mauk.life

success...

2012-02-13T18:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight we made Greek Pasta Salad, another Pinterest find!

A couple of weeks ago I found an app that syncs between both my iPhone and iPad, it's called Menu Planner. You put in all of your meals, then you can add them to a weekly calendar and it makes out a shopping list for you. It makes things really easy!!

On Sunday nights we go through and each pick a few meals for the week. We both have pretty different tastes but are both working on trying new things...

Greek Pasta Salad was one of the meals that I really wanted to make because I love olives, Michael wasn't very excited about because he hates olives!

We both LOVED it, and it even looks like the original recipe!!

Something that doesn't happen often for me!

recipe picture vs. ours!

burgers...

2012-02-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my parents came to visit.. my mom had the idea to make Black Bean Burgers...
I thought they sounded weird but we've been making lots of new & different stuff lately so, might as well give these a try!

I decided the best way to get Michael on board with the whole Black Bean Burger idea, was stop referring to them as "burgers"... so I told my mom we should call them Southwest Sandwiches.

I was talking to Michael the morning that my parents came and he asked where we were going for dinner with my parents... I told him that we were going to stay home and try a new recipe that my parents liked, when he asked what we were going to make, I stuck with my Southwest Sandwich response and he looked at me funny. Eventually he got it out of me that we were going to indeed be having Black Bean Burgers and this was his response...

Yes, that is my husband pouting... I sent the picture to my mom and she kindly responded,

"Tell him to suck it up" :)

Later that evening we made our South West Sandwiches, and afterwards Michael asked if we could have them again later this week... :)

Winning is fun.

lol...

2012-02-10T22:00:00.005-07:00

This commercial makes me laugh out loud every time that I see it!! It never gets old!

That's all for today... good night!

diving...

2012-02-09T20:54:00.001-07:00

It's not until lately that I've started having a couples days off of work every week... Since last July, I've been working at both Starbucks and Apple... between the two jobs, I only had 1 day off a week, Saturday. Michael is off weekends so that meant my only day off was with him (which I loved!!). Now that I'm not working at Starbucks, I have days off during the week.. without him... and sometimes I just don't know what to do with my days... For the past few weeks I haven't been as productive on my days off, so today I decided to be ultra productive!!

Right now we only have 1 car... we're waiting to hear back from the mechanic to see if we need a new transmission for our Explorer... eeeeekk! (We're praying that that is not the case, and if you would like to pray that also, I would be just fine with it!) Having 1 car means that I have to get up to take Michael to work, so I was able to get an early start to my day! My morning began with cleaning and organizing. We still had some boxes lying around from moving in a couple weeks ago...

Don't tell Michael, but I just stacked them all in a closet, and am ignoring them until

I absolutely need to use the stuff that is in them!

Next I had to get the oil changed... the thing I love about getting my oil changed is, if you don't have too much crap on the floor in your car, they'll vacuum it out for you!

So my first order of business was to throw away all of the Starbucks cups, and mail that I didn't want to take in my house, that were in the back of the car. After leaving the trash can area, I looked at Gucci and said, "look how productive I'm being today!" (yes I talk to my dog, we all do, some just don't care to admit it!) Right after I said that to her, it hit me... there was an envelope that had a check in it... that I threw into the dumpster... I raced back to the dumpster hoping that the envelope would be on top, right where I could reach it without having to touch anybody else's garbage...

That didn't work out so well, turns out the garbage was emptied this morning.. there were a couple of trash bags in the bottom, then on top of that was a whole ton of dog crap and cigarette butts... and on top of that... all of my trash. Fail.

I called Michael and he told me to pull the car up close to the dumpster,

jump in the trash and find it.

Nope. I'm short, and would somehow figure out a way

to get stuck in the garbage can along with the dog poop, and cigarettes,

with him having no transportation to come rescue me

So, I decided to ignore the situation, and continued on with my errands.

