Deb wanted to do some christmas shopping for my other sister's 2 girls. They wanted stuff from Aeropastle and Pink. Both of which are in Geneva commons. So that sets the stage for what is to follow.
After church we went to Village Squire in Elgin. They had a Strawberry Walnut salad with balsamic. But do you think lunch can be that simple. NO! Jason (my Brother in law) ordered Saganaki. (OOOOMPA!!!) It keeps haunting me. Today I had a piece that was probably half the size of the piece I had the other night, but flaming cheese is going to get me every time!
After lunch we started our running our errands. This took us near a Petco. I needed kitty litter, so I went in. Deb suggested I pick up something for Allie. This is what I found.
She looks extremely cute!!
After shopping we went to check out LA Fitness in Hanover Park. Let me say it was the nicest experience I have ever had going to look at a fitness place. Normally there is some muscle head who wants to tell us FAT people what HE can do to whip us in to shape. When all Deb wants is Zumba classes and a recumbent bike and all I want is a pool. David was the person that helped us and asked us what we wanted out of our fitness goal. When we mentioned our 2 wants, he stopped his questioning and said, ok lets go look at the pool and the zumba room. They have a 4 lane 25 meter pool. The locker room has a sauna and there is a whirl pool next to the pool. All it is missing is a steam room. After looking at the zumba room, I thought I heard the bouncing of basket ball. I did. They have a regulation size basket ball court that is wide enough to have side by side volleyball in it. Apparently there is 1 volleyball night. They also have 4 or 5 racquetball courts. I have not played that in forever, but I used to like it. So it had EVERYTHING I wanted (and more). We ended up signing up. I may even go there tomorrow!!!
I knew I wanted to make chili today, so I needed some storage stuff for the DOUBLE batch I was going to make. So we stopped at Walmart. There I picked up Freezer bags, figure it is easier to store stuff in bags versus jars. I did buy a dozen mason jars, incase I ever want to use them.
Finally home around 7:30 NOW I can start my cooking. I love the chili, so I decided to make a double batch. Wisely I cut up and measured out EVERYTHING before I even started. Here is what the BEFORE picture looked like
That big container in front is 2 large onions chopped. The left is the garlic powder, cumin and oregano. The green stuff is 2 chopped up jalapeños. The right is about 12 cloves of garlic chopped up. All in all it took probably 75 minutes to cook the chili. Bigger batch meant longer until things browned or came to a boil. Since there were many times along the way where I had a 10 minute wait for things to cook, I made my lunch salads for the week. I had Red lettuce, Kale and Romaine. So I split them evenly up into 5, I also had some raspberries and black berries. The two together got there own 5 tupperware containers. I sautéed some mushrooms as well and split them out into their own 5 containers. Then I measured out 5 containers of balsamic vinegar and flax seed that will be the dressing. ((I will take a picture of these tomorrow))
The chili made enough for Deb and I tonight and it made about 12 other 2 1/2 big soup ladleful sized portions. It was fun putting together the 12 bags. I wish I had take a picture of them all laid out, but I did not!! Again I will add it to the lunch picture tomorrow.
Last but not least.... I watched about 10 - 12 youtube review videos on all the different blenders out there. What I finally picked was from Walmart.
| Blendtec 1560 Watt Total Blender Classic with Wild Side Jar Refurbished | $249.00 |
WOW Another long one.
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