What I'm Reading 1

This Friday I thought I would do an update on my reading goals. I think I'm doing pretty good on my goal of 48 books this year, with 9 read so far. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I know once I stop breastfeeding I will lose that and my pumping time, which will really put a dent in my reading time. I'm hoping to get the bulk of my 48 books done in the first half of the year to account for that :)

Here's what I read in January!

Fudge Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke

This series is fun, and I like the premise of a bakery as the backdrop for the plot. Its definitely a little cheesy at times, and the characters can get a bit stale, but for the most part its easy and enjoyable reading. I haven't tried any of the recipes that are included, but some of them look really good!

Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

Part of the same series as the book above, I remember wondering if I would get to this in time to read it around Christmas. This had a fairly predictable ending, but other than that I thought it was a nice addition to the series.

Mission to Murder by Lynn Cahoon

This series is just ok. I don't like it as much as the one mentioned above, even though the initial premise is similar. It seems like the fact that Jill (the main character) owns a coffee and book store is always dropped as soon as there are more interesting things happening. Since that's the part of the story I like its a bit disappointing. Still, its nice for a bit of easy mystery reading. I would recommend the Hannah Swensen series over this one, but if you are in the mood for "fluff" reading, give it a try.

The Chase by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

This series is fun because anything Evanovich writes is bound to be funny. I don't love the romance part of it, because that's just not my thing, but it's easy to get past it. I think my favorite character is Kate's Dad. He reminds me of my dad if he had pursued a career in special ops :) 

M is for Malice by Sue Grafton

I had put this series down for a long time, and just picked it back up again. I don't know if its because it has been so long since I have read these books, but this one seemed particularly moody. Not bad, and still had an engaging story and mystery, but Kinsey seemed particularly affected by the events that transpire. As far as mystery series go, I would say this one is less fluff reading that the others, but at times maybe a little harder to get through also. This could be because I found the mood a little depressing though. Either way, I will be moving on to the next book soon.

The New Mom's Guide to Living on Baby Time by Susan Besze Wallace

This book was loaned to me by a friend (along with a few others that seem to be part of a series but I haven;t read them yet) and I started reading it right before I had Carter, and then would pick it up whenever I thought of it. Honestly, I don't hate it, but I didn't love it either. There wasn't anything new or particularly helpful, and I can remember getting a little offended at some of the assumptions they were making. Mind you, I was reading this during the hormone craziness of just having given birth, but in general I'm pretty easy going and it takes a lot to offend me. I'm not sure if I will read the rest of the books, partly because I think they would have been helpful to read a few months ago.

Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich

I don't know how Evanovich keeps coming up with funny content 18 books later, but she does! I probably sound like a fangirl, but even though these are very light and "fluffy" reading, they are entertaining and laugh out loud funny. The only thing that I wish was different is that Stephanie is still in limbo with the two men in her life. Make a choice and move on girlfriend! Though I suppose that would alleviate some of the humor in the book. If you haven't read this series yet you should give it a try!

I realize looking at my collection here that it looks like I read nothing but light mystery and Janet Evanovich. Honestly, I don't have the brain capacity to read really deep books right now, and I do read other genres but these just happened to be the ones I got to last month. More variety coming next month, I promise!

Lastly, obligatory Carter photo:

Baby in browns!

What have you been reading lately?

Mark of Athena and a Sunset

This week I finished two books! The first was The Mark of Athena, the third in a series by Rick Riordan. Even though this is a junior fiction series, I really enjoy Rick Riordan's writing and the Greek and Roman mythology he weaves in. I don't want to give away too much in case you aren't familiar with the series, but this book was a nice meshing of the first two, and the first time we see the different characters interact with one another. There were a few points that made me roll my eyes, but I think that was more because of the age level they are written for rather than cliche or poor writing. I gave it a 4 out of 5 stars over on Goodreads.

The second was an audiobook I happened upon at the library, and I listened to it in about a week. It was Sherlock Holmes Radio Mysteries, and it was a recording of old radio broadcasts. I love anything Sherlock Holmes, so even though it was a little overdone and the mysteries were a little easier to figure out than some other Holmes books I've read, I still found it enjoyable. It also got a 4 star rating.

