What's for dinner?

In an attempt to not bring the inside temperature of our house to 100 degrees, I went outside to BBQ last night. Josh was in a burger mood, but I was wanting something a little less traditional. One of the things I've fallen in love with in our new world of cooking is fresh ginger. I'd seen it plenty of times on cooking shows, with its weird funky shape and wondered what it was really like to use. The first time I bought it, I looked at it for 5 minutes before deciding how to attack it. My first slice... oh my.. the smell is what gets me. It just makes me want to get creative and start cooking as much as I can. So when I stumbled upon an Asian inspired burger with fresh ginger I was sold.

Turkey Burgers with Special Sauce

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1197203

Our verdict: Super juicy with lots of flavor. I felt the Dijon was a little overpowering in the sauce, while Josh thought the soy sauce was a little over powering. You be the judge and let us know!

Pediatric Offices and Adult Hood

Yesterday I took a new step towards my step-parent role with the girls. I don't know what my official title is. LOL blended families confuse me. (You'd think with my background I would totally have it down!) Mackenzie needed to go to the doctor for her 5 year physical and Josh had to work. I didn't even think twice about it, sure I can take her. So I left work around 10am to go pick her up from "Camp Tino" (Great Grandma Valentino watches the girls while we are at work, she is the coolest lady ever and makes a mean meatball.) It was in this moment that I started to get nervous! Mackenzie looked at me and said "I want my Dad to go with me." Yikes. I'm sorry kiddo, you are stuck with me this round. She began drilling me with questions about what was going to happen (mainly, would she be getting shots), tentatively sitting on the couch, fully ready to throw a tantrum. Bless her heart, Grandma Tino (with an extensive nursing background) walked her through it in the least scary way. Mackenzie reluctantly agreed to go. I threw her favorite song on my ipod, brought her favorite stuffed animal and away we went. By the time we got there she was her usual self cracking jokes swinging my arm as we walked.

My wishful thinking died here. As we walked in, the entire office was consumed by a child screaming and crying at the top of his lungs "I DON'T WANT TO GET A SHOT!!!!!" I closed my eyes praying for someone to close the freaking door somewhere!! I waited a second and looked at Kenzie, her big blue eyes staring up at me with a look I can only describe as a sad puppy rejected at the pound. Oh man. So I went into immediate damage control, plopped my big butt next to her tiny one playing with toys. The assistant behind the counter quickly blared "The Jungle Book" on the waiting room TV, trying desperately to drown out the poor child in the back's screams. Luckily, these things seemed to help.

Much to Kenzie's disappointment, we were called back. After the standard height and weight, we were placed in the "Space Ship" room with planets, astronauts and stars. Hey, they try. To my delight (I've trained her well) Mackenzie wanted to snoop through all the drawers and cabinets so we did so and I took the opportunity to try and explain to her what everything was to keep her comfortable. We heard the inevitable knock on the door and scurried back to our seats pretending like we were there all along. This was the point when I feel like the reality of I'm the "parent" responsibility really set in. I spent the next 10 minutes getting grilled with the standard questions. Eating habits, sleeping habits, previous illnesses, allergies, behavior problems? I've known Mackenzie since she was born, I know all of the answers to these questions, but it doesn't mean that the doubt isn't placed. Oh my God - what if she is allergic to something and I am just totally forgetting and then they give it to her? It honestly scared me! Don't worry, I double checked all my answers with Josh after we left, and I was right. (phew! lol)

Once the Q&A session was over, the doctor began Mackenzie's physical, and as she was checking her breathing and what not, began to tell Mackenzie things she should be doing. She talked to Kenz about what she eats, and told her "you should be eating 5-6 fruits or veggies every day." I just about died when Kenzie looked at me with this shocked expression and asked "You aren't going to tell Dad are you?". But my favorite Mackenzie response was when the doc told her she should only be watching TV/playing video games 1-2 hours a day. I asked her if she understood what that meant. She said no, so I explained "1 hour is like 2 spongebobs." Her jaw practically hit the floor. "I'm going to have to talk to Kali about this."

We finished up soon after. Her mom was for whatever reason unable to fax her shots record to the doctor's office, so Mackenzie will have to go back for shots, but I sure I am glad that I've gotten my first trip to the doctor out of the way!

Oh, one last final note. A male nursing assistant was brought in to give Mackenzie the hearing/vision test. He tried really hard to make friends with her, I'll give him credit. When they were done, he stuck up his hand for a high five, and Mackenzie actually put her hand up to hit his, and then stopped midway and changed her mind. What a snot!! He even laughed at her sass. That's Mackenzie for you.

Yep. We like pizza...

