Nothing too new

I haven't been very busy this past few weeks - and that's ok =) I've tried a few new recipes, read a few good books, signed up for fall semester, visited with lots of family, and got my two oldest off to school (3rd graders!!). Life is good!

The boys are really doing well and our relationship (our part-timers and me, that is) is strengthened with each little visit - they actually get pretty excited to see me [so Stephen says ;)]and the littlest bit insisted I read the bed-time story this past Friday night! Little victories, y'all. Jack turned 8 on the 20th; Stephen and I surprised him at school with some yum-o cupcakes: 

idea culled from Sweetapolita.com

I officially dropped out of the office's "Biggest Loser" competition; it was genuinely ruining my Fridays (weigh-in day) but I've stayed very consistent with my C25K program (and my weight, bittersweet-ly) and will be running in a 5k this weekend in Pooler, GA. I ran it last year with about 12hrs notice and uhh, well, let's just say I KNOW I'll be besting that time! 

Let's see...what other personal info to share... Oh! My 29th birthday! I was graced with the wonderful quality time from the bestie, her man and my sweetheart for a painting class - what a great time!! However, the best gift I could ever receive was from up above. I decided to go for a long walk in the morning and would never have seen this had I kept my lazy rear in bed: 

stellar, right?! It was gone about 10 minutes later. Truly an unique gift :)

Drake & Sarah, Jess & Stephen

Stephen has been working very hard and is still enjoying his work - the company he works for released a bad ass new product - one that he had much to do with and which received rave reviews - at a show in June (July?). So, ya know, that's cool :) MOLLEminus System <~ aforementioned rave review. Non-work related - we've both been trying (he better than I) to stay on top of our health by cycling and running at least 3x week. He's looking way hot, y'all. Like, way hot.

And to catch you up to now-ish: we went to Anderson for Labor Day. We got to enjoy some home made bbq by Stephen's dad, cakes from The Sweetery, a fish fry by Uncle A and wonderful company by our friends from Atlanta (whose family also lives in Anderson) and of course, our resident Anderson fam. I wish I'd have gotten more photos than I did but here are a few for the wind down: 

Josh (8) Jack (8) Russ (4)

 

Thai'ng one on at Litchfield Beach

Do you see what I did there... in the title... clever bitch, huh? (it'll actually make sense in a minute)

It's been a few days but the family "just" returned from vacationing in Pawley's Island, SC @ Litchfield Beach. Stephen's uncle is generous enough to let all 14 of us shack up for a week and get ourselves as waterlogged as humanly possible. ...waterlogged? sounds dangerous - and gory - if Mr. M. Knight Shamalamanalan got his hands on a rough plot base...

doin hoodrat stuff at Brookgreen Gardens

loitering.

Anyways, I'm here to share a few photos, and a recipe for the Thai inspired dinner that Stephen and I made whilst there.

A while ago Q (his street name. literally) revealed his lust for some red curry something or other. So I searched MyRecipes.com and found this, originally from from Cooking Light mag: Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp. First go was easy, fast, and quite enjoyable - who doesn't prefer that, anyways? ;) The second time we made it we added a few more ingredients: red bell pepper, snow peas, and mushrooms. Again - it was scrumptious.

It's common for us to sit and talk about what we'd do differently with the recipe the next time we make the dish(hence the addition of veggies) and after this particular time, we decided next time we would simmer the veggies in the coconut milk longer and we would add pineapple! Well, we remembered to do both at the beach house (albeit in the process forgetting to add the snow peas and omitted 'shrooms) and it rocked! Like, for real, rocked!

We served the thai shrimp with jasmine rice, chicken sate with homemade peanut dipping sauces, and some purchased dumplings from The Fresh Market (y'all - this place is straight dope.)

Now, for the main event, just as it was served last, minus the quantities for serving 6ish adults:

Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp
serves 2 (easily doubled, or for us tripled!)

1 tsp canola oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 red bell pepper, sliced and then cut crossways
some pineapple, eye ball it.
1/2 tsp red curry paste
1 tsp sugar
12 oz large shrimp, de-nastified
1/3 c lite coconut milk
1 tsp fish sauce
1/4 c chopped green onion
1 tbsp chopped (fresh) basil

Heat oil in a large non-stick skillet (one with tall sides) over med-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper, & red curry paste and saute for a minute. Turn the heat down and stir in sugar, saute for 15 seconds. Slowly pour in the coconut milk and fish sauce and let your veggies cook until crisp-tender, or to your crispy preferences. Add shrimp and saute for 3 to 5 minutes - you know, until these shrimp look like the shrimp you normally eat. Remove from heat and stir in green onion and basil. (*side note - i served this green mix as a "topper" for the dish and really enjoyed it - it intensified the fresh to def'ness!)

That's it.

I mean, unless you were awesome enough to take the jasmine rice challenge, too.

Or you were lucky enough to have someone grill the chicken sticks for you AND fix the accompanying sauce you messed up for said chick'sticks. AND make another peanut sauce that suited his desire for fiiiyaaahhhh!

Sleepy Jessica Ruined My Title.

When I went to bed last night I had some witty title for this post; Blogger Jessica was all "write it down!" but Sleepy Jessica was all like "no way! that's too awesome to forget. go to sleep instead!" Sleepy me won and for now I remain titleless.

This past weekend in Litchfield (just outside of Myrtle Beach, SC) was dynamite! We beached, pooled, drank, ate like we wouldn't gain that 5lbs that inevitably DID show up on the scale, and enjoyed some quality time with our Anderson family. Also, I learned something about my future; as an official member of the Mommarazzi - it can be summed up in four pictures:





Jack Stephen Russ Josh

 

this is probably as good as it's gonna get.

I'm going to have to learn how to splice pictures together. A big shout out to Stephen however, he managed to maintain the same amused smile for each shot and then humored me with this:

I do adore him :)

I stepped on the scale yesterday morning out of sheer curiosity and with the solid notion that it would NOT ruin my day. It didn't. What it did do, however, is kick this ass back into overdrive and real-life diet mode. A little more than a year ago I went from 203 to 160 in about 6 months by sticking to a no / low carb diet. So no more of this "but i don't understaaaand" as I admit only to myself the crap I ate that day. The new guy at work brought in donuts last Friday; what, like we can control ourselves around here?! No. So, to show him, I took a small bite of four different donuts and threw the remainder of each away. God they were good. I'm wasteful, I know. shut up. I did it for everyone else.

...Anyways, Atkins and I are BFF's again after I doled out booku dollars at Sam's Club for "friendship supplies". As of this a.m. I weigh about 2lbs less than I did yesterday. I was feeling so psyched about it I did some yoga this morning to get the day started. I'm loving the 10minute series for beginners. I usually just do two of the sets but on days I'm feeling extra amazing I do all 5 of them. Yay me.

Only one month out until I haul my crap across the bridge to invade the Land o' Stephen. While I'm not worried anymore about getting my house ready to rent, now we've got to figure out bedroom / furniture situations for the boys and (fingers crossies) the dining room and living room; the last two being of the least importance but I am NOT in love with his dining room table and chairs (glass top, iron base, and some modern patterned parsons chairs). First world problems.


Annd a few (ok, a lot) more pics from our weekend on da beeeeach:

Jack (7) Josh (8) Russ (so-close-to 4)