Concert of the year...so far!

So even though I had every intention of going to several great concerts this year I just couldn't manage to swallow the price of tickets. It's getting ridiculous. But I couldn't pass on going to see Mr. Brad Paisley and I am so glad I didn't. This is the 6th time I have seen him and it gets better every time. I joined the fan club this year just to see if I could get better seats and these turned out to be the best seats we have ever had! I mean look at them.....you can't get any closer. He did a great show and I felt like we were the only ones there because we were in the second row from the runway. I am definitely renewing the fan club membership next year.

(By the way I did not use the zoom for these photos!)

Memorial weekend with a project on the "side".

Maybe I should say our whole holiday weekend consisted of a project but I'll start with Friday before all the madness kicked in. Although Friday night was cold and drizzling rain I was determined to grill out! So I put on my jacket and fired up the grill. This dinner was delicious! I marinated everything in caribbean jerk seasoning.



Grilled Veggies! Yum!

Ok on to the craziness. The heat really kicked up this weekend and we were outside the whole 3 days building our pergola which we finished thank you very much! We did notice that we were the only crazy people in our neighborhood who were outside yesterday in the 90 degrees...but we are young right??

Here is our plain old yard before:

Ta da!

Yep we did that. Mostly just the two of us but we did have to call in some extra muscle for some of the pieces. Our backyard transformation will probably happen in phases. This was phase 1 and we are not quite done. We are going to add some other "architectural feature" boards hopefully this week. Phase 2 will be purchasing a nice patio set which I have never done before. Super excited about that! I can't wait to eat breakfast outside. Phases 3, 4 and so on I want to spruce up our patio by maybe expanding it or building a deck off to the side. We are not sure what we want to do but we are happy with what we have finished so far.

We've made it to 4!

Thursday was our 4th wedding anniversary and although the weather tried to be similar to our wedding day I don't think we will ever be able to reproduce how awesome that day was for us. This milestone is a fun little one because we've been together twice as long as we've been married, we will never get to say that again. We officially became a couple in May so this is a special month for us. I think I celebrated our 8 years together more than our wedding anniversary......I want credit for the 4 years before marriage....don't those count for something too? It's where you are really feeling out the person to see if they are the one you want for your whole life. It's where you can walk away at any time with no strings attached.......I think it's a critical time in a relationship. Lucky for us I have to say that our whole time together has been pretty easy and the big reason why..........I could go on and on about the things we truly love about each other but I will make it plain and simple.........we both want to live a drama free life together! There can be drama around us all day long but we refuse to let it into our relationship. Plus we just make a really good team.

On thursday night we made homemade gnocchi together and went for a bike ride. Tonight we are going to our favorite Italian restaurant in Zionsville to celebrate more. This restaurant is also special to us because it is the place we went the night we got engaged.

Roses for me is always a nice touch!

For breakfast I made some "anniversary" muffins. My own special recipe.

Loaded Blueberry Streusel Muffins(makes 12)
1 3/4 cups flour, I used whole wheat
1/3 cup sugar or brown rice syrup
2 teasp baking powder
1/4 teasp salt
1 teasp vanilla
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk of choice
1/3 cooking oil
~ 1 cup blueberries

Streusel topping:
3 tblsp flour
3 tblsp brown sugar
1/2 teasp cinnamon
2 tblsp butter


Grease muffin cups. Preheat oven to 400. Combine all muffin ingrediants in a bowl and mix well. Spoon into muffin tins. To prepare topping placing ingrediants in a small bowl and cut the butter into dry ingrediants until it makes a crumble mix. Sprinke topping over each muffin. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool before removing.

Missing Husband

Has anyone seen my husband? He's tall dark and handsome and tends to disappear when the weather is nice.



Oh wait I found him!

This is called "hammock time" and it is what I have lost my husband to. The first day he had it set-up I realized that the time we would spend together would be shorter and shorter each week......just kidding. It's actually really relaxing to be in the hammock under our willow tree and next to the pond. It's a great reading spot.

Also a little update on my second week of saving money at the grocery store.....this visit I only spent $37 so I'm still staying on track!

Gardens, Coupons, and Homeade Stuff

So where do I start to bring you up speed on the past 8 weeks. I can't believe it's been that long since I've blogged but I haven't been wanting to be on the computer or telephone since Spring weather has been flirting with us. We've been trying to work outdoors when it's not RAINING! Matt has prepped our garden soil and the vegetable sprout trays have taken over the inside of my house! I can't wait to put them in the ground very soon. Our garden is much larger this year and full of our "homeade" compost. Our thumbs seem to get a little greener each year so we'll see if we are good at this. Planting seeds is way cheaper than buying veggies at the grocery or even buying veggie plants somewhere else. We are also looking into a rain barrel to conserve water.

So speaking of cheaper....that's brings me to the next thing I have been burying my nose in. Couponing! Everyone likes to save money, right? I have always used just a couple coupons here and there when I had them but I caught some episodes of the show on TLC and those people are nuts! It did teach me a couple things although most of the coupon items I will never buy. I will not become that crazy coupon chick in the store but I have proposed a little challenge to myself to see how much I can save. I have heard of a lot of people who gave up eating meat to save money but since we gave up meat and are trying to eat healthier we are spending a ton of money on groceries. So I am trying to spend $200 on groceries for the month of May. So that is essentially $50 a week for us. This past Sunday was my first attempt to shop for the week so I researched the sales flyer to make my menu and found my coupons and I only spent $36!!! That bought us food for the entire week and it is all healthy. So far so good.

