Feeling Sorry for Myself Today

I hate days like this. I hate feeling like this.

I'm out of the loop with my old girlfriends. They're still my friends, but I'm out of the loop. They're all doing stuff together and I'm not included, not purposefully, but because I just don't live as close anymore and I'm not around them anymore.

It still sucks. I miss them, and I can't help but have hurt feelings when I know they're all doing things, or when I find out I miss things, or when someone who used to be out of the loop is now in the loop and I'm not.

:-(

I've Got a New Line

I started a kickboxing class 3 months ago. It's really tough. Like, really hard workouts, think you might pass out tough. I love it, I really do. It pushes me. It burns a lot of calories.

I'm happy to say that now, in my third month, I've noticed that I have a new line on my arm. My arms have never had definition, NEVER. So with this new line, I now have two: one at the base of my bicep, running from my armpit to my elbow, and this new one, running in the opposite direction between my bicep and my shoulder.

Wow.

Tara's Got Her Groove Back!

I lost my groove. I couldn't find it anywhere. I checked behind the hot sauce, on the cookbook shelf, in the liquor cabinet, at the back of the pantry. It was gone.

Then I hosted the dinner party on Saturday night, something I committed to a couple of months ago. I dreaded it right up until the day before, lamenting over what to make, flipping fruitlessly through a myriad of cookbooks and food magazines, something I used to love to do. This was not like me. I was panicked about the meal.

Then I finalized my menu. Suddenly, everything fell into place. I picked a theme, tried some new dishes, and made some new friends.

Now I can't be stopped! I'm back to gettin' my groove on in the kitchen!

It started Sunday, with my sweethawt cherry jam, a recipe I just made up on the fly. Nice.

Then last night, I created my new favourite thing, but let me explain. This month in our Weight Watchers meetings, we are really emphasizing fruits and vegetables. I often try new things at home to help me stay connected to my members. So I promised them I would try something new this week, a cold soup, and then I would let them know how it was in our next meeting.

Keep in mind, I've always been against cold soups, they just sounded awful to me. I had no desire to eat cold soup AT ALL.

But I did it anyway.

I made a cold minted watermelon soup, à la picture below:


There it is, not plated nearly as fancily as it should be, as it's only coming to work for lunch today. But if I could, I'd dress it up in stilettos and gloves ladies. It's that good. My new favourite summertime treat. Go ahead and taste it. I won't tell anyone you licked your monitor.

Saturday's Dinner Party

We hosted a dinner party on Saturday night. And it was great!

I prepared a lot of things ahead of time:

I toasted my litte crostinis for the bruschetta:


Stephen made our other little appies, the tomato basil mozza poppers. I made my pesto potato salad, marinated the chicken, and mixed the berries with all of the extras for dessert.

Here was our menu:
Bruschetta, Tomato Basil Mozza Poppers - Appetizers
Balsamic Rosemary Grilled Chicken
Pesto Potato Salad
Zucchini Cheese Roll Ups
Puff Pastry w Limoncello Berries and Vanilla Bean Honey Cream - Dessert

The dessert was so simple, and so amazing! I will definitely make this again. First time I had used a real vanilla bean, and I don't know if I can ever go back. So delicious!

Me and My Sweethawt - We Be Jammin'!

I've had some cherries in my refrigerator that needed to have something done with them. Something. Three pounds worth of fresh sweet cherries that needed something done with them.

So this is what I did.

I jammed 'em. Yup, me and the dog, jammed. That's him taste testing the cherries on the right. He's such a foodie. Has to make sure everything's perfect. "Quality control" he calls it.

Steve supported us from the couch, and took pictures. We jammed mostly to the black eyed peas. We used black cherries, an apple, an onion, a jalapeno, cinnamon, nutmeg, a lemon, and the other mandatory jam ingredients. I'm calling it my Sweethawt Cherry Jam.

I can't wait to eat this with CHEESE!

Hosting a Dinner Party Tomorrow Night

Why is this causing me so much anxiety?!? This is crazy!

So I've decided on most of my menu, Italian themed.

Appetizer: Bruschetta, 2 or 3 kinds, probably goat cheese and caramelized onion, white bean, and the classic tomato

Main: rosemary and balsamic grilled chicken, pesto potato salad, and another veggie salad or zucchini rolls

Dessert: berries with either limoncello and mint or a vanilla limoncello cream and mint

Beverage: frosty lemon martinis (perhaps), shandies, and limoncello sodas (maybe)


Here's hoping it goes alright.

Herons and Beaver and Dead Livestock... Oh My!

Hello all! I know I haven't been updating you much lately, but I've been on vacation. I'm now on the tail end of my time off, unfortunately.

We bought kayaks this week! They are so great! I'm going to be taking some great pictures of them soon and will post. We kayaked today here in Fredericton for the first time. We've had them down and around by the camp at the lake, but today was the first time we went in town. What a trip!

We went up a river called the Nashwaak. We saw a blue heron just a few minutes into the trip, and we got really close until it flew away, but we kept seeing it all the way up the river. It was the most beautiful scenery, just like out of a movie. And the water was just like glass. So beautiful.

On our return from being up the river (we went about 2kms up), we saw a beaver swimming! I mean we see beaver a lot here, ;-), but I've never been this close to a beaver. We usually just see dams or beaver houses in marshes and bogs on the side of the highway or something, but I've never been this close to one. He was just swimming across the river. Then we saw one of his friends further down river actually propel himself up out of the water and slap his tail down on the water to alert the beavs that we were in the area! Very cool! Then the beaver closest to us did the same thing! They kept doing this until we went past them. It was awesome!

So, where does the livestock come in you may ask? Well we were just about to take the boats out of the water, and we were rounding a turn when I saw what looked like a rock, well kind of like a branch from a tree bent down and stuck on a rock. So I went close to investigate. Turns out the "rock" was a rump of a dead calf! The poor thing must have either died and fell in the river and got swept down and caught on this tree, or it got caught up in the flood and swept down river or whatever. It was awful! And smelled even worse! I've never seen a dead carcass like that before. Terrible, seriously traumatizing. I felt awful for the poor little thing.

That's all for today folks. Tune in again for another episode of "What the heck is that thing?"