Weekend of Potatoes

Last weekend we ate a lot of potatoes. I bought an 8 pound bag at Aldi for $0.99, and I wanted to use them before they started growing the little spud things (they gross me out!) So here are some yummy recipes that we enjoyed, all featuring potatoes!

Herbed Potato Soup (A little bland, but a good base)
World's Best Potato Salad (Quite good)
Potato Pancakes (Very good, but the leftovers were too dry for my taste)
Roasted Cajun Potatoes (Yummmmmmmmmm, great dipped in ranch dressing!)

Fun weekend

Ahhh, what a fun (and much needed) relaxing weekend we had! Saturday was a rainy, windy, stormy day so we enjoyed it indoors by relaxing and watching the Blue-White game on tv. No trash cans were damaged during the viewing of this game :) Saturday night we went to Tom's friend Ben's surprise 30th Birthday party.
Ben was pretty surprised. The food was delicious and the cake was huge!

Ben decided to see if he could get some birds to answer his bird call/turkey call. No such luck.

He then decided to show our friend Doug's son how to shoot a gun. Good times were had by all.

Sunday the weather cleared up and we went to Magic City Art. It was soooo beautiful outside. We looked at some art but I didn't make any ill-advised purchases like I did several years ago. Bailey and I spent the rest of the afternoon going on a long run/walk. We just couldn't get enough of the beautiful weather!!

Blue White Game

I am so excited that the Blue White game is nationally televised!! It looks like it's rainy everywhere today! The last time we were at a Blue White game (2005...gasp!) it was raining too! I think we spent most of the afternoon tailgating and trying to stay dry under a tent, but we managed to make our way into the game to snap a pic!

Another Freezer Cooking Success!

We got a little bit of a late start but we still managed to make a ton of food! We got to everything except for the pesto/pasta/chicken/cheese casserole and Fiesta chicken marinade. Our freezers are now practically overstuffed! But that was kind of the point!! Here's a pic of our mess and our little helper, us, and us making Southwest Rollups!

Jamie's Wedding

Saturday night my friend Jamie from work got married! It was a really nice (short) ceremony and the reception was a lot of fun. They had a band, which was fun, but definitely not as fun as Velveeta! A lot of people from work were able to come so it was fun to see everyone all dressed up! They had a bagpiper at the ceremony as people were walking in and out. They also had a quesadilla bar and a potato bar at the reception! Here's a pic of us with our "potato martinis" and a group pic of some of the fabulous people I work with every day!

Sushi Night

Sushi Night was a success!! Kind of... We had waaaay too many ingredients and we tried to overstuff the first roll, but then we got it down! And it was sooo good! So, FYI, here is the amount of ingredients you need to make sushi for 2 people: 1 package of Sushi Seaweed, 1 avocado, 1 cucumber, 1 block of cream cheese, 1 cup (cooked) sushi rice, a small package of crab. And even that will be too much. We have so much leftover that we may be hosting a Sunday night Sushi dinner in the next week or so!!

Freezer Cooking Day # 2!!

Here is our menu/plan for our 2nd Freezer Cooking Day

Chicken Tortilla Casserole
Pioneer Woman's Pie Crust (for the Broccoli Quiche and the Chicken Pot Pie)
Broccoli Quiche
Pioneer Woman's Chicken Pot Pie
Southwest Rollups
BBQ Pork in the crock pot (for sandwiches and BBQ pork pizza)
Fiesta chicken marinade
Pesto, chicken, cheese, & pasta casserole (Made up in my head with leftover frozen pesto that needs to be used up)
Italian Spinach Pie (Payton's recipe)
Broccoli Casserole (Payton's recipe)

We've got quite the day planned! Wish us luck!

Sorry.....

......that my life has been so boring lately! I mean, what's the most exciting thing I blogged about recently? A strawberry smoothie??? Come on!! Fortunately (for me and for you) this weekend should be pretty fun!

Friday night Kelly and I are having Sushi Night. Yes, we're going to try and make our own sushi! I'll definitely keep you posted on how that goes. We tried to win a trip to visit the Pioneer Woman's ranch and learn from a pro, but sadly, we didn't win. Saturday night my friend Jamie (from work) is getting married...and a lot of people from work are going, so that should be a good time. And Sunday is going to be the Second Ever Freezer Cooking Day with my friend Payton. Stay tuned for plenty of updates!!

New Project

You may have noticed I've been kind of MIA lately, that's because I've been working on a fun new side project.......drumroll please..............A NEW BLOG!! A frugal blog, to be exact, full of tips and ideas on how to save money and make the most of what you have. I had been toying with the idea for a while now, and finally just decided to do it. I'm kicking off my new blog with 100 Frugal Tips in 100 Days! Be sure to check them out.

