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I need a fresh start after all that has happened this year, and so a fresh blog will be happening. Please follow me now at:
http://bexontime.wordpress.com/

Fooding

Growing up, I SUCKED at cooking. I set a pot on fire BOILING WATER. I set a frying pan on fire MAKING PANCAKES (and that pan had to be thrown out...there was no saving it). I was bad bad bad at cooking or anything kitchen related.

Now though? I'm on a roll. I'm finding that I have natural instincts in the kitchen and I follow them and it usually turns out good. Time for some food pictures and talk.

Scalloped Potatoes

This was the first time I have ever attempted to make these babies from scratch. I love scalloped potatoes and I always end up adding my own cheese to the boxed stuff anyways, so I decided to give it a go. I looked at a few recipes online just for a basic idea of where to start and so many said 6-8 potatoes. Let me tell you that would make A FREAKING LOT. I used 4 potatoes, but one was very small. Anyways, recipe.

4 peeled and thinly sliced potatoes

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

1 cup of milk (roughly...I don't measure)

A buttload of cheese

Onion powder

Pepper

Butter to grease the dish

Oven preheated to 425 degrees F

Basically just toss it all together in your dish and makes sure there's cheesy goodness throughout. I ended up baking it for close to two hours, but I could have left it in a bit longer. It was hearty and very delicious. This made enough to serve both B and I, along with a salad.

Spicy Salad

This is the salad I spoke of in my last post. Try it!

Salmon

I'm not a salmon fan, but B is so I decided to experiment a bit.

2 salmon filets (frozen)

Sprinkling of dill 

1/3 of a cup of melted margarine

1 tsp corn starch

Splash of milk

Onion powder

Crushed red pepper

Oven: 350 F

I brushed some of the melted margarine onto the filets (both sides). Next I poured the milk, dill and corn starch into the rest of the melted margarine and mixed it well. I then poured it on the salmon (both sides, again) and then sprinkled the other spices lightly on top. Took about 20 minutes to cook perfectly, and B LOVED it. He saved one filet to take to work for lunch the next day.

Banana Muffins

Usually I make a loaf of banana bread, but these are so much more convenient for breakfasts and for B to take in his lunch to work. So I gave muffins a try and they are even better than my bread. I've been using this recipe ever since we got married.

3 ripe bananas

1/3 cup melted butter or margarine

3/4 cup of sugar (the recipe I originally used way back in 2010 called for a full cup, but I found that too sweet)

1 egg, beaten (today I didn't beat the egg, however, and it turned out fine)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Oven: 350 F

Mash the bananas thoroughly. With a wooden spoon, mix in the melted butter. Then mix in sugar, egg and vanilla. Next, sprinkled the baking soda and salt over the mixture and then stir them in. Finally, add the flour and mix it real good til it's smooth. Butter your baking pan, then pour the mixture in. For a banana loaf, you want to leave it in the oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes. For muffins, 30 minutes will do it. 

I am obviously loving cooking. I find that I have a very 'me' approach to it, and I like it. I need to work on making things more healthy, but I have time to work on that. For now I'm really just enjoying experimenting and creating my own recipes as well as making known recipes my own. And B doesn't mind my kitchen adventures in the slightest. He is a man and he likes to eat. And I like to feed him. And myself. I love eating. 

In G news, she's picking up new words rapidly and is really starting to get into calling me Mama on a regular basis. She's honestly the best kid. I love her so much. 

Back to Business

Today marks the first day of being alone with G again. Time to get back to my job as housewife extraordinaire. It's amazing how much better I feel since the surgery. Unfortunately my appetite came back with a vengeance and I've been eating every thing in sight, but with the start of this new week and new chapter in our lives, I feel inspired to be good with the food. Example of my goodness: Last night I willingly ate a salad for a snack. Yes, I followed with that last final late night bowl of macaroni and ketchup, but I swear it was the last one!!

We recently got cable in our apartment - apparently it was free in our complex but no one ever told us...jeeze - and so that means I've been living on the Food Network and that in turn means that I've been inspired to cook! And more than just pasta! Amazing, I know. Here are some of the things I made last week:

This is...well I guess you'd call it a hash? Anyways, I was craving eggs and I had leftover potatoes from the night before so I tossed them together in the pan with some pureed spinach, onion powder, salt, pepper, and a few chunks of chicken. It was insanely delicious, and all three of us really enjoyed it.

This is baked chicken topped with asiago cheese (soo yummy), cheesy ranch dressing, and Frank's Red Hot Buffalo sauce (I would drink it straight from the bottle if I could). It turned out to be probably the most delicious chicken dish I have ever made. Can't wait to make it again!

