I went from having very little school work to A WHOLE LOT of school work very suddenly. Five midterms in the very near future, including three in a row. AHHH. A lot of assignments. So… I think I’m fully back to school life.

If you haven’t seen it already, Scott posted his February post on his blog!

Out of all the holidays that food blogs “celebrate” (ie. EVERYTHING PUMPKIN IN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER, or ALL peppermint Christmas desserts, or Chinese food OVERLOAD for Chinese New Year) I actually really enjoy the pre-Superbowl season. I LOVE party food, the grosser the better. Bring on the liquid cheese.

Scott is definitely watching the Superbowl this weekend but it is unclear whether I will have time or not to watch sit on the couch with my laptop. I may just have to whip up a dish of jalapeno popper dip, a bowl of guacamummus (guacamole + hummus), and a pot of queso blanco liquid cheese ANYWAY.


I tried another Budget Bytes recipe yesterday. Slow cooker non-fried refried beans!

I don’t have any pictures (not very photogenic) but they turned out awesome!!! SO much nicer than canned refried beans, and way cheaper. Also they must be pretty healthy because the only ingredients are dried pinto beans, water, onion, garlic, jalapeno and some spices! No oil whatsoever, they just cooked in the slow-cooker for 8 hours and then I mashed them.

The recipe made about 5 servings of beans for less than $2. I bet I could even get cheaper dried beans if I bought a bigger package or got them in bulk. We ate yummy shrimp burritos last night, and we froze the remaining four servings for another time.


Scott did end up making the choc ripple cake. He whipped the cream by hand!!


It was tasty. I ate it with breakfast….. I’m still off chocolate after the morning. Actually speaking of sleep I’ve been pretty good at it lately! I fall asleep much quicker than before, although I still do have the occasional insomnia night when I’m really anxious/nervous but it’s really way less frequent than last spring/summer.


Dinner last week. Quinoa with shrimp, avocado, butternut pumpkin, corn, red pepper, green onion, lime. I made the quinoa in the rice cooker, stir-fried all the vegetables, removed them and seared the shrimp, then mixed everything together, added avocado, and doused it all with the juice of one whole lime. YUM YUM.

I’ll be back with another awesome gift post later today.

Holy moly, that dumb video of me in the aqualoop has 81,000 views. I’ve made more than $30 from it! Youtube videos are pretty lucrative compared to blogging, at least at the amateur level.

It’s Australia Day today! Well over there it is. Here it is tomorrow. Confusing.

Perhaps it’s finally time for Scott to make choc ripple cake? I’m not sure entirely what it is, but every Aussie I mention it to seems to get pretty excited. Choc ripple biscuits on their own are pretty good…. they’re kind of like the outside of a crunchy fudge sandwich cookie? I just tried to find the ones I’m picturing in my mind but no amount of image searching chocolate and fudge and cookies is bringing up what I want.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the cake!

Now he has to make it, cuz I blogged about it. Muahahahahha.

School is going really well. I haven’t had that much work yet, which is nice. I’m feeling pretty good about this semester.

Yesterday after school I went skating with some of my classmates. Aside from missing our bus stop and having to walk in the rain it was a very fun afternoon. I like hanging out with my classmates. I had a lot of fun skating fast laps.


Scott and I went out to Broadway Station sushi for dinner last night. We hadn’t had any sushi so far this year, and it was Scott’s first time eating sushi with fish in it since becoming an omnivore again. I had the avocado combo (avocado roll, salmon and avocado roll, tuna and avocado roll) and Scott had the sushi special (tuna roll, yam roll, california roll). Om nom nom.

Rosemarie met up with us at the restaurant and we came back to our place to play Settlers and Agricola. I finally won Agricola after a very long losing streak. Woohoo.

Today we went to Ikea to look at beds and couches. All we bought was a new whisk (our old one is rusty!) and some jars. Then we took the bus over to Costco. Aghghghghghhhhhhh Costco in Richmond is horrible. It was SO SO SO SOOOOOOOO CROWDED. We went in with intentions of buying more salsa and a few other things, but it was so uncomfortable being in there that we just did a quick lap of the store for a few samples and then left. Gah.

I am pooped now from those errands. An evening of Top Chef and movies awaits me.

Gahhhhhhhhhhh.

This morning I woke up to an email that said that the other dude that replied before me would go bobsledding with another person, and that I would go bobsledding with the original girl. Of course I was happy to read that and got really excited again.

I get to school, tell all my friends, and we postponed our class skating trip that we were planning on doing after school tomorrow. Then an hour later I check my email again and turns out the girl actually had someone all along. :((

As of 6:35 PM, I am not going bobsledding. We unpostponed (preponed?) the skating trip. Who knows what is going to happen though, everything is seriously up in the air still.

Skeleton and bobsledding is a ROLLER COASTER OF EMOTIONS.

ON THE PLUS SIDE: last nights dinner was extremely tasty!!


Pulled pork sandwiches and Greek salad. I cooked the pork shoulder with onions and a cup of ginger ale for 9 hours on low, then drained off all the fat and shredded the pork. Then I mixed in the BBQ sauce (Kraft Garlic BBQ Sauce) and cooked it for another 4 hours on low. It was suuuuuper tender.

Mmmmm. I thought the sandwiches needed vegetables but we didn’t have cabbage so I decided to just put a few cucumber slices. I had a slice of cheese on mine. The salad had spinach, tomato, cucumber, black olives and feta. No dressing was necessary.