What's Cooking??

Chicken Cacciatore
1 package (1 pound 4 ounces) bone-in skinless chicken thighs
1 jar (4.5 ounces) sliced mushrooms, drained
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
1 can (14 ounces) chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine, if desired (yes please)
1 dried bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon dried sage leaves
12 ounces uncooked spaghetti
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Shredded parmesan cheese, if desired

1. Place chicken in 3-4 quart slow cooker. Add remaining ingredients, except spaghetti, thyme cornstarch and cheese.
2. Cover and cook on low heat setting 8-10 hours.
3. About 15 minutes before serving, cook and drain spaghetti; keep warm.
4. Remove chicken from cooker; keep warm. Stir in thyme into sauce in cooker. Increase heat setting to high. Mix 1/4 cup sauce from cooker and cornstarch in small bowl; gradually stir in remaining sauce from cooker. Cover and cook 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove bay leaf.
5. Serve chicken and sauce over spaghetti. Sprinkle with cheese.

6 servings
Calories 365
Fat 7 grams
Fiber 4g
Protein 23g

Deal of the Day

Old Navy is having an extra 50% off their clearance Friday, January 16 - Monday, January 19th. There were some great deals to be had. I got Riley lots of clothes for next winter. He got some sweatpants, sweatshirts, corduroys, long sleeve shirts and jackets. I got Eric his favorite cargo pants, they were $6 after the extra 50% off, what a deal. I got some short sleeve shirts, a dress and a bunch of tank tops that were $.98. Here's a link to an extra $10 off a $50 purchase. Be sure to print it out to make it an even better deal. http://www.southwest.com/landing/old_navy_coupon.pdf

A busy day

1. Meet the cable guys between the convenient hours of 1-5 to fix the cable box.

2. Meet the heating guys to check our ducts.

3. Pick up Riley from school and play

4. Make dinner

5. Watch my favorite shows.



1. The cable guys came at 1:20 and were done in about 15 minutes. I was able to fold my laudry from the day before while they fixed the cable box. I checked out the cable to make sure I can get to the OnDemand channels which were showing a META-6 error before. Yeah, it works. Now I won't have to switch out DVDs when Riley wants to rotate between Diego, The Backyardigans and all his other favorite OnDemand shows.

2. Ok, so I wait and wait and wait. The heating people don't show up until 4 hours later. Hmm, I'm glad the timing worked out so well. They check our heating ducts as the little guy's room has been so cold in the morning. Everything checked out great, but they said that we needed to keep his door open to circulate the air. Hmm, small child running around whenever he wants because his door is open or small child's room is very cold. Not sure which is worse.

3. I picked up Riley from school and talked to one of his teachers about watching him while Eric and I go to the gym. Looks like we might be able to work out a schedule with her so Eric and I can go to some gym classes together. YEAH!!!! Riley and I got in the car to go home and he asked me if he could have a snack at home. I said sure. What did he ask for??? Chocolate, cake, candy, cookies.....nope, a meatball. Seriously, at what point does he need to be cut off from meatballs. He eats turkey meatballs, italian meatballs, swedish meatballs and sweet and sour meatballs. His palate doesn't discriminate from meat rolled in balls. I gave him fresh strawberries instead. I mean, meatballs is more of a dinner not an afterschool snack...silly Riley. We've been watching the Backyardigans OnDemand. I can't wait until it's Riley's bedtime and I get to watch The Office and Grey's Anatomy. Though I do love Pablo, Tyrone, Uniqua, Tasha and Austin, as they make my boy so happy.

4. This is still being debated. You think I would have made dinner while I was waiting for the heating guy, but instead I got to hang out with Sharon before she leaves for Utah tomorrow. Eric just suggested just ordering something out....I'm so tempted.

5. I will be watching The Office and Grey's Anatomy, barring any unforseen problems with our DVR like last week. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see last weeks Grey's because our silly DVR didn't record it. Can you guess how happy I was last week, when I found this out?

