King and Queen of the Leftovers

When Dave and I were children, we hated leftovers. They never tasted as good as the original dish, but our moms (wisely) served them to us, and we begrudgingly ate what was on our plates. After this week, I think our moms would be proud of the responsible grown-ups we've become.

It all started on Monday, when I made chili from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. I altered the recipe a bit, not adding as much chili powder and mixing in black beans. The result was delicious. Served with a side of Fritos and topped with cheddar cheese and fat-free sour cream (not pictured), it's now a Gwynne family favorite.


Even though I'd cut the recipe in half, we had plenty leftover for dinner on Tuesday night. Dave tucked his into a Tupperware container to reheat before his evening class, and I ate mine solo at home. Again, with the same toppings, the chili was delicious--even if it was technically consider a leftover at this point.

On Wednesday, I found myself wondering what I could do with the remaining chili (yes, there was still some left). My thrifty Dutch upbringing made me feel a tad guilty about even thinking of tossing it. Fortunately, inspiration struck, and I decided to make baked potatoes topped with chili. Again, it was a delicious chili-filled meal, and one we'd like to have again.


Finally, on Thursday, I was determined to finish up the last of the chili. (Can you believe we still had chili leftover?) The menu called for spaghetti and meatballs, so I improvised and made spaghetti and chili. There was just enough for Dave's meal, and I was happy with my standard spaghetti sauce. Dave's dinner reminded me of what you might see on a Steak 'n Shake menu. He loved it!


Thanks to the chili, we didn't have to do our weekly grocery shopping trip, saving us quite a bit of cash. Our week filled with leftovers was a success!

The Knitwits

From left to right: me, Leanne, Sarah, and Sarah (a.k.a., The Knitwits)

I consider it a blessing that many of my coworkers are not just colleagues but friends. I've worked at places where everyone was friendly with each other at work but didn't hang out once we'd punched out, so I try not to take for granted the friendships that have formed at my current job.

One of my favorite "friend" activities is our weekly gathering of The Knitwits, a group of us girls who are interested in not only knitting, but other needlepoint pursuits. When I had been invited to join a couple of years ago, I hadn't worked on a cross-stitching project since I'd left one unfinished in 4th grade. Every week, a group of women from my department, ranging in age from twentysomething to grandmasomething, would gather in a meeting room at work to admire and encourage each other's projects.

I don't quite remember how our group evolved from that point, but a smaller group of us (me and the Sarahs pictured above) moved to Starbucks for our weekly meetings after the original group fizzled. We'd order our favorite hot or cold drink--depending on the season--and catch up on life outside work as we worked on our projects. Pretty soon, Leanne joined us, and now the four of us have a weekly date at Starbucks every Friday.

I consider it our own, sober happy hour for the week. The lunch hour flies by as we work on another row or two, and it's difficult to pack up everything and get back to the office for a few more hours.

My job is amazing, and having work friends to enjoy life with is a bonus. Meeting with my fellow Knitwits is the perfect ending to the work week.

New Year Celebrations

The New Year's holidays are often a bit disappointing after all the Christmas fun the week before. This year, I think we managed to fit in plenty of fun, and the only disappointment of the weekend was Michigan's loss to Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl.

I had Friday off from work, so the fun began with a visit from one of my best friends, Kara. We spent 3 hours in Chipotle, but it felt like only 15 minutes. I love this girl! We met each other at Olivet's freshman orientation and have been friends ever since. Kara and I have visited England together, roomed together our junior year, and supported each other through thick and thin. She's the best!

After ringing in the new year with Dave's parents on Skype, Dave and I went for our annual New Year's Eve dinner at Texas Roadhouse. We, of course, had to take a picture of ourselves before heading out.

We'd planned to watch a movie after getting back from dinner, but we took some time instead to review 2010 and share our reflections on the blog.

We watched the ball drop in Times Square, then turned the TV off. Chicago's New Year's Eve coverage isn't great, so we depended on this nifty online countdown to help us.

At midnight, we toasted to the new year and sang "Auld Lang Syne."

On New Year's Day, we went to my aunt and uncle's house to watch the Gator Bowl. Quite a few of us were all decked out in our Michigan gear, but alas, our enthusiasm wasn't enough for the Wolverines to pull off a victory. It was a sad end to their 2010 season.

Looking back on the events of last week, I'm grateful for the opportunity to take a break from the routine and spend time with friends and family. It was a great way to end 2010 and begin 2011.

