happy birthday poppa thollander!

tomorrow is my dad's birthday. as i sat down to wrap his presents i realized i really like wrapping presents! for something that takes minimal effort there's just something really satisfying about the finished product. happy birthday pops!

some lessons are learned the hard way

this past friday i took an impromptu trip to farmville for the night to visit the strattons. after dinner kt and i decided to head to the grocery store to pick up some vanilla ice cream to go with the brownies that were baking. after browsing the ice cream aisle looking for the best deal we came across some ice cream for $1.20. $1.20!! i mean come on that's a great deal! upon further inspection we realized that this ice cream actually did not have the words ice or cream anywhere on it but instead was called frozen dairy dessert. we wondered why this particular substance could not actually be called ice cream, so we started comparing ingredients to the $2 brand ice cream next to it. the first few ingredients were the same and then after that they were pretty much unpronounceable, so after some wavering we decided to chance it.

result: next time i think we'll spring the extra 80 cents.

in conclusion- beware of frozen dairy dessert!

our own little coffee shop

my housemate karen used to work at starbucks and she would get one free pound of coffee or tea a week. well luckily for us her card still works and we have quite an impressive selection of coffee at our house! there are a couple kinds that sit on the counter, and here's a picture of all the reserves. needless to say it will probably last quite a while!

as another bonus she gave me one of her old aprons and i LOVE it. i use it pretty much every time i cook and pretend i'm a certified barista

i finally did it.

monday i joined a gym. i've been debating it for quite a while and have been inspired by the exercise endeavors of some fellow bloggers. after being spoiled by the free gym at W&M i hate to pay to work out, but i finally decided it was worth it. i went today after work for the first time and it was great! it just felt good to get back into a gym. my favorite part of the place is that the bikes have screens in front of them where you can race on a course. there are also movable handlebars so you actually steer. although you can't go off the course on purpose which is too bad (i tried to go down a huge cliff to see what would happen) but you can run into other bikes and they *poof* disappear- so that's awesome.

what a cook i am!

something about that cold virginia rain must have made today the perfect day for making soup. i love homemade chicken soup but have never made it myself, and so set out today to do it.

first i boiled a whole chicken for about 30 min (prob a little bit more)
while that was cooking i cut up all my vegetables

• 4 stalks of celery
• 1 1/2 onions (they were big onions too)
• 5 potatoes
  
• 5 carrots

after the chicken was "fall-off-the-bone-tender" (a direct quote from my mother) i pulled it out of the pot and let it cool. i also let the water/now chicken broth cool and skimmed off as much of the fat as i could from there.

then i deboned the chicken

and i threw it all back into the pot with the broth, threw in 5 chicken bouillon cubes, salt and pepper, and cooked it until the vegetables were to my liking (about another 40 min)
for my first batch i think it turned out pretty delicious! plus now i have meals for several weeks! i'm hoping it freezes well cause i freezed about 2/3 of it