a sampling of veggies.

Here are a few of the vegetarian recipes I want to try soon. I made it a goal in my 101 in 1001 to try to eat veggie for a week, which hasn’t happened yet – but I am working on getting us to eat more vegetarian meals! Enjoy

Udon with Bok Choy and Poached Egg

Pasta with Pumpkin Sauce

Spaghetti Squash Gratin

Baked Southwestern Egg Rolls

Three Mushroom Pastry

Squash Calzone

weekly tradition.

Does anyone have a weekly tradition? Mandy and I followed one for a while (slacked off over Christmas break): Hot Dog Friday. On Friday nights that we’re home, we make hot dogs, sausage dogs and sometimes brats, and produce all the toppings: onion, slaw, chili, sauerkraut and other toppings. It’s fun and it’s something we all look forward to. It also makes shopping easy to do!

cookies are the new black.

The cookie swap was a terrific success! Ashley, Kit, Jessica and Betsy joined Mandy and I here at the apartment and it was fun! The bad part was that several people didn’t make it (Kelly and Carmen, I’m looking at you)–but they did have good reasons. I wanted to take pictures but the camera batteries were dead! Charging them now, going to take pictures of the wonderful Christmas festiveness that has taken over the apartment!

I decorated more, and still on the cheap. I made like 50 feet of paper chain (tiny little strips 3″ x 1/4″) with “gingerbread” colors–brown, white, green, red, beige. It turned out really cute. I bought $1 wire garland from Dollar Tree and tied two little bows in the corners of where I hung it above the doors. Mandy took a vase she got from IKEA for $1 or so, and filled it with holly berries (free–from the bush around the corner) and a $1 white candle from Dollar Tree, then we tied a green ribbon around it, cute!

What else to say… excited for christmas. I love the christmas spirit, the giving. We bought a lot of toys and clothes to donate this weekend. I think we’ve each spent around $15, and we have 3 outfits, a porcelain tea set, a bath play set, a play food set, two different packs of play-doh, disney princess playing cards, tinkerbell play makeup and walkie-talkies! I’m so glad we decided to do this, and it’s so easy that we can donate in the main office. It makes me feel good that some child will have a better christmas now.

Finals this week! Good luck and happy holidays!

i may be one of the last…

…girls in the universe, but finally i saw the Sex and the City movie. It’s cute, but it makes you really really want to get married and live happily ever after… and want to shop.

It also made me appreciate my friends… we are SO different, but all together, we are awesome. and it made me miss erica a lot… i mean, i know we have other close friends now but… she was our samantha, our wacky one.

anyways… so cloudy outside, but at least i got to sleep in this morning! it does look like it’s clearing up a little. Fall for Greenville tonight, I’m supposed to go with Chad. Mandy is going to some HS football game for her friend… somewhere in Greenville. Maybe she’ll want to come downtown first and get some food with us.

I wish these fall like temperatures would stay! And I think I found my cookie recipe for the cookie swap we’re supposed to have sometime in December before we leave… well, I’d hedge bets that Carmen’s leaving first, haha.

Ahh! Just nailed down a few details with Kit! So EXCITED! And I want to make this for the swap party:

Chilled Christmas punch: allrecipes.com – http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chilled-Christmas-Punch/Detail.aspx
2 cups water
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 (46 fluid ounce) can pineapple juice, chilled
4 cups cranberry-apple juice, chilled
1 liter ginger ale, chilled

DIRECTIONS
In a saucepan, bring the water, sugar and cinnamon to a boil; stir until sugar is dissolved. Chill. Just before serving, combine the syrup mixture, juices and ginger ale in a punch bowl or large pitcher. Serve over ice.

Okay. I am uberexcited. Ready for the season!