Meet Pumpkin! We brought her home June 29th, 2012. She is a beige berkshire. She fits right in my hand at the moment, she's so tiny. She's extremely brave and playful for a baby rat. She met some of her sisters on the bed, (they are all 3x's her size at the moment, lol) and she was chasing them all around the bed. :-)


 

We had an awful heat wave for a few days this week. The temps were in the upper 90's but it felt even hotter than that (104, 110!) Not fun.


I haven't been up to much besides working, etc. Tomorrow we are taking my Dad out for a belated Father's Day Lunch to Longhorn Steak House.

I'm still using Sally Hansen Salon Effects. I love them. They always last about 2 weeks with a clear coat on top of them. They start to grow out and chip by the 3rd week. There were a few from the new Avril Lavigne collection I really wanted, but had a hard time tracking down. I ended up getting them on eBay.

My favorites from that collection: 'You're A Star',


And 'Crowd Surfer', which is what I have on my nails right now!

My Mom makes a version of this with broccoli, carrots and sometimes cheese tortellini. You can pretty much add whatever ingredients you want. It's a great dish for a hot summer day. It tastes even better once it sits overnight.

Easy Summer Pasta:

• 1 box Tri-color pasta, cooked and drained.
• 1 small package of inexpensive ham lunch meat, sliced into cubes. 
• 1-2 cups cubed cheese. I used colby & extra sharp white. (I bought the bricks & cubed the cheese myself).
• 1 container of baby tomatoes. (I always halve my baby tomatoes).
• 1 small onion, diced.
• 1 can of mushrooms, drained.
• 1 small bottle of Italian Dressing.
• Parmesan cheese in a jar. 
• Salt & Pepper to taste.

Directions:

After combining all of your ingredients in a large bowl, coat pasta salad with a small bottle of Italian dressing. (As much or as little as you like. If it sits in the fridge overnight the pasta absorbs the dressing, so you may need more dressing before serving). Shake a good amount of Parmesan cheese on top of the salad and a few dashes of salt & pepper. Stir until everything is coated. Serve cold. Makes enough for leftovers.

I hate the original Croc's. I think they are so ugly! My Dad bought a pair of knock off Croc's and he wears them in public, lol. In the Philippines when my husband and I would walk past the Croc's store I would cringe.

But.... lately, I've been having some foot issues. My left heel has been bothering me for awhile. I have really high arches and I think it may be plantar fasciitis. I also get a lot of charley horse cramps in my calves. I do a lot of walking with commuting to work and this year with these new aches & pains my Havaiana's flip flops just aren't doing it. And I cannot wear sneakers or shoes in warm weather, I just can't!

So I looked online and did a little research and discovered... Croc's has some really cute style's now. They even sell high heels! All of the reviews say their shoes are really comfortable. So I gave in and went to the Croc's side. I ordered the Adrina Flip Flop. In Aqua/Celery. I got them on Zappos.com.


I've been wearing them for almost a month and they are so comfortable. Plus I love the tread on the bottom of them, it's more like sneaker tread. I've noticed the pain in my left heel has decreased significantly even though it hasn't disappeared.


I just ordered another pair of the Adrina Flip flops on Amazon.com today. I got the Magenta/Purple ones. Can't wait to get them, I really do love them!


(I do use Amazon Associates, but not because I've made any money- because I haven't! lol! But I like that I can show a picture/link with a product when I'm blogging. Plus I do recommend Amazon.com for their low prices. That or Ebay!)  


 

My brother has reviewed a few Philippine food products I've given him on YouTube! :-)

Chocnut:


Salted Duck Eggs:




Phil-Am Foods

Philippine Snack Foods

Foreign Food Cravings

Taste Testing (Asian Aisle)

 

I thought I would attempt to make this Rosemary & Olive oil bread recipe I found on Pinterest, since I've mastered making homemade pizza crust. Bread & I didn't used to get along, I was always too impatient for it to rise, lol. This is a more hearty dinner bread, it would be great with spaghetti! The recipe calls for bread flour, but I made mine with self rising white & wheat flour and it turned out fine.