Catching up

1. Go to the gym
2. Go grocery shopping
3. Fold laundry
4. Relax

1. Though I wasn't very excited at the time, somehow I got the motivation to go to the gym. We go to 24 Hour fitness. There are several membership deals for 24 Hour Fitness. There is a one year prepaid membership through Costco for about $289 and then there is a $24 month-to-month that is available to Friends and Family at various times of the year. Eric and I stumbled upon the $24 a month deal on Slickdeals.net (my favorite deal site). There are no fees and the deal is month-to -month so you can cancel at anytime.
Anyways, back to my trip to the gym. I walked in the door with my iPod and Heart rate monitor ready. I headed to the elliptical machine, I got the last of 50 machines. Not a fan of a packed gym, but I was determined to make my heart rate monitor proud. Now I typically do the elliptical on the interval setting (the steep up and down climbs) for 30 minutes. It's definitely not a walk in the park, so I figured it was a pretty good exercise. So the heart rate monitor is warming up with me for the first 5 minutes, which were at my standard pace. Then the monitor starts beeping telling me to speed up the heart rate. Um ok, I can increase speed, resistance and crossramps. I increase each slightly. The monitor is still beeping at me. I continue to increase all three until I am in the "zone". Yep, that's the zone at which the heart rate monitor calculated that I am burning fat. So the rest of the work out I am suppose to stay in the zone without falling down into the low activity zone or speeding up too fast to the burn-out zone. So I continue the workout all the while thinking about how much harder this is, and I have flashbacks to the Biggest Loser episode from the night before. That's right, I was identifying with Joelle. I was working out super hard but the monitor kept telling me try harder. I didn't want to look like a crazy yelling at my heart rate monitor watch, telling it "I'm working as hard as I can", but seriously it was a tough workout. At the end I finished my hour on the elliptical at the maximum resistance, and I'm not exactly sure what the crossramp is, but I think that was probably at the max too. So my heart rate monitor trainer really helped me get through the workout. I didn't want to let it down, and I love seeing all the stats at the end. I burned almost 600 calories and I was 80% in the fatburn zone. Ar the end of the week of working out I get a trophy icon on the watch for reaching my goal. Also, I can download all my workouts to my computer for calorie and performance tracking.
2. A new grocery store opened up nearby so I decided to check it out. It's called Market Street. I've been to the Market Street in Colleyville, so I kind of knew what to expect. I typically do my grocery shopping at a mix of Tom Thumb, Whole Foods, Sprouts and Central Market mixed in with a little Kroger. I love getting our seafood, meat, produce and organic milk at Whole Foods, Sprouts and Central Market. While I love Kroger and Tom Thumb for their deals on all the other grocery items like cereal, water, soda, chips, etc. The store was nice, but I guess I really wasn't in the shopping mood. I got some lunch meat at the deli, some fruit for Riley and microbrew beer assortment for Eric. It was definitely more expensive shopping there, but the store was nice and clean and there were some deals, but you really had to look to find them. I did notice on a flyer that they will be having Diego Live their this weekend, so I guess I know where I will be taking Riley Sunday afternoon.
3. While shopping I got a little bit of a headache, so I didn't quite get to folding laundry.
4. I was still able to catch up watching "The Real Housewives of Orange County" (my sister got me hooked) and "Top Chef" (now, that I think about it, I watch this because of her too). We had DVRed these so I got to run through them commercial free. Watching TV commercial free is very relaxing.

Is it still Monday??

1. Go to work
2. Play with Riley
3. Watch Biggest Loser
4. Clean up with living room
5. Play with Camera

1. Done. Worked longer than intended and it felt like it was Monday all over again. Yep, it was a fabulous day.
2. I picked up Riley at school. He got into my car and looked for blankie and binky. Unfortunately, I have no blankie and binky in the car as they are for night time. Thankfully, I redirected him by asking what he wanted for dinner. Yep, you got it meatballs and spaghetti. He kept saying meatball where are you. It was so cute. Thankfully, Grandma Wilson froze some meatballs while she was here and they came to good use tonight. They are Riley's favorite.

3. Yep, it's a guilty pleasure. I love watching this show. I don't think I could make it through a single one of those workouts. Though I'm pretty competitive so I think I could totally wipe them in the challenges.

4. I cleaned up the mail, newspaper and clothes, but no matter how much you clean, it seems like there is still always something left.

5. I took lots of pictures tonight. Still had problems remember to take of the stupid lens cap.

All the pictures were of the guys. I think they are getting a little tired of being my models, so I got the cats tonight too. Here are some pics from tonight.

I think I'm going to start finding time to read. Any suggestions???

What did I do today?

Things to do:
1. Go to work
2. Play with Riley after work
3. Work out
4. Update respective blogs
5. Take some pictures

1. Check. Went to work, but didn't quite make it on time.
2. I played with Riley after work, though I forced him to play unplugged. Yep, that's right no movies, no TV or any other electronics. He was a little hesitant at first, but then I think he was digging being Amish like.
3. Since Riley wasn't stuck in front of the TV and since I won't ever be taking him back to the gym daycare (see his blog for details), we decided to go for a long run as a family. I strapped on the heart rate monitor and we were off. Now I just have to get through three more workouts this week.
Someone else tried to come on the walk with us













4. This was tough today. After Riley's bath we laid down and I fell asleep. Eric kept asking if I was going to get up, and I said "no" and then I remembered I hadn't blogged. Being the dedicated blogger I am, I muttered out wake me up in 15 minutes. This happened three more times and now here I am blogging.
5. I took some pictures today. Not a ton, but I think I am getting better. I only had two incidents where I left the lens cap on. I'm paranoid the lens is going to get messed up so I put the lens cap back on constantly. Remember these lens cost the same amount as my other camera. How crazy is that, it goes against all my frugality, but I'm loving it.