So what's on the menu tonight? More pizza. We are pizza eaters, just can't help it. This one is sooo yummy too!! Sausage, peppers and onions... how can you go wrong?



http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=399182

We just used hot italian sausage rather than getting mild and adding pepper flakes (genius, right?)

This also reheats well under the broiler! YUMMMM-O!

Call me Mrs. Roper....

So, I'm a talker. (duh) And, I like to think I'm friendly. I will drive Josh nuts when we go on a hike, and ever hiker we pass I say "Hi!" or "Good Morning!" . He tells me maybe they just want to be left alone. Then don't go hiking on the most popular trail in Thousand Oaks on a Saturday morning I say. I'm just friendly (overbearing?) like that. If you pass me, yes I will stare at your face in hopes you look up where I will flash you a smile and say hi. Why not? I've mentioned in my old blog how I adopt project people. If you are someone I see regularly, and I keep saying Hi to you and you don't respond? I will make it my mission to get a response out of you. I've converted over 10 people while at Amgen who now say hi to me every day. I take pride in the fact I've broken each and everyone so far!

Annnnyways... this is all coming to mind because I have a neighbor. Well 2. 2 men, who not to be stereotypical but I'm pretty sure they are gay. Which hey, all the power to them. They could be purple eaters as far as I'm concerned, no judgement here. When I moved in 6 years ago (wow... it's been that long?) one of these gentlemen was outside. I threw an obnoxious hand in the air and shouted a "hello!" across the street, only to see his harry back in return. (I now know, he routinely waters his yard with his shirt off). Hmmm... this perplexed me. Who wouldn't want to say hi to me? I have now, everytime I've seen this man (the other one rarely is seen unless he is coming or going) waved, smiled, or hollered a friendly hello, just to get nothing in return. Relax dear readers. As I've said before, I've not had one failure yet. Determination!! Alas, today. Victory! I was lugging out the trashcans as tomorrow is trash day. My bald, harry friend was standing close to the street watering away, and looked up just as I looked at him, and there went my hand. Right up in the air! A victorious (HA! Caught you!) wave, smile on my face. I waited for my snub. I almost stopped in my tracks as I heard a sheepish, kind of surprised "hello!' creep across the street into my ears. Keep cool I thought. So I smiled, put the can at the curb, and waited until I was on the other side of the car to do a little jig! HA! It's only a matter of time before we are having neighborhood block parties, joint yard sales and swapping gardening secrets. I can feel it! ;) Don't you totally want to be my neighbor now?

Parts Of Me

Today would have been my mom's 57th birthday. She passed away when I was 3 months old. For so long, I seemed to only acknowledge the day she died. Maybe this was my inability to deal ...I don't know. But somewhere along the way, I decided if I was ever going to mark a day for her, it should be her birthday. I should celebrate her life, not cling to her death. For so long, I put up that wall, pretending like it didn't really effect me all that much that she was gone - I told myself I was too young to know any different. However, around the same time I decided to celebrate her life, I think I finally opened my heart to accept the reality. That it was OK to be sad. To hate that I'll never hear her tell me how hard labor was, or what weird food she craved when she was pregnant with me.

I long to know how I'm like her, what do I just like she did? For so long I wondered this in my own little silent torture... until I finally got the courage to start talking to my family about it. Don't get the wrong idea, it's never been something we weren't ''allowed'' to talk about - I just buried it so deep, I could not bring myself to ask. My Dad, little by little told me some great stories. Some funny, some sad, some with some valuable lessons. Her brothers and sisters were SO excited to tell us anything we wanted to know. We've been flooded with pictures, stories, tears and fond memories. I may not have my own memory of her in my mind, but I feel like she is alive in the memories that we all have in our own way, and I have comfort knowing that part of her will always be in my heart.

Pizza Pizza!

Ok, since I've been asked.... ;) Here is what's for dinner tonight! This was the first recipe we made from the Cooking Light cookbook.... and we've made it every week since, LOL. It's clearly a fav. I think what is so great about it, is each piece is huge, and we can eat the entire thing between the two of us and stay within our points. I give you "Quick Margherita Pizza".

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=399172

We just use Pillsbury thin crust pizza dough, and we don't like tomatoes so I spread on a thin layer of Ragu pizza sauce (Josh's favorite). This is so simple and SO YUMMY! Go make it. Right now.

Our New Life With Food

If I haven't already told you 10 times, Josh and I are unofficially doing Weight Watchers. I say unofficially because we didn't join. We have the luxury of being related to a one-time leader. So we have a personal expert holding our hands. (Thank you Pattie!) To date, we are on week 5, and I've hit my 10 lb mark and Josh is a sliver away from his 20 lbs mark. Woohoo!! The first week, we didn't know what we were doing, and tried to generally eat what we "thought" was good, in a WW friendly portion. We were starving all week. Our wonderful leader was nice enough to throw us a valuable bone. She got us a Cooking Light cookbook. Every single dinner we eat now comes out of this book, I kid you not. And everything except for one boring salad has been AMAZING. And this is coming from 2 die-hard fast food lovers... anything processed, greasy and cheesy we were all over. I actually laughed with pride the first week we filled both crisper drawers with actual fruits and veggies and not beer and limes.