I whipped up some garlic butter to put on top of the fresh sliced bread.  I mashed up half a stick of butter with some fresh chopped garlic- (I buy the kind in a jar), and a little salt all mixed together.




We had my parents over for dinner last night for a belated Mother's Day dinner. I cooked bacon wrapped chicken, sliced yellow squash & mushrooms and  Stouffer's macaroni and cheese.

Here's the table all set! :-)

We had a little extra money this past paycheck. So I got to order some Scentsy stuff from my cousin Chrissy. And we ordered some more Philippine goodies from Phil-Am Food again. Yay!

This time I ordered some frozen items to try. It's $8.99 extra for them to ship frozen food to you, but it comes in a Styrofoam cooler with ice packs shipped in a regular box. And everything was still frozen when it arrived. (It only took about 1 day to be delivered to us from New Jersey to Philadelphia, even with regular shipping).


Our loot: Snack foods, soups, canned quail eggs, sauce & seasoning mixes, pancit noodles, etc, etc, etc!!!


Vaseline shampoo is the best! I also love this purple Palm Olive shampoo. It has coconut oil in it. It leaves my hair really soft & shiny.

The Vaseline soap I wanted to try. Icy Cool sounded neat- but it was disappointing. It just smells like... soap, lol. Like Ivory soap or something. Nothing special. I thought maybe it would have eucalyptus or menthol or mint in it...

The frozen goodies! Pork siopao, Pork Tocino & Lumpia! (Lumpia is like a skinny spring roll/egg roll). 


For dinner on Tuesday we had Knorr corn & bacon soup. (We usually get corn & crab- I ordered some of those too, hehe!) And we tried the frozen siopao. They were amazing! You steam them wrapped in a damp paper towel in the microwave for about 2 minutes each. They were pretty large. The bun had a really nice sweet taste and the meat inside had actual pork chunks & the sauce was savory. We definitely would order the siopao again!


We had the pork tocino tonight for dinner. We had a 'Pinoy' breakfast, as my husband said. I cooked up the pork tocino, and we had it with fried eggs & rice. The pork tocino was really good.


And because I always like trying new stuff. I ordered these seaweed chips. They are made in Thailand.They were more poofy than crispy. But still really good. The flavor is salty & a bit fishy, it reminds me of sushi in that way. The seaweed itself reminds me of spinach.





Phil-Am Foods

Philippine Snack Foods

Foreign Food Cravings

Taste Testing (Asian Aisle)

This past Saturday my husband & I had half price Starbucks Frappucino's, for their special happy hour which ended on 5/13.


 

My Templeton rat is sooo affectionate! He loves giving kisses and grooming me. I got some cute picture of him today grooming me while laying on his back, he was so relaxed. I've never had such an affectionate male rat.


 

Thank you Shannon for the tip! :-) My new area rug for under our coffee table! I love it. I went with the smaller $29.99 one. We have a Target right around the corner from our apartment and this was the last one. They also have a larger version for $69.99.



Also can't beat a cute, less than $2.00 clearance creamer cow! He's sitting on top of my microwave. :-)


 

I love picking up stuff for our apartment to decorate. I visited Pier 1 Imports this past Friday. I saw this Elephant Teapot on their website before and it was 20% off in the store. It was just $12. I'm using it more for decor than for drinking tea though, hehe. It's currently sitting on one of my living room tables. I love it!


I also got some new dishes from... Dollar Tree! I saw these on their website, (but not wanting to buy in bulk- 24 bowls would be a bit excessive...) My husband checked a few of the Dollar Trees around us and was able to find the plates & bowls. Can't seem to find the matching mugs at any of the stores near us, but oh well. They are really pretty dishes and only $1 each!


Another Pier 1 Imports find. They had these large turquoise plastic tumblers (23 oz.) for $6 each. I thought the color would go well with the above dishes. They are made with a heavy durable plastic.



Other things on my to do list:

• Find a cute kitchen mat for in front of the sink. 
• Find dining chair covers or cushions (white, black or aqua).  
• Keep bidding on vintage/antique salt & pepper shakers on ebay until I win a set, lol.