My Husb the Chef

I have been really slacking in the cooking department lately. Did you notice? No recipe posts in ages! The reason for that is... I haven't been doing much of the cooking recently. Or any, for that matter. I'm in an anti-cooking slump, so husb has really picked up my slack! Now if only I could get him to take pictures for the blog while he cooks..... I won't push my luck :)

Up until last week, my days were consumed with work and my evenings were filled with a combination of exercising (eh, sometimes), online class, and other work. The last thing I wanted to do was waste an hour in the kitchen just to eat my mediocre dinner at 8:30. Insert: husband of the year. Andrew has been cooking 2-3 dinners a week lately. Which leaves me with approximately 1 night of cooking since we rarely have dinners at home on weekends. A-maz-ing I tell you!

Here are a few of the dinners husb came up with and created all by himself:

• Ranch and Blue Cheese Stuffed Buffalo Chicken Breasts
• Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken
• Bison and Refried Bean Burritos
• Sloppy Joes ;)
• Chicken and Risotto
• Homemade Gluten Free Buffalo Chicken Pizza {are you seeing a trend?}

These are just a few that I can think of right now, but there were plenty more. Impressed? I am!!! It is seriously the cutest when I walk in the door to find him making a mess of the kitchen. He tries to play it cool but I can tell just how proud he is of himself that I am coming home to a ready-to-eat dinner :) In hopes that this trend continues now that my class is over (and way way beyond...) I'm trying to be the best sous chef I can be on nights when I have the time/energy - aka I whip up a quick salad or side to go with his dinner, or I just clean everything up without too much complaining. So far, so good.

So that husb knows how much I appreciate him, and so that he doesn't think I plan to be a slacker in the domestication department forever, I plan on making some really great dinners next week so stay tuned for some recipes and fun food stuff ~ and I also have some big baking plans for this weekend!

I'm so thankful to have a helpful husband. When life gets busy, its nice to know that I have a partner in life who is willing to step in and pick up my slack in the kitchen - and everywhere else! We're far from experts on marriage, but we've come a long way in the past {nearly} 2 years and I feel really good about the routine and the roles we have settled into.

Hubbs - thank you for being awesome! All the rest of you - thanks for reading ;)

I'm Baaack!

Back to having a life, that is. I turned in my final summer class paper just 2 hours shy of the 11:59 p.m. deadline on Friday, and then rewarded myself by having the most relaxing, unproductive, fattening weekend I've had in recent memory.

We slept in until 10:45 (two days in a row), we didn't cook a single meal at home, I ate bacon until I could not fit another bit into my face, I took a Sunday afternoon nap - a nap... my first since probably college! - and we watched movie after movie after movie. The only thing on our agenda was a cookout at our friends' new house, and that was as delightful and relaxing as lounging on my couch. So today, I'm a well-rested, rejuvenated girl!

My to-do list this week includes a lot of wants instead of musts...

• Make a library list of leisure reads (yay!)
• Browse for ideas for my friend's baby shower
• Plan the details and dinner reservations for our HHI anniversary trip
• Cook a few homemade dinners for my neglected little husb
• Catch up with friends who I have ignored (unintentionally!) thanks to my crazy busy summer!

Do you have any must-read books for me to add to my list?! These are the books I plowed through last summer  and I am always open to suggestions! Also, any really great baby girl shower ideas you've seen lately - throw them my way! Here are few ideas I'm juggling in my head right now:

L.O.V.E. this "She's About to Pop" theme! via

Adorable baby clothes used as mantle decor would be perfect in their house via

I can't get over the cuteness of these onesie cookies! via

Super girly cupcakes instead of a cake? via

DIY Invitations, but will customize to her nursery colors via

So there is my inspiration thus far... I'm sure many of these ideas will be combined and tweaked to give us the perfect combination of baby chic for Baby J's soiree! Most of this stuff is DIY, so I plan on getting a head start before class starts back up next month. Baby girls are just too much fun :)

Book ideas? Shower ideas? I know you all have some great suggestions!

Canada Trip!

The past 10 days were a little nuts.

I flew to Ohio, drove to Canada, spent a week up there with 20 of my crazy family members, drove back to Ohio, then drove back down to Atlanta.

I spent 18 of the last 72 hours in a car w/ my husb and kitty.

I have done 10 loads of laundry in the past 8ish days.

After 5 hours of sleep, I am now back to work.

I have a 20 page paper due by midnight Friday that I have written exactly 0 pages of thus far.

Needless to say, blogging is not at the top of my priority list in the foreseeable future! But until I bid my summer class good riddance and get back to some semblance of normalcy in my life this weekend, I'll leave you with a few pics from our annual family vaca to Pigeon Lake :)

We packed most of our family into this lodge + 2 of the neighboring cabins. We had the whole camp to ourselves!

Husb unhooked about 500 fish... {thanks!}

We spent hours and hours boating and floating on the lake!

Bella had a relaxing week too :)

Captain Hubbs cruised us all over the place!

My cousin Chris caught a HUGE walleye!

We pushed off the dock before realizing no one had the boat key...

Little Mitchy got to "go faster!" all by himself (ok, w/ a little help)!

We celebrated Carter's 23rd bday!

There was some jet ski cruising throughout the week, too!

More details and pics to come, but for now the kiddos need naps and with any luck I'll knock out a few pages of this miserable paper before swimming lessons!

Post-vacation catch-up is exhausting. By the end of this week, I'll be ready for another vaca!

Checked Out

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! In my defense, I'm 4 hours north of the U.S. border on a lake in the middle of nowhere in Canada :)

My entire extended family (dad's side) come up here every summer for a week and we literally unplug. No cell phones. No TV. No internet. No flat irons. No air conditioning! Thanks to my dad's little get-internet-anywhere-in-the-world contraption, I've been able to jump online every day or so to keep up with work emails and a few school assignments, but that's about it!

I'll be back to real life - and back to blogging about it - next week! In the meantime, I'll keep snapping pics to share while we fish, boat, eat, jet ski, eat, ski, tube, and eat some more! Being checked out for the week from my daily technology regime has been refreshing -- but I'll be ready to head back to civilization tomorrow!