Laundry - Vacation Edition

Every time we go on vacation, RT volunteers to do laundry.  Now, when I pack for vacation, I always make sure I have enough clothes to last me during my stay.  We don't take extremely long vacations, so, it's pretty easy to pack enough clothes in your bag to bring along.  I make sure all clothes are clean before we leave (who wants to come home after vacation to huge piles of laundry that have been sitting there for a week?).  And, while on vacation, who wants to sit around and do load after load of laundry?

Apparently, my husband.

At least once during every vacation, RT volunteers himself to do laundry.  It's a little weird.  We have only been away for two or three days, how much laundry will we have?  And, why don't we just wear the clean clothes that we packed?  I would rather return with a bag full of dirty clothes and lots of fun memories than a bag of clean clothes and memories of the laundry mat.

But, alas, RT is willing to sacrifice his valuable vacation time to sit and do laundry for everyone.

This makes me think I should pack less clothes so I will be grateful for someone doing laundry.  Or maybe, I should pack more clothes and change my outfit several times a day so I can make sure RT has enough laundry to do.

Either way, he's available for rent.  Let me know times, dates and destinations and we can set you up with your own personal travel launderer.

Vacation and RT's Napkin Stash

I know I have told you about RT's napkin hoarding stash.  He keeps quite a few napkins in the center console of his car.  Whenever he goes somewhere, he grabs a couple more...just in case.  The stash in his car has grown so much that there are a ton of napkins in the back seat, some in the trunk and a few on the passenger seat.

I think he focuses on making sure he has a good napkin stash.  For what?  I'm not sure.  Maybe the apocalypse?

During our vacation, we used quite a few napkins in the car, on hikes and some of our outings.  Even thought we used quite a few during this time, there are still plenty of napkins left.  In fact, it doesn't even look like we used any at all!

I'm sure now that we are back, RT is back to his old ways and is saving more napkins for our next trip or outing.

My Garden

Every year, I plant two gardens.  Why two?  Because our yard isn't set up to have one huge garden.  Maybe my next home.

Each year, I set the gardens up, mixing plants, so I have more companion gardening.

This year, I tried zucchini again.  I think it was last year, where we ended up pulling the entire plant out of the garden because it was growing but not producing anything.  This year, the zucchini is in the other garden (mistake #1) and has grown to the point that it needs its own zip code.  When we returned from vacation, we picked seven zucchinis.  The plant was crowding out some of my pepper plants, so, I trimmed it back.

I've made Zucchini Chocolate Cake, Zucchini Chocolate Chip bread, Zoodles, Zucchini spears (a thumbs down on this one) and cheese zucchini bites (recipe to come soon).  I have a lot of shredded zucchini in the freezer for future use.

It has gotten  to the point that I don't want to set foot in the garden because there will probably be another 5 or 6 zucchinis there waiting to be picked.  I have a serious fear of the zucchini plant.  I mean, I like zucchini, but, after the last month of zucchini in everything, I think I'm cured of it.

If you are in need of zucchini, let me k now.  I can set you up with one or five.

Otherwise, the family will need your prayers during this difficult time to help them get through meal time.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

So, we return from vacation, and my zucchini plant seems to have gone a little crazy.  We picked 7 zucchini's!  I gave away two of them.  Nick made some grilled zucchini with melted cheese and an egg on top (it was pretty good).  I made some zucchini noodles and Zucchini Chocolate Cake.

Since I have so much extra zucchini, I thought I would go in search for a fun zucchini bread to make and bring to the nurses at home that my Mom is staying.  I found this great recipe on ChefSavvy for Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread and made it for the nurses at the home where my Mom is staying.  It turned out to be a big hit!  Check out the pictures and recipe!



Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
Found recipe here


Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup shredded zucchini
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

Oven to 350F
Grease a loaf pan and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix all dry ingredients together and set aside.
In a smaller bowl, mix egg, oil, sugars, yogurt and vanilla.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix.
Add zucchini and chocolate chips and gently mix.
Pour into loaf pan and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Remove from oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes.  Remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

*my recipe shows the reduced amount of sugar that I used (and it still tastes great!)


If you make this Zucchini Bread, let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Short Sheeted

It never fails.  When I make the bed, it's all nice.  Our sheets aren't too tight.  Everything fits just right and won't come loose.  The minute RT lays on the sheets, they start to come up on his side of the bed.  Sometimes it's so bad that even the mattress cover comes up with it.

I have no idea what he does that makes this happen.  I sleep in the same bed and this never happens to me.

On vacation, in one of the hotels, RT was laying in bed and I could see that the sheets were starting to come up.  All of a sudden, RT gets up, pulls the covers off and is trying to fix the sheet.  Once he gets a corner down, another corner pops up.  Of course, Bella and I  couldn't stop laughing  found this quite amusing.

RT did finally secure all four sides (with my help).  By morning the sides were all up and ready to swallow him up.

I might have to invest in some type of clips that go underneath the matters and clip onto the sheets.

Or, just let the sheets swallow him up.

"Everything Smells like a Fart"

Another one of RT's famous quotes.  It goes along with, "The whole town smells like a fart."

We stayed one night in a town in Colorado.  We stayed in this town the last time we visited Colorado, so, I remembered that after dinner, there was an awful odor in the town.  This time, when we went to eat dinner, RT and Bella wanted to sit outside and I had to put my food down and make everyone eat indoors.  When we sat at the table, I explained my reason, and they agreed that I made the right decision.

After dinner, we walked around the festival that was in front of the restaurant.  We then walked a little and ended up inside a store.  When leaving the store, Bella turned to me and made a face.  I thought someone must have changed a dirty diaper and put it into the garbage in front of the store.  Unfortunately, that smell carried its way through the town and followed us to our car.  We made it safely to our room (that, luckily, did not have that smell) and then RT made his comments.

I'm not sure how people live here with that smell.  Maybe you get used to it after awhile?

On our drive back home, we were debating on where to stay.  Bella said, "I'll stay anywhere except Fort Morgan."

Guess where we ended up staying?

I believe it will probably be our last visit there.  We experienced a "high volume" of smell 
(in other words, I almost threw up) the morning that we left. 

My Weird Dog

Pippen has taken to sleeping in our room.  At first he would barge in at midnight (or later).  By barge in, I mean, he opens the door using his nose and he isn't quiet about it and leaves our door wide open so we can hear when the kids get up in the middle of the night.  Now, he comes into our room as we are getting into bed.

I put a small carpet on RT's side of the bed.  Normally, he sleeps on my side (on the floor).  Since the placement of the new carpet, he has made his way to RT's side.

We are leaving on vacation soon and I'm wondering where he will sleep.  He's used to sleeping with us in our room.  I warned the boys that they might have a nightly visitor, especially if there is a thunderstorm.

We shall see what happens...