Awesome

So, life has been busy lately. Teaching, working at the church, high five-ing the pope? It’s a busy life. Plus I was in my gorgeous friend’s wedding, had a blogger meetup, went to California for Thanksgiving, and when you put that all on top of the fact that being awesome like me is a full time job? I’m a slacker blogger.

But here’s just some of the awesome in my life as of late:

While in Indianapolis, I didn’t just high five the pope. Someone foolishly put me in charge of meals. Which resulted in going to a place called Mug ‘n’ Bun. Mug. ‘N’. Bun. How could you not?

It was delicious. And even the bread on my grilled cheeseburger was salty

I like salt.

And I found Matt from the Real World!

True story: Real World New Orleans was on when I was in HS, and one of my best friends was Mormon. So we loved seeing our respective faiths up on TV. And now Matt from the Real World works for a ministry program that my church uses. Rad! And he was super nice.

Also awesome? My college bestie Sam sent me this

If you don’t get it you clearly need to read more Feminist Ryan Gosling.

But the most awesomeness in my life? Totes my husband.

Evidence: some days I teach and work at the church. This can make for some long days. 2nd grade with a chaser of teenagers? Jesus help me. On one of those days I got home from work and found these

(Two tarts cookies! The best. And tiny, so you can eat like 10)

And this

And, most importantly, this

(whoever came up with the idea of pink cans of sparkling wine WITH straws is my best friend)

Marriage is awesome.

Realizations

I’ve come to some realizations this past weekend

I realized too late if you run 10 miles*, a normal lunch isn’t going to cut it and you will end up ordering nachos the size of a small child for dinner

Plus a burger that I’m fairly sure used about half a cow. And bacon, just for good measure.

And a salad. Because between the running and the salad you can totally justify the rest of your meal.

And I realized no matter how many baby-sized plates of nachos you eat, when you get home you still need dessert

It happens.

I also realized that helping in my community is awesome. Mostly because my weekend volunteering at Springfest in my ‘hood resulted in this

Free beer. In a parking lot. On a Sunday evening.

I heart community service.

I also realized that when I drink my small-town roots show and I want to make fires.

And if I’ve been drinking I may also want to make s’mores. True story: if you have no chocolate bars, no marshmallows, and no graham crackers your s’mores dreams don’t have to die. You just end up doing this

Those are charred peeps. With the ear of a chocolate bunny shoved in them.

It happens.

And when you’re drunkenly eating molten peeps I’ve realized if you have a loving husband like mine he’ll laugh, tell you that you look homeless, and then take pictures.

Thanks baby.

And most importantly I’ve realized I’ve got less than a week till my husband’s birthday. And since my birthday comes a week after that, I need to get him some killer presents to insure I get awesome ones. So it’s shopping time!

Happy Monday friends!

*Um yeah, I ran 10 miles. Madness. I get pissy if I have to drive 10 miles normally.

Very Important

I’m kind of a big deal guys.

It’s true. A local fast food chain said so.

(What? I’m a substitute teacher. I’ll take any semblance of importance I can get!)

Burgerville is a local chain. They’re fast food, but with an emphasis on local, sustainable, and in season. They do giveaways on facebook every so often for Very Important Fans. And I WON.

Well, me and 149 other people.

Whatevs.

I got free Burgerville.

And they called me important.

And the free food came on a day when I had some medical stuff done and wasn’t feeling 100%. Free food = no guilt over being too lazy to make dinner!

Right now their seasonal sandwich is a roasted portobello focaccia sandwich.

Love my friends. Love. Big ol’ roasted mushroom with onions and sun dried tomatoes on delicious bread.

Weirdly enough, my husband didn’t try any. Shocking.

We shared a berry smoothie

(Hint for my Oregon readers: the smoothies and the shakes taste identical. One’s made with yogurt and one with soft serve. My husband and I have ordered the same flavor in a shake and a smoothie and not been able to tell the difference. But a smoothie has like half the calories.)

Burgerville shakes are supah thick

I’m realizing how many dirty things I could say to follow that line.  Holding it in.

My husband had a bacon cheeseburger

He was happy.

So happy he even shared his fries with me!

Also making me feel important? Getting gorgeous Valentines

It’s from my darlin’ friend Liz, who is super talented and made it herself.

Not only can she make pretty things, she’s getting married and my valentine was asking me to be a bridesmaid!

Don’t worry Liz, I already have the perfect outfit

We’ll have yours redone in white.

 

We HAD to

We were in Bend while they were having their Oktoberfest.

Since my husband loves beer AND making inappropriate comments about sausage we HAD to go.

Had a few drinks, plus a brat and beef stew

And had another beer.  Because when faced with a dozen microbrews?  You HAVE to try more than one.

And we wandered around downtown. Very cute.  Our favorite find?

A candy store.

We’re mature.

But seriously, it had a SODA FOUNTAIN

We HAD to get something.  How often do you find soda fountains?

We shared a ginormous sundae.

With caramel and fudge and chocolate almond ice cream?  Yes please.

