Xmas Tree Mice

Xmas Tree Mice, a photo by Petunia21 on Flickr.

These are the ONLY holiday mice I will be glad to see this Christmas!

I found this cute little tree in the Goodwill Store. I wonder how it got here. I wonder if some nice lady named... Lorraine made it years ago for a friend or loved one, and now, someone donated it with their junk or clutter. I should have brought it home with me!

Lettuce Jumpstart

Lettuce Jumpstart, a photo by Petunia21 on Flickr.

This was my first lunch back at work... trying desperately to get back on track. If not now, then the whole holiday season will be pretty terrible!

"Dr. Who" um... I mean "Dr. No"

Our quest has begun to watch all 23 James Bond movies!

We checked Netflix Streaming, but no movies were available.  Then, we checked with our On Demand Cable system.  This was a good avenue since Skyfall is still in theaters, and I'm sure they figure that others like us would wanna catch up on old 007s too.  

"What IS the first James Bond movie?" I asked.  B had no idea either.  We looked it up... and thankfully, Time Warner On Demand had it.  "Dr. No"... which I kept referring to accidentally as "Dr. Who"... yeah, I'm that girl.

And wow... this movie was........ so low budget! (300k sterling pounds I learned tonight!) It was kind of amazing.  The "car chases" and yes, I had to use the "quotes" and the "gadgets".  It still kills me how James sleeps with both the good women and the bad ones.  This one took place is what looked like Cuba... which I got really excited about cause we had ordered Puerto Rican food, and I thought it was perfect. But I soon found out that it took place in Jamaica.  Now, I have never been to Jamaica (unless you are talking about Jamaica, Queens, cause that one I HAVE been too) But the tropical Isle of Jamaica, not so much.  So maybe I'm basing this ALL on stereotypes, but the movie had only a few black people in it, and NO ONE HAD A JAMAICAN ACCENT!

But it was still entertaining, nonetheless. And good old Sean Connery! So young! My earliest memory of Sean Connery in a film was playing King Richard in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. And he was 61!  And here, he was 30 years younger (almost my entire lifetime! ... just saying)

It has also been decided that from now on and as long as it is applicable, we will have to eat the cuisine of the location that each movie takes place.

Next on the list is From Russia With Love. There IS a Russian place I've been meaning to check out!

Here is the Official James Bond Film list:

1. Dr. No (1962-Sean Connery)
2. From Russia With Love (1963-Sean Connery)
3. Goldfinger (1964-Sean Connery)
4. Thunderball (1965-Sean Connery)
5. You Only Live Twice (1967-Sean Connery)
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969-George Lazenby)
7. Diamonds Are Forever (1971-Sean Connery)
8. Live and Let Die (1973-Roger Moore)
9. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974-Roger Moore)
10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977-Roger Moore)
11. Moonraker (1979-Roger Moore)
12. For Your Eyes Only (1981-Roger Moore)
13. Octopussy (1983-Roger Moore)
14. A View to a Kill (1985-Roger Moore)
15. The Living Daylights (1987-Timothy Dalton)
16. Licence to Kill (1989-Timothy Dalton)
17. GoldenEye (1995-Pierce Brosnan)
18. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997-Pierce Brosnan)
19. The World is Not Enough (1999-Pierce Brosnan)
20. Die Another Day (2002-Pierce Brosnan)
21. Casino Royale (2006-Daniel Craig)
22. Quantum of Solace (2008-Daniel Craig)
23. Skyfall (November 2012-Daniel Craig)

Our Adventures in Bonding

The husband and I went to see Skyfall last weekend for our weekly date night.


A bond film, is usually a sure thing when it comes to big screen entertainment.  I enjoy romantic comedies and he's more of a thriller seeker... so a BOND movie can usually bring us together where no one is "doing the other one a favor" by accompanying the other.

And as always, a good time  was had by both.  We even were able to NOT order popcorn. Double score for me!

This year is the 50th Anniversary of the bond movie franchise (based on a series of books by Ian Fleming), and since B and I have only see a handful of the films ... ok, anything POST the late 1980s when I/he were old enough to watch.  My First Bond, was Timmy Dalton.  But soon after that, Pierce Bronson was the Bond I knew to be 007.  I was pretty shocked when Daniel Craig took the keys the Aston Martin.  I have found in the last 20 years of MY Bondage life, that each Bond seemed to have BOUND himself to the role.  Ok, enough with the puns. 

When we got we got in the car after watching Skyfall, I told B "hey, lets watch ALL the Bond movies!" I'm a type of person that likes to check things off a list.  And as B and I are usually looking for things to do together (and usually need the aid of a guidance system and a flashlight) I thought this would be a fun, inexpensive winter date night agenda.  Take out + Couch = woo hoo!