Speaking of Goodreads, at the beginning of the year I set a goal to read 50 books this year. I'm finding that goal very ambitious, especially since I was in school until May and had no time to read books outside of school assignments. So far I am at 19 books for the year, but I also realized that a lot of those books were very long. Hopefully I can sneak in a few quick reads to try and get back on track.

Last night we went out to dinner with friends to Cabana Sams. We hadn't been there before, and it was really neat to sit right on the water for dinner. We even snagged a table on the upper deck outside, so the view was nice for the whole meal. I had their Cubana Sam-wish, which was their version of a cuban. It was pretty good, but nothing spectacular. After dinner we look a stroll on the beach and the pier before heading home. I managed to snag a few photos:

It was actually pretty cool yesterday- I don't know if it got over 70, which is crazy because last week we were pushing mid to high 90s. Either way, the weather was nice and it was fun to try out a new place :)

WIP Wednesday and Chopped Salad with Avocado Ranch Dressing

I don't have a lot of knitting to share with you, mostly because the blanket it getting large enough that progress doesn't show well, and the only other thing I have worked on is this sweater for Diesel. 

It is hard to tell from this photo, but I just made the little holes for his front legs, so its coming along nicely. 

While this post is pretty light on the knitting content, I wanted to share my dinner with you, as promised. In case you missed my post on Monday, my friend Sara and I are making dinners and eating together this week since both our husbands are MIA. Last night's menu was chopped salad (loosely based on this recipe) and avocado ranch dressing. We also made mini fruit pizzas with cream cheese frosting.

Sara mixed up the dough for the cookies while I started chopping veggies for our salads.

Then she moved onto chopping the fruit for the pizzas while the cookies baked in the oven.

 

The dressing was super simple to make- just throw all the ingredients in the blender and let er rip! We ended up adding more avocado as the recipe only called for 1/2 of an avocado and we didn't want to waste the other half. Plus we really like avocado :)

The finished salads were amazing. Instead of making these a true chopped salad where everything, including the dressing, gets thrown into the bowl, we assembled on our plates so that we could keep leftovers easier. Here is my salad- SO yummy! We added goat cheese to our salads because 1. every salad needs cheese and 2. Sara had never had goat cheese before! It was a great addition.

After we had eaten our salads (and watched the beginning of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) we assembled our mini fruit pizzas. I think they turned out great!

We actually ended up taking dessert up to Sara's parents house because we were celebrating Sara's mom's birthday, so this big cookie is her birthday treat!

 After the birthday celebration Sara and I headed back to her house to finish watching Harry Potter (we didn't end up finishing it, but we will tonight!) and we picked up Diesel on the way. This is Ruger (Sara's dog) and Diesel sharing a water dish. They are best friends! Most of the time anyway ;)

The whole meal was a success, but the dressing definitely took the cake for me, with the cookies coming in a close second. Tonight's meal is shredded chicken tacos, so watch for a recap tomorrow!

This post is linked up with Ginny's Yarn Along. 

Finally Finishing

I knew it felt like my knitting and reading were dragging on a bit, but when I looked back to see when I last finished some things up, I knew why. It has been a month since I last finished a book, and two weeks since I finished a knitting project! I'm happy to report that I finished a project and two books this past week, so we are getting back on track :)

First up, my finished knit! This is the Spa Day Facecloth pattern and I knit mine in Knit Picks CotLin. 

I just love this color! I plan to whip out a few more of these this summer, but I'm not sure if I will use the same pattern over and over again or not.

Next up is the baby blanket. This saw some good progress this week- I think I got another colorful and white stripe done since you last saw it. 

It is getting a bit hard to photograph the whole thing, but hopefully you get the idea :) My goal is to have this done by the end of June. Can I do it?

Last up is a new project that I started- a dog sweater for Diesel :) This will probably be his Christmas present as he loves sweaters! The pattern I'm using, The Darling Darby Sweater, is great because it has you take measurements of your dog and knit the sweater to fit. This is perfect because Diesel has a broad chest but is a skinny puppy everywhere else!

This is the start of the neck. I feel like knitting a dog sweater brings you into a whole new level of knitting geekiness. Just me?

