Ch-ch-changes

There are a few changes to this weeks menu. Nothing big, like usual.

First off though: I forgot how AWESOME the Braised Chicken with Chickpeas and Tomatoes is. I served it with couscous and *SIGH* I really do need to make it more often. It's a nice meal to embellish with a bit more spice (I add garlic and I wonder if saffron would be good) but you don't have to. It was originally written as a budget meal a bit ago in Cooking Light Magazine (before the current economic woes). And a few notes about the recipe: you can used canned if you don't want to soak your own (they used dried because of the cheapness), if you do make your own, you can use all of it (I think it's stupid to not use the other 1/2 cup just for calories sake), and lastly - if you cook your own beans, cook the whole bag and use the rest for hummus instead. :)

I haven't had a major migraine in a while now, although I had a small headache yesterday. I have had some major liver pain though. Not sure why. I am wondering if the antibiotic threw me for a loop. I've been eating eggs lately and I am sensitive to them (allergy tested), I can eat a few but not a lot. Well, I've been having what I call uggy burps - sulfuric burps - I thought it might be due to the eggs but now I'm wondering if it's just because the Z-pack killed off some good bacteria in my gut instead. Last night was the worst. I made sure to eat some yogurt (with good bacteria) today, and maybe the liver problems earlier were a warning or something that I wasn't digesting well and the gall bladder was trying to produce more to help and couldn't keep up and the liver was trying it's best too? I don't know, it's all just supposition. Since I wasn't feeling well, I wasn't eating well either. Not eating badly - but just not much. When I do that I don't have good Weight Watcher weeks. I wasn't able to make it to my WW weigh in yesterday, so I'll go tomorrow. I'm expecting a gain this week, but it's all my own fault.

The changes to this weeks menu are simple. We are headed to SD for my nephew's birthday on Saturday and my sister informed me it's going to be a pizza party. So, I'm not making pizza on Friday, instead I'm going to make Bagel Dogs at hubby's request. Secondly, the recipe for Baked Beans and Chops is changed slightly. I'm going with one from the "Fix-It-and-Forget-It Entertaining" Cookbook. It's mostly the same though. Pour the beans into the CP, top with the pork chops. Smear on the mustard, sprinkle with brown sugar, drizzle with ketchup and top with thick slices of onion. I also sprinkled with some pepper and Penzey's smoked seasoned salt.

Thanks to Facebook I've found a friend from HS who was a great writer in my English Comp class. I loved my English Comp class, I think because almost everyone in there wrote really well and had a sense of humor to boot. Anyway, he's got a great blog, so if you have some time to spend, head on over to http://billycoffey.blogspot.com/ and waste it there. ;)

We've received the money from my grandmother's estate. My sister is using hers for COBRA (they are both without a job at this point, and so far no luck in finding one). At this point they are waiting for the new bill to take effect and said said it will reduce the amount they pay from $1,000 to $35 I think she said. That's quite a lot! I bought my new tennis shoes yesterday, the last ones are the ones that my sister gave me (from when she cleaned out her closet over 2 years ago). I decided to try ones that are Nike+ compatible. I've just been putting the little capsule in my shoestrings, but this time I put it in the footbed. And as I went out on the walk, it died within 5 minutes of my walk. *SIGH* Course the Nike+ is about a year old or so. I need to see how much a new one costs (the "system" itself is $30). The page won't load for me, I think just because of the dial-up speed, but I'm going through the Nike+ site and haven't done a search yet.

Some more of the money went for an ASUS EEE PC (netcomputer). The laptop I type from is actually missing it's R & T buttons and I plug in a keyboard to the USB to type coherently (or more-so). We had hoped to be able to use my sister's laptops that wasn't working and switch out the keyboard (the laptop wouldn't stay on anymore and hubby couldn't fix it) but it's a different manufacturer and things are just different enough that it won't work. :( The carrying around a keyboard makes it just enough of a pain that it makes it a bit unportable for a laptop. And it's starting to become a bit unstable: computer screen sometimes goes on the fritz along with some other things I don't want to get into. Hubby and I debated about what would be the best use: a new laptop or a netcomputer. I don't travel that much with a computer but the netcomputer is cheaper. We decided to go with the EE and we'll try to save up some more for a laptop and hope to keep it going. Hopefully being able to leave it in one place more often will help too (it really only gets moved when someone comes over to eat since I type at the dinner table, and our table is kept in the expanded condition so there's room for just hubby and I to eat there).

The rest of the money (half of the original is going to be put into savings - it's not as much money as it sounds like, believe me) is going for a new crown for me, a dental for Miko and new glasses for me (it's been about 4-5 years). Now granted, we're also putting in a bit of the money hubby made while working overtime last month too. As I told my sister, I hate to spend the money on such mundane things, but I am glad that it came when it did. She said the same thing, and she was hoping that she'll be able to use some of it (there should be some retroactive pay-back once the bill kicks in) to help fix Mommom's grandmother clock that she has.