Mountainair

I loved Lumino. It looks like you can pre order the small version for $100.00 which isn't too bad. I have an upstairs landing with no outlets and the Lumino would be the perfect lighting solution for me! Alas, I just spend $2,500.00 on a new bed so I'm done spending money for a bit :) Eta: I especially like that you can charge other devices with the small lumino. Just add a solar panel and it would be perfect!

I don't know but that's all the CW website had available as well. I hate not to be able to watch the missing episodes before the new one airs on Monday but it looks like that is going to be the case. I'll have to read the message boards to catch up I guess.

Thanks for the quick response! I checked my on demand last night and the CW did not show up at all. Since I have an aversion to watching TV on the internet (It's one of those irrational hatred things I have), I double check my On Demand when I get home. Other wise, I guess I will give Hulu a try, Thanks again! ETA: It looks like the CW website has most of the episodes available so I don't even have to mess with Hulu! Answering my own questions here :)

I followed the Golden Globe thread live and had never heard of Jane the Virgin before. I admittedly never, ever, ever watch The CW. After seeing so many people say how great a show this was on the live awards thread I was pleasantly surprised to see that last night The CW aired the first two episodes. I watched it and love it! Now, how the heck do I watch the rest of the episodes... aaah!

Be still my beating heart! Whenever I go out to a deli type place I order a Reuben. Mr. Mountain loves them as well and it has become a tradition for me to do homemade Reuben's for his birthday dinner. I use The ATK recipe which is great!I made steamed veggies and chicken puffs (chicken, cheese, wrapped in a croissant) for everyone else's dinner tonight.

In my ripe old age of 30, Katy Perry is definitely someone who will make me change the channel for the halftime show. Adding Lenny Kravits helps but not enough. I've been chewed out on other forums but I still maintain that a DCI quality drum corp would not only be a great show but it would maybe help expand some people's eyes as to what good music is. You see, they could have a drum corp halftime show with special appearances by.........(insert your favorite popular artist here). It's been done before, rather well I might add at actual drum corp shows. I digress, this is one argument I will never win.

Thanks for the advice about cashew cream. It would have only been for personal consumption however I was unable to find any in the store. To make my own would have cost about $10.00 and I didn't want to spend that kind of money on top of everything else so I decided to make my usual creamy, cheesy dip but only half of what I normally make somI don't over eat :)

I agree the shirt lady was a bit dated with her fashion trend and therefore the market for her product would be severely limited. That being said, before I quit my job to stay at home with my kids I used to work in upper management at a Fortune 500 company which surprisingly required us to wear a stupid uniform that consisted of a vest or sweater (black) with a collared shirt underneath. I was hugely pregnant at the time and the uniform was so hot in the summer I would have bought her product in a second! Maybe she should just focus on selling her product to companies that require such uniforms instead of the general public?

Thanks for those tips! The balsamic concoction I came up with was pretty tasty and the artichoke itself was so much fun to eat! I might have to splurge and try a butter or mayo based sauce this weekend. Mr. Mountain wants to try a fresh artichoke and tomorrow is football night, which means a cheat day for me with beer and snacks. If I can keep the snacks healthy to offset the beer even better! Speaking of healthy, my guilty pleasure is cheesy, yummy, spinach artichoke dip ( I love artichokes if you can't tell). I found a recipe for a cheese less version that uses Cashew Cream in the place of cheese. It looks fairly simple to make your own but I wonder what part of the store one would find cashew cream? I'm going to go out tomorrow and look for some, or make my own and try using cucumbers as a dip instead of pita chips.

Just curious... I'm am currently preparing my first ever fresh artichoke. It's steaming on the stove as I type. It was hard to find a dipping sauce recipe online that did not call for Greek yogurt (not something I ever have in my house), mayo or butter (which aren't diet friendly). I found a recipe for a balsamic vinaigrette sauce which I whipped up but was curious if anyone here has tried something good before.

Tonight for me it will be salmon, rice and Brussel sprouts. For everyone else, I made homemade ravioli and OMG! This diet thing is haaaaaaard! All that yummy cheese..............

Well my diet officially started today which means I'm back to making two dinners. One for me, one for everyone else. I made Impossibly Easy Cheeseburger Pie for the family and I had Salmon baked atop asparagus with a little bit of salt, pepper and fresh lemon and a small amount of butter. I served that with a serving of some really great rice my mom found back home. It's a wild/brown/quinoa mixture and it's soooooo good! My problem when I diet is getting enough food. I either eat too much or not enough. I'm going shopping tomorrow so I can get some fresh/healthy snacks. Anyone have any recommendations? Today I clocked in at 900 calories, 800 less than what I'm allotted. If I keep it up, I'll be thin, but a bitch :)

Yay! It's a new year! Ha,ha,ha! I haven't worked out in longer than I care to admit, I've been eating like a damn pig and my weigh in this morning certainly reflected that. I'm back to working out and trying to eat right.I have two boys under the age of 6 that keep me on my toes but it is hard to get a workout in while they are home. I'm going to up my workouts to two 30 minute sessions a day and I'm going to go back to making two dinners a day. One for me, one for my family.(Fish allergies run amok in my house so I refrain from serving it to the others). Lots of green fresh veggies, fish and maybe some chicken on top of a bed of greens. Lunch, no more baked potatoes and back to veggies only. I've never been a breakfast eater but I'm wondering if I should try some home made smoothies or just keep not eating breakfast? I'm 5'7 and 156 pounds (Gasp!!!!!)! I've quit smoking and replaced it with eating obviously! I would like to have one more kid and before I do I need to be back to 130-135 pounds so the quicker (and safest) way to drop some pounds the better :)

Local media outlets are reporting that head coach Ron Rivera's (Panthers) home caught fire early this morning. Everyone got out safely. No word on what caused the fire or if the home is a complete loss or not. Between this and Cams car accident they sure have either some good mojo going on or some real bad luck!

