Back to Work

Spring break has come and gone, always so quickly. I will say that I was fairly productive all week long, except for this last weekend--I did pretty much nothing to reward myself for all my hard work.

I had two goals over the break: first, to clean house and second, to paint my room (not the master bedroom but a spare room that we're making into a closet/craft room.)

I got most of the cleaning done, only lacking just a few things. I got my room painted--I just need to go back and touch up a few places. Bailey took off Thursday and Friday and we decided to tackle painting our bedroom. I was supposed to paint it over the MLK holiday but, obviously, never did. I only lack painting the trip in the bedroom. I know there were other things we worked on around the house, but I honestly can't remember what they were.

Thursday night we got the grill going and grilled some kabobs as well as some hamburgers since we had the grill going. Here's our recipe for kabobs (we got this one from my MIL). We usually eat these along some white rice. I'll also give you our hamburger recipe we got from a friend.

Chicken and Steak Kabobs

steak and chicken (this time I used about 1 lb. of steak  and 1 1/2 of chicken)

Italian dressing

medium onion

two bell peppers

Cut steak and chicken into cubes. Put into dish and cover with Italian dressing (as much or as little as you like). I usually let it marinate for at least an hour, sometimes longer.

Cut up your onion and bell pepper into about one inch pieces. 

Place all on skewers, alternating ingredients. (We make all chicken ones, then all steak ones because the chicken sometimes takes a little longer.)

Then grill them and enjoy. ( I really don't know how hot the grill should be or how long to grill them--that's Bailey's job!)

Italian dressing is a great marinade. I use it in our hamburgers, too, along with a few other things. Another really easy thing is to marinate some chicken in Italian dressing and then bake it. Super easy and yummy! I try to buy chicken in bulk and then separate it into the portions I'll use for cooking. I sometimes pour some Italian dressing into one of the freezer bags--that way the chicken soaks up the dressing as it freezes and thaws. After it thaws, put it in a casserole dish, a little fresh dressing and pop it in the oven.

As I said before, I hardly did anything this past weekend, unless you count watching America's Next Top Model for a few hours and giving myself a manicure and pedicure. Well, and we went to dinner on Saturday night with some friends of ours, but that's about it.

I'll end with picture of Lula and Wrigley. Both of them really enjoyed the nice weather last week. They got to stay outside all day long.

Not a great picture since it was taken from my phone and through the blinds. (Try to ignore the nasty sunken backyard in the background--it's a work in progress).

Busy, busy, busy.

It has been nearly 8 weeks since I last blogged. That's quite a while.

The last few weeks in the Hunt household have been rather busy. There's no way I can remember what all has happened since my last post, but I can briefly tell about the last few weeks.

Both of our birthdays have come and gone. We went to Kyoto with my family for dinner which was a lot of fun. I haven't been to a hibachi-type restaurant since prom. After dinner, a king cake was waiting on us at my parent's. My dad has had one shipped from Baton Rouge as long as I can remember, since my birthday is around Mardi Gras.

The last weekend in February I ended up going with my mom on a quick trip to Baton Rouge. (This is where I was born, as well as Olivia and William). The music minister of the church we attended there was retiring after nearly 30 years. My dad had originally planned to go with my mom but he got sick so I went instead. It was fun. I didn't remember most of the people but alot of them remembered me, or Olivia. Some of them said they remember me each year because my birthday is on Leap Day.

That same weekend, Bailey was in Oxford. He and some friends had made plans to go to the Eric Church concert.

The next weekend Bailey and I went down to New Orleans to stay with his cousin and his wife, and to go to a few of the Ole Miss-Tulane baseball games. We had a lot of fun and ate lots of good food. We got there Friday night and went to a little bar to grab a burger. Saturday we got up and rode around to see the remaining damage from Katrina. Then we went downtown and ate at Johnny Po Boys. Bailey and I split a shrimp poboy as well as a french fry poboy. Yes, that sounds crazy but it was so good. It had gravy and cheese on it--yum! After lunch we went next door to the Kupcake Factory and had a mint chocolate cupcake. Then we shopped around downtown a bit before heading to the ballgame.

After the ballgame, we went back and cleaned up before going to dinner. We ate dinner at Copeland's Social City and the food was incredible. They have lots of different appetizers and small plates (which are smaller portions of an entree) in addition to their dinner entrees. Bailey and I decided to share three different appetizers/small plates. They were: crab and shrimp spring rolls, crawfish pasta and crab-stuffed catfish. They were all unbelievably good. My favorite was the crab-stuffed catfish. Then came time for dessert. They are known for their cheesecake, that is super creamy, and their signature way of serving it which is two scoops of it in a martini glass with your choice of topping. I sampled the white chocolate strawberry and ended up getting the bananas foster cheesecake. Bailey got the fresh strawberry. All of it was absolutely delicious!

Sunday we had a lighter lunch, Subway, and then headed to the game. We ended up leaving with a few innings to go since we weren't playing too great and got on the road early. It was a really beautiful weekend and it was great to see Jonathan and Tiffany.

The following Tuesday I left for a conference in Jackson and was there until Thursday afternoon. I got to do lots of shopping after sitting in the conferences all day!

Friday at 3:00 marked the beginning of Spring Break and it's been fabulous so far! I've been trying to clean/organize all around the house. I've also been working on "my" room. I'm nearly finished painting it. Bailey and I are about to head up to Lowe's to pick up a few things for around the house. Then we (yes, both of us--he took off the next 2 days) will be able to work on some things around the house the rest of the week.

Sorry this was so lengthy! I've been gone too long. I'll really try to get better about it.