Cheesy mashed potatoes, with corn and pureed spinach mixed in. I'm loving spinach lately and am really having a great time experimenting, trying to figure out new things to add it to. 

This week I also made an AMAZING spinach dip and a fantastic 'southwest' salad but I forgot to take pictures. 

Spinach dip: 

1 'thing' of cream cheese. I can't remember how big it was, haha. Just that it was a container, not the blocks.

1/4 of red pepper. I love the taste, hate the texture so I'm stingy.

Grated cheddar cheese (LOTS)

Pureed Spinach. Typically I chop the spinach, but I found that pureeing it gave the dip a much creamier texture.

Asiago cheese sprinkled on top.

Onion powder/Cayenne. Just a bit.

Because I didn't use block cheese, I could mix this dip by hand instead of bothering with the mixer which is a pain and extremely messy. This was very fast to prepare (though it would have been faster if a certain small someone hadn't been crying because Daddy ran out to buy Tostitos). Once everything was mixed together, I tossed it in the oven 375 for about 45 minutes, until the top was golden. I will absolutely be making this again, as much as I can because it was so darn good, and made for delicious leftovers as well. 

Salad:

Lettuce

Grated cheddar cheese

Asiago (grated)

Crushed Tostitos

Corn

Sprinkling of Red Hot

Seriously, for something so simple it was SO delicious. It made me fall in love with salad for the first time like, ever. I want to eat it all the freaking time. 

I wish I could continue writing right now, but I put G down for a nap almost an hour ago and she is still in there chatting away and singing. Round two of nap time now, I guess. Ugh. I may be healing fast, but lugging a fat baby around is still taxing.  

No More Stones in This Gal(l)

Sorry for starting with that dreadfully punny title.

So things were going great once all the bedbug and floor stuff was taken care of. But then my gallstones decided that right when I was into the swing of things (I was seriously an AMAZING housewife for a bit in there), they'd ATTACK. And attack me they did. Hard. Violent. I didn't eat for days. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't care for my daughter. B had to take off work because of it. Finally enough was enough and we went to the hospital where I was admitted and put on fluids for the duration of my stay. Turned out that the gallstones were also affecting my liver pretty badly. I lost ten pounds during my week and a half of torture.

I had an ERCP on Monday the 18th, and let me tell you it was one of the worst experiences of my life. They don't put you to sleep, but the drugs can cause you to fall asleep which is what happened with me. However I woke up mid procedure and I really freaked out. Waking up with a tube down your throat is 100% terrifying. I am scared when I think about it, even now. Anyways, they removed some stones and then gave me morphine and then the extremely handsome nurse told me to pass as much gas as I could.

The next day I have my lap-chole. I felt 100% comfortable going into it for a couple reasons. 1) They're always talking about that procedure on Grey's and ER so I knew what it was. 2) I'm generally a chill person, and I knew I wouldn't wake up in the middle terrified as with the ERCP. I trust doctors, the anesthesiologist seemed like an awesome guy, and my nurses were so friendly. I don't remember falling asleep but I do remember waking up feeling panicked. Not as scared as during the scope, but a different kind of panic because I couldn't remember anything and I HATED the oxygen mask. I felt so constricted and like I wasn't getting enough air. When they switched to the nosey tubey thing I was much happier. And they gave me a lot of morphine and it was nice. As a bonus, after my surgery I was moved to a different ward where I had a swanky private room.

All in all, though there's been a lot of pain and inconvenience over the past few weeks, I'm thankful to be rid of my gallbladder. It has been attacking me for over a year now. It was time to ditch the thing. By Monday we'll be back to our regular routine. I'm able to help more with G, my incisions are healing nicely, and B will be able to go back to work.

In other news, I've started to decorate our apartment in our A Very Zelda Christmas theme. I will be making all the ornaments/decorations myself which I think is going to be so much fun. Here's a couple progress pics:

I don't have any proper craft supplies so I've been working with paper and embroidery floss, but I'm hoping to pick up some perler beads soon so that I can begin creating the 8bit goodness. 

Well that's all for today! Hopefully I'll remember to post again in a more timely fashion.

Hi!

Apparently I haven't blogged since around G's birthday, and that was in July and it is now November. Oops. Good stuff and bad stuff have both happened since then.

Probably most significantly was the bad stuff we had to deal with concerning our apartment. Ever since moving in I would sporadically find bug bites on my body but since it was summer I didn't give it a second thought; I just assumed it was mosquitoes. When my bestie (and next door neighbour) discovered she had bedbugs however, I started to pay closer attention to what was happening. I inspected every inch of my apartment and could find no sign at all of an infestation. Yet bites would continually appear on my body. And then TWICE I found actual bedbugs on my body. Both were in different spots in the apartment.