Now that I have an outlet to post about all of my awesome deals and finds, I won't be writing about them on this blog and the people that don't care if I spent $8 at Publix and saved $30 won't have to read about it! I'm planning a couple of series as well, including Couponing For Dummies, How to save money grocery shopping without using coupons, and How to get started paying down debt and saving more money.

Go check it out and let me know what you think! Suggestions for blog topics are more than welcome!

http://frugalmadefun.blogspot.com **Update 4/13: apparently frugalmadefun.blogPOT.com (without the "S" in blogSpot) is the 1st internet church. What a random typo to make. Sorry for any inconvenience...my blog is a frugal blog, not the World's First Internet Church!!**

Best Ever Strawberry Smoothie

Stop what you are doing right now and follow this recipe exactly. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

April Goals

April is Health Month! One of my friends from work and I decided we would try to be really healthy this month because 1) Bathing suit season is fast approaching 2) We're both in weddings in the next couple months 3) We are trying to get as many points as we can for the Virgin Healthy Miles program at work. So far I've been failing miserably at the "eating healthy" part of it. But weekends don't count, right? Right??? So before I list my April Goals, here is how I did in March.

1) Open a Roth IRA. PASS!! Woooooooo!
2) Increase our savings by 9.25% Pass!! Increased by 9.5%!! Although we won't be able to save much in April, due to paying for upcoming costs/events, but that's why I made it a goal in March.
3) Get back into the habit of doing my back exercises at least 3x/week. Pass? I haven't really been keeping track, but I've been pretty good about going to the gym and doing my exercises this month, I think. Except for when I was sick.
4) Get halfway to Level 3 of the Health Miles program at work Pass!! I'm 2/3 of the way to Level 3!!
5) Complete another course for this Harvard online leadership course that I'm taking at work. Big Fat Fail. Hopefully next month. I did complete this other online course that we needed to take though. Does that count?
6) Book our Destin trip for May Pass! CANNOT wait!!!
7) File our Taxes Fail. Although not entirely my fault!! It takes 2 peoples information to file married filing jointly!!!!!!!! Ahem!
8) Menu Plan for the whole month of March Pass!!! This was so awesome, required minimal planning, and made dinner sooooo easy. I'm definitely going to try and stick with this!!

Goals for April
1. Complete an online Harvard Leadership course for work.
2. Go to the gym before work every Tuesday and Thursday (Oy.)
3. Not spend more than $50 for supplies for freezer cooking day (this includes chicken, which I need to buy A LOT of....hopefully it will go on sale soon!!!)
4. Take a break from all of my couponing. I'm not really sure what this will entail but Tom thinks I need to "give it a rest" for a little while. I actually kind of agree.
5. File our taxes.
6. Keep doing back exercises at least 3x/week!

I'm so excited....

I'm so excited right now I can barely contain it!! Mostly, since Tuesday at least, I've just been so happy that I'm not sick anymore!! It's such a wonderful feeling and has truly re-energized me! Tom and I have so many fun and exciting things coming up in the next few months that I'm overflowing with anticipation!

This month Tom has his annual AACR Conference which is going to be a great networking and learning opportunity for him. He's not looking forward to the travel part, but pretty excited about the rest of it. While he's gone Bailey and I are going to make many trips to the dog park, attend a co-worker's wedding (just me, not Bailey), and have another Freezer Cooking Day with my friend Payton.

Next month we have our 3rd Annual Destin Trip which we CANNOT wait for! The condo is booked and it's the same one we stayed at last year....RIGHT on the beach, 18 stories up!! :) The following weekend we are making an impromptu getaway to Nashville because of an opportunity that we couldn't pass up! It will kind of be Tom's "30th Birthday Trip"/our FOUR YEAR anniversary trip since we will be somewhere else for our anniversary. Where will we be?

We'll be flying to Erie for Sarah and Pat's wedding the following month! Then right after I get back from that I'll be going to Boston for a few days (with some of my favorite coworkers ;) for PT Annual Conference 2010!! We'll be staying right downtown and the programming on pediatric hospital based PT should hopefully be amazing!!

I'll have a few weeks to recover from the Boston trip to prepare for my 30th Birthday!!! I'm going to take the day off from work (it's on a Friday) and I have quite the lineup planned up for me and Tom. Well, it's mostly for me but Tom gets to tag along and be my chauffeur and buddy for the day :)