As far as reading, I have really tried to find more time to read all these books on my list (over 100 on my "to read" list on Goodreads right now!). This week I finished two books:

The first is The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan. This is the second book in the Heroes of Olympus series. I really love this whole series, and even though it is a kids book, I still find enjoyment in the stories and writing style. I would recommend reading the Percy Jackson series before starting this one, as it really gives good background and depth to some of the characters. The third book is home on the library shelf, waiting to be started!

The other book I finished this week was A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. This book is intense! Lots of characters, lots going on, but the way Martin changed perspectives every chapter helps you to focus on one aspect of the story at a time. I really like how Martin gets you to empathize with many of the characters, even those who aren't meant to be "good guys." It makes the book more interesting when you aren't always sure who to root for! I'm holding off on starting the next book until I finish a few more that are in progress!

This post is linked up with Ginny's Yarn Along.

Tapas, Mini Baja, and a Menu!

This weekend was a whole lot of fun! It started Friday after work when the hubs and I went to Toro Tapas Bar in Buffalo. Toro specializes in appetizer plates meant to be shared. We had a Living Social Deal so we had to spend over $40 (terrible, I know). We ended up ordering four plates to share, and I managed to remember to photograph three of them. Not bad for me!

The hubs and I each chose 2 plates apiece, and the first one that came out was the cheese and fruit plate. This was really good, and the biggest of the plates. I know there was brie, gouda, cheddar, and swiss, but I wasn't sure about the other 2 cheeses. You can also see the cheese cracker that we spread more cheese on. Can you tell we like cheese? There was also an assortment of fruit, which I got mostly to myself because the hubs is not a big fan.

Next out was one of the hubs picks, steak skewers with rice. This one was ok, but nothing amazing. The rice had beans in it, which the hubs doesn't like, but the steak was good. There were actually 3 skewers to begin with, but this photo came a little after the plate was delivered :)

Next came the mussels, which was one of the hub's picks but I ended up liking it more than him! Instead of a traditional wine and garlic sauce, the mussels were steamed in more of a tomato based sauce and had chorizo slices in the bowl as well. Yum!

The last dish, my pick, was the bison quesadilla. If you have read my blog for a while you know how I love quesadillas, and this one ranks up there! The cilantro cream sauce (drizzled on top) and the charred tomato salsa (in the bowl on the side) really made this special. 

If you are looking for a fun place to eat a slightly non-traditional meal with friends, both the hubs and I give Toro a thumbs up!

Saturday consisted of tests and work, so it wasn't too exciting, but we did get to relax and get a few things done around the house in the evening. That night we were talking about our schedule for the next day (Sunday) and the hubs says, "You remember me telling you about the mini baja race that [my college] is doing? Well it's tomorrow. Do you want to go?" So at 10pm that night we decided that we would leave at 6am to drive to Palmyra, NY for the mini baja race :)

As last minute as all the planning was, it was actually a really awesome day. The weather was nice, the race went well, and the hubs got to catch up with some of his friends (he was on the team last year). About half way through the four hour race I was starting to get a little sunburned and we had forgotten sunscreen (read: last minute planning!) so I went to sit in the car in the shade. Of course, I had knitting with me, and managed to get quite a bit done. The hubs even brought me some food for lunch :) The race was relatively interesting- knowing that college students built these cars and were driving them made it much more interesting than professional races to me. Here is a shot of one of the hills on the track. 

After the race was over we left and headed back toward home. We had plans to have dinner with my parents, my brother, and his fiance, so we hung out at the mall near our restaurant for about an hour until dinner time. We ate at Longhorn Steakhouse, which is becoming one of our "go to" chain restaurants. I got the filet and salmon, which I have ordered before, and saved half for lunch today. It was great to catch up with my brother, who lives 2 hours away, and his fiance, who lives 5 hours away. They are so fun to be around, and I can't wait for the wedding (not theirs!) that we are all going to in July.

Whew! What a weekend. I'm glad we got to pack so much in with the hubs leaving Friday for some USMCR training. As far as a menu, not only is it all set, we actually did our grocery shopping last night!

