)

S&P to taste

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*Whisk dressing ingredients together, and toss with field greens.  Serve onto plates and garnish with olives, peppers, cheese crumbles, & pine nuts.  Top with additional fresh ground pepper.

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(i told you ----------- it's SO EASY!!!) ** Let me know if you try it out! :)

{look up}

Ok, no one freak-out or anything, but....  I MADE A NEW BLOG BANNER -- something I've yet to do since starting the blog OVER a YEAR AGO!!!  (and I have to say that I'm feeling rather impressed with my ever-growing photoshop skills...)  :)

{my worst fear}

What's your worst insect fear?  Everybody has one.  After growing up in tropical south florida, I can handle pretty much any insect problem that you could throw at me.  Raid works wonders on those nasty little guys.  And I've seen almost everything.

Except ticks.

My absolute biggest, worst, most horrible fear/phobia (& has been for years) is being attacked by a tick.  And I say attacked -- because really isn't that what they do??  They jump on you, and then they suck your blood... all the while potentially transmitting any # of infectious diseases to you.  Terrific.

Fast-Forward to last night.  I took Toby on a lovely walk around our neighborhood (which has its share of lakes and marshy overgrown areas -- warning!!), came home and sat on the deck and chatted with my sister for awhile, then went inside to check email...  and ran my hand over my neck and discovered the nasty little creature that was sucking blood from my unsuspecting body.  AND FREAKED OUT.  A Full-blown panic/hyperventaling attack ensued.  Eric took it quite well, I have to say.

3 Showers and one night of tick-infested nightmares later, I have decided that I will be just fine never going outside again.  Or at least not near any tick-suspected habitat.  Yuck.

{New Recipe #1}

I've abandoned my dining room table for outdoor eating...  and it's so much fun...  I LOVE summer! :)

And, in the spirit of fun-summer-outdoor-eating, I've decided to try at least one new recipe/dinner each week...  and thought it would be fun to share them here :)  So here's the first...  adapted from a recipe in the June issue of Food & Wine mag (and i say 'adapted' because there is always something that I add/delete). ---->

Lemony-Garlic Broccoli/Chickpea/Roasted Pepper Rigatoni with Pine Nuts:

8 ounces Chickpeas - drained and rinsed

1/3 Cup Fresh-Squeezed Lemon Juice (= 1 1/2 large lemons)

3/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 1/2 Pounds Broccoli Florets

2 Bell Peppers - Roasted & Sliced with their skins peeled

1 Pound Rigatoni

5 Large Garlic Cloves - very thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper

1 Cup Fresh Grated Parmesan Cheese

*Toasted Pinenuts to garnish

(1) In a medium bowl, toss chickpeas with the lemon juice and 1/2 cup olive oil.  Season with salt & pepper.

(2) In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the broccoli florets approx 2-3 minutes  until 'crisp-tender'.  Transfer to a colander and rinse under cool water.  Use remaining water to boil rigatoni.

(3) In a large skillet, heat remaining 1/4 cup olive oil - add crushed red pepper and garlic and cook until garlic is toasted/golden (approx 3 minutes).  Add the broccoli & red peppers - heat thoroughly (approx 2 minutes).  Add the chickpea mixture and heat until warmed through.

(4) Drain the rigatoni, reserving 1/4 cup cooking water.  Add pasta to the veggie mixture along with the reserved water and season with s&p.  Cook over moderate heat until rigatoni is coated with sauce.  Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese.  Serve and garnish with remaining cheese and toasted pine nuts.

*Grilled chicken could totally be added to this, also! :)

{waffle-love}

I'm having a love affair with my waffle-maker.  It's getting a little out-of-control.  Who knew I would be this obsessed?  :)

Eric's parents visited us for a long weekend over Memorial Day and bought us the waffle-maker... which is like the king of all waffle-makers.  It's the restaurant-style, free-standing, flip-it-around, self-timed-for-perfect-crispness type of waffle maker (that I also saw on HSN the other day!).  I am totally loving it... :)

Now I suppose that there's a way to make waffles healthy.  Unfortunately for my hips, I want none of that.  In my opinion, waffles are not complete until the strawberries & syrup, ice cream, and chocolate chips are LOADED on (see below)...

yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm :)  This was such a great gift!!!

{Back}

So I decided to come back to blog-land.  Needed a little break the past few weeks, but I missed blogging.  So here I am.  Not sure if anyone actually missed me, but it's good to be back.  :)

**Some HUGELY-FUN News**

ScrapSupply is hosting their 2nd Anniversary this weekend --- festivities are going on NOW through Sunday at the site ---> click here!  There are so many fabulous prizes being given away.  I'm hosting an "I love American Crafts" contest - it's so easy to enter - just upload your layout(s) using any AC product(s) (any at all - even if it's just a little AC brad!) - to this gallery (click here!) before sunday, and one winner will be chosen at random to win $25 in AC ribbon - yum!!!  Love their ribbon!!!  SO please, enter, enter, ENTER!!!  can't wait to see your pages... :)

*And -- I'm hosting a chat on the site tonite - starting at 8pm (CST) -- Would love to chat with everyone -- feel free to join in! :)

So now that that's out of the way, I have to say a BIG thank you to Nisa --  who told me yesterday that I NEEDED to try a dare...  and so i did...  and this page makes me the happiest I've been in a while.  LOVE it.  Love that I turned a crappy, bad photo into a page that i love.  And i also Love spending time with Nisa - she's an amazing chick.  :)

Have a great weekend everyone!!! :)