SJP clothing line

http://www.bittensjp.com/

New clothing line from Sarah Jessica Parker. Watch the videos of her explaining her line. I'm amazed by the prices. I'm ready to go to a Steve and Barry's right now. Cute clothes.

SMB

Giant Box

I had to share this picture of my cute nephews and I in a giant box. They are adorable.

click on the photo to see a less fuzzy one :)

SMB

Portland, OR | Photos

I started working on getting the Portland, OR pictures uploaded, but it's taking a while because I don't have a good photo editing program on my laptop yet. But here are a few you can look at for now.

Most of these were taken outside of the Oregon Convention Center where the Rails Conference was held. Some of them are from downtown Portland. I have a lot more so be looking for those soon.

SMB

Monday Dinner, June 4, 2007

Manicotti with Tomato Salad
Our Rating: * * *

We saw these shells in the store and decided to make Manicotti. Ryan found a good recipe for the filling which included fresh parsley, ricotta cheese (1c), mozzarella cheese(1c), and parmesan cheese(1/2c). Add in 1 beaten egg, salt and pepper. Mix together well. Put mixture in a ziploc bag and cut off one of the bottom corners of the bag to squeeze the cheese mixture into the cooked shells. Put a layer of sauce (we use Prego Traditional, it's the best! [send me free stuff]) on the bottom of a baking dish, put the filled shells in and put more sauce on top, (make sure you coat it pretty well so that the shells don't dry out). Sprinkle some Mozzarella on top and bake at 350 for about 45 min to an hour.



The tomato salad was originally a cucumber/tomato salad, but the cucumber we bought was horribly bitter so we couldn't use it. Instead we just left it at halved grape tomatoes and tiny strips of red onion. I made a simple vinaigrette with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and pepper and poured it in a bowl on top of the tomato and onion. Put it in the fridge for about an hour. When ready to eat, sprinkle shredded parmesan cheese on top.

I thought this was very good. Ryan wasn't as happy with it. I don't remember why but overall we were satisfied with it.

SMB

Sunday Dinner, June 3, 2007

Sirloin Steak, Baked Potato, and Corn on the Cob
Our Rating: * * * *

We got a big sirloin steak at the Fresh Market, (the best place for meat around here) and we cut it into 2 steaks and still had some left ever to use in another meal. Ryan seasoned and grilled the steaks on the griddle while we boiled the corn.

I started the baked potatoes about 30 minutes before we started on everything else. They came out great in about an hour and 15 minutes. I punctured them a few times with a fork, coated them with olive oil and rolled them in kosher salt. Then wrapped them in aluminum foil and placed them in the preheated 400 degree oven. Make sure you put something on a rack below them (I used a sheet of aluminum foil) because they tend to drip from all the juiciness. When the corn was finished boiling, Ryan put them on the griddle for a few minutes. Also, we loaded the potatoes with butter, sour cream, bacon and shredded Colby and Monterey Jack cheese.



This was a great meal. We were extremely stuffed.

SMB

Saturday Dinner, June 2, 2007

Ryan talked me into getting our 2nd griddle pan (which I was hesitant to do because of our previous one which was heavy, too big to fit in the sink and always looked dirty.) and I'm glad he did. It makes great food. It cooks like a real grill. If interested, it's a Chefmate cast iron reversible griddle (pre-seasoned), and I believe it was $19.99. We have used it 4 or 5 times since we got it, (Saturday, I think).

Burgers, Fries and Coleslaw
Our Rating: * * * *



Ryan grilled the burgers on the griddle and topped them with Colby-Jack, and put a couple slices of red onion on the griddle. I put together the pre-shredded bag of coleslaw, (just put in the ingredients listed in the recipe on the back of the bag, but not the amounts suggested, it makes dry coleslaw. I added extra mayo, milk, a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper.) and fried the french fries in peanut oil.

The burgers came out really flavorful, especially with the grilled red onion on them. This was a good meal.

Saturday Lunch, June 2, 2007

So we have started cooking at home again after a long, long time wasting our money (going out all the time) on food that wasn't even that great. I'm going to try to put up most of our meals and attempt to explain how we made them. Enjoy!

Peppercorn Ranch Salad with Black Forest Ham and CoJack Sandwich
Our Rating: * * * * 1/2

The Peppercorn Ranch salad was inspired by our favorite Cincinnati pizza place, Dewey's. It's Romaine lettuce, red onion (sliced very thin), halved grape tomatoes, and bacon (cooked then broken into pieces, not bacon bits.) The Romaine is tossed in a bowl with a little Ranch dressing, freshly ground peppercorn and Balsamic vinegar. To serve, first put romaine in the dish, layer with the tomatoes, red onion, and bacon and top with shredded parmesan cheese.



