Naps, Books, and Soup

Busy week, as usual, lol. The cute little kitten was his usual crazy self pretty much the same night he had his parts removed. In my last post I have a pic of him on a pillow, under a blanket, napping. Let's just say, as soon as he was done his nap, he was fine! Running around, playing etc. I don't think he even knows what's missing on his person! LOL!

So, my soup and bread were AMAZING last week! The bread, which I shared a bit of at work, went over really well and one of my co-workers ended up having some every day! Good thing too, it was too much for just me.

On Friday my better half made me a feast! She made pork roast in the crock pot, potatoes, yeast rolls, and cookies! With the fresh rolls we had some of the honey butter that we picked up at the farmers market awhile ago. So freakin' yummy!

It's been a weekend of catching up on sleep, that's for sure. On Friday night we both napped for about 3 hrs, got up for a couple of hours and then went back to bed. Niiiiice!

On Saturday morning I got up early-ish to go to a HUGE used book sale! Thank you to Anita at No Book Left Behind, whose love of book sales prompted me to look online to see if there were any in my area! As luck would have it, there was a HUGE one about 40 minutes away! It was the 2nd annual used book sale, organized by the branches of a city library. I heard one woman say that last year they had 30,000 books donated and that this year it was more! Crazy!

I did VERY well for myself...I spent $11.50 and got 17 books! They were 50 cents for paperback and $2 for hard cover. Here is the list of titles/authors:

• The Quickie - James Patterson
• Cross - James Patterson
• Four Blind Mice - James Patterson
• Step on a Crack - James Patterson
• The Thomas Berryman Number - James Patterson
• Season of the Machete - James Paterson
• The Beach House - James Patterson & Peter De Jonge
• The Jester - James Patterson & Andrew Cross
• The Hanged Man's Song - John Sandford
• Hidden Prey - John Sandford
• The Devil's Code - John Sandford
• The Manhattan Hunt Club - John Saul
• Southern Cross - Patricia Cornwell
• 'O' is for Outlaw - Sue Grafton
• 24 Hours - Greg Iles
• Wicked - Gregory Maguire

Wow, that seemed to take FOREVER to type out! LOL! As you can see, when at book sales, I tend to go for just a couple of authors to expand my collection of those particular authors. I LOVE BOOKS!

Let's see...oh, Saturday night we watched Tropic Thunder...it was ok...some funny parts, but a little long for that kind of movie. Oh, also had another 3 hour nap on Saturday afternoon! We LOVE to nap, apparently! LOL! At least I caught up on some of my sleep this weekend. It will be another busy week this week, so I'll need it!

Today (Sunday) we slept in until 10am, ran around doing groceries, etc. I picked up the fixins for my soup of the week. I couldn't decide on a new soup and wanted something relatively easy, so I went for my good old Tomato Macaroni Soup. Yummy!

I got a good shot of it steaming on the stove, yay! The next picture is of the lunches for the week, plus an extra container for one of our friends who enjoys soup. :-)

As usual, I'll have the soup with the 7 Grain Kashi crackers which I have become addicted to. They go so well with this soup. Oh, I also picked up some Liberte Coconut yogurt that sounded good and when I had a taste, I was not disappointed. Not just coconut FLAVOR, but coconut PIECES!! I'm going to add to it some Nature's Path Pumpkin Flax Plus Granola. I got the granola a few months ago (some coupon deal where I bought one, got one free). I keep forgetting that I have it! It's VERY tasty! (thank you to Krista's post at Krista's Kravings for reminding me that I have it!)

No post would be complete without a picture of two of the little devils. Damn cats! Quit looking so cute!

Have a great week everyone!

My Poor Baby

Awwww, my poor boy looks so out of it tonight. :-( He had his little cat bits removed today and he is doing well. Just a bit disoriented and tired. I totally understand the reasoning behind getting animals spayed or neutered, but it still makes me feel bad when I look at the little guy. I'm sure he'll be back to his bad crazy self in no time.


On a brighter note, my wonderful wife-to-be made me this AMAZING supper tonight! She marinated a huge steak overnight in a yummy concoction and cooked it in the oven (too freakin cold outside to grill). We halved the big slab of meat and she also made some yummy fried taters. Let me just say, the outside edges of the steak (the bits of fat) were so.freakin.good. I, of course, had to have a variety of condiments...I love sauces of any kind. The more the merrier! I had some HP, ketchup, and 57 sauce! Mmmmmm! Delish!! She's such a great cook, I sure lucked out!


So...my Greek yogurt was VERY YUMMY this morning! I had the blueberry one (see yesterday's post) and wish that I'd grabbed at least one more when I was at Whole Foods the other day. It will probably be awhile before I go back. It's a bit too far to go, just to get Greek yogurt.