Here is the Official James Bond Film list:

1. Dr. No (1962-Sean Connery)
2. From Russia With Love (1963-Sean Connery)
3. Goldfinger (1964-Sean Connery)
4. Thunderball (1965-Sean Connery)
5. You Only Live Twice (1967-Sean Connery)
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969-George Lazenby)
7. Diamonds Are Forever (1971-Sean Connery)
8. Live and Let Die (1973-Roger Moore)
9. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974-Roger Moore)
10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977-Roger Moore)
11. Moonraker (1979-Roger Moore)
12. For Your Eyes Only (1981-Roger Moore)
13. Octopussy (1983-Roger Moore)
14. A View to a Kill (1985-Roger Moore)
15. The Living Daylights (1987-Timothy Dalton)
16. Licence to Kill (1989-Timothy Dalton)
17. GoldenEye (1995-Pierce Brosnan)
18. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997-Pierce Brosnan)
19. The World is Not Enough (1999-Pierce Brosnan)
20. Die Another Day (2002-Pierce Brosnan)
21. Casino Royale (2006-Daniel Craig)
22. Quantum of Solace (2008-Daniel Craig)
23. Skyfall (November 2012-Daniel Craig)

Strawberry & Cottage Cheese Breakfast

Strawberry & Cottage Cheese breakfast, a photo by Petunia21 on Flickr.

This is by far, my most favorite-st breakfast to date. I also think that it looks lovely in this glass jar, but not everyone feels that way :)

From bottom to top:

Almond Meal
Strawberry Preserves
Cottage Cheese
Chia Seed
LOVE

I'm pretty sure this would taste equally as fantastic with Raspberry preserves, cause I'm quite fond of raspberry and almond together.

The chia seeds make a really nice crunch too :)

Let the Layering begone!

Thus far, I still have not ventured into my cave of a storage until to swap out my "summer clothes" with my "winter clothes"

I have very few long sleeve shirts in my "summer clothes" wardrobe so my work attire has been a sequence of layering and re-layering clothes.  My Hooded Sweater Coat has been pretty much on my body since November started.

I've been checking almost religiously, daily, to see if/when my "multi tunic" would go on sale from THIS post.






Well Hallelujah! It finally happened.  The darn thing finally went on sale. Mom rarely bought anything without a sale or a coupon going on.  I chose the Wisteria Woods color... I know. Purple.  Its so hard for me to stay away from purple.  I had a boss who would comment on it.  I actually became self conscious of my purple picking while shopping.  But oh well, I don't work for her anymore!






And in the spirit of picking up some other sale items, I got some V neck thermals.  Something that I can dress up for work, and down for when I'm at home.  A nice in between outfit change since going from "Work Clothes" (9am-5pm) and Pjs (5:30 pm - 8am) was no longer acceptable in my house.

Brownstone

Smoke

Temptress

And an extra bonus when I bought these shirts, was that I got a free scarf!  I chose "winter white".

I'm pretty pleased.  Now if only my package would come already! I'm ready to shed some layers!

Truth

I mean, its true!... just saying

Coming Home to Corn Bread and Soup

I've been dying for corn bread, cause you know, its that time of the year!  So the first place I look for ANY baking recipe is My New Roots.  Sarah has been my salvation after giving up the white flour and sugar.  She had a recipe for Black Quinoa Corn Muffins which sounded right up my alley.  I mean, it wasn't exactly what I was going for, but I still have to remind myself that the old corn bread ways of life do not serve me now.

I headed over to Whole Foods for black quinoa (but couldn't find any) so I had to resort to my plain old white quinoa.  They did have RED... but it wasn't organic, so oh well.

They are not colorful as Sarah's looked, but I mean... check out that HEART! (That was a birthday gift a few years back from Cousin) There were 2 hearts full of corn bread, but um... that other heart... disappeared.

Sarah also said in her blog when she developed these babies, that she developed them to go hand in hand with her Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup.  She claims they were best friends, and we should let them play with each other!... Who was I to break up a friendship? So I made the soup.

A big reason that I made this soup was because I had a head(?) of celery root in the fridge... and I had never before eaten or cooked with celery root, so I was a perfect opportunity!  The cool think about this soup, is that because of the sweet potato, and the maple syrup, it kinda screamed FALL/THANKSGIVING yumminess.

I had made the muffins in the morning, and the soup in the afternoon. Come dinner time, I heated up the soup and popped a few of the muffins in the toaster oven... kind of amazing.  They crisped up on the top and the crunchiness was a great compliment to the rich heartiness of the soup.

Oh, you wanna know B's stance on the muffins?  He LOVED them.

And Sarah was right... best friends 

forever!

Pumpkin Cottage Cheese Part Deux

You asked for it! 

(Ok, actually, no one asked for it, but I remembered to take a photo of it this morning!)