Chocolate + Peanut Butter = Goodness

I wanted to make my dad a cake yesterday for Father's Day since we were also celebrating his 55th birthday. His love of all things peanut butter/chocolate (and mine!) lead me in a quest for a delicious choco-pb cake recipe. Low and behold, my quick google recipe search pointed me to one of my favorite foodie blogs, Smitten Kitchen. You can just go here for the recipe and lots of pictures so I don't have to clutter my blog with the words. (There are a lot -- this was a day-long process, at least for me!)

I'll just say that the Sour Cream-Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze was a big hit with my family. Oh, and we were super bad and had it with the best ice cream ever -- Baskin Robins' Peanut Butter and Chocolate. MmmmMmmmm good ol' diabetes in a bite worthy!!

PS - I think mine came out relatively pretty as well and I haven't even started my cake decorating class yet!! Oh, the potential! hehe

Run! Pee!

Have you ever held it so long during a movie that you're in pain, unwilling to relieve yourself in fear of missing a v.v. important part? It can take a couple minutes to exit the theater, find the nearest restroom, get er done and scurry back. Well, problem solved. Just visit RunPee.com! Here, you can search movies and learn when the best times are to run and pee. For example:



And see how you can even click to unscramble the synopsis of exactly what is happening while you're peeing? But leave it scrambled if you don't want to ruin anything in advance!

How funny is this?!?!

You're welcome.

Green Goodness

We've had a fairly productive last month or so in the yard. The first project has been to give the side yard a makeover and get our veggie garden going. We'd been drenching the weeds with chemicals so they'd die and quit growing. Being that we were too lazy to dig it all up, we decided to go the easy route and just cover the mess up with weed barrier. On top, we placed three raised planters and surrounded them with bark. I'm pretty happy with the results....so long as Kaiser doesn't die from wood indigestion. This doggie likes to eat bark as much as he does his own mulberry filled poo --> a lot I tell ya!!

This pretty much shows what we did:

Some of you may be interested in the planters we bought. They are supposedly "self-watering" although we're yet to be convinced of their effectiveness. I'm leaning toward saying they don't self-water. I also believe that the extra warm and dry San Diego climate may play a factor... Regardless, I think they look really nice so be it as they may. I'll keep you all posted on that aspect. Otherwise, I thought they were a synch to put together and are a perfect size for square-foot gardening when you don't have a ton of space, or time to invest in the process. For more info, you can visit this site and check out the planters, as well as all sorts of other fun gardening goodies.

In planter #1 we have 3 different types of tomato plants (2 that were already bigger and three tiny ones that I hope won't outgrow the space). We also included 1 plant each root onion, jalapeno and habanero. Everything has already grown a lot in just a couple of weeks:

And see the tomatoes?!!! Yay!

Planter #2 remains empty, as does #3.

The hydroponics system is up and running for the most part but my seed starters haven't quite developed yet. I had to start over with them...I suck at that part.

This past weekend was a lot of fun cause I did a ton or work on the raised planter by the orange tree. This is what you see from the kitchen so I was eager to get it done. The bush looking plant in the middle of the left side is a dwarf Mexican lime tree. *Note to self - be mature, Katie. No need to chuckle every time you say bush* Other than some daylilies and gardenias, I couldn't even tell you what the rest of the stuff is. Oh, but there are a couple plumeria plants to keep in pots by the house. Ian loves those cause he's a woman like that. So obviously, a couple things still need to be put in the ground but we're getting there!

My method to garden shopping you ask? Go to the "sunny" plants and pick pretty ones since they will be in the sun, duh. I figure I'll just wait and see what lives and what dies and plant a bunch more living stuff where the dead stuff ends up. What? You don't think that's scientific enough? Eh, whatever. I did learn the difference between annuals and perennials though...so I at least KNOW the tiny pretty flowers around the border will die off and need to be replaced next year. The little suckers only took two seconds to plant though...that's right, LITERALLY TWO SECONDS, got that?

Preventative Measures

This posts stems from an overall desire to be healthy and youthful as I age.

It hit me all of a sudden at my broth-in-law's 1st Communion that took place about a month ago. If you've never been to one, it's a regular mass, where the honorees dress up in suits and pretty white dresses, and get to take communion for the first time. When it's time, the kids' parents join them. If I remember correctly, there were about 80 kids..

I sat there watching parent after parent escorting their kids down the center isle to receive communion. I was so judgmental. I started looking at the parents and guessing what their kids would look like, if they were pretty, trendy, outgoing, dorky, chubby... I know, so awful. The kids were always a direct reflection of their parents.

And not that any of these characteristic are bad, not at all. I shouldn't explain it like I just did because who am I to decide what's pretty, dorky, or shy....and of course I wouldn't care one bit if my kids were any of those things. But it did make me feel like I'd rather be one of the youthful parents than one that looked old and frumpy. I want to make an effort to not let myself go. At least in public! LOL

I told Ian about my revelation afterward and he said he was doing the same thing! I explained to him that I need to start spending more money on clothes as we get older so I can keep up with the styles and be a "cool mom". Is that bad? =P

This was just the tip of the ice burg. I've since decided that I really need to step up my game with it comes to "maintenance". Mainly with regards to skin quality, as this is the most telling sign of age. I figure while I'm still relatively young and pre-kiddies, now is as good a time to start. Here's what I have so far:

-Wash and moisturize my face every night before bed (I'm so bad about this)
-Brush my teeth at least twice a day
-Floss every day
-Moisturize my hands, neck and chest (with SPF) every morning
-Eat out less, exercise more -- ya think Katie?
-Track my fertility for pregnancy prevention - figured this counts as a health regime, no?

Obviously (or maybe not? ha!) I shower every day and moisturize my face in the a.m. but I know it's not enough in the long run. Am I missing anything else? I know it will be hard to add all this to my daily routine but in reality, it's only about 5 minutes and I have no excuse! Do you all have trouble taking care of yourselves this way? I hope I can get adjusted!

And please let me know what your beauty secrets are and if there's anything you recommend me adding to my new routine!