Can you tell who likes to put his blanket on his head??













If you look close you can see parts of blankie in all these pictures. Riley is a little Linus.













Ok, I better get some sleep, I have a feeling Target toys might be going to 75% clearance by my house tomorrow. Here's to some good slick dealing tomorrow. Oh and the new Kohl's 30% off online code is out: SAVE30JAN. The sale starts January 14-20.

On the list for today!

To do:
1. Hang-out with Riley
2. Try out a new recipe.
3. Play with the camera.
4. Get to the gym.
5. Do some holiday returns.

Ok, let's see how I did.
1. I got the opportunity to hang out with Riley all day. Eric was off-duty to enjoy a much needed day out with his friends. It has been too long since he spent a day to himself, or in this case with several friends watching the Football playoffs. So Riley and I went shopping....not his favorite task, but he did great. We went to the outlet mall and IKEA. We had some swedish meatballs, Riley and Eric's favorite and listened to the guitar player. I know, who would have thought there would be live music in the IKEA cafeteria. The guy was actually pretty good. He played Zeppellin, to which Riley said, "Listen I hear Daddy". Eric has trained him well. Here's a picture from IKEA.














That about finished up our shopping, so we went to a little spot tucked away by the hustle and bustle of the Galleria. It is a little photo studio that has a picturesque little outdoor area perfect for taking whatelse..pictures. So we get out and take some pictures. Someone was not too keen on looking at the camera, but it was fun to practice. Then we went on a little playdate with Ms. Melissa and Baby Jack. Jack will be turning one this week. We had a good time hanging out and on our return home Riley fell asleep.













2. After coming home from our playdate, I decided to try out a new recipe. I flipped through the pages of my January/February Food Everyday Magazine by Martha Stewart. I decided on the Escarole salad with Apples and Pecans and Pan-seared Turkey Cutlets with Wine Sauce. I've been trying out these recipes for the past week and this was one of my favorites. The hardest part of this recipe was finding escarole. Whole Foods, Central Market and Market Street let me down. Thankfully, Eric remembered to look when we were in Sprouts. Not only did we find it, but it was only $1.29. Anyway, this was one of the easiest recipes and the most successful. From prep to plating it took less than an hour. Bonus to the Turkey Cutlet recipe is that you are cooking with 2 cups of white wine, so in order for the rest of the wine bottle not to go to waste you get to drink as you go. Not too worry, Riley had plain old spaghetti and meatballs, he won't be getting wine for another 19 years. Check out how great it turned out.














3. As I said in #1, we made it to a super cute little outdoor area for pictures. Here's a few of my favorites:















Note: I still haven't read the manuals or gone through the software training.

4. Ok, so this didn't quite happen. But the goal is four days a week. I guess today wasn't meant to be one of the four days.

5. Only partially accomplished. Eric did our Kohl's return on his way to watch the games. Riley and I went to the Outlets in Allen to return some stuff to the Coach store. Unfortunately, I forgot one of the receipts, but thankfully I did remember the one with the majority of the items on it. Riley and I walked out of the store with a nice chunk of change. Let's see how long until we spend it all. Oh wait....too late...I guess that all went to my camera. Still on my list is Target (hopefully, I can get out of there without buying more than I returned).

The Start of My Blog

So, I figured I needed to get a blog. If my two-year old son can do it, why can't I. There are tons of things that happen during the day and my first thought is....I should blog about that. Well now I can.

With the start of 2009 there are several things going on. I've been searching for a new hobby. Somehow when I was young I had tons of hobbies. I loved drawing, playing music, playing sports and shopping (Note: shopping is still a hobby, though now it includes coupons and extrabucks). My new prospective hobbies are photography (got a new Canon Rebel XSi yesterday), cooking (learning healthy new recipes that even Riley will love) and getting fit (I got a heart-rate monitor that trains you during you work out).

As many of you may or may not know, I will be leaving my job with a large financial services company and staying at home for a couple months with Riley. Thanks to the moving of my job function to Florida and my unwillingness to relocate, I will be getting quite a large severance package that will allow me to be at home for a year. I figure I will get the itch to return to work pretty quick, so right now I'm just planning on taking a couple months off with Riley this Summer. We are hoping to visit some family and friends on the East Coast. And hopefully we can take some vacations and escape to a beach or maybe even Disneyworld.