Off to Chicago this weekend!

My best friend from college, Katy, is getting married!  Charlie and I leave on Friday for the wedding.  I can't believe this day has come.  I miss Katy with over 700 miles between us, but I'm so honored to fly to Chicago and stand next to her as her Matron of Honor.  :)  Let the good times roll!

THE crock pot.

We are obsessed.  Officially.  We received a crock pot for our wedding, and after moving it into the new place, it sat on a back shelf in its box for almost a year.  One of those things we knew we would use, "just not right now."

When we broke it open a year into matrimony, we were bored with the same 'ole stir fries.  I hate baking because it makes the house hot, and I really just don't have time for it, frankly.

Crock potting is great... you chop and throw in.  Why had I not discovered this simple pleasure before!?!?!  And you do it early enough in the day that when dinner rolls around, it feels like you didn't have to even cook and you somehow cheated out of actually working.  This this always a bonus.

We have the exact crocker pictured above from BB&B.  We've only made one bad recipe so far, and that was because Charlie and I discovered that we just don't have a taste for tomato paste.  Yuck!

Other than that we've been enjoying all sorts of chicken recipes, and tomorrow is Pork Tenderloin.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

1 (2 pound) pork tenderloin
1 (1 ounce) envelope dry onion soup mix
1 cup water
3/4 cup red wine
3 tablespoons minced garlic
3 tablespoons soy sauce freshly ground black pepper to taste


Directions

Place pork tenderloin in a slow cooker with the contents of the soup packet. Pour water, wine, and soy sauce over the top, turning the pork to coat. Carefully spread garlic over the pork, leaving as much on top of the roast during cooking as possible. Sprinkle with pepper, cover, and cook on low setting for 4 hours. Serve with cooking liquid on the side as au jus.  
 
Let you know how it turns out. :)

mi casa es su casa

Part of me wishes we could be homeowners.  There are many pros to this scenario...

1. a downturned market...we could find a deal
2. teacher breaks/discounts
3. tax breaks... there is even talking of the $8,000 tax credit coming back
4. our own space and yard
5. not having to take Luna down 3 flights of stairs just to go outside; not having to lug groceries 3 flights up stairs
6. HAVING A GARAGE!
7. decorating on a dime (only one of my favorite things to do!)
8. having a craft table / a creative room.... which may also dub as the so-called "man cave"...with a girly corner ;)
9. escaping from our Saturday night party neighbors and the crying baby downstairs... and all the other crappy parts of apartment life
10. being part of a community
11. making an investment

There are also cons...

1. breaking our lease
2. upkeep is all on us!-- and we might suck at that.
3. having to mow a yard
4. the extra $$ you pour into a house when you first buy
5. time-- to do it all.

We are not in the business of looking for a house at this immediate juncture, but our short-term plan is beginning to look in January, closer to when our lease is up (knocking a con off the list!).

So, just for fun, here are some ideas I've seen over the past year or so that I thought were really inspirational...



http://www.bowerpowerblog.com/

 I love this girl's blog and living room... I think it's so cute.  She's witty and funny and has a really great, frugal sense of style.  We would *die* with a white couch + Luna (that would drive me bonkers), but the whole aesthetic is great.  The best part: most of the items she got at thrift stores, Goodwill, or consignment shops.  (With some IKEA thrown in for the modern feel).  She sewed all of the pillows herself.  I really love the colors, too.


I'm obsessed with floating shelves.  I think they are really cool.  Functional, too.

http://www.younghouselove.com/

The bonus room/man cave might rock (they really don't have basements in the south)...

Okay...totally kidding!!!  Haha.  I don't think I could stand having a giant football player on our wall, but I would be open to the idea of having a D.Lions accent wall and a framed jersey.  Or even some fun throw pillows.  For fun for my husband, who will probably gladly have little to say in how we decorate our home, but who does so much for me and deserves something he loves.

Okay, that was an enjoyable waste of 20 minutes.  LOL.   In the mean time we will continue to live life in our little place and enjoy spending time at other people's houses. ;)

Off to the races...

...literally. I've been so busy these past few weeks. It's been insane. It's such a different busy than this summer, too. Nothing can prepare you for teaching. And I mean nothing. It's a give-it-all-you've-got-all-day kind of thing. Rewarding but hard. I'm barely keeping my head above water with the workload, and this other prep is killing me (6 classes, 4 preps), but leading kids to learning is something that never gets old.  Not even for a second.


One of my books...
the one I'm most excited
about. :)


Starting my thesis has also been on my mind, and I finally sat down to buy the books I'm going to use as my resources. I scoured amazon.com for about 3 hours, and tons of research later, I settled on $77 worth of books about reading in foreign language. I told my students about my "memoria final" and a 500 page book that I bought to learn more about teaching Spanish and how their brains work! Some were amazed, others baffled, and still others confused, but regardless, they are all sooooo excited when I take pictures of them in action to use as an appendix/documentation of my research. They so desperately want to be "famous in Spain."

"Take one of me, Mrs. S! I'll make it such a good picture!"

"The point is to act natural..."

"Okay, I'll act natural with my pose."

I empathize with this, though. I, too was that kind of child.