For the sandwich, we used buns from the Fresh Market bakery, they call them Soft Golden Hamburger Buns, which we also used for our burgers (another day). They are pretty much what they say they are. Soft and Golden. They were great. On the sandwich we put thinly sliced Black Forest ham and Colby Jack cheese, (also from the Fresh Market) a slice of tomato, 3-4 spinach leaves, red onion, 2 strips of bacon, mayo, and spicy brown mustard.

Overall everything tasted really good. Although if we had to do it over, we would not have had these two things together. They have too much of the same ingredients that we felt like we were eating a bunch of the same thing, but separately they are very fresh tasting foods.


SMB

Here's something I found today that is really neat. It's called yoono buzz it! This is going to make blogging so much easier for me, plus it will help me share interesting things with people that I find online on a daily basis. It is also a way for me to post my pictures easily (I think, haven't tried it yet). Right now it is allowing me to type this blog and post it directly on my blog site. It's kind of hard for me to explain, so check it out for yourself at http://www.yoono.com/.

SMB

Stephanie Briones | | # |

Interesting things to do

While reading rss feeds this morning I came across this illustrator's website. She has so many clever ideas of interesting little things you can do to really appreciate the little things in life. You should take a few minutes and read her list below of "100 ideas" and I suggest you try a few of them. I'm pretty sure I will. You can visit her website at: http://www.kerismith.com

SMB

a work in progress. 1. Go for a walk. Draw or list things you find on the the sidewalk. 2. Write a letter to yourself in the future. 3. Buy something inexpensive as a symbol for your need to create, (new pen, a tea cup, journal). Use it everyday. 4. Draw your dinner. 5. Find a piece of poetry you respond to. Rewrite it and glue it into your journal. 6. Glue an envelope into your journal. For one week collect items you find on the street. 7. Expose yourself to a new artist, (go to a gallery, or in a book.) Write about what moves you about it. 8. Find a photo of a person you do not know. Write a brief bio about them. 9. Spend a day drawing only red things. 10. Draw your bike. 11. Make a list of everything you buy in the next week. 12. Make a map of everywhere you went in one day. 13. Draw a map of the creases on your hand, (knuckles, palm) 14. Trace your footsteps with chalk. 15. Record an overheard conversation. 16. Trace the path of the moon in relation to where you live. 17. Go to a paint store. Collect 'chips' of all your favorite colors. 18. Draw your favorite tree. 19. Take 15 minutes to eat an orange. 20. Write a haiku. 21. Hang upside down for five minutes. 22. Hang found objects from tree branches. 23. Make a puppet. 24. Create an outdoor room from things you find in nature. 25. Read a book in one day. 26. Illustrate your grocery list. 27. Read a story out loud to a friend. 28. Write a letter to someone you admire. 29. Study the face of someone you do not like. 30. Make a meal based on a color theme. (i.e. all white). 31. Creat a museum of very small things. 32. List the smells in your neighborhood. 33. List 100 uses for a tin can. 34. Fill an entire page in your jounral with small circles. Color them in. 35. Give away something you love. 36. Choose an object, draw the side you can't see. 37. List all of the places you've ever lived. 38. Describe your favourite room in detail. 39. Write about your relationship with your washing machine. 40. Draw all of the things in your purse/bag. 41. Make a mini book based on the theme, "my grocery list". 42. Create a character based on someone you know. Write a list of personality traits. 43. Recall your favorite childhood game. 44. Put postcards of art pieces/painting on the inside of your kitchen cupboard doors, so you can see them everyday (but not become deaf to them.) 45. Draw the same object every day for a week. 46. Write in your journal using a different medium (brush & ink, charcoal, old typewriter, crayons, fat markers. 47. Draw the individual items of your favorite outfit. 48. Make a useful item using only paper & tape. 49. Research a celebration or ritual from another culture. 50. Do a temporary art installation using a pad of post it notes & a pen. 51. Draw a map of your favorite sitting spots in your town/city. (photocopy it and give it to someone you like.) 52. Record all of the sounds you hear in the course of one hours. 53. Using a grid, collect various textures from magazine and play them off of each other. 54. Cut out all media for one day. Write about the effects. 55. Make pencil rubbings of six different surfaces. 56. Draw your garbage. 57. Do a morning collage. 58. List your ten most important things, (not including animals or people.) 59. List ten things you would like to do every day. 60. Glue a photo of yourself as a child into your journal. 61. Trasform some garbage. 62. Write an entry in your journal in really LARGE letters. 63. Collect some 'flat' things in nature (leaves, flowers). Glue or tape them into your journal. 64. Physically alter a page. (i.e. cut a hole, pour tea on it, burn it, fold it, etc.) 65. Find several color combinations you respond to in public. Document them using swatches, write where you found them. 66. Write a journal entry describing something "secret". Cut it up into several pieces and glue them back in scrambled. 67. Record descriptions or definitions of subjects or words you are interested in, found in encyclopedias or dictionaries. 68. Draw the outline of an object without looking at the page. (contour drawing). 69. What were you thinking just now? write it down. 70. Do nothing. 71. Write a list of ten things you could to do. Do the last thing on the list. 72. Create an image using dots. 73. Do 3 drawings at different speeds. 74. Put a small object in your left pocket (or in a bag), Put your left hand in the pocket. Draw it by feel. 75. Create a graph documenting or measuring something in your life. 76. Draw the sun. 77. Create instructions for a simple everyday task. 78. Make prints using food. (fruit and vegetables cut in half, fish, etc.) 79. Find a photo. Alter it by drawing over it. 80. Write a letter using an unconventional medium. 81. Draw one object for twenty minutes. 82. Combine two activities that have not been combined before. 83. Write about your day in an encyclopedic fashion. (i.e. organize by subject.) 84. Write a list of all the things you do to escape. 85. Cut a random shape out of several layers of a magazine. Make a collage out of the results. 86. Write an entry in code. 87. Make a painting using tools from the bathroom. 88. Work with a medium that is subtractive. 89. Write about or draw some of the doors in your life. 90. Make a postcard that has some kind of activity on it. 91. Divise a journal entry using "layers". 92. Divise an entry using "layers". 93. Write your own definition of one of the following concepts, sitting, waiting, sleeping (without using the actual word.) 94. List 10 of your habits. 95. Illustrate the concept of "simplicity".

Once upon a time...

...I kept my blog fairly up to date. I am horrible when it comes to taking the time to update my blog. I get in a rut and tell myself I'll do it later and I don't. So this is me finally making an attempt to update this thing.

So I'm starting fresh. A new theme for a new blog post. (Thank you, Ryan.)

It feels like we just got back, but I guess it's been a week and a half since we returned from our trip to Portland, OR. The trip went really well. I got a laptop! Some of the highlights of Portland include walking around downtown and seeing the beautiful buildings, going to a thing in town called the Saturday Market, which actually happens on Saturday AND Sunday. It is this awesome outdoor market where people bring their art and other things to sell. (I bought a pretty necklace from an Asian lady.) There are probably a couple hundred booths, plus around 50 food booths to choose from, which our group did both days because it was so much fun. There was also the TriMet Max train rides. How practical those trains are. We were so spoiled by them that when we got back home, it felt weird driving a car. We were like "man, I miss those trains". I will try to get some pictures up soon. I promised my mom I would, (sorry mom). The mountains from the plane were amazing! We saw Mt. Hood from the air, then we could see it while riding on the train. It was breath-taking. We were supposed to go on a boat ride, but the weather decided that we shouldn't. But Portland is an amazing place and I hope we get to go back one day to explore more of it.

We'll be going down to Florida in a little over a week. Ryan's sister Danielle is graduating from college. Congratulations, Danielle! I made her invitations, but forgot to take a picture in the rush. They came out pretty nice. Also, there is Father's day coming up, and my lovely sister's birthday as well. Happy Father's day! Happy Birthday, Erica!

We've started a new budget for ourselves that we think is going to be great for us. We've always been able to pay our bills and eat, but have never been able to build a good savings account. I'm learning a lot just by reading smart people's blogs online. So you may see more from me about what I've learned.

Anyway, part of our new budget strategy is cooking at home a WHOLE LOT more. So I may also show you what we've been cooking up lately if I can get Ryan to help me figure out how to post pictures in my blog. We'll see... We've made some great meals this week.

We went to Taste of Cincinnati last weekend. It's a big event downtown that happens once a year. Hundreds of restaurants from around the area bring their food to downtown in a booth and you get to walk around "tasting" (you pay for it) different restaurant's food. Nothing beat the corn on the cob. There's also music.. so it was a fun thing to do on our Saturday.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. Hopefully I will be better about blogging.

- SMB