Survived it!

I made it through turning 40 just fine!  This cheery little surprise helped.  It goes to show we rarely have fresh flowers in the house, Cameron has been stopping by the coffee table to smell the roses quite frequently:

My day was quite busy!  I began the day with 40 minutes and 40 seconds on the exercise bike.  It's a good thing too, because the rest of the day was spent eating!  My mom came for the day and took Cameron and I out for lunch.  Then we had ice cream cake in the afternoon when my cousin and aunt stopped by:

Trevor and Cameron took me out for supper and of course that was followed by more cake (I should have left the little plastic decorations and streamers on for the picture):

Now, unfortunately I did prove that I have to work on not getting stressed out so easily.  Trevor arranged for a very thoughtful gift for my birthday and I think the knots in my stomach developed within seconds.  He hired a cleaning service to come in and do a thorough cleaning of the house next week.  While I agree this would be awesome, it really requires a lot of work on my part first!!

Yes, I have to 'clean' for the cleaners (this boggles Trevor's mind).  In order to have an effective house cleaning done by an outside party, I need to take care of little odds and ends everywhere so that they don't have to continually move stuff out of the way.  I want to do a lot more decluttering before something like that takes place and it's a lot more effort than I can handle in a single weekend when I need to pack and do other things.

So, we have rescheduled for February (at the earliest).  Hopefully I'll be able to get things in order by then (although I think that's quite an optimistic/aggressive time frame).  I had anticipated the process taking 2-3 months so that I don't feel that I'm spending every free moment sorting and tossing.  We shall see.  It will be nice to get everything done and then have the house cleaned!

Food!!

I've signed up for the summer/fall fruit and veggie farm boxes!  We picked up our box yesterday and it was another winner.  Although, we have to start finding ways to use all the potatoes.  While I like potatoes, I enjoy rice and pasta more.  I think I'll use some time this morning surfing recipe sites.

Spaghetti Squash Pasta
I've only prepared spaghetti squash a few times.  This week, I think I've found a favourite way for us to enjoy this veggie.  I cut two smallish squash in half, dug out the seeds and roasted them in the oven.  I think I gave them more cooking time than I have in the past and it was so much easier to shred the squash.  Then I mixed in some feta cheese with the shredded squash:

On the stove, I cooked some real pasta and also prepared a sauce:

Then we combined everything and it was fantastic!  It's a huge calorie saver to replace a lot of the pasta with spaghetti squash:

In the sauce:

• onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• several stalks of celery
• a can of diced tomatoes
• half a jar of spaghetti sauce (since it was a leftover in the fridge)
• a small regular squash (baked in the oven and then cut into bite-size pieces)
• several cups of fresh baby spinach
• (Normally I would add mushrooms but I was saving them for a stir-fry.)

Sautee the onion, garlic and celery in a bit of olive oil until onions are translucent.  Add tomatoes and sauce, simmer and stir occasionally.  Add the squash and spinach, allowing enough time for the spinach to cook into the sauce.

Yum. 

Off to search for potato recipes!