Budget time of year again...

All of this talk about national budgets and national debt has re-inspired Tim and I to focus more on our budget again. For the first few months that we lived together, Tim and I were very good about keeping track of all of our spending and logging it into an Exel Spreadsheet. We definitely fell off the wagon after Christmas though.

With the wedding out of the way and talk of house hunting in the future, we realized that we needed to get our own debt and budget under control again. When I say get our debt under control, I do not mean to say that we are drowning in credit card debt or anything of that nature. However, I did have quite a bit in student loans. For you nosy folks out there - I am not going to be putting exact numbers in here (I'm not one for sharing). We already have our debt under control - over half of my student loans have been paid off and the remainder will be paid off by July of 2013. The only other debt we are dealing with is a car payment that will also be finished in October of 2013.

Tonight I finished up the new Excel spreadsheet to figure out where all of our income goes every month and where we should be able to cut.  Tim and I tend to over spend in entertainment (on video games, movies, books, etc) and on dining out (which we do on average 2 times a week, if not more). In order to get this in check, we will use a cash and envelope system for both dining out and for entertainment expenditures. At the beginning of each month we will place $100 dollars in 2 envelopes and that will be the money we can spend in each of those categories. Once it is gone, then it is gone. Whatever we do not spend can either be put back into savings or rolled over into the next month.

With the cut backs we should still be able to save some each month, and theoretically by the end of the next twelve months we will have enough put away for a down payment on a house! AAAAHHHH that is exciting stuff!

So, there it is the Hanson Budget plan :)

(P.S. we finally finished painting the trim in the bathroom :)

Fall Food Frenzy!!!

We are 3 months into Happily Ever After, and Tim and I have made some pretty exciting decisions.
First of all, we are starting to look at real estate in Byron :)
Second, Tim is going start his English Masters classes at NIU in the Spring. Yay for moving forward!

All that said, I've been obsessed with fall foods this weekend!
I started my day yesterday with a Pumpkin Spice Latte (yum yum yum), then my mom and I went up to Madison for the Farmer's Market and to do some shopping.
I bought butternut squash and acorn squash, so when I got home I made a loaf of butternut squash bread (recipe featured below - an original one this time :)
I am going to make some Butternut and Acorn Squash soup later this week (I'll post pictures and the recipe once I make it).
 Mom and I also went to Penzey's Spices in Madison (great store) and stocked up on some spices. I found a recipe in their catalog for a Fall Food Skillet, which I made tonight - totally awesome!

 (this is without brussels sprouts, gross.)

Chicken, Sweet Potato, and Apple Skillet

2 lbs boneless skinless Chicken breast, cut into cubes

1/2 tsp Poultry Seasoning

1/2 tsp Penzey's Mural of Flavor (combination of spices with citrus, garlic, and shallots)

8 tsp. olive oil, divided

6 slices bacon, cut into small pieces

3 cups Brussels Sprouts

2 medium sweet potatoes, microwaved or boiled for 4 minutes, then peeled and cubed

2 Golden Delicious apples, cored, peeled, and diced

8 cloves of garlic, diced (or 1.5 tsp Minced Garlic)

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp cinnamon sugar

1/2 tsp Penzey's Northwoods Seasoning

2 cups chicken broth

Season the chicken with poultry seasoning and Mural of Flavor. Heat half of the oil in a large, deep, nonstick skillet. Add the chicken and cook over medium heat until lightly browned and cooked through, about 5-7 minutes. Remove the chicken and transfer to a plate.

Put the remaining oild in the skillet, add the bacon and cook until it starts to brown, about 3 minutes. Add the Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes. Cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp, about 5-7 minutes.  

Add the apples, garlic, cinnamon, cinnamon sugar, Northwoods Seasoning. Stir well and cook about 3 minutes.  

Add half the chicken broth and cook until almost evaporated, about 2 minutes. Return the reserved chicken to the skillet and add the remainder of the broth.

Cook for 2 more minutes and serve. 

