Where's My Matt?

It's a quarter to nine and Matthew has not made it home yet. He's still at the office. They're holding him there without food and he's just informed me that he's required to stay up until 2 to do something called a “checkpoint.” I don't like that he's stuck there all hungry and sleepy and annoyed. I miss him too!

On the bright side, it's a brilliant night for Telly, despite the March slump. BBC America has been kind enough to air a couple of episodes of What Not To Wear for me to watch. Trinny and Susannah are both pregnant in the two episodes. That's kind of interesting. And strange. At first I was really confused, and kept going, “Wait … I thought it was Susannah that's pregnant. Hmmm … so it's Trinny. No wait … err…” kinda funny.

Exhausted, but Happy

I spent an hour downstairs running. Not the whole time, but intervals, y'know. So now I'm quite sweaty and exhausted. It's a good thing tho.

It was gorgeous outside yesterday and I was starting to look forward to the pretty summer weather and all of the summer stuff … riding our bikes, the farmer's market, sunlight after 6 PM, etc.

But today, it's cold again and they're making murmurings about the s-word (snow). But by this weekend it'll be in the 50s again! Yea! Now if I could just find some good and and at the grocery store.

Can't wait for summer!!!

Weekend

We had a really nice weekend. We got to see a couple of movies (Cheaper by the Dozen, as mentioned, and a sneak preview of The Prince and Me, which was a really cute movie). And we spent lots of time in bed, reading The Boy Next Door and listening to the rain. We even got a bunch of work done. Excellent first weekend back.

Peaches 'n' Cream Pancakes

from: CookingLight.com

Ingredients
Crust:
1/4 cup vanilla wafer cookie crumbs (about 6 cookies)
1 1/2 teaspoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon sugar
Cooking spray

Filling:
1 cup 2% reduced-fat milk, divided
3 tablespoons sugar
5 teaspoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons amaretto (almond-flavored liqueur)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
Fresh mint sprigs (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°.
To prepare crust, combine crumbs, butter, and 1 teaspoon sugar, tossing with a fork until moist. Divide mixture evenly between 2 (4.75-inch) ceramic crème brûlée dishes coated with cooking spray. Press mixture into bottom of dishes. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes or until lightly browned; cool completely on a wire rack.

To prepare filling, combine 1/4 cup milk, 3 tablespoons sugar, cornstarch, salt, and egg yolk in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Heat 3/4 cup milk over medium heat in a small, heavy saucepan to 180° or until tiny bubbles form around edge (do not boil). Gradually add hot milk to sugar mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Place mixture in pan; cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly (about 5 minutes), stirring constantly.

Remove pan from heat; stir in liqueur and vanilla. Spoon custard into a small bowl; place bowl inside a medium ice-filled bowl for 10 minutes or until custard comes to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Remove bowl from ice; spoon custard into prepared crusts. Cover and chill 2 to 6 hours.

Uncover tarts. Arrange 1/4 cup raspberries on top of each tart. Garnish with mint sprigs, if desired.

Nutritional Info (1 Tart(
CALORIES 307 (29% from fat); FAT 9.8g (sat 4.4g, mono 3.1g, poly 0.7g); PROTEIN 6.2g; CARB 47.6g; FIBER 2.3g; CHOL 124mg; IRON 1mg; SODIUM 279mg; CALC 175mg;

from: 105

Ingredients
2 C all-purpose flour
1 T plus 1 t baking powder
½ t salt
2 T sugar
2 C skim milk
1 T vegetable oil
1 egg yolk
½ t almond extract
1 C sliced canned peaches in light syrup, drained and chopped
2 egg whites
vegetable cooking spray
1 T sifted powdered sugar
1½ C low-fat sour cream

Directions
Combine first 4 ingredietns ina large bowl; make a well in the center of the mixture. Combine milk and next 3 ingredients; stir in peaches. Add peach mixture to dry ingredients, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened.

Beat egg whites at high speed on an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites into peach mixture. Let stand 5 minutes.

Coat a nonstick griddle with cooking spray and heat to 350 (a bit less than medium if you're using a pan and stove). For each pancake, pour ¼ cup batter onto hot griddle. Cook pancakes until tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked; turn evenly with powered sugar, and top each with 1 T sour cream.

Nutritional Info (1 pancake(
86 cals; 2.7 g protein; 2.9 g fat; 1.3 g saturated fat; 12.4 g carbs; .3 g fiber; 15 mg cholesterol; 0.6 mg iron; 71 mg sodium; 89 mg calcium

Alias. Fringe. Ick.

What the heck did Sydney do to her hair? Fringe, bangs, whatever you wanna call it … not flattering. Get some barrettes. It makes her ears look big and it also makes her look like she's about 12. I don't like it.

