When we got back from our trip to Memphis, our trees in the front had some beautiful white blossoms. It made me all cheery and excited that Spring had arrived! Here's what they look like now covered in snow and ice.
This is pretty....but I'm SO ready for Spring.
This past week was Trevor's spring break and he planned on heading down to Little Rock to visit his brother Adam. I decided at the last minute to take off a few days of work and tag-along with him to Little Rock and then make the drive over to Memphis to visit my sister Rachel and see Caroline! My Mom was down there visiting and my college roommate Gladys was visiting from Dallas and staying with Mary Ellen, my other college roommate that lives in Memphis. So it was a great trip and I got to see some of my favorite people in the world!
We got to Little Rock LATE Wednesday night and I got to spend Thursday morning hanging out with my sister-in-law Elaine and my niece Allie before I left for Memphis.
(My cornea is inflamed again, hence the glasses all week...)
Gladys has a really nice digital camera and she brought it along to Memphis and took some GREAT pictures of Caroline! I think she has me almost convinced to save up some money to buy a camera like hers. She'll have to teach me how to use it though!
Here are lots of pictures of the fun time we had...
She's so expressive now!
Aunt Steph & Caroline
On Friday we took a trip to the Memphis Zoo....
Gladys & Caroline
Gladys & Mary Ellen
The polar bears were definitely our favorite. They are so fun to watch!
I had a dentist appointment today - no cavities! Woo-hoo!
I have always gotten rave reviews on my teeth. The dentist often says I have "beautiful teeth." I think I'm just lucky in that regard. Not that I don't take care of my teeth, but I don't feel like I put that much work into them. I don't think I ever really wore my retainer after braces like I was supposed to, yet the dentist thinks my teeth are so straight that I must still be wearing my retainer. I'm not a regular flosser, yet the dentist always had said, "You sure do put a lot of work into your teeth." I thought I had him fooled until the last time I went to the dentist. I guess my x-ray showed that my bone density in between my teeth was low or something like that and he told me I needed to be better about flossing. So I made it one of my goals to floss for at least a month straight.
They say it takes at least 3 weeks of doing something every day for it to become a habit, so I made quite a few of my goals for at least that length of time. I don't know why I hate flossing so much, but I'd been putting off starting this goal until the last minute. In fact, I started exactly one month before my dentist appointment! Ha! I managed to remember to do it everyday, and it wasn't that bad. It hurts your gums a lot less the more often you do it!
I got more rave reviews today, but they didn't do the x-ray that checks my bone density, so I don't know if it made a difference.
To be honest, I doubt I will keep flossing everyday, but I think it will become something I do more regularly!
Does anyone out there actually floss everyday?!?! If I was a betting woman, I'd guess maybe only Monica (the dentist) or Heather (the dental assistant).... Anyone else?
I got this recipe in an e-mail from Pillsbury and just had to try it! Cookie dough, chocolate, caramel, nuts...what's there to not like?!? It was delicious. A little rich, but very good with some ice-cold milk!
| ___________________________________________ Ooey-Gooey Turtle Bars | |
| Ingredients: | |
| -1 roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated sugar cookies | |
| -1 bag (12 oz) Semisweet Chocolate Chips (2 cups) | |
| -3 cups Chopped Pecans | |
| -1/2 cup Butter | |
| -1/2 cup packed Light Brown Sugar | |
| -1 jar (12.25 oz) Caramel Ice Cream Topping | |
| -1 cup Graham Cracker Crumbs (16 squares) | |
| 1 | Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pan). Press cookie dough evenly in bottom of ungreased 13x9-inch pan. |
| 2 | Sprinkle 1 cup of the chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups of the pecans over dough; lightly press into dough. Set aside. |
| 3 | In 2-quart saucepan, melt butter over medium-high heat. Stir in brown sugar, caramel topping and graham cracker crumbs. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Pour over crust in pan; spread evenly. Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups pecans. |
| 4 | Bake 25 to 32 minutes or until edges are deep golden brown and pecans are lightly toasted. Cool on cooling rack 30 minutes; loosen sides from pan, but do not cut. Cool completely, about 3 hours longer. (For firmer bars, let stand an additional 2 hours.) ___________________________________________ |
Another one bites the dust!