Butternut Squash Bread

1 1/2 Eggs

1 Cup Sugar

1/2 Cup Oil

1 Cup Pureed Butternut Squash

1 1/2 Cups Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Ginger

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Beat eggs, sugar and oil together

Add squash and stir together

Sift in dry ingredients and stir well

Add vanilla and stir well

Pour into well greased bread pan

Bake at 325 degrees for about an hour

There you have it - the Fall Food Frenzy. Be prepared for more to come as this is my favorite time of year, not just because of the weather, but because of all of the great squash, sweet potato, apple, and pumpkin foods to eat!

Home Improvement – I’ve been watching too much HGTV

I have been lax in my posting lately (surprise surprise), but that is only because I’ve been working on a HUGE project.  Over Labor Day weekend, Tim and I painted our bathroom and the columns in our living room – they both look fabulous!
I learned some valuable lessons from painting.

1.   Patience is a virtue
2.  Reward yourself
3. Plan for extra coats
4. Use a roller whenever possible
5.  If there is a bubble in the preexisting paint – Leave it Alone!
6. Tape extra wide on the ceiling

After we finished our monumental task on Sunday evening we ordered a delicious and well-deserved pizza (even if we still had more work to do on Monday). We still have to finish the trim and touch up some spots, but the bulk of the work is done.


I also learned that if Tim and I can work together and not get frustrated painting in such a small space then we can certainly handle just about any home improvement task you can throw our way! We’re awesome!


In other exciting news, I got to see one of my best friends whom I haven’t seen since the end of 2010 this week (she lives in North Dakota…) so that was also awesome. And we won some serious cash at Mystique Casino in Dubuque, IA on Saturday with Tim’s family (and by serious, I mean like $10). We bet on the dog races, and played some slots, and a couple rounds of roulette – awesome, had a wonderful dinner in Galena – awesome, and watched Citizen Kane – awesome? 

I was going to post pictures, but they are on Tim's phone and I keep forgetting to ask... sorry folks.

Holy Blog, Batman! Two Whole Months!

Ok, so I'm a couple days late posting this - but, whatever. Tim and I have been married two whole months - and it will be two whole decades before we know it! I am happy to say that I am as ecstatic to be married as I was the day I said "I do" :)

It has just been a crazy, fun-filled week!

I've been cleaning and organizing and cooking up a storm.

I bought a cube storage from Target (put together all by myself - aaaand it is still standing thank you). 

 My computer won't let me rotate the image....

I finally tackled the garbage bags full of clothing that were taking over the bedroom floor (sorry, no picture for that)

I made no-bake energy balls (thanks Pinterest),

 meringues, 

 These are a great way to use leftover egg whites!

and I improved my creme brulee recipe! 

Sorry, I'm not posting my super fabulous recipe online...yet...

So, that was pretty much my week in a nutshell. Tim is back in the swing of things at school - and very excited to have a student teacher so he has more time to write :) and Sabrina is just causing trouble as usual.

I'm also reading some fiery books at the moment

Well, until next time....

Putting Our Life in Order

So, there are a few of you devoted readers who may know that neither Tim nor I are very organized... Ok, that may be an understatement - our apartment is about as chaotic as you could imagine.  I like to think it is because we have our priorities straight - we would rather spend time with each other than clean :).

Unfortunately, this strategy is beginning to wear on my sanity. Maybe it is because I grew up with a notorious neat freak (sorry, Mom), but I'm just not used to living in the wake of a tornado.

So, I have come up with a plan, and that plan is to clean and organize the apartment and keep it that way.

Simple, right?  Apparently not.

The more I think about it, the more daunting this task is. So, I'm going to try to tackle it room by room.

Step One: The Bedroom

• Purge the closets - we have more clothes than any two twenty somethings should ever have.
• Put away all of the dirty and clean clothes and get them off the floor (and keep them off!)
• Finish my new DIY jewelry organizer
• Decorate the walls - we have a few posters we want to get and frame
• Put up a couple shelves for odds and ends
• Get the floor cleared off enough to vaccuum...
• ...Vaccuum the floor

Step Two:  The Bathroom

• Find an old CD tower to repurpose and hang on the wall for organizing skin care products, etc.
• Get some shelves for the wall nook by the shower for spare towels
• Paint the bathroom (we have to get permission from the super first...)