After breakfast at our hotel we went on a run.

Yeah.  On vacation.

Why?

Well…. when normally you run on a high school track because you live somewhere with a lack of sidewalks and streetlights

And instead you can run on a path by this?

Do you have a choice?

No.  We HAD to do it.

(Fun fact-that is Mirror Pond-like the beer.  The husband had just complained about how the name was deceptive as it was not mirror like as I took the picture.  We were looking right in front of us focusing on how up close it was murky, rather than checking out the big picture of the lake.   I’m sure there’s a deep life lesson in there.)

For lunch we realized we HAD to make a stop at Deschutes.  I mean, if you’re in Bend, you just have to.

I had a Benderweisse, which is a Berliner weisse style sour beer.  I like sours.  They’re like soda that gives you a buzz.

Best part?  See the red and green things next to it?  Raspberry and Woodruff syrups to flavor it with.  I had no clue what woodruff was, so I stuck with raspberry. But adding sugar to my beer amused me.

When we looked over the food menu we saw one of your side choices was sweet potato fries.  The husband HAD to have those.  There’s a chance I HAD to steal some of his.

He had the fries with a pulled pork sandwich

And told me my pulled pork was way better.  I’m going to pretend he doesn’t HAVE to say things like that, and I just cook better than restaurants.

I saw a roasted garlic burger on the menu, and knew what I HAD to order

With a salad.  Life is about balance.

Then we headed home.  Since I’d just downed a beer and a glass of water I HAD to pee about five minutes into driving.

We ended up stopping in Sisters, which was so cute I had to take a picture

Adorable.  Probably a total tourist trap too.  But whatevs.

Now I’m excited for a few weeks where we HAVE to be home-in just over a month we’ve went to Mt Hood and camping and the coast and Bend?  I need a vacation from taking vacations.

Plus we HAVE to watch football on the weekends.

What’ve you HAD to do lately?

Down Home Cooking with Baby Brother

My favorite new tradition: (that i just started while our kitchen was torn up) KFC night. (sometimes, Baby Brother invents traditions.  That may or may not be followed by other people.  He feels like if he uses the word tradition you can’t say no.  So he’ll do things like say “it’s time for the traditional Thanksgiving fireworks!”) It is supposed to be Mondays, but this week we went thursday instead (I like how Monday got capitalized, but thursday is a loser face with its lower case t), but oh wow is KFC amazing. And the best part of KFC is those amazing biscuits you get. damn jesus does a good job baking those (because there is no other way they can be that amazing, jesus must be back there making them).

But this post, believe it or not, is more of a traditional foodie blawg posty thing, and not as much like my typical “im baby brother, and i went to mcdonalds 37 times this week” I cooked my family a meal, and no one got sick! AND it even had a vegetarian (maybe vegan? watch at the end for proof if you’re a vegan Baby Brother shouldn’t cook for you) part to it.

The wonderful Eating Machine got me the Billy Mays big city clider maker for my birthday, so today boys and girls, we will be making sliders!

STEP ONE: get ingredients. recipe calls for 1 TV to watch Paula Dean on, 1 lb ground beef, 1 teaspoon steak seasoning, 1 remote to flip channels between Paula and Rachel Ray, and a dash of Worcestershire.

Baby Brother and I used to watch Food Network together, and laugh hysterically at it.  Our mom would come to see what was so funny and we’d be going “Rachel Ray is explaining her acronyms again! She said ‘EVOO-thats extra virgin olive oil!” or “Paula Dean just added mayo on top of fried food!”

She didn’t get it.

(see my fancy new granite counters!! aint the spiffy!)

STEP TWO: combine ingredients.

STEP THREE: (step three is only for my paula dean version) ADD SOME BUTTER, THEN DEEP FRY AND TOP WITH BUTTER. Then add a cup of mayonnaise

STEP FOUR: Sing I’m awesome. IM AWESOME, no youre not dude dont lie.

Ringtone Taylor Swift?

and while singing you can scoop the meat into the slider maker.

STEP FIVE: Drink some vitamin water. cooking takes a lot of energy!

STEP SIX: Brush you teeth with a bottle of jack, if you are leaving for the night and not coming back. and while you do that, press the slider maker down and place on the stove on medium heat.

(this was the very FIRST thing cooked on the new stove!)

New stove is pretty!

STEP SEVEN: try to avoid putting in bad ke$ha references that dont flow like in step 6.

STEP EIGHT: They are done once they are cooked… so like not red = done.

serve on slider buns, or just rolls work too i think. and enjoy!

oh and the vegetarian part of the meal i mentioned? the side:

chips! potatoes are vegetables. and the package is green. that means it is natural.

and sour CREAM is vegan, right?

oh, and I GOT A NEW TOY!

Now I can blog from my iPad!

ORRRR talk into it and pretend you’ve got a giant iPhone!  That’s what I would do with one.  That and play Diner Dash.

Baby Brother, is that all you ate for dinner?  ONE slider?

Who else loves sliders?  Baby Brother and I both love miniature food.  Also, giant food.  We’re cool like that.