A change will do you good!

All it takes is a $0.14 (I used a $2 off coupon when I bought this) box of hair dye and I feel like a new woman!    

I hadn't colored my hair in months!  I was getting bored with my lack luster hair and needed a change. Yes, my hair was red the last time too, but since it had been so long, it was now back to brown! So yes, it is a change!

As you can see, my roots were about 3-4 inches long. 

I don't have any greys yet and just color my hair for the fun of it, but my natural color was pretty dull!

With Eric's help, I got my whole head covered.

I highly recommend using foam hair dye, because it has the easiest coverage when you are trying to apply it!  

We even put some on Eric's goatee!

Presto chango, light intense auburn!!!!! ;)

 

Once again, I am loving it! Once again, I am a sassy ginger!

That's all for now, folks! Till next time!

21 years old with 15 years experience

July 8th was my birthday... I turned 36 and am officially in my late 30s! LOL!  Or as my adorable husband would say, I am 21 years old with 15 years experience!   

My age has never mattered to me...but for a little over two months, I will be two years older than Eric.  I truly am his old lady! ;)

As an adult, birthdays are not as a big to-do as they are when you are kids!  I wasn't expecting much this year... a card or two and that's all.  

I woke up and my mother-in-law and my daughter had made me cards and they were waiting for me on the computer desk.

Well, my husband truly surprised me!  He bought me a dozen gorgeous red roses and gave me a very sweet birthday card that made me bawl my eyes out!  I love that man so much!  He never ceases to amaze me! 

my pretty roses

Eric and I

Birthday date!

Kisses for the birthday girl!

My mother-in-law, who had been staying with us since May, was going to be headed home to Arizona this week. She stayed one more day, for my birthday, so my hubby could take me out!!!   Plus, we weren't ready for her to leave yet either! We miss you, GrandMama!

 

I picked Red Lobster for lunch! Eric has been wanting to go since they opened, but we haven't had a chance yet. I took advantage of that! ;)

We both ordered a 4 course meal special that they had. It came with never ending cheddar bay biscuits (and they are just as good as people rave), soup, salad, entree and dessert for $14.99 or upgrade for $4 more (which is what we did)!   Pretty good deal!  I had ceasar salad and clam chowder.  Eric opted for creamy potato bacon soup.  I took one bite of his and wished I had ordered that one instead. It was so creamy and yummy! I love clam chowder, but this totally topped it! 

I was teasing Eric, because he was eating a salad! He is not a big veggie person!

For my entree, I ordered Maui Luau Shrimp & Salmon.  It came with wild rice pilaf, steamed broccoli and pineapple pico de gallo! It was so good that I forgot to take a picture of it when it first came out!

Here it is, after I had already dug into it! So so good! I ate every last bite!

Eric ordered Honey BBQ Shrimp & Chicken, that came with steamed broccoli and garlic mashed potatoes. His was pretty tasty too! 

 

Overall, we were pretty impressed with Red Lobster. Our server was super nice.  He brought my brownie dessert and said that his birthday present to me was for him not to sing! LOL!  We must have gone at a great time of the day, because we were only like one of seven or so tables!   It's not an everyday restaurant, but I highly recommend it for special occasions!

 

           

Then, we came home and I got tons of birthday hugs from these two munchkins! I love my kids!

 

I had a super blessed birthday!

Beef and vegetables

Here is another Fresh & Easy score that I found on 4th of July!  I have been waiting to try this beef and vegetable slow cooker kit. It comes with a huge slab of beef, seasoning packet and all the veggies: onion, carrots, celery and red potatoes.  It normally cost $14.99, but because they were dated that day, they had them marked down to $1.50!!!!!!! SCORE!!!  They had two of them, so I bought them both.

I put one of the roasts in the freezer.  I put the other roast in the crockpot, with the seasoning, a little more water then it called for and both sets of veggies. I love me some stew type veggies! 

I set the timer for 6 hours on high. After about 4 or so, it was done!  The house smelled so good.

The meat was so tender, it just melted in your mouth!  It fed 3 adults and 2 children. So delicious!

I ended up taking all the veggies out and leaving the broth in. I pulled the other roast out of the freezer and ended up cooking that one too.   We are still eating left overs!  I totally recommend this one!

Beef, it's what's for dinner!

Our family is not a huge beef eating family.  Chicken and turkey, and some pork, is what we usually eat. Well, knowing that 4th of July is a huge grilling day, I figured that steak would be on sale. For the holiday, Fresh & Easy had their New York Steak on sale for 50% off.  I got two packs for around $12. I have no idea if this was a great price, but I figured, what the heck! ;)

My sister's husband is a steak lover, so I asked Laura for an easy recipe to cook it on the stove, since I didn't have a nice BBQ to BBQ it on!   

