Cooking for a guest and a new obsession

Today was a pretty decent day. I didn't even notice that I was alone all day (like I usually am). The first part of the morning was spent on Facebook. It just seems to be a guilty and addicting pleasure. The rest of the say, off an on, was spent preparing foods. During this time, I kept wondering how people have the time to prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday. I also wondered how families with lots of kids were able to prepare meals daily. It then dawned on me that either a) they wake up very early or b) they just don't do it.

The homemade potato salad I made had to be refrigerated for a few hours so that was the first thing I did. I took five russet potatoe and five eggs. I boiled both in separate pots until they were ready. While the potatoes cooled on a cutting board, I put the eggs in ice water. In a small bowl, I combined mustard, sour cream, mayo, relish, honey chili sauce, paprika, pepper and a little bit of salt. Once the eggs and the potatoes were cool, I cut them into small pieces and added some celery in at the last minute. That was covered and put into the refrigerator.

The next thing that was made was a homemade chewy granola bar. It was flour, brown sugar, molasses, oats and raisins. In a bowl, I melted a cup of butter and beat an egg. Mixing it was difficult to do because it took a while to get it to mix evenly. Once that was completed, it was placed in a greased pan and thrown into the oven for half an hour and then left out to cool.

The dinner was supposed to be a pork dish but I'm noticing I don't particularly like pork that much. It was a good thing because I had chicken instead. The dish was a Chicken Delight dish. It was cubed chicken, two sliced zucinni's, diced green apple, four green onions, a can of seasoned tomatoes, 4oz of sliced mushrooms, cinnamon, italien seasoning, salt and pepper. It turned out much better than I thought and it looked beautiful. The apple was still firm but it absorbed a lot of flavoring so it isn't like you noticed it being super sweet. The one thing I would change is I would use less fluid from the can of tomatoes and less cinnamon.

Everything was a hit. I had enough to plate three dishes generously and I even had enough to put in tupperware for Daylan's friend/co-manager, Kristie. I'll have to have him bring it to her tomorrow or something. We had the granola bars for dessert as well as vanilla ice cream. It took a while to get all of this done, but Emily has never had my food before. I wanted to impress her. Word of mouth amongst the family is always a good thing.

The rest of the evening was fun. We watched Tristan and Isolde. Well, Daylan tried to watch it. Emily and I talked and giggled amongst ourselves. It doesn't help that he just didn't find the movie interesting. It was a chick flick after all. Once the movie was done, he gave me money to go to Hastings to get Avatar The Last Airbender Book Two: Earth. Emily and I were extremely excited. The instant we got back to the house, we kicked Daylan off of the XBOX and we put the first disk in.

Needless to say, we made it very entertaining. The episode with the hippies was the best. Emily has me laughing to the point of tears. Daylan kept muting the parts with the songs so I wouldn't memorize it and he kept pausing it because I was laughing so hard. Of course I would enjoy this alone. I watched the whole first season in a matter of five or six hours straight through. I'm sure I'll secretly do it again. I say secretly because Daylan got upset when I told him the truth. He wanted to watch it with me....but he had already watched it before. I just wanted to be on even ground. :)

Anyone who has never seen Avatar The Last Airbender needs to get on the ball! I jumped on that bandwagon late but this is a show that my son would watch. It won a lot of awards. It is funny, it has its child-like features but it has a true storyline. Besides, there are only three seasons. They are $30 each at Hastings (each season is called "Books") so it is a pretty inexpensive show to own. People will say the movie sucks compared to the show and I would have to disagree. Yes, there is a lot that was left out but half of what are in the shows are just fluff for sheer entertainment. It doesn't have a lot to do with the storyline. Some of the story was altered a little but I loved the movie. Aang and Sokko aren't annoying in the movie while their characters in the show simply were almost intolerable in the show. You can tell they are 12 and 15 in the show. I also loved the special effects in the movie. It looked amazing. People can just suck it.

Seriously, people need to check out this show. I don't care if you watch it on Hulu or Netflix. You should watch a few episodes (they are 20 minutes without the commercials) and see if you like it. I loved it after the pilot. Of course I had seen the movie before I knew there was a show, but it didn't matter to me.

Anyway, I am going to go to bed. I popped some aspirin to subdue my menstrual cramps. I'm hoping they will go away so I can sleep. It is 3am now. This whole cramping before periods is severely over-rated. I know it is time for me to have it, but god I use to never cramp! Getting off my Ortho Tri Cyclen six years ago was the start to this garbage. I am very happy with my IUD, so I can live with the cramps in the beginning.

Ok...one more aspirin.