Category: Everything Else

Categories
Everything Else Food

Red Gold Summer Grillin’ Burger Party

It’s no secret that I don’t eat beef or pork. And thus, I don’t cook it {I don’t really know how}.

It’s also no secret to those that know him that my husband is a huge burger fan.

So when we heard about Red Gold tomatoes Summer Grillin’ Party, we were both all in for this one! Red Gold kindly sent a few different kinds of their diced tomatoes as well as recipes for making awesome summer burgers.

I purchased ground turkey from our local HT & decided to try their Italian Turkey Burger first. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate a four ingredient recipe!
Red Gold turkey burger mix

I mixed meat, an egg, breadcrumbs & the diced tomatoes by hand then made them into 8 generously sized patties. We George Foreman grill partied & in less than 30 minutes, healthy, delicious burgers were on the table for all four of us.
Turkey burgers

It was the first time L & Z {who were both sick} tried burgers. They both likes them more than I thought! I was a huge fan & the burger connoisseur was impressed too! And yes, I overcooked the second batch because we were too busy eating & they were still good!

Next up to try? The Caribbean Chicken burgers this weekend!

Red Gold graciously sent me the tomatoes, recipes as well as two aprons. Local readers & friends, leave a comment if you’d like me to share the apron love with one of you!
Red Gold apron

{Lucy & Zach modeled one of the aprons as I was opening the package.}

Red Gold is also excited about their Facebook Summer Grillin’ contest. Be sure to check out their FB page & follow along with the #RGparty on instagram.

Categories
Everything Else

Give a Little Thanks {Liberating Working Moms}

It turns out I spend more awake hours in the day with my coworkers than I typically do with my family.

I’m over on Liberating Working Moms today sharing a few tips on how to give thanks to your work buddies.

Join me there?

Categories
Reading

Summer Beach Reads

As I was working on our beach trip pack list, I went online & reserved some summer beach reads for myself. Yes, I was maybe a bit over confident that I’d have time to myself to read. But between car rides, marathon nursing sessions, & sneaking away time without babies on the beach, I managed to finish four books in the last two weeks. I shared my thoughts One Thousand White Women Monday.

IMG_20130707_145908Mary Kay Andrew’s Spring Fever was first. Spring Fever reminded me immediately of the other Mary Kay Andrews’ books I’ve loved. Her writing voice is exclusively her own. I was half way through when I realized the title doesn’t fit the book IMO. I’m not sure what I would’ve called it, but Spring Fever doesn’t exactly match.

The characters in this novel are southern charmers & I’m not saying this because they’re set in a {fictional I believe} NC town not far from where I live. The soda referenced so frequently throughout Spring Fever {Quixie} does remind me so much of Cheerwine which fellow NC’ers will know as a delicious cherry soda you probably grew up drinking.

Spring Fever tells the story of two friends & the brother/ex-husband they have in common. It weaves together friendship, family, employment & the history & love they all share with lots of laughs, drama & a lil romance thrown in for fun.

IMG_20130707_150043I’ve been excited about reading The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner since I discovered & finished Swim {her short story prequel about the same characters}.

I really enjoyed this novel. The characters were fun & funny. I wanted to be friends with the main character, a struggling writer-turned TV show runner in LA, & her fabulous grandma.

Like other books by Jennifer, this was a great, light read. While it might be ‘chick lit’ & doesn’t have a super heavy subject, it was still good & kept me engaged until the very end. Actually after the end too as I was left hoping we’d get more of the story!

where we belongIn full disclosure, I read Emily Giffin’s Where We Belong exclusively once we were back from the beach. But I’m including it here because I group Emily with the other authors as perfect beach read novelists.

I laughed when I realized Where We Belong also featured a main character, Marian, who was a NYC based TV writer. That took a bit to keep Marian’s character straight from my last read.

But pretty quickly, I became engrossed with this story. The author chooses the write in two voices Marian & Kirby, the now 18 year old who Marian gave up for adoption at birth. I loved that we got both the adult & teenaged perspectives of all the action. I was cheering & wishing well for them both.

I loved the emphasis placed on fathers in Where We Belong. And I admit I was a bit swoony over Conrad.

While I told my mom I might not recommend these for a weighty book club discussion, they are perfect for deliciously light, fun summer reading. Anytime I’m looking for something I know I’ll enjoy without my brain exploding, these authors {& yes, these books} are good picks!

Categories
Reading

One Thousand White Women

One Thousand White WomenOne Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus was July’s book club pick. I’d never heard of it until Jackie mentioned it back when we were choosing book a couple months ago.

The novel {a first work of fiction by the author} is set in the late 1800s/early 1900s first in the north east then out west in mostly Nebraska territory.

Based on the actual event of the Cheyenne Native American chef asking to trade 1000 white women for 1000 horses {in hopes of their children bridging the cultures}, the story takes off as fiction from there. It reads as the diary of May Dodd, a fallen-from-grace lady from a wealthy, proper family chosen to be part of the first group of white women delivered to the Native American tribe.

As you can guess, the story is pretty wild. One Thousand White Women tells the story of these ‘Brides for Indians’ {the author does a good job creating & painting for us readers vivid characters} traveling cross country, seeing Native Americans for the first time & attempting to assimilate into their lifestyles & families.

My book club’s {& my} complaint is that the book reads like an event list. This happens, then this & this & this… We’d have loved more depth on certain subjects. And we wondered if a man writing from a women’s perspective caused that issue.

Without giving a spoiler but knowing {a bit of Native American} history, you can guess that the story doesn’t end especially well for these characters. But overall I still enjoyed the book. It’s one that will remain memorable & I think would work well for a variety of book clubs to read & review.

Categories
Babies Everything Else

Rock-a-bums Cloth Diapers

The latest & newest cloth diaper to join our rotation is a Rock-a-bums 5-n-1 diaper.

I think the black cover is pretty awesome. Very gender neutral which works for my duo. The two inserts that come with the diaper have a grey side. I love that they’re easy to spot/match with the cover when sorting diaper laundry.

Lucy Rockabums

The interior of the diaper & inserts are also really soft. Lucy & Zach must like that too because this one has suddenly become our most pooped in diaper. LOL! The grey color comes in handy here too as Lucy’s recent blueberry & black bean obsessions have led to some stains in our white interiored diapers.

Zach Rockabums

Rock-a-bums touts this diaper as being 5-n-1. So lots of options {all in one, all in two, pocket diaper, hybrid insert & shell cover}. So far, I’ve only used it as a pocket: snapping the insert in the diaper then tucking it in the pocket.

We’ve used the diaper for a few weeks with no problems: no red marks on their legs & no leaks. The snaps are easy to do & adjustable enough to fit all sizes of babies including my two fairly skinny ones.

As I’ve been mentioning lately, my busy toddlers are on the go. And even with all the moving &, as I said above, pooping, we haven’t had any accidents out the front, back or legs! Lucy was showing off a bit & made it hard to snap a non-blurry shot of her rocking the Rock-a-bums last Saturday. {Zach was in a ‘sposie last weekend due to needing high powered diaper rash medicine.}

Rock-a-bums
I’d recommend Rock-a-bums to anyone in search of a good one-size cloth diaper. I haven’t seen them for sale in my local cloth diaper stores, but you can buy them online {I’d love a red one for fall football season!} as well as read more about the Rock-a-bums story too.

I was sent a Rockabums one size cloth diaper for purpose of this review. I was not otherwise compensated nor are my opinions shared above anything but my own.