We contacted management on Monday Sept 16 about the bugs and were told an inspection would be forthcoming. We didn't hear back all week. On the Friday, building managers went door to door just to make sure all was well with the tenants. I was asked if we had roaches (we do) or bedbugs and when I said yes and showed my bites, they didn't believe me. So I grabbed the jar where I'd been keeping the bugs I found on my body (KEEP ANY BUGS YOU FIND IF THIS HAPPENS TO YOU!) and THEN she believed me. That weekend we moved into B's parents house for what we thought would maybe be two weeks tops. It turned into 6 weeks.

Days stretched into weeks in part because after we left the apartment due to the bugs, our kitchen sink clogged (with food that was absolutely NOT ours) and our kitchen, dining room, and entryway flooded with nasty greasy water. B went into the office nearly every single day while we were not home to find out what the deal was with everything. The office would give vague answers and it was clear they didn't know what was going on. It turned out the extermination company they worked with was dropping the ball. They would book jobs despite being short of staff, which was completely unacceptable. When we finally got sprayed for bugs October was almost over. We were told they would either clean or replace or flooring, and it wasn't until the day before we moved back that a manager ACTUALLY FINALLY LOOKED AT THE FLOORS. No one had taken those few minutes to check. If they had, they would have told us we can clean it ourselves easily enough and that no replacements had to be made. And if they had told us that, we would have been home way sooner. Fortunately throughout the ordeal, we didn't have to pay full rent.

Living with B's parents was a nightmare for me, but I won't go into that today. Suffice to say, I'm ECSTATIC to be home, despite the fact that we have no living room furniture and are living in mild paranoia of bugs returning.

Now. I have two new blogs to recommend:

http://www.geekyhostess.com/
Tips, DIY, Recipes from a geeky girl. Even if you're not a geek, it's a blog worth reading. She hosts fabulous parties and has inspired me to try hosting an event of my own. (Perhaps at Christmas time!)

http://www.freckled-fox.com/
A mom blog, but different from any of the other ones I've found. She has great hair tutorials, and I love seeing her pregnancy fashion.

G's Special Day

G's 1st birthday has come and gone. On the actual day (July 13th) we went to the mall with a friend (E) and then had dinner with Gma and Gpa. It was a low key day and G enjoyed herself as she always does every single day. Seriously, she is an amazing baby.

On the 21st, we had our celebration and it went really well. I was very anxious, because really...what do you do at a baby's birthday party? I mean, she's too small for activities that will engage her, and there was only one other baby to invite. So the party consisted of 4 parts.

1. General hanging out until everyone had arrived. At first it seemed slightly awkward, which is what I was expecting because I am not a good hostess as of yet. I lack the skills to start conversation when there's a large group of people. Fortunately there were two really cute babies to keep people entertained.

2. Food! We had snackish type things; cheese, crackers, fruit, veggies, and iced tea. Yum.

3. Present time. I had hoped G would be into ripping the paper off of her gifts, but she's not quite at that point yet. Hopefully for Christmas! The gifts she received were perfect. Everyone was so thoughtful and we definitely appreciated it!

4. Cake/cupcakes! I made the cupcakes (chocolate with chocolate frosting - from a box mix), and also used the leftover mix to make a small cake for G to dive into. And dive into it she did. She was timid at first, but she had chocolate EVERYWHERE by the time she was done.

All in all it was a really good day. I can't believe my baby is one year old though! Time has flown by, and now she has her first tooth and is walking (sometimes running!). I miss the days of the tiny newborn asleep on my chest, but I'm so excited by the fact that she can play now! She makes every day SO GOOD. Utterly and completely.

Blog Roundup

I've recently begun to read several new blogs, and I thought I'd share them with you:

Miss Abigail's Hope Chest
This is about the journey of a mother and daughter to revive the hope chest tradition! They are very crafty and the items they are collecting for Abigail's chest are absolutely beautiful. Kind of makes me want to get a chest for G!
http://missabigailshopechest.blogspot.ca/

Made by Marquette
This blog is actually made by the daughter in law of the lady running the blog above. It's mainly diy crafts and projects, heavily inspired by things on Pinterest.
http://madebymarquette.blogspot.ca/

Etiquette Hell
It's always fun to read the social faux pas horror stories of other people and this blog provides precisely that, as well as advice to navigate the various situations should they happen to you. Lots of laughs, lots of cringing.
http://www.etiquettehell.com/

Fleur De Force
Essentially this is just a lot of product recommendations and reviews. I love the author and really enjoy her youtube videos as well.
http://fleurdeforce.blogspot.ca/

Kristina Horner
I've been a huge fan of hers for years, and she just recently started up this new blog. So not too much content yet, but I can't wait for updates.
http://kristinahorner.com/