Now I have to watch the Wal-Mart commercial about the crazy card lady. Where are the annoyingly-hip Target commercials?

Go Dores!

Matt is forcing me to watch the Vandy-Stamford game on ESPN2. The Vanderbilt Women are apparently doing pretty well for themselves in this March Madness thingy. Good for them. The men got knocked out.

Anyhow, I only went to one Vandy B-ball (mens, sadly) game while I was in school. And I only averaged slightly better for football. See here's the problem. I'm five foot tall. Five foot nothin'. And everyone in the student section stands … for the *whole* game. And pretty much everyone is taller than me. Which means I couldn't ever see anything that's happening. And if you think a game is boring when you can see something, try not being able to see it at all. Yeesh. Poor Matt.

Oh and for those of you not in the know, Vandy's mascot is the Commodore. Yes, that's right. The commodore. I think it's a rank in the Navy that they don't have anymore. Someone (prolly my dad or Matt) told me that. Also that Cornelius Vanderbilt wasn't actually a commodore. “They” called him that because he was in shipping.

I swear. I had the lamest mascots. In high school, I was a Farmer and in college, I was a Commodore. Yeesh.

Done blathering now. Bye.

Saturday Morning

My body clock is still rather screwy, which means that I got up at 7:30 on a Sat. morning (?!!??!??). I spent a few hours doing work and then Matt and I left to run errands.

It was coupon day. We used our last coupon (1 of 3!!) for a free entree at Chin's. Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?? Well for me anyhow. Matt's cost $5. Then we went to Bed Bath and Beyond. A 20% off coupon had come in the mail and we desparately need a new toaster. The old one had a huge crack down the center since it'd been dropped too many times (don't even ask) and it was burning our toast and every once in a while it just went on strike and wouldn't work at all. So we bought a new toaster.

Our last outing was to see Cheaper by the Dozen at the cheapy movie theatre. That was such a cute movie! Sweet but not sappy. Funny, but not over the top. Luvin it.

Now we're back home to settle into a bitta work. Programming, laundry, cleaning, organization.

I do so luv weekends.

This is Not a Paid Advertisement

But if Saucony wants to give me some money, I won't complain. Anyhow, so before we went to France, I decided to purchase a pair of casual sneakers. I have a really cute pair, actually … they're lime green Roos, but they tend to show dirt, so I wanted some darker ones to traipse around France in.

So I bought a pair of Saucony shoes. They're their “classic” or “retro” style and they're black. They're very cute … but way better than that even, is how comfy they are. I wore them day in and day out for 10 days. We walked lots … in cities, in crazy hill side towns, in caves, on cobbled streets, rocky dirt roads … everywhere … and my feet never hurt. These things get an A+++ for comfort.

Procrastination … Lyrics by Jess

Procrastination! Lack of motivation!
Procrastination … a game I like to play.
First you take a book or two open them and read for a few.
Book or two, read for few… oh!

Procrastination! Lack of motivation.
Procrastionation … a game I like to play.
Then you file your DVDs … Ds and Cs 'fore Fs and Es.
Ds and Cs, Fs and Es ..oh!

Procrastination! Lack of motivation.
Procrastionation … a game I like to play.
Next you check your email box and read the one 'bout new Botox!
Email box, new Botox … oh!

Procrastination! Lack of motivation.
Procrastionation … a game I like to play.
Soon you're sitting on the sofa, watching junk like this week's Oprah.
Sitting sofa, watching Oprah … oh!

Procrastination! Lack of motivation.
Procrastionation … a game I like to play.
It's a slipperly sliding thing … 'fore you know it, it's next spring.
Sliding thing, soon it's Spring … oh!

Procrastination! Lack of motivation.
Procrastionation … a game I like to play.
Get up off your lazy butt. Work's rewarding … well somewhat.

Dinner and a TV Show

I had pretty high hopes for the nice dinner I made tonight … Crispy Mexican Chicken and Fiesta Rice. It sounded so good. I cooked it correctly and everything turned out fine, but the chicken was BLAND. That sort of dish you've got to add salt to to have any sort of desire to consume it. The rice was pretty good, just not what I'd been expecting.

Bad part is, I spent probably an hour making dinner … tres disappointing. I guess I might add the fiesta rice to the cookbook after I flavor it up a bit. I don't, however, think the chicken can be saved.

The OC was full of intrigue tonight though (making up for the spiceless meal). The fit hit the shan vis-a-vis Julie and Luke, and Seth got good air time. They were involved with a fictional TV star (played by Colin Hanks) and they made lots of funny/ironic comments about television vs. reality … such as “He plays highschool?!?” … haha.. most of the “high school” characters on that show are my age (i.e. two years past college).