Christmas 2010

It's hard for me to believe that Christmas Eve was only two weeks ago. I'm sadly way behind on updating you with our Christmas activities, but it's better late than never.

My last day of work was Wednesday, December 22, so Dave and I started the Christmas holidays that night with dinner at Chick-fil-A (or, as one of our lovely Chicago dj's called it, "Chickfillah") and a tour of Christmas lights around town.

This Santa sitting out on the front lawn looks so real! He's even sitting in a nice, comfy chair.

Have you noticed that syncing your Christmas lights with music is getting very popular these days? The house below wasn't synced, but I appreciated all the white lights.

On the 23rd,we opened up our presents from each other because we'd be busy the next two days with our extended family. Dave got me a lot of cool things, including a vacuum for the car and the promise to clean the car with it.

For lunch, we went to a great Mexican restaurant that I hadn't been to in a while. It's a little hole in the wall, but the food is delicious, especially their guacamole.

On Christmas Eve, Dave and I went to church with my parents before heading to my parents' house to party with the rest of the family. This year, we got a little creative with the presentation of our gifts, but my favorite gift was the magazine subscription we bought for my brother. You see, he is one of the most conservative (politically) guys I know, so I knew he'd appreciate a gift subscription to Townhall magazine. But we decided to have a little fun with him. Dave and I bought a very obviously liberal magazine and wrapped it up. Nate had to flip through its pages to find his real present. He was so confused! But his face lit up when he realized there was more to his present.

Dave began a great tradition in my family when we started dating--Christmas crackers! Every year, Dave and I supply the crackers, and everyone else kindly wears their paper crowns for pictures. Here are my parents with Nate and Kim.

And here's the rest of us: Uncle Ron, Auntie Jan, me, and Dave. Notice Dave's tie; he was able to wear it for our Christmas Eve festivities!

The next day was just me, Dave, and my parents. We enjoyed that delicious ham from Omaha Steaks, and I had time to take cheesy pictures in front of the Christmas tree. This reminds me of my cheerleading days.

Nate and Kim gave me In a Pickle for Christmas, so we played it on Christmas Day. Fun times!

This year, Christmas was a bit different from other years, with a quiet, no fuss Christmas Day, but I really enjoyed it. The entire Christmas weekend was a blast, and it went by way too quickly.

Good-bye, Cable

Dave and I signed up for AT&T U-Verse back in June 2009. No longer satisfied with the unreliable TV antenna, we took a look at our finances and decided we could afford to not only pay for basic channels but add on a whole lot more. Thus, we found ourselves with 200 channels of television to watch whenever we wanted, especially with our DVR recording anything that wasn't convenient for us to watch live.

There were times since that day when I wondered if we were being good stewards of both our time and money by paying money every month for a lot of junk, really. But then I would remember that saying good-bye to cable would mean saying good-bye to HGTV and that precious DVR, so I'd push those thoughts back and continue channel-surfing and recording.

I'd noticed in the last few months that we didn't have the TV on as much as usual. I'd usually watch an hour of King of Queens before continuing with the evening. We were recording a bunch of episodes of Amazing Race, Glee, and Big Bang Theory but not watching any of them. We actually deleted the entire unwatched season of Glee and discontinued the automatic recording last week when we heard the direction this season was heading.

Well, this morning as we walked into church, Dave was talking about buying a Kinect (we got to try out my brother and sister-in-law's Kinect yesterday and had a lot of fun). I teased him and said, "Well, if we bought a Kinect, we'd have to get rid of the cable." Dave laughed about it, and we enjoyed the service. But after church, Dave said he thought it may be a good idea to get rid of the cable (and not just because he wanted to buy a Kinect). We checked how much we would save every month, how we could access some of our favorite shows, and how much Netflix would be. Everything checked out, so Dave made the phone call, and we are now only able to watch the local networks on the TV. There is no DVR to record our shows. We've lost every show we've recorded in the last few months.

But there is something freeing about giving up all those channels. We can now be more intentional about what we watch. And we can still get online to watch some of our favorites. We decided to sign up for Netflix so that we can have more viewing options, so Dave's excited about watching more of his favorite British shows.

I'll admit that I shed a tear or two at the thought of giving up the possibilities of watching thousands of programs and movies. But now that we're cable free, I'm thinking of all the ways I can spend my time on more productive activities.