I got all my errands done, and even went to get Starbucks and got coffee for Michael before picking him up from work, knowing that he was going to have to be the one to jump into the dumpster, I figured I should make sure he was happy :)

We got home, went and grabbed a step stool and a blanket (to block the germs, of course), and Michael changed his clothes into what we will now call his "dumpster diving" clothes.

He jumped on in, with me standing on the outside of the dumpster, cheering him on...

and after only a few minutes, WE FOUND IT!

All that to say, I'm quite thankful for my husband, but I'm not looking forward to the day when he uses this against me, and I have make it up to him! :)

conquering...

2012-02-08T19:06:00.003-07:00

Today I Googled, "What percentage of people are afraid of public speaking".
The answer that most websites said was about 40%...

I am one of those 40%...

I am at the top of the list of people who

want to throw up just thinking about having to speak in public

I don't like playing games with friends where everyone in the group is looking at me...

or being in meetings where someone mentions my name, and everyone looks at me...

and the worst is going to the mall with my sweet husband when he'll see me across the hallway,

and start yelling, "Casey?! Casey Mauk?!"

Yeah... I hate it!!

That being said, when I found out that one of the requirements of my job is to teach workshops, in front of up to about 10 people, it wasn't something I was very excited about. I've taught maybe 6 or 7 workshops in the last few months, with this afternoon being my most recent one, and I must say, it went pretty well! I actually walked away from it feeling good, and not feeling sorry for the people who signed up for a workshop and got 'stuck' with me teaching it.

Michael's goal since we got married 7 years ago, was to make me be more social.

My goal for the last 7 years, has been to prove to him that you can't make somebody be more social...

I'm not going to say that it's working, because that would be admitting my defeat..

but I think my huge fear, is getting to be less and less...

and I guess that I might, sort of, maybe, kind of, a little bit,

need to give him some of the credit for that....

apples...

2012-02-07T20:31:00.001-07:00

Tonight we made these Apple Pies! I saw them on Pinterest, bought the stuff yesterday and Michael helped me make them tonight!

Since somehow I ended up with 10 granny smith apples in my house... We made 6 instead of the 4 that you're supposed to use... I still used the same amount of sugar that the recipe called for, and forgot to put the brown sugar in... so I guess I saved on some calories with my forgetfulness!

With all the recipes I'm making lately the picture looks much better than what I actually make, so I figured I would post pictures of the ones I make, to make other people feel better about the ones that they make.

I froze the other 4, so we'll see how they defrost and cook later on!

My pie crust got really soft, so I didn't even attempt to do the whole lattice thing... :)

recipe version vs. my version... I do think that the muffin pan to hold them was quite genius!

and again... recipe version vs. my version

For less than 200 calories... They were quite delicious!

instagram...

2012-02-07T14:25:00.003-07:00

I was very productive this morning... I uploaded some of my favorite Instagram photos onto here... they're all under the '.instagram.' page at the top of my blog! If it's not there, you just have to hover over the yellow stripe, and it will appear!

Also, I made Minestrone Soup in the crockpot and it smells delicious!!

wifey...

2012-02-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

A couple new recipes we've made this week...

The pictures are not mine, I'm not too great with presentation yet... right now I'm just working on not messing up the recipes too bad, or accidentally leaving anything on a burner that I forgot to turn off...

Mexican Stuffed Shells...

There were delicious!! And pretty easy to make... except I kept breaking the shells...

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef
1 package low-sodium taco seasoning ( or better yet use this Taco Seasoning!)
4 oz. cream cheese
14-16 jumbo pasta shells
1.5 cup salsa
1 cup taco sauce
1 cup cheddar cheese
1 cup monterey jack cheese
3 green onions
Sour cream

Preheat oven to 350°.
In a frying pan cook ground beef; add taco seasoning and prepare according to package directions. Add cream cheese, cover and simmer until cheese is melted. Blend well. Set aside and cool completely. While ground beef is cooking, cook the pasta shells according to directions; drain. Set shells out individually on cutting board/baking sheet so that they don’t stick together.
Pour salsa on bottom of 9×13 baking dish. Stuff each shell with the meat mixture. Place shells in 9×13 pan open side up. Cover shells with taco sauce. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, add shredded cheese and bake for 10-15 more minutes, with the foil removed. Top with any condiments you’d like (green onions, black olives, etc.) Serve with sour cream and/or more salsa.