The verdict on my Pumpkin & Prune bread and my Curried Sweet Potato & Carrot soup...O...M...G! Both were incredible! I brought one of my co-workers a piece of the bread and she enjoyed it so much she's expecting another piece tomorrow, lol! We'll see...not sure if I can spare a piece. ;-)

I think it will be an early night tonight...I got up super early to catch up on some things at work after my couple of days off. I got up at 4:45am...crazy. I was surprised, I actually got up without too much effort. Yay me!

Anyway, everyone have a great evening! Two posts, two days in a row...a record for me! Don't get too used to that people!

Did Someone Say Soup?

It's been a LOVELY lonnnnnnnnnnnng weekend! I took a couple of days off and it was wonderful. Did some sleeping in, some errands, and some cookin'! Busy busy! Even rented a movie (Get Smart) and played some Wii.

On Friday I went to check out the Whole Foods (one of two in Canada!). It was a bit of a drive away, but I NEEDED to check it out. I've seen it mentioned on a bunch of blogs, so I had to see it for myself. It had a bunch of yummy things, but was quite a bit more expensive than our usual stores. I've heard that the prices are a bit more reasonable in the states, so it could be just higher up here. Anyway, bought four different Larabars and a Greek yogurt!

In order of appearance, Cocoa Coffee, Cocoa Mole, Banana Bread, Cocoa Orange, and Cocoa. The last one was purchased elsewhere and is actually just a wrapper...I ate that one some time last week! It was pretty cocoa-y. Not bad, but could have used a bit more sweetness.

That's the Greek yogurt above. I've had a such a hard time finding Greek yogurt here. Hope this one is good. It's blueberry in the side compartment...I'm going to try it tomorrow for breakfast, so we'll see!

On Saturday I guess I wasn't feeling too spiffy...woke up at 8am or so, but went back to bed after about an hour and a half of checking blogs and such and slept till 2pm! That is so unlike me. Felt really drugged and out of it for the rest of the afternoon. I felt a lot better on Sunday. :-)

Played a bunch of Wii on Sunday! Played some boxing, bowling, and baseball. So much fun! I'm sore today from the boxing...it's quite the cardio workout! Speaking of workout...I went with my better half to her gym this morning and we swam in the pool...it was so nice and warm! Perfect on a chilly day! After some more errands we came home and I had some oatmeal...

I'm sure it looks a bit gross, but it was pretty good. I added some chocolate chips and some cherry craisins. I've heard through the grapevine that I seem to have a theme going for a lot of what I make...a Poop theme, if you will. I'll have you know that it was NOT intentional that this looked like poop! I swear! Also, the pictures of today's soup (further down in this post) do NOT look like poop. Ok, maybe a little... :-P

After my oatmeal settled I went to the gym! I did my usual workout and then weighed myself (since it's Monday and I always try to weigh myself on Mondays). I was 164.6 lbs. Not too shabby, since I've been slacking a bit. Can't wait to see the 150's at some point. I swear, since my better half and I have been together (almost 5 years) I've had such a hard time getting back down to my original weight (130 lbs). I don't know if it's because I'm older and it's harder to lose when you get past your 20's or what. They say the more you gain while in a relationship, the happier you must be...well, it's obvious that we're ecstatic!! :-)

Just for good measure, I'm throwing in a picture of my dummy...I mean my kitten. This is in honor of him getting his manhood taken away from him tomorrow. Poor guy. I must say though...he has the biggest ummm...nads (pardon my French) that I've ever seen on a cat (no picture of that, don't worry...no one needs to see that!)!

He has NO idea it's coming! He loves to sleep with his tail under his chin. He's too cute and he knows it.

OMG, before I forget...I received my wedding present early!! Her present was the Wii, my present is this beauty:

Let me just say...I LOVE this thing!! It's a single cup fancy dancy coffee maker. If I wasn't already taken, I would marry it! I can make a cup of any of those goodies to the left of the machine. I can make coffee, tea, cocoa...even just hot water if I so choose! Ahhh, so much coffee, so little time! :-)

Ok, on to this week's lunch!! Drum roll please!! I would just like to say...I am so very proud of myself, you have no idea. I keep wanting to call my Mom and tell her about this (she passed away in January and would also have been very proud of me and would have loved the items that I made today).

I made Curried Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup and Pumpkin & Prune Bread:

We went out to a fancy Bistro on Friday night and I had an amazing bowl of soup...I knew as soon as I tasted it that I'd have to try and make it. I found a recipe online, tweaked it a smidge, and here is the finished product! It was so freakin' good. I am SOOOO looking forward to lunch tomorrow! YUM!!

This lovely bread recipe I borrowed from Tina at Carrots 'N' Cake. I just substituted pumpkin for squash (since I wasn't able to find squash in a can). The above picture is the mixing part...before I mixed it I was wondering if there would be enough moisture, but as it blended together, the pumpkin handled the job quite nicely! The "batter" was verrrrrrry tasty. I only had a little taste, I swear!

Here is the finished product. I tried a bite and it was delicious! It will go nicely with my soup tomorrow for lunch!

Ok, enough of this blogging nonsense! I need to go dry my hair and get to bed! Have a great week everyone!