Monday: variations on Cobb salads with baguette and cheese

Tuesday: French toast with bacon and fruit

Wednesday: Steak, asparagus, and roasted potatoes

Thursday: Tuna melts

Friday is still up in the air as I don't know exactly when the hubs has to leave, and it may be easier to grab subway or something. Starting Saturday I'm a bachelorette for a bit, so I'll be posting about recipes I will be trying, projects I want to tackle, and other randomness!

eBags

If you have been following the blog for a little while you know I went back to school this fall. I only took two classes, to kind of ease my way back into things. One of the classes I took was Critical Reading, and our textbook weighed 4 pounds.

I was just using one of my spare tote bags to carry my books in, and this book made it awkward.

It was narrower and shorter than regular paper, but about 4 inches thick. Plus, with one textbook weighing 4 pounds, you can imagine by the time I added in the rest of my books, folders, and personal items my bag was getting pretty heavy on my shoulder.

This semester, I am going full time to graduate in May! While I'm excited to graduate, I realized I needed to rethink the bag situation. First I tried to look at my schedule and see if I could leave some books in may car and make trips back and forth. That seemed a little ridiculous to me, plus I didn't want to be walking all around campus between classes in the winter weather wasting time I could be doing homework. I looked around the house to see if I had any sturdier bags I could use, but unfortunately I came up empty.

One day I did a search for college backpacks and ebags.com popped up. I had heard of them before, but never shopped at their website. They seemed to have comparable prices to amazon, so I searched around and after a while I cam up with about 6 bags I could live with. I got the hubs opinion and eventually went with one of the more expensive bags, a Dakine Campus Pack.

Its been years since I owned a proper back pack, but I really like this one even if it is a little manly. The front small pocket is actually insulated, so I can pack my lunch in it and not have to carry a separate lunch container. The next pocket toward the back is an organizer for all the small stuff like electronics, pens and pencils, and whatever else I might have. The next one back is actually a fleece lined sunglasses pouch, which I'm not too sure about yet. I wear sunglasses, but I'm not sure how well they will hold up in the back pack. Lastly the large pocket against your back is roomy with a sleeve for my laptop.

The bonus? After it came in the mail, the hubs decided he liked it too. Since he will most likely be in school next fall, I told him he could use it :) So while this book bag was pricier than others, it looks like we will get a lot of use out of it.

If you haven't checked out ebags selection of book bags, purses, totes, and luggage I highly suggest you do. They have a rewards program that looks pretty useful too, so the next time I need a new bag I know where I will head first!

Steak & Stein

Saturday night the hubs and I ate out at Steak and Stein, which was right near our hotel and offered a 10% discount for people staying at our hotel. I'm really glad we decided to eat here out of all the options in the area!

Their menu is simple, but has enough options for most people. We got bread and butter at our table while we ordered, which was tasty and fresh. No photo because, well, it was 8pm and we were starving and wolfed it down before I thought to take a photo :)

Next we ordered stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer, a favorite of ours.

Honestly, these were probably our least favorite part of the meal. The breading was very lemony and almost sweet tasting, and there was a lot of it. I ate two and just didn't eat a lot of the breading with the mushroom, but the hubs was not a big fan. I think it was just that we are used to them prepared differently. However the rice that is in the middle of the plate? Amazing!

Next we had salads.

They have a salad bar that comes with all entres, and we were so stoked! I love getting to build your own salad and they had a great selection. I had lettuce (yeah its buried!) tomatoes, feta cheese, onion, dried cranberries, croutons, a hard boiled egg, and creamy italian dressing. YUM!

Lastly was the entres. Holy mammoth portions, Batman!

The near plate is mine, with my huge filet mignon. I have never seen one this large before! Its a little hard to tell the size from this photo, but it was easily as big as my hand! The plate of fries also came with my steak. Beyond that is the hub's prime rib and sea scallops. The prime rib was also huge! He ordered mashed potatoes, which you can barely see on the edge of the photo.

We were way too stuffed to order dessert, but if it was anything like the rest of our meal I'm sure it would have been good. If you are in the New Windsor/Newburgh area, give the Steak and Stein a try! Our waitress was very attentive and we really enjoyed our meal.