Ah, the sun.  We have black curtains in our bedroom.  It’s literally so dark in our room that it could be noon with the blazing sun and we would never know it.  We love it that way.

So when my alarm goes off and I feel my way to it to turn it off without my glasses on (um, I am blind as a bat!) then feel for my glasses and my scrunchie that was taken off the night before (next to probably a dozen that lie on our bedroom floor) I carefully open the bedroom door so as not to wake Tony, and this morning, I was so happy to see the sun and blue skies!

I actually took this picture while I was driving, not looking, so I had no idea what I got – I kind of like the double image of the trees and sun.

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I had the windows rolled down, and at 29 degrees, the brisk air and the sun just made me happy to be alive!

On tap was shoulders – this was intense but short – probably only took me about 23 minutes.

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And I give you another camel toe shot of me at the gym – wtf is wrong with me and these kind of pants lately?

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I ended up doing 7 miles on the bike in 33 minutes for cardio – still knocking away at my 125 miles of moving in November.  So not in focus, but whatevs!

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I was really looking forward to breakfast – I haven’t had breakfast pizza in a long time!  I used my homemade pita bread, 1/3 cup marinara sauce, baby spinach, an ounce of rosemary ham, 1 scrambled egg with 1/4 cup of egg beaters, and an ounce of cheddar cheese.  I scrambled the eggs at home, so when it was time to put breakfast together – I just put it all together and baked it in my office toaster oven for 10 minutes at 350.  I don’t normally put tomato sauce on breakfast pizza, but I loved it.

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Best.Blackberries.Ever.  From ALDI of all places too – .99 cents a pint!

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I ended up heading back to the gym at lunch for a leisurely 30 minute swim.  Warm water, sun shining in.  I try not to think of anything when I swim.  No worries, stress about bills – just the sound of the water around my face.  It’s glorious.

I won’t bore you with another bowl of lasagna soup, but I had the last of it.  I have a stash of seasonings in the work kitchen, and as I was reaching to add some more crushed red pepper to my soup, I saw a bottle of light pancake syrup and checked it out.  Um, it EXPIRED in 2008 – which makes me think someone bought it in 2005??  We’ve only been in this space for 2 years, so one of my projects today is to go through and throw out expired shit.

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So I had some ground beef that I needed to use up and while tacos is always alright with me, I decided to see what else I could come up with.  A quick google search of ground beef + rice + marinara sauce = ARANCINI!

Arancini are Italian rice balls that are typically filled with a beef/cheese filling.  I had every intention of using cold brown rice that I had leftover, but one mention of that to Tony and I kind of got this look like “um, really?!”  No worries!  I could make white rice!  So the rice cooked (shhhh …. I used Minute Rice – ready in less than 7 minutes!) I made the beef filling. 

Now, I didn’t measure one ingredient.  Not really anyway.  After the white rice cooked, I did add about 1/2 a cup of the brown rice to chill the white rice down.  MIxed the rice with one egg yolk to bind it together.

But the recipe linked to above – I couldn’t really follow without a visual.  So I went to youtube and kind of followed this technique.  Except, I didn’t want to wait 30 minutes for the balls to set, so I let them sit in the freezer for 10 minutes before frying.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXeYq1mth8&w=448&h=252&hd=1]

But there was a series of events that went wrong:

  • When I was pulling out the flour, the top fell off and I dropped about 1/2 a cup of flour on the ground.
  • When I was scooping the beef mixture into the center of the rice, my fork got hit and about 1/4 cup of ground beef went flying through the kitchen
  • When I reached for my Italian bread crumbs, um, some sort of little bug was in the there and I had to throw the whole thing out – ew!
  • When I went to season my marinara sauce for the bottom of the plate – I opened the wrong side of the lid of crushed red pepper and about 4 tablespoons fell into about 1/3 of a cup of sauce

Surprisingly, I ONLY swore under my breath each and every time one of these things happened.  It’s not unusual for me to spew MF when stuff goes wrong, and I was literally on the urge of screaming – with so many things against the dinner, I thought for sure it was doomed for failure.

So while the balls went into the freezer to set, I poured myself a glass of wine and went on Facebook to wait until it was time to drop the balls in the fryer.  It was then that I saw my husbands cousin post this on facebook.

A man met and married his wife and five months later she got diagnosed with breast cancer.  They went from drinking beers to saying goodbye a few years later – she was only 40 when she passed away.

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So yeah – the shit that happened while I was making dinner?  Doesn’t fucking matter.  Like at all in comparison.  I feel like an asshole even thinking about how worked up I got over making dinner!

And guess what?  Dinner turned out delicious!  I will, in the future, make these ahead of time and have them in the fridge so that they are ready to go from fridge to fryer.  But these were crispy, the filling was flavorful, my spicy marinara sauce with baby spinach turned out really tasty.   It’s All Good.

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No stats for today – I haven’t figured out the “balls” recipe yet, and I think you all can live another day without knowing how many calories I had today. 

My advice for you today?  Go hug someone you love.  You never know how long you’ll have with them.  Red heartRed heartRed heart

Make it a great day!