Snow & MORE snow!

This last one was taken out the window of my car - the driveway.....

Nothing new here - just shoveling and more shoveling!

Broken Shoes

My favorite shoes are broken!!!!

 Can you see the crack in the sole? Both soles are split across the ball of my foot.

 my comfy-est shoes and I wear them everywhere. I got them shortly after I started getting pains in my feet. Plantar Faciitis is what my Dr told me and gave me exercises to do and special inserts for my work-out sneakers. These shoes were my saving grace as I could wear them to work - black leather shoes with black pants and easy to wear all day.

Six months later they are busted. I am looking for new ones - but wondering about switching from b.o.c by Born to Dansko's...... any thoughts or advice?

The Mod-Podge Experiment

 I got this a while ago and wanted to try it out - I pulled out a set of 3 prints I got on sale a long time ago and cut off the first one. I covered a canvas with a layer of mod-podge and let it get tacky dry before putting the picture on the canvas.

 I then covered the whole canvas and picture with mod-podge and let dry.

The paper pulled up on the edges as it started to dry. I pushed them down with my fingers and then walked away before I played too much.
It dried all warped and wrinkled. You can see the beginning of it in the picture above. While I like the texture the mod-podge gave the picture, I have to figure out a way for it not to warp and to lie flat.
Anyone had any experience with this?

V-day Work Party

It was all DELISH!
Everyone ate 'til they were stuffed and we have enough leftovers for a Friday Pizza lunch too!!
I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day! However you chose to celebrate, or not celebrate it :-)

St. Valentine's Day

So part of my new position is to plan, organize and implement the office 'parties'. The budgets are always tight, usually its a lunch ordered in with no decoration or fanfare. I decided to bump it up a bit! So for under $10 I turned our main conference room into this!

Not bad, right? :-)

The menu is pizza from The Upper Crust and dessert will be a dozen gourmet cupcakes from Random Acts of Sweetness in Portsmouth, NH.

PS - watching Sleepless in Seattle right now and I totally LOVE how classic this movie is! Still super funny and incredibly wonderful - what an awesome cast!

The Haven (JP - Boston, MA)

Yesterday I had an eye appointment down in Mass. Annual check-up that went well but it happened on the same afternoon as my parents so we had an early dinner in Jamaica Plain at a Scottish Pub called The Haven. It was delish!
I started off with the Scotch Egg: hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage with greens on the side.

For dinner I had the Haven Burger, which was so amazing, I forgot to take a picture - this was taken from google images - I ordered mine without the bun :-)

They make their own ketchup!!!  To find out more - check out the below link OR if you're in the area, I highly recommend trying it out for yourself!!
http://thehavenjp.com/blog/

Quick (& easy!) stir-fry

Ingredients:

4 pds ground beef

1 medium caramelized onion

1 package fresh mushrooms

1/2 cucumber

6 radishes

broccoli

cauliflower

4 plum tomatoes

6 scrambled eggs

I was also going to add peppers (green, red, orange or yellow) but the pot ran out of room! In the past I've also used banana peppers, water chestnuts, sugar snap peas, or any of your other favorite veggies!

I always start with the meat and hardier root veggies (onion, radish, potato) and once they are done I add in the rest to warm and cook - take everything off the heat before you think it's done so nothing gets soggy or over-cooked. You can also add any marinade you like to it as well as use any other meat such as chicken, turkey, or pork.

Try it out and enjoy! Use a different combination of items until you find your favorite! :-)

Reese vs Patience

Saturday morning.
Most of the snow had fallen, but the winds and snow were still going as Matt starting digging us out.

Reese wasn't thrilled about not being able to go out. I tried letting him out the front door, and even the garage after the snow plow had come dug out the front of the house. But no avail. He was waiting for his back deck route! 

He waited and watched as Matt shoveled around the garage and made his way to the deck.
No way was I opening that door and letting all the snow into the house!

The more he could see of Matt the more excited he became about going out!

He waited. watching. Ready to go with his collar on.

Then, as time went on, he decided to lay down.
I'm sure in his mind, the 40min it took Matt, was an eternity!

Still waiting for his out.

Rachael, look! Matt is up the deck stairs!
Do you see him? Do you see him?

Don't shovel that way! Come to the door!! Please? I'm sitting and waiting.

Why won't he come get me? I'm being so good!

I knocked on the glass and asked Matt to shovel a path.

So he made for the door

closer and closer.....

And started digging us out.

It was a narrow path, just enough for one person - or one excited dog - to get through

Reese was so good! He never left the door but kept on waiting.

and when I could finally open the door...

He made like a banana and SPLIT! 

He refused to go out during the storm so it had been a good 12 hours!

Pardon the white spot - it was my phone flash against the door.

Reese ran around and tasted all the snow - we got  between 3 and 4 feet, so it pretty much came up to his head.
 It took him quite a bit of energy to jump through and around in the snow :-)

A happy dog is a tired dog!
I hope you all enjoyed a safe and happy snow weekend!