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Easy Calzone Rolls

These were great also!! If a recipe has the word 'easy' in it, I'll probably 'pin' it. I made 2 last night... I put in the freezer for next week!

Ingredients:
2 packets of pizza dough (I used the just add hot water kind, I should probably make it from scratch... but I didn't, maybe next time!)
8 slices of Ham
16 slice of Pepperoni
12 slices of Salami (which I will probably leave out next time)
8 slices of Cheese (We used Provolone because they were out of Mozzarella)

Make dough, and roll out into a rectangle. Layer meats & cheese down the center of each rolled loaf lengthwise.
Fold short ends of each loaf in and seal. Roll from the long sides and pinch to seal well on all of the edges. Brush the top with a little bit of oil and sprinkle Garlic Salt and Italian Seasoning on top!
Bake, seam side down on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
Cut rolls into 6-8 slice, and serve with marinara sauce.

resolutions...

2012-02-06T11:56:00.001-07:00

I hate New years resolutions... That sounds like a really negative way to start a post... but I do.

I think it's dumb to wait until the beginning of the year to start new habits, and change things that you don't like about your life... plus it's usually about now, February 6th-ish, that people are forgetting about everything they committed to, and everything is back to 'normal'.

Working at Starbucks the last few years, was a great example of this... December 31, customers would be telling us Baristas their goodbye's, saying things like...

"My new years resolution is to stick to my budget so Starbucks has got to go"

"Wow! Did you know how many calories are in the Venti 10 pump white mocha

with extra whipped cream that I drink every day?!!"

Then mid February rolls back around, and they're back!

Not that I'm saying this is the case with everyone... but I've seen this happen... A LOT, which for me personally, has turned "New Years Resolutions" into a bit of a joke.

....................................................................................

That being said, I do like making goals, and starting new habits... I just refuse to do it on January 1, so this year I am writing out some of my goals on February 6...

Right now there are a few things I'm trying to improve on...

1. Grocery Shopping

This is something that we are awful at being consistent with.
Now that I'm just working at Apple, and not at Starbucks anymore... I will have every Monday off...
Monday is my grocery shopping day.
Today is my first day.
I'm feeling optimistic. :)

2. Budgeting

I am fantastic at making budgets. I love making spreadsheets and graphs in hopes to keep my life organized. Sadly, a lot of these are just really good intentions that get messed up by a busy schedule. This is something I want to change.
These last few weeks have been much better, and I'm excited for that to continue.

3. Cooking & Cleaning & Organizing

I don't really love doing any of these things, but I want to enjoy doing them.
Luckily, right now I am addicted to Pinterest, and it's making me want to do better at all of these things!
I'm working on turning those perfectly organized Pinterest boards of things that I want to do/make,
into things that I have done/made.

4. Running

A couple of years ago I was in a great habit of running... I finished the Couch to 5k program using a great app on my phone, and was able to run longer and further than I have in my entire life!
But I let laziness and a busy schedule get in my way, and now am back to having to start on week 1 or 2 of the program...
I'm looking for a 5k to run here in Colorado Springs, sometime in April probably, so that should give me a good goal to work towards.

So those are my goals, and probably a large portion of what I will be blogging about... :)

blogging... again...

2012-02-05T21:26:00.002-07:00

Well... I'm awful at blogging... but I want to get better at it!!

I love going back and reading past blogs that I've written!
I love seeing the different things that were significant in my life over the past few years.

So, this starts out my new commitment to blogging! So much has changed in my life in the past year, and I'm so excited to see what this year holds for me and Michael... and Gucci :)