Love = Friendship + Fire

Today, I wore a 12 year old (what?!) Pan Dance (sorority formal) t-shirt for my walk.  As I was thinking about how long ago that was, I happened to remember that's the night I met Jonathan.  The shirt has the formal date on it (Oct 20, 2000) so I now know the exact date I met my husband.  Crazy.  I've known him over a third of my life.

By the way, in case you were wondering, he was playing video games in the ATO house.  We were introduced, he said "hey" and that was it.  No butterflies, no love at first sight.  I honestly only remembered his name because everyone called him by his last name, which is now our last name, and that's not an easy name to forget.

"Love is a friendship set on fire."  Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)
We used this quote on our wedding favors.  It's hard to imagine life without him, and beyond strange to think that we almost never were.  Thank God for broken hearts.  :)

What's Up My Sleeve? (2)

Back in April, I wrote a post entitled "What's Up My Sleeve".  I had intentions to do another post of that nature much sooner-- not a full six months later.  Let's just say I'm not the most creative gal in the world and these brilliant ideas don't come to me too often.  But I do have a few I've been excited to share with you all!

Dog beds  I love my dogs.  However, they rarely (if ever) sleep in the bed with us.  So of course they have to have their own beds.  We've had a series of ugly, annoying, and/or bulky dog beds in our seven years of dog ownership.  My mom made us some really fantastic "dog sofas" a few years ago.  They were attractive and easy to vacuum but couldn't be deep cleaned easily and were quite large.  We couldn't take them with us anywhere and once Dane was born we just didn't have the room to keep them.  Not to mention the smell that just wouldn't go away after a while.  We replaced them with some fluffy, tufted little numbers that our dogs loved.  Unfortunately, they proved not to be very durable, could be washed but not dried, and impossible to vacuum all the little aggravating crevices.  I started researching all the options to replace our dogs' beds.  Being 7 and 9 years old, they needed something other than a pile of blankets, especially on our tile floors.  The best option for us looked to be a cot-style bed for dogs that ran about $70.  Jonathan and I talked about it and decided we would purchase some when the old ones gave out.  While in the baby/toddler section of Wal-Mart, I noticed that toddler cots are $25.  I looked at the weight limit -- 75 pounds.  It was perfect!  The dogs LOVE them.  They were cheap, come with a fitted sheet that can be machine washed and dried, and they fold up for travel!  Perfection.  (Cleveland agrees!)



Equate brand Proactiv  When I was pregnant my skin was perfect.  I am not even kidding.  I didn't have to wear foundation.  After pregnancy?  Holy hormones!  My skin was looking rough.  I have used Proactiv in the past and had good results, but it's expensive and you can't just buy it in any ol' store.  While looking for something to combat my "welcome to motherhood" gift from mother nature herself, I stumbled across Wal-Mart's version of Proactiv.  (What is UP with me and Wal-Mart lately?  I swear I only go once every other month, but I guess there are just some things you can only find there!)  Anyway, it's insanely cheap and my skin is looking much healthier.  My wallet is happy and so are my pores.




Moroccan oil knockoff  My hairdresser (back before I became too cheap and began cutting my own hair) uses Moroccan Oil treatments on my hair.  It smells like heaven and it does wonders for my hair.  It ought to at around $40 a bottle.  Although I love the results, I was unable to convince myself to spend that kind of money on hair oil.  Thankfully, I like the results of Garnier's Moroccan Sleek just as much.  You can find it at Target for $5.  It smells great and has made growing out my very dry hair more pleasant.  I use it before drying my hair and after styling.  My only complaint is that the packaging is poorly designed and it's easy to get way more than you wanted.  "Hello.  My name is Melissa and I did brush my hair with a pork chop this morning.  Thanks for noticing!"  Anyhow, just keep this in mind and you'll love it as much as I do.



Dry erase marker  Ok, you're right.  I didn't discover the dry erase marker.  But my husband did come up with a brilliant new way to use it, especially if you're a parent.  Our son has asthma.  When it flares up, we have trouble remembering what time we gave him allergy medicine and breathing treatments.  So we write it on the mirror in his bathroom where we already keep all his medications.  Everyone who has ever had a sick child knows how difficult it can be to remember when you last gave him ibuprofen.  Sleep deprivation from aforementioned sick child being up all.night.long doesn't help matters.  Thanks, brilliant hubby!  Parents everywhere (especially me) will thank you!

I hope you can find at least one thing that would be useful to you in this post.  If not, maybe What's Up My Sleeve 3.0 won't take six more months! :)

White Bean Kale Soup

There are a lot of recipes on Pinterest lately that are some variation of white bean and kale soup.  I've tried a couple and they weren't inedible, they just weren't something I'd make again.  So I went with my gut (which never works out for me in the kitchen) and made up my own.  It turned out surprisingly well.  This recipe for Tuscan Bean Soup from Saveur was my starting point.

1/4 cup canola oil
3-4 ribs celery, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped (I'd go with 4 next time)
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
8 cups vegetable or chicken broth (I mixed mine b/c it's what I had)
1-2 tsp granulated garlic
2 medium red potatoes, cubed
seasoning salt to taste
3-4 handfuls chopped Kale leaves (I used about 1/3 to 1/2 of the bag I bought)

Heat oil in large stock pot over medium-high.  Saute celery, onions, and carrots until onions are translucent.  Add garlic and saute for another 1-2 minutes.  (Be careful not to scorch the garlic.)  Add beans, broth, granulated garlic, and potatoes.  Boil gently until potatoes are done (about 20 minutes).  Turn soup down to a simmer.  Add a few handfuls of Kale and cook for five more minutes.  I took an immersion blender and partially blended the soup to thicken it up and it gave it a perfect consistency.  (You all know how I love my immersion blender!)

The original recipe calls for squash, but I worried that it would add too much sweetness to the perfect savory flavor that it already had.  It also calls for fennel seeds, which I don't love.  And dry beans, which not only could I not find the right variety in the store, but they're a pain in the butt.  It also calls for water instead of broth.  I think my improvement in this particular ingredient is a no-brainer.  I can't compare the two recipes because I never actually Tuscan Bean Soup, but I can say this:  Thanks for the inspiration, Saveur!

I think next time I'll get some crusty bread to serve with it.  Mmmm, bread.

Hope you enjoy.