Americas Test Kitchen has a wonderful recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup that I use often. I'm still trying to clean out leftovers here. Tomorrow is back to preschool for the kiddos (half day) and back to going into the office for me which means back to making legit dinners :) Last night we had dinner with some new friends at their house, the kids are friends so they played, we ate. The dad is a sous chef for a fancy local restaurant here. I was in food heaven! A little bit of this, a little bit of that :)

Everyone also looked 10 years younger! I know the ZA has a nasty habit of aging people but Daryl looked so much better in the first season. To see his transformation from then to now is quite shocking to my eyes. When Glen and Maggie first hook up I felt like I was watching 15 year olds go at it. And of course, Carl, well he was a baby but now he looks like a full fledged adult!

So....... Finally..... New Years. What are your traditions? My grandma used to always serve black eyes peas and some other junk (she is not a cook, though she thinks she is). I've never been one to cook for New Years unless I'm having company. We had tons of BBQ left over from tonight so I'll re heat that for dinner tomorrow. I bought munchies for either tomorrow or New Years Day. It's just the two of us and I may let the five year old stay up. DH will play video/computer games and I'll watch tv. Big Woop! Any how, I got stuff for chicken wings, meatballs, veggie tray, feta dip and then my leftover Christmas ham will be used for 15 bean soup the next day! Happy 2015 guys!

I love Brunswick Stew. Around here we only get it when one of the local Methodist Chruches makes it. Yesterday we went to lunch at one of our nationaly known BBQ joints; I take my parents there whenever they come to visit. I picked up a bottle of their BBQ a sauce so I've been cooking a Boston Butt all day to make BBQ and cole slaw sandwiches with for dinner tonight.

So happy to see all the Panther love here! It's been hard these last few years to be a fan so I of course hope to see them go far. I have my doubts but these last few weeks have been great especially considering Cams injuries!

Ugh! Tell me about it! Non stop food in my house since Christmas Eve. I made a big dinner last night, big left over lunch today, steak dinner tonight, cookies, veggie tray, chips/dip are on constant rotation here. Once my parents leave I have got to get back into my excercise routine which I gave up in October. Got to get back to pre baby weight so I can think about having another one :)

So does anyone here do Christmas dinner? Christmas Eve dinner? Usually cooking is the last thing on my mind around Christmas. Christmas Eve is always spent at my in laws. My MIL makes her chicken soup (canned everything, lots of butter, and chicken breasts cooked all day, it is yummy), bread, and hot sandwiches. We all get together there and do the present thing with all the siblings. My parents usually come for New Years and I'll cook then. This year they are coming late Christmas night so we will have a big dinner the next day. Since it's just the four of us, two little ones who aren't big eaters I've decided to start Christmas Day off with a breakfast casserole and monkey bread. After that I was just going to do munchies. No lunch or dinner. Meatballs, cream cheese pinwheels, veggie tray, crackers and Neiman Marcus Dip, Bacon/ Ranch pull apart bread. The in laws usually stop in for a bit Christmas Day so this way I'll have snacks around for them and what ever is left over we can munch on the next day with my parents until dinner. I was gifted a Honey Baked Ham so that is going to be the main course on the 26th. I'll do twice baked potatoes, green beans with bacon and brown sugar, cauliflower casserole, bread and spinach salad. For desert I'm going to make a peanut butter Oreo pie.

My favorite soup! I use Americas Test Kitchen's recipe after trying about a billion different ones! That soup is a treat though in my house as I have to make something else for the rest of the family. Tonight we had breakfast for dinner. Eggs to order, scrambled for the kiddos, bacon, sausage, potatoes, pancakes (I even shaped them into Christmas Trees, gingerbread men, snowflakes, Angels and stockings). The kids loved that! Afterward the kids put on PJ's and I packed us all hot chocolate and we rode around town looking at Christmas lights.

I just saw via Facebook that this will be airing on Sprout this weekend. Of course that is the one channel I don't get. We have an Elf but have not seen the movie before due to always being out of town when it airs. I finally have a DVR and they decide to air it on a channel I don't get. Last year I thought it came on CBS. Oh well, my kids can't miss what they don't know exists. Caught The Best Christmas Party Ever last night and I thought it was really cute. I was trying to place the lead male the entire time. I looked him up on IMDB and still have no clue why he looks familiar. There was that short lived sitcom on ABC this fall (Manhattan Love Story) and I think he resembles that guy. That's the one thing about watching all these Lifetime/Hallmark movies, I play, "Who is that guy/girl" the entire time!

I randomly picked out a book at the library back in November, read a few pages, forgot about it, renewed it and am now fianally almost done. It's nothing ground breaking to be sure and was released in 2002. Love Stories of World War 2 by none other than Larry King. It's really quite gripping and personal and filled with photo copies of letters and momentos from the people involved with the book. I have about 50 pages left and I wish it would go on forever.

Ok. I liked the police officer too but then I thought he ended up being the cheating fly fisherman dude and I decided I didn't like him anymore. That's what I get for multi tasking. I can't remember the movie title that came on before that one but it was cute too. A lady finds a little girls Christmas note to Santa about wanting a new mommy for Christmas. Lady decides it was an omen and changes her life around to make it happen. Predictable but cute!