Excellent long weekend and some new pics

The weekend was awesome. We ate way too much food and paid dearly for it. The spread was at Michelle's house. I made an apple pie and cut up Kailee's salad ingredients as my contribution to the meal. Terence realized what was in pie dough and vowed to never eat it again lol. So I'll be making my pie dough out of olive oil or butter from now on instead of lard.

Everyone in the family seems to be doing fine, except for Stewart, he was "sick" all weekend. Kailee and Stewart got a new puppy and supposedly it kept him up all night, causing him to be ill for two days.... WTF is he going to do when the baby comes along???

I downloaded all of the camera's pictures and have uploaded my favourites to flickr. I'll post some highlights of the pic spread shortly.

Easter weekend and Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

It's Good Friday today, so everything is closed (which sucks) but I get to spend the day with Terence (which is awesome). We don't really have much planned this weekend except dinner on Sunday with the family. The cool part is we both get Easter Monday off as well! I might have to go into the TIC office to straighten out the Blueberry books on Monday though (bleh). I really hope it doesn't take too long.

I think today will consist of cleaning up, some laundry and

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread!

The recipe I'll be using is as follows:

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Ingredients:

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 cup mashed ripe banana(2 to 3 medium)
* 1/2 cup shortening
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup HERSHEY'S Mini Chips Semi-Sweet Chocolate
* 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom only of 9x5-inch loaf pan.

2. Combine all ingredients except small chocolate chips and walnuts in large bowl; blend well on medium speed of mixer. Stir in small chocolate chips and walnuts. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake 60 to 65 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

The recipe comes straight off of the Hershey's website

Tasty Banana Bread nomnomnom lol

Final Fantasy 12 is done!

I finally finished FF12. It was a very good ending and made me wish there was more. I'll probably still do the rest of my hunts just to get the final trophies but for all intensive purposes, the game is done. I won't spoil the ending for anyone else (I hate it when people do that :# )

On another gaming note, a new update came out for FFXI. Which I think I'll be thoroughly ignoring... They didn't really fix anything with the jobs, in fact, they broke it more! I swear they're retarded, they gave samurai another tp ability and gave thf a weaker version of an ability they already have, but it shares a timer with the stronger version.... um yeah that was a really good idea... Now I'll never use that ability, EVER. Gee thanks SE.

What a crazy week!

Last week was nuts but very good. I got lots done and feel good about everything except the condition of the house. It's a disaster area, I got some of it cleaned up this weekend but it's still messy.

My new job is going very good! I really like the people here. I know a few from my work at the bank. The next few weeks are going to be a bit haywirey as it's year end and I'm still learning the ins and outs of the books here but I think it'll go pretty good. Might not be the smoothest year-end ever seen, but it'll get done.

Carmelly kitten got fixed on Friday. She was really groggy and tired for the rest of Friday and most of Saturday, but she perked up and is now back to her little playful self. She can go outside and run free now too! She had grand fun with her sister outside watching the birds and chippy run around at the feeder. I don't think it will be long before she's in the feeder just like her siblings. They are going to teach her so many bad things lol.

I made a chicken and rice dish in the slow cooker on Sunday. It wasn't all that great. I don't think I'm even going to put up the recipe for it. I'll find another one that's more tasty. I still have to put up the chili recipe. I'll do that when I get home for lunch today.

Chili recipe and warm weather

I made Chili on Sunday again. It was awesome! Terence says he loves slow-cooker sundays :) I'm glad that he enjoys my cooking. In the grand scheme of things, the slow cooker is easy to do and it's awesome for us. No preservatives or extra crap, just good fresh food. I hope it improves his blood pressure.

We went to Walmart this weekend with Kevin and stopped at their little BP checker in the pharmacy. Terence's was 146/90something... I'll admit that mine was a bit high too (136/87) but holy crap! that's high! I got reading online and blood pressure is supposed to fluctuate during the day so little spikes is ok after eating and during excercise or stress but not all the time. I'll make sure he gets lots of sleep and excercise before we donate blood in april/may. If his pressure is still high, I'm making him see a doctor.

The snow is melting! I was gorgeous on Sunday when I went to the grocery store. Beautiful sunshine and warmth pouring down from the sky. The wind is still a bit cool but I think winter is releasing it's cold cold grip from the land. The cats and dog are very glad. Grizzy went out for a good hour or so, Mephit was in and out all day and Marbles was out all afternoon (which is REALLY rare). Carmel was just itching to escape, but we kept a close eye on her. She can start exploring after Friday when she gets snipped.

Yay! No more Candace! Rib recipe and repotting

Muahahahahah! I'm done at the bank and my gods it feels good. I'll miss some of the people that I served but that's about it. Even the good bye card the staff gave me is only half-assed and bland. I was so not meant to work with those people. It's done and time to move on though. NGFC has it's share of problems too, but nothing compared to what was going on at BMO.

As promised in my last post, here is the rib recipe that I used. I was right, every bite was lip-smacking, finger-licking awesome.

Sweet and Sour Ribs

3 lbs Ribs
1/4 c. flour
1 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. water
1/2 c. vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 c. ketchup
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Combine all the ingredients except the ribs in a sauce pan on medium heat, mix thoroughly and allow to thicken. Cut ribs into 3 of 4 bone sections, lay flat in the crockpot and cover with sauce. I made two batches of sauce and it may have been a bit much. I might try making like, one and a half batches next time.

I transplanted the rubber tree, now just for the Grape ivy. I can't decide whether to put it in a new pot or put it in it's old pot with new dirt. I'll figure something out though.

book book book :)

Hehehe I just ordered 6 books for $5! I love free gift cards :) I ordered two cat books by Erin Hunter, two books of the Drizzt books for Terence by R. A. Salvatore, an older book I've been looking for called Factoring Humanity and a gardening book they had on sale. It's scheduled to arrive in two weeks or less (probably less, chapters is awesome for shipping fast)

As for where I got the free gift card? My last cashout for bravo points at work was for a blender and $50 at chapters :) Still haven't used the blender yet though. I might have to pick up some fruit and make a smoothie or a milkshake this afternoon. I have to go in to pick up the stuff for slowcooker sunday tomorrow! Going to make ribs mmm mmmmm tasty! I'll post the recipe I plan on using later on tomorrow.