Step Three:  The Kitchen

• Finish unpacking the new china from the wedding
• Wash all of the new china
• Clean out the spice cabinet
• Get a binder with plastic sleeves for all of my recipes
• Reorganize the tops of the cabinets

Step Four:  The Living Room

• Get another end table
• Get a silk plant for atop the end table
• Sort through and throw away the stuff behind the couches
• Clean out the entryway closets and make use of our storage locker
• Clean out the desk
• Get all the stuff off of the dining chairs

Whew... That is the master list. I suppose we will have to tackle it one weekend at a time - my goal being to finish it all before Speech season starts. We have until the second weekend in November then.

I'll start with the bedroom this weekend :)

Hopefully each time I post I will have finished  a new task and will have found some fun tip or DIY project to post as well.

Whats in a Name...Change

That which we call a rose would still smell as sweet, yeah yeah yeah. Romeo's last name may not have mattered to Juliet, but it does matter to my husband.  Originally I was just going to hyphenate my name (idea planted by my husband's sister :)) but Tim wanted us to have the same last name so we really felt like a family. He was even ready to take my last name. It turns out my last name was more important to him than it was to me, so I decided to change it (but only if he agreed to wear his wedding band - compromise is a beautiful thing).

So, as of yesterday, everything is official. I finally have all my new cards and IDs (not my passport - I'll deal with that when I need to).  I thought that to change everything was going to be much more complicated than it actually was, but it ended up being relatively simple. Just follow these simple steps.


How to Change Your Name - the Five Step Process
Step One:  get your marriage license - the original, not the certified copy (Social Security Office only takes the original, and order a couple certified copies for posterity's sake
Step Two:  make a list of all the institutions/companies you need to change your name with (for example: Social Security Office, DMV, Bank, Credit Card Company, Student Loans, Netflix, HR at work, etc.) and find out what you will need to provide to each to make the change.
Step Three:  Go to the Social Security Office first then the DMV, you will probably need the new license for the bank and HR at work.
Step Four:  Get to the Social Security Office and the DMV EARLY, unless you want to wait until Death Do You Part.
Step Five:  Once everyone is notified of all the changes you are set :) You can order new checks and cards and all that fun stuff.

So I would, were I not Greenlee call'd,
Retain that dear perfection (Shakespeare said it - not me) which I owe
Without that title.

One Month of the Married Life

Although this post is nearly a week late - we will just pretend that I didn't procrastinate in writing it. Tim and I have been married for a moth now, and holy buckets has it flown by!

We celebrated this momentous occasion in a very fitting manner - we helped my best friend and her wonderful husband celebrate their own marriage! Their wedding was in Valparaiso, Indiana and it was so fun!

Congrats Ben and Elizabeth!

We also celebrated my adorable niece's third birthday this weekend - busy times in the Hanson household!

I've done some major cooking the past two weeks (Tim and I have resolved to cook at home more for the well being of both our bodies and our bank account). Some of the successes include Man Pleasing Chicken (chicken thighs baked in a honey mustard marinade - 1/2 cup Dijon mustard, 1/4 cup maple syrup, and 1 tsp rice wine vinegar), and Gnocchi with Zucchini Ribbons & Parsley Brown Butter (recipe found below courtesy of Eating Well.com)

The 2012 Summer Olympics in London start tomorrow! Tim and I are going to his mom and dad's for the Opening Ceremony - I'm totally psyched! I love the Olympics! My favorite is Swimming (as long as is isn't the 500m Freestyle or the 400m Freestyle Relay), and Gymnastics takes a close second (not that rhythmic gymnastics crap, though).

Gnocchi with Zucchini Ribbons & Parsley Brown Butter

Time: 20-30min

1 pound fresh or frozen gnocchi
2 tablespoons butter
2 medium shallots, chopped
1 pound zucchini (about 3 small), very thinly sliced lengthwise (use vegetable peeler or a mandolin)
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley

1. Bring large saucepan of water to a boil. Cook gnