Get your cook on!

Happy Monday friends! I just finished a nice long stretch of a work weekend. I'm also battling a cold and PMS, not a sexy combo. So this is a somewhat belated post, I just wanted to share some yummy recipes.

First, Spinach Lasagna Rolls. These are awesome, healthy, yummy, and vegetarian. And it was super easy and quick to make. Caleb even took them as leftovers for lunch the next day. That is epic, folks.

When Kerry came in town over Labor Day weekend, we cooked it up. That girl taught me how too cook back in our roomie days, so it was a good time. We made these Buffalo Chicken bites. Good for football season!

Ker made these Pesto Chicken Stuffed Shells for us when she stayed an extra day and we had to work. So so good! She stuffed manicotti instead of shells, perfect.

We also made Weight Watchers Corn Chowder. This stuff is good, Caleb didn't even know it was supposed to be healthy. Win!

These Chewy Cherry-Oatmeal Cookies got rave reviews at my work. It was totally the butta, people. (Butter=not healthy, in case you were unaware.)

I actually haven't cooked anything in a week, so tonight we are having meatball subs and salad. I need to get my carb on. I've also been getting my laundry on.

Hope you are having a fabulous Monday! Now go trick your man into eating something healthy. Or at least something with butter in it...

The perfect weekend: rafting, tornadoes, baking disasters, and bffs.

Alright friends, we have a few things to catch up on.

1. I took a class today for my work (because when I'm not nursing what I really love to do is learn more about nursing). I am now eating cookies and milk because that is what you do after school.

2. It has been raining for three days straight.

3. My house is full of sweets and leftovers because...one of my bffs was in town for the weekend!!! Kerry and I have been friends since the epic 6th grade. It was epic, I'm telling you. We've made it through jr. high, high school, boyfriends, college, living together, and she even survived my wedding. Ha. I love this girl. And we had a wonderful weekend doing crazy Tennessee stuff, baking, cooking, and pretending we were in college again. My darling husband tolerated us very well, I will have to say.

We got our antique on on Friday and hit some stores. It would literally be impossible to go to all the antique stores within walking distance in one day. Literally.

Kerry and I perused the farmer's market on Saturday morning. We got lots of samples. That's the best part of the farmer's market. We also got a gallon of peaches. Divine.

We got some greasy diner breakfast (amazing), picked up Jeff and Emily, and then headed out to the Pigeon River for some intense white water rafting. Kerry didn't fall out. But I did. Par usual. You can't really take pics as you are battling the rapids, so here's a group pic from afterward. Never mind that everyone looks super relaxed except me. I look like I'm about to bolt or something. But really I was just trying to get down so you can see Durbin behind me. And tell the Indian man taking this photo how to zoom the camera lens out.

We stopped for dinner at the AppleHouse restaurant for some good country cooking. They had apple fritters, apple cider, fried chicken, chicken and dumplings...mmm.

As we pulled in Saturday night, three fire trucks pulled in behind us. Turns out there was a gas leak in the building across the street. From the TORNADO that came through Kingsport. It took out the Hobby Lobby! I move to Tennessee, I still get to play Dorothy, who would have guessed? So naturally, we grabbed a couple beers, the zoom lens, and headed out to the roof to watch the action. Caleb took the pics for me, because I am literally terrified of standing on the edge of the roof. A good 10 feet away, thank you. We did enjoy watching the action. Being on the edge of the roof freaks me out, but the possibility of getting blown up from a gas leak obviously doesn't.

On Sunday, we made a peach cobbler for a bbq. Same peach cobbler I've made at least 3 times this summer. Unfortunately a tiny mistake like switching baking powder for baking soda will result in this.

Good thing we bought a whole gallon of peaches.

Kerry was supposed to leave early Tuesday but thanks to me calling and getting her flight cancelled (kidding!), she got to stay an extra day. And we came home from work to a clean house and a hot dinner. She finally got away at 5:30 this morning. Loved having my bestie in town for the whole weekend! (And having my hubby home for three whole days!)

The Biltmore Mansion Beat-boxing Birthday Bash

We all love a good alliteration to start out our holiday weekend. You are welcome friends. I know I've been MIA the last few weeks in the blog world, but between work and this computer acting strange, there has been no blogging.

On Monday, Stephanie and I took a short road trip to Asheville, NC to visit the Biltmore mansion. Because my darling husband says he doesn't care to spend "a bunch of money to just look at an old house." (Thanks, honey.) Also, it was Stephanie's birthday, so major reason to celebrate.

The Biltmore is this castle sized mansion built in the late 1800s by one of the Vanderbilts. He lived there with his wife and one child. But kind of only as a vacation home. How nice.

The house was pretty cool. We could tour 42 of the rooms but there were still many many rooms that weren't part of the tour. There were 43 bathrooms in the house. A huge super cool library with half of Vanderbilt's collection of 23,000 books. And Napoleon's chess set. There was a pipe organ, a bowling alley, a swimming pool, and a gym inside the house. Mostly it was huge and gorgeous. And we were not allowed to take pictures. Which is why I don't have any.

I have no idea how I obtained this picture.

After swooning over all the little tourist shops they have to get you to spend all your money, we took an extensive tour of the gardens. Which were beautiful. And took a very long time to walk through in flip flops and Tom's.

We finally made it to the waterfall. And we saw the boathouse. And the brick bridge that was apparently in The Last of the Mohicans.  And then we had to walk all the way back.

Exhausted and famished, we got some wine and burgers for lunch. A stellar combo, let me tell you.

Seriously yummy.

I told our cutie waiter that it was Steph's birthday. He brought out a 14 layer chocolate and peanut butter cake with a candle. He told me he doesn't sing. But he said he would beat box while I sang. So he beat boxed, I sang happy birthday very loudly by myself, and Stephanie died laughing. Other diners looked at us strangely. Good quality birthday fun was had by all.

And that cake was delicious.

Next up, the winery. We got to taste all the Biltmore wines (they have quite a few) and it was a great way to end the day.

Steph, getting her wine on.

 We loved Biltmore! Now, just to get my hubby here...

Happy Friday friends! My bestie is in town for the weekend and we are planning to get our shop on and fight some white waters in a raft. Yay for long weekends and bffs!

We shop, we eat, we shoot things.

1. I had a fabulous work weekend. Seriously. My patients were amazing, we had a fiesta potluck, and I have a great orientee, Liz. Sometimes I love my job. Ok, most of the time I love my job.

2. I've watched three movies in the last week. First, Blind Side. I bawled the whole time. Loved it. Second, Sucker Punch (not my choice). Creepy, weird, and I hated it. Third, Tangled. It was adorable and funny and wonderful. Caleb even laughed through the whole thing.

3. We can't wait for fall tv shows to start. We've worked through every season of House, Big Bang Theory, and 30 Rock. (We buy them on sale on Black Friday, the only day of the year we buy seasons of tv shows.)

3. I have a serious shoe addiction problem. Here's my latest purchase. (It was buy one pair, get one FREE at the boutique on the first floor of my building. Such a horrible place to live.)

This is for you, Aunt Patty! They are beautiful...

4. I was in the mood to do some cooking and baking yesterday. I started out the day with this: a breakfast BLT. You know it's for breakfast because there is a fried egg on top. Mmmmm.

Then I made these bad boys.  I sent most of them to work with Caleb today. And then I ate some for dinner tonight.

Nutella cookies: they are life changing. Like Jesus. Except not quite that life changing.

 Then I made a peach cobbler except I subbed out strawberries for half the peaches. And it was sweet and yummy and smelled like heaven.

4. My darling husband has been working. But he got Sunday off and spent the day shooting guns and chopping wood with his buddies. Don't worry, its just what we do now.

Last week at work one of my coworkers said to me You never complain about your husband, he must be pretty good.  Yep, he is. That man rocks my world. Have I ever said that? I'm kinda crazy about him. And he has been working his butt off. Like, left at 5 am and still isn't home at 8:42 pm. What a man.

Typical night: just cleaning his gun and eating dinner. He's taken, girls.

So that's our life right now. Work, eat, shop, shoot things. I'll take it.

The Real Housewives of East Tennessee

Are you familiar with the Real Housewives? From Orange County, Beverly Hills, New York, Atlanta, New Jersey...and now, from East Tennessee.

Yes, it's true. The first episode of The Real Housewives of East Tennessee, on this blog, today. It's going to be a hit.

All of our guys work for Kiewit, so we were all transplanted to East Tennessee. But as you can see, we are embracing it. This past weekend, Kiewit sponsored a golf scramble (is that the correct terminology?) and we gladly participated.

Obviously, we coordinated with the pink. It's what a housewife does.

After having our glass bottles of wine confiscated, we were on our way. (The Real Housewives always have wine at their events.) The girl groups (there were 3 of them) were booted to the back nine, while all the guys played the front nine. This was fine with us. The first hole (we started on 11) took us an hour since we let the other two groups pass us. (We didn't want to embarrass them with our great skills.)

Playing golf, housewife style. Natalya on the bottom left, Paige on the top right, and Emily on the bottom right.

After the first hole, we were all in the groove and we rocked it from there. We skipped the holes where we couldn't see the flag from the tee off place. (What's the point?) We liberally played best ball. ("Yeah this is approximately where this ball would be if it went straight instead of into the woods.) We were so good that other golfers even bought us drinks. And the director of the golf course came to check in on us often, he was super impressed with our sweet game skills. He also gave us some friendly reminders of where you can and cannot drive the golf carts. All in all, playing golf with the Housewives was a smashing success.

We dressed up for the evening events to celebrate our great day.

Looking good, ladies.

My man was looking sharp as well. And I have some sweet shoes on.

The dinner was yummy, the band was funny, and the dancing was constant. Some of the guys even got to play a few songs.

My hubby is a stud.

The Kiewit band.

The housewives struck again later. Something was obviously funny.

Good facial expression, me.

It was a good day for the newest Real Housewives. And now, off to be a real housewife in my own house. Laundry, cleaning, dishes. Why do I feel like the Real Housewives don't do these things?

Friday Flower Club: the best club to be in.

Unless you were in the Babysitters' Club. Because that club seemed pretty cool too.

The Friday Flower Club is this super sweet club I'm in. There is this cute flower shop called Rainbow's End right around the corner. And if you are in their club (the Friday Flower Club) you get a bouquet of flowers every Friday for $5. The flowers are completely different every week and you never know what they will be. Yay for surprises! Yesterday was the prettiest bouquet yet so I thought I would do a quick recap of some of my bouquets.

Obviously I took great care in the background of this pic. You can see all our cereals, a med bottle, my yellow gloves, and an empty wine bottle. So classy.

Bright carnations.

I don't know what these are but I like them.

And this week's flowers. Love.

And here is my breakfast, because you are totally dying to know. Scrambled eggs with bacon, pesto, and Parmesan. Yum yum.

I feel super productive this morning because I've already cleaned the kitchen, gone to the farmer's market, and been to the grocery store. This day is going to be good.

Get your filthy paws off my silky drawers!

We were laying in bed last night, drifting off to sleep when Caleb said "Get your filthy paws..." and I said "off my silky drawers!" And then I was like hey, how do I know that quote? And then for half an hour he gave me clues to what movie the quote is from. Since obviously I couldn't go to sleep until I knew. This is life right now. (Anyone know what that quote is from?)

So life recently has consisted of work. Caleb has been working like, all the time. I just finished up a very very very long work streak. It could use a few more verys. At least that's how it felt. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I really do love nursing...

I got the camera out today and looked through all eight pictures on it. A true snapshot of our life right now. Love it.

1. I have this horrible friend who lives next door. Her fiance and Caleb work together. And Steph and I go to lunch and plan her wedding and go shopping. The reason she is horrible is because she encourages me to buy things. We could probably spend hours and hours and many dollars in Target. Actually, that really does happen.

Ok, Target. I will take your sales bait. Where am I going to wear those shoes on the left? Don't care. They are awesome.

2. This is what our loft looks like after I've been on a long work streak.

I cook for a few nights and then I get tired of it so we eat fast food. Gross, I know. But I'm ok with it. Also, we play a few rounds of Dance Central or Big Buck Hunter. Which are both awesome games. Not pictured are all the seasons of Big Bang Theory, which we just finished up last night.

3. I think it was raining on Sunday when Caleb was home alone and he took some cool pics. I like them.

I'm looking forward to a nice long weekend. And also sleeping. And seeing my cute husband.

More frequent blog postings to come. Starting tomorrow.

Over and out.