Day 17 - Baby Shower!!!

I realize now that I have missed a day of reporting. On Saturday I co - hosted with other fabulous girl's to give my sister, Lindsay a baby shower. She will be having a sweet boy in a few weeks. The shower was a lot of fun. My mom flew up and surprised my sister at the event, and was also able to assist in putting it together. Lindsay got some really cute baby clothes and other essentials to help her.

Day 17 - Temple Square (actually this is Day 18)

Today I went with my mom to Temple Square to see Music and the Spoken Word. We both realized that neither of us have ever been inside the Assembly Hall, despite going and visiting the grounds numerous times. We noticed that people were going inside, so we went exploring as well. At that time though a church meeting was going on, but they didn't mind us taking a peek. It's really beautiful inside with nice soft tone colors, and magnificent organ.

The grounds were absolutely breathtaking as Spring is here (I think). We were able to just sit outside, look at the flowers and enjoy the whole experience.

Day 16 - Congee

My mom has been in town visiting with me this weekend, and has recently discovered a new "stoup" as other siblings called "congee" (prounced con - gee). Legend has it that this is a magical formula that brings energy to those who consumes it. My mom wanted me to experience this, and so showed me how to make it during the afternoon.
So here I am excited, and prepared to embark on this incredible "congee" experience.
The key ingredient in this is "lamb." I can't say I have eaten much lamb. I am generally a chicken and fish kinda girl. But as we all know, it's important to follow a recipe when cooking... especially when a recipe doesn't exist.
So my congee consisted of in addition to the lamb... spelt flour (because I shouldn't really eat barley, or rice, or anything else good), white navy beans (we decided to do a spicy theme), mushrooms, celery, carrots, onion, garlic (there it is again... it's everywhere), vegetable broth, a can of diced tomatoes, than curry, cayenne, red pepper flakes, hot sauce, a can of hot green salsa picante and cumin. Above is a picture of it before we turned on the crock pot. I think we overfilled it a bit.
Here is a picture confirming that we overfilled it too much. Supposedly you are supposed to cook it for 8 hours. But my mom and I decided to be rebellious and cook it ALL NIGHT!
Here is a picture of it in the morning. It pretty much sucked up all the juices by then. When I looked at it and tasted it though, I felt like something was missing. I finally realized what it was..... cinnamon.
Here I am ready to try this new food, for my breakfast, looking real great, being sweaty after returning from the gym. Excited that this will give me the additional energy I need. It did taste good. I especially liked the slight kick it had.

Day 15 - Wild Oats

Day 15 was a busy day for me, as I worked a longer day than expected at work, and then needed to drive up an hour afterwards to go pick up my beloved mother who flew in that day. On the way home from picking her up, we stopped at Wild Oats (as the closest one to me is 30 minutes away). While there I tried 2 new things. Spelt sesame seed cracker sticks. These were really good. They are located in the bulk section, and I had always looked at them and thought "one day I'll try those." Today was the day I decided. I bought 8 cents worth and did not regret a penny that was spent on them. My mom and I also tried this garlic soup something. I am not able to remember the name at this moment. It was red, had garlic, and was really good. I remember the garlic as I had just recently experienced an episode of consuming too much garlic. The soup though was absolutely delicious! I would get it again, if I can remember next time what it was exactly.

Day 14 - Bar Keepers Friend

When I first moved into my really cute apartment, I bought some stainless steel cookware that had come highly recommended to me. I love the cookware, but was saddened when the first time I used them, my pans became discolored. I may have had the heat up to high, as I cook with a gas stove, and am not use to the whole temperature adjustment thing. So for the past year, I have been having to look at this:
Once when I was looking in Macy's kitchen area (a thing I tend to do a lot of) I found a bottle of stainless steel cleaner, but it was more than what I was willing to pay to clean the pans. But this week I did a search on how to clean this, and discovered that if I use "Bar Keepers Friend" (found in the dish detergent area by Comet at your local store) that it would clean them up.
So I decided to take a gamble on this.... since it was only $1 something. I spent some time with this, but was excited with my results as I feel like I have new cookware!!! Thanks Bar Keepers Friend!
What is also nice is that I kept saying "I'll clean them one day." Well with this new thing I'm doing I needed to think of something to do and so I decided that this was going to be the "one day."

Day 13 - GarageBand

On the 13th day, I was actually really excited to have time to complete this project for work. This was going to help me develop my "mixer/recording" skills using the computer program GarageBand. My really cool friend is letting me use a 4 - track mixer recorder for recording songs that have been written at work. In previous sessions, I helped some clients write songs. We recorded them using the 4 track mixer, with real microphones (that was the biggest hit with this machine). So on this so called "13th day" I finally had time to transfer the files from the cassette tape on the 4 track mixer to the computer to add effects, instrumentation and just make it sound like a really cool song. I found a book at the library that showed how to do some amazing things with the program that I didn't know existed. It was a lot of fun mixing sounds, adding special effects and being able to listen to something at the end of it and just being amazed that I actually put that together. What is even more exciting is that in a few more months when I get to know the program better, I'll look back on this project and can't believe that I was actually excited with the results. This will be because I am much better, and have a more "sophisticated" and better idea about this whole thing :)

Busy Week!

For some reason this week has been busier than my past weeks. I have a feeling that this schedule will continue this way for awhile as well. But I have still managed to get some new experience in every day. I'll post them this weekend.

Please be aware though that April is International Guitar Month!!!