We paid off Trevor's Masters' Program student loans this week. I LOVE that we paid these off even before he graduates this May! I hated taking out more student loans while we were trying to pay off our debt, but it made sense to do it so we could pay off higher interest rate loans in the meantime. So it feels good to get them out of the way before he graduates.
We've decided that we are going to take a little different direction from here on out. We have a good chunk of student loans still, but they are at such a low interest rate (2.75%) that I would rather start focusing on saving. With the way the economy has been going, it's been making me a little nervous to not have much money in savings. Dave Ramsey recommends just having a $1,000 "baby" emergency fund while you attacking your loans. I was never confident enough to keep that little of amount in savings, but we didn't keep too much more than that. So I think I'll feel a lot better if we start working on building up a fully-funded emergency fund with at least 3-6 months of expenses. We also have the goal of saving up enough money to pay cash for a a new car/truck for Trevor when his current truck finally breaks down (#57: Save up to buy Trevor's next car with cash.) That could be any day now since it is on it's last leg. We also plan to actually furnish our house with some new furniture (#55: Save up to buy new furniture with cash). I think it's about time! We've been in the house for about 2 years now.
I'm excited to start seeing our savings grow. They'll grow so much faster without all those old loan payments!
So....yeah. In theory we were supposed to be able to do one hundred pushups after we completed week 6 of the training program. Hmmmm....
I finished the last day of the program last Sunday and then promptly became sick. Very sick. I've never been sick that long. My body apparently didn't want a single ounce of food in it. Anyway, I didn't do anything for five days so I didn't do my exhaustion test until a week later - this past Sunday. Trevor did it with me. Here are the results:
| Trevor: | |
| Initial Test: | 39 |
| Week 2 Exhaustion Test: | 39** |
| Week 4 Exhaustion Test: | 58 |
| Week 5 Exhaustion Test: | 63 |
| Week 6 Exhaustion Test: | 60 |
| Steph: | |
| Initial Test: | 2 . . . HA! |
| Week 2 Exhaustion Test: | 16 |
| Week 4 Exhaustion Test: | 31 |
| Week 5 Exhaustion Test: | 46 |
| Week 6 Exhaustion Test: | 55 |
**Since Trevor could do 39 pushups on his initial test, it told him not to start the program until week 3, therefore he didn't actually repeat the week 2 exhaustion test.
You may have noticed that Trevor actually could do less this week than last. I'm going to have to tell on him. He hasn't been quite as consistent with the training program as I have been. In all fairness, he was working out a ton at wrestling practice and would do pushups there, but not the actual amounts in the training program. I think now that I can do FIVE less pushups than him, he's going to get a little more serious about it! :) I'd been kidding him all day after the test that I must be as strong as him now. He even challenged me to an arm wrestling match that night. He can still whoop me. So he felt a lot better after that....just don't tell him I let him win. :) (Not really.)
Well, 100 is still far away, but I'm going to keep repeating week 6 to see if I can get any better. I have a feeling this might turn into a 12 week challenge!
I tried out another new recipe recently and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy and good it was!
| _______________________________________ Chicken Tortilla Soup |
| Ingredients: |
| -2.5 lbs. cooked, shredded Chicken Breasts |
| -3/4 tsp. Olive Oil |
| -3/4 tsp. Minced Garlic |
| -1/4 tsp. Ground Cumin |
| -3 (14.5 oz.) cans Chicken Broth |
| -1 cup Frozen Corn Kernels |
| -1 cup Chopped Onion (I was lazy and out of onion so I used Onion Powder) |
| -3/4 tsp. Chili Powder |
| -1 1/2 T. Lemon Juice |
| -1 1/2 cups Salsa |
| -Tortilla Chips |
| -Shredded Cheese |
| In a large pot over medium heat, saute the chicken in the oil. Add the garlic and cumin and mix well. Add the broth, corn, onion, chili powder, lemon juice and salsa. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips and shredded cheese. Enjoy! ___________________________________________ |
I've been on a soup-kick lately since it is so handy to make a big batch on the weekend and then divide it into containers for the work-week. I also tried another variation of chicken tortilla soup recently. Check out Karen's Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup. It was also excellent and so simple - just dump a bunch of cans!