It has been unreal to realize where that pesky fat is hiding. Things we thought were bad, not so much in the right quantities. Things we thought were healthy....sooooo far from it. It was a bit hard at first but we hit that glorious point when one day, Josh looked at me and said "you know what, these fries aren't worth it." Never had I EVER thought I'd nod in agreement. Don't get me wrong, I will fully admit yes it was me in the In-N-Out drive thru last week getting 2 double doubles with animal style fries, willfully taking Josh down with me in my moment of weakness. Oh my God it was so good. But what I love about WW (getting preachy, sorry) is that.. you can do that. Not every day, but when you just need and need to do it, go for it! We partied hard on my bday weekend (thanks Lizzie!), and still had losses. Explain that to me!!!



So anyway... here is what's on the menu tonight: Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad. (http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1215905)

Yep, it's as good as it looks. And it's healthy enough that I can squeeze in that Corona light you see in the background! The first time we made it, we followed the directions to the T.. and it was WAY too spicy!! Then Pattie was nice enough to make it as a side salad for my bday dinner, and toned it down and it was perfect! The part I love the most is that I can do a lot in advance. I cooked a ton of chicken over the weekend, so it's ready to go - made the dressing last night. All I have to do when we get home is throw it all together. I highly recommend this one guys!

Where is Ms. Manners when you need her?

So after reading a friend's blog about someone who is causing major unhappy waves in her workplace... it got me grumpy on the thorn in my side at my work place. In our little area, we are blessed with a loud talker. I should say, this individual is already an odd duck.... to be put nicely. But the driving force of all whining and complaining is the constant teleconferences he is on. Once he's on a call... not only does his voice increase, but he literally turns to face me and the other unfortunate soul that have to listen to this. This screams arrogance to me, because when he's on a personal call, his back is turned, his voice lowered.. as it should be for all calls. If it is arrogance, he is sadly mistaken because the sound of him "taking charge and telling people how it is" is read by me as "I think I know everything and chances are everyone in the room is rolling their eyes at me."

What is weird to me is, the other unfortunate soul has access to his calendar and often times, not only is the meeting he calls into in this building (we are on a large campus) but it's also on the same floor!!!! Why are you not going in person?! This baffles me.

(as a side note, as I'm writing this - he is getting on another call. Is that my karma for bitching about this?)

Here are the list of things we've tried to do to make it clear it's disruptive:
- my boss has slammed her door
- we put on earphones (and make a big production with heavy sighs, as we unravel the cords)
- we be loud on purpose trying to drown him out
- shoot evil death rays in his direction
- we've slid him notes asking him to lower his voice
- spoken to his boss


Does any of this work??? NO!!!!!!!!!!

Ok so I know some of you might be whispering to yourself - umm Megan.... you aren't exactly someone I would describe as quiet. Right? I know. BUT - I'm also not stupid. (shut it.) I know when to shut my mouth. Sure there are moments where a few of us get going and I wear my cackle queen crown proud - but I also know when to keep my head down, work hard and shut up! Seriously, someone give this guy a clue!

Reality TV

What is it about reality TV that just sucks you in? There are some I just can't stand. I've never been a Bachelor fan, or Rock of Love or pretty much any of the trashy ones VH1 does. But the ones I love, I L-O-V-E.

Currently, my latest obsession is Big Brother. If its not bad enough that it's on 3 times a week, CBS gives the option to pay to view the live feeds 24/7. (in case you live under a rock, on BB, house guests are taped by like 1000 cameras 24/7 while having no interactions with anyone else or the outside world.. each week there are competitions, evictions, food contests and a ton of drama.) Relax, Josh and I don't subscribe. (But may or may not have done the free 14 day trial. I plead the 5th.)

However, if you have Showtime, for 3 hours EVERY night, you can watch the feeds. It's like a bad car accident... you just can't stop staring. Most of the time nothing exciting happens.. but one night we caught the fight of the century, which lead to the subsequent melt down and expulsion of one of the house guests. And...**squeal** we saw it uncensored. If there ever was one reality show I would want to try out for, BB would be the one. Maybe next year!

But what is it? The fact that we can relate to these guys? We'd all secretly DIE to be in their shoes? Who knows, but it sure makes for good TV...and Mark Burnett is probably the smartest man alive today... well at least one of the wealthiest I'm sure!