The next thing that I am kind of getting obsessed with is making my own anything at home. There is so much "junk" in a lot of things today that I started researching ways to make things myself for stuff that I use a lot. So far I have made my own deodorant, jam, peanut butter, almond butter, and granola. Matt made hummus which I think the recipe needs tweaked before I am a fan... it's pretty hard to top my red pepper store bought stuff. I was going to make my own lip balm but I found the organic stuff at Whole Foods to be a pretty good deal. I was also going to make my own soap but one of our Chemists at work makes her own so I have trusted her formula and will buy from her for now. I have found a lot more that I want try but I don't want to over-indulge, like last night when I was baking at 9:30, which is partly because I had today off as a Holiday and because Matt was getting me hyped up about starting my own side business. The first day I took my granola in to work I had people offering to buy it.....I had no response for them because I hadn't even thought about selling it. So we shall see.......

Last month I had the vacation itch so luckily we made a trip to Florida. A big thanks to John, Kel and kids for taking us to the beach. We really needed the sand in our toes and a dip in the ocean......oh and the sand that was still in my bathing suit when we got home :) I love going to visit those little kiddos, we are both always very sad to leave them.

So you all know that spring usually equals some kind of project for us. We are finally building our pergola in the back yard for some much needed shade. Matt has worked up the plan and we started buying supplies. This will probably be completed at the end of May only if the rain stays away. We are going to build the pergola first and then probably fancy-up the patio.

Veg Out Recipes II

Barley Hoppin' John (so delicious & filling)
1 tblsp olive oil
1 onion , chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
14 oz vegetable broth
1 cup quick cooking barley
2 teasp lemon juice
1/4 teasp crushed red pepper
2 15 oz can black-eyed peas, rinsed

Heat oil in large skillet. Add onion, bell pepper and celery. Cook until softened. Add garlic, cook 1 minute. Add broth, barley, lemon juice, crushed red pepper; bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until barley is done, about 15-20 mins. Remove from heat and add black eyed peas. Cover and let stand 5 mins and then serve.


Veggie Chowder
2 cups vegetable broth
2 cups potatoes, cubed
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 can cream-style corn
12 oz can fat free evaporated milk
1/2 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
pepper to taste
shredded cheese (optional)

In a large saucepan, combine broth, potatoes, carrots, and onion. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 mins until veggies tender. Add corn, milk, cheese, mushrooms, and pepper. Cook and stir 5 mins and serve.


Winter's Best Bean Soup
10 cups vegetable broth
3 cans great northern beans, drained and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes
1 package (10 oz) frozen sliced carrots, or use fresh
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teasp dried rosemary
black pepper

To a crock pot add all of the ingrediants. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours.
As an option place pieces of toasted italian bread in bottom of serving bowls and cover with soup.


Three Bean Chili
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chili beans, undrained
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chili-style diced tomatoes, undrained
1 green pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
1/2 cup veg broth
2 teasp ground cumin
2 teasp chili powder
2 cloves garlice, minced

In a crock pot add all of the ingrediants. Cook on low for 6 hours or high for 2 hours. Serve and top with crushed tortilla chips or cheese if desired.

Veg Out Recipes

Vegetable Dumpling Soup(Serves 4)
2 tblsp EVOO
4 tblsp butter
2 onions, diced
2 ribs celery, chopped
4 carrots, diced
1 potato, diced
1 zucchini, diced
1 fresh bay leaf
2 qts veg broth
4 tblsp flour
1 teasp Dijon Mustard
1 box of Jiffy Mix(dumplings, prepare to box instructions)
1 cup of frozen peas
2tblsp parsley

Heat EVOO in pot. Add celery, onions, carrots, potato, zucchini, bay leaf. Stir and cook covered for 10 min, Add veg stock, raise heat to boil. Meanwhile melt butter in a bowl, add flour and mustard. Whisk mixture into soup. In another bowl prepare the dumpling mix and add parsley. Stir peas into soup. Drop by teaspoons the dumpling mix into the pot. Cover and cook 6 mins. Serve.

Greek Goddess Salad
3 tblsp fresh parsley leaves, minced
4 pitted kalamata olives, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
5 tblsp lemon juice
medium cucumber, seeded and chopped
medium red pepper, chopped
1 medium tomato, seeded and chopped
1/3 cup red onion, finely chopped
crumbled reduced fat feta cheese
pita bread

In a bowl combine parsley, olives, and garlic. Whisk in lemon juice. Add cucumber, bell pepper, tomato, red onion, and feta cheese. Toss together. Eat with pita bread.

Veggie Burgers
2 tsp oil
1/4 cup minced onion, green pepper, carrot, celery
2/3 cup drained canned white kidney(cannellini) beans
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cups seasoned dried bread crumbs

In a skillet heat 1 tsp oil. Add onion, green pepper, carrot, celery; cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until veggies are soft. Set aside to cool.
Using a fork in a medium bowl mash beans, stir in egg. Add bread crumbs and veggies. Mix throughly. Shape into 4 patties. In same skillet heat 1 tsp oil. Cook patties over medium heat until brown on both sides.

Brushetta Eggplant
1 lb eggplant, cut into cubes
3 medium plum tomatoes, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tblsp fresh basil, chopped
pepper, salt, and garlic powder to taste

Preheat oven to 400. Mist a baking sheet with cooking spray. Place eggplant in a single layer on sheet. Bake for 7 to 10 min. Flip and bake 7 to 10 min more until tender.
In a large bowl combine tomatoes, garlic, basil, and eggplant. Season with salt and pepper. Toss and serve. Serve with bread or chicken if you desire.