2011.

Welcome to 2011! I'm not surprised how quickly 2010 went by...nor am I surprised how quickly Christmas break went by. It happens every year. And here we are, back to work, back to the daily grind. But I'm not upset about that. The break was fabulous and refreshing, very productive. And by productive I mean about 1-2 days of cleaning, 5-6 days just relaxing and being lazy. It was wonderful.

Here are some highlights of the Christmas break:

-spending time w/family (mine and his), though we wish we could've spent more time w/his family since we don't see them very often, but our visit was cut short due to the snow that was on its way to Philly. We had to go home 2 days earlier :(

-cleaning my bathroom. It wasn't a "highlight" WHILE I was cleaning it. The result was the highlight. Clean floor, clean shower, clean tub, clean vanity. I like clean things. 

-receiving 3 of Alton Brown's cookbooks. Stay tuned for a "Julie & Julia" style food blog when I take on ALL the recipes in AB's baking cookbook. Pictures will be included.

-receiving a food dehydrator! What a wonderful invention. Last night we dehydrated some fruit: bananas, mango and pineapples. So delicious and healthy and glorious in every possible way. Now when we make beef jerky I don't know if I can give it that exact same description...just "delicious and glorious" :)

-catching up on all the episodes of Psych I've missed. I've now seen every episode for 4 seasons, thanks to Netflix. Season 5 needs to come out soon. I'm going through Psych-withdrawal.

-reading again. Like, REALLY reading... actual books...on a regular basis. The husband and I have been reading through a book called "Sex and the Supremacy of Christ" (Piper). I highly recommend it. Though if I were to re-title the book, I'd call it "The Supremacy of Christ and Sex". It's a very Christ-centered look at what sex is and what it was created for; how it was originally intended by its Creator...and of course, how the world has twisted and corrupted it. Very good read. In addition, we've also started to each read something else for fun. I'm starting to read "The Hobbit", and then the other 3 LOTR books are waiting for me when I finish that. I love reading. I've missed reading. I'm so thankful I'm reading again.

-and of course....sleeping in. That's always a highlight.

*For a completely random, but hopefully helpful and informative thought on cooking: here's a good tip my husband taught me (that I had to learn the hard way): never ever use salt grinders during the cooking process. Never, I say! It's too difficult to know just exactly how much you're using, mostly because you can't really see it all coming out of the grinder and it immediately dissolves once it touches the hot foods. Sprinkle salt into the palm of your hand, then add gradually (tasting a little bit as you go so you know when to stop). And when it comes to salt in general, less IS more. Use the grinder for off the stove-top, on your individual plate of food if you desire to add more. How did I learn the hard way, you ask?: by completely ruining a perfectly good batch of spinach! :( It was cooking in the pan w/garlic and olive oil, and lots of pepper (which you can NEVER have enough of in my opinion...I <3 pepper), and then I proceeded to grind in the salt...and then a little more salt cause it looked like I had SO much spinach to cover...until of course it cooked down to nothing...in like 3 seconds. Stupid spinach. I knew that would happen, but it took me by surprise how quickly it would happen. Anyway....long story short: it was way too salty. WAY too salty. I was sad. But I learned my lesson and you better believe I will never cook salty spinach again. Ever.

Love,
Mrs. Griffiths