My mother-in-law took the steak out of the fridge, for me, an hour before I was going to cook it.  Laura had told me that it would cook better if it was almost room temperature and not as cold.  I turned my burner on and got the pan super hot.... 

I put onion powder, garlic powder and some Lawry's Seasoning salt on both sides.

I took a stick of butter and threw some pats in the pan and tossed in the steaks. Man, it smelled good!

I cooked it, until it looked done-ish, and then flipped them (adding some more butter)!

Now my sister had also told me, that once you pull them from the pan, they will continue to cook, so you want to take them out when they are sorta rare-ish.  The first two came out better than the last two. LOL! But since it was my first time attempting to cook steak, I thought I had done good! ;)

I also had grabbed these veggies to cook as a side.

They sauteed in the mix that had come in the package. I love squash, but the seasoning on them was horrible. I won't buy this again.

Sweet corn was also on sale for 6/$1, so of course I grabbed those! I did my handy dandy microwave trick and steamed up! So so yummy! I love fresh corn!

Other than the squash, the dinner was pretty yummy! I was super hungry and ended up eating the entire piece of steak! So good!  I thought that it turned out pretty good! 

So, now I can officially say that I have made steak and it turned out great!

Chicken marinara

 

My $0.50 sauce from Albertsons this week!

I was trying to figure out something for dinner tonight. I had bought this sauce yesterday and was planning on making Pizza in a Crock pot. But when I mentioned it to the hubbins, he didn't sound so enthused! LOL!  So, on to a new game plan. We all love chicken, so I decided to do a take on chicken marinara. I googled a recipe for it and then changed it a bit to my liking!

I defrosted 4 chicken breasts.  I always have a nice stock pile of chicken in our deep freeze, because we don't eat beef. 

 

Once defrosted, I cut up the chicken breasts into small chunks.  I drizzled them with EVOO, sprinkled some Italian seasoning on them and then added some minced garlic. 

Next, I took that nice jar of marinara sauce and poured it over the top of everything.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy! ;)

I put it into the oven at around 400 degrees for 35 minutes. 

Our awesome neighbor blessed us with some fresh sweet corn on the cob, straight from a farm! Yummy! 

I dehusked (I'm making up words here, lol) and destringed (there I go again) them, put them in a produce bag and popped them in the microwave for about 10 minutes. I pushed the potato button, but it worked! You get the idea! I do my potatoes that way too! I love it! Learned that neat trick from my wonderful MIL! 

I have always wanted to try couscous, so today while I was at Fresh & Easy, I grabbed this and another flavor of couscous to try!   You take 1 1/4 cup of water and 1 TBSP of EVOO and bring it to a boil. You mix the couscous and the seasoning packet in a bowl like this. 

Once the water/oil mix boils, you pour it over the couscous mix and cover it with saran wrap for 10 minutes and let it sit. So easy and it smelled so good! 

This is what the chicken looked like after 35 minutes.

I covered it with monterey cheese and put it back in the oven for about 10 more minutes.

Ooey gooey cheesy yumminess!!!!!!

I cut the corn off the cob. Much easier for the kiddos (and me) to eat it that way! ;)

The couscous turned into this wonderful fluffy goodness! I loved it! So delish! 

My kid's plate

My plate

Dinner was a HUGE hit tonight! My three year old son LOVED his couscous and it was the first thing that disappeared from his plate! My daughter liked this first bite, but wasn't a huge fan. This dinner was super easy to make and I will definitely make it again!

Poor man's shrimp scampi ;)

I have seen these Skillet Sauces, but had yet to try them. Out of the different flavors, this one looked the best to me!  I got it on sale and with a coupon, of course! ;)

According to the directions, you are put shrimp in the pan and cook it with the sauce. Well, I didn't have any shrimp, but I had popcorn shrimp.  So, I had an idea!  I will call it poor man's shrimp scampi! LOL!

I made popcorn shrimp in the oven

I made some angel hair pasta and then threw the sauce over the top of that! 

I added the popcorn shrimp on top of that, sprinkled some cheese on it, and voila, dinner! The sauce was good, but was as flavorful as I had wanted it to be!

I decided to make a dessert that I used to make in college for my friends, cinnamon toast pizza. I would make homemade biscuits and take the dough and spread it out like a pizza and then sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar and then bake. 

Well, I didn't feel like make the biscuits from scratch, so I used these.

 

I put all the biscuits together on the pan.

Then I smooshed them all together.

My helper, Shianne, spread butter all over the top of them.

Slathered in butter

Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top and then bake in the oven until golden brown.

They poofed up all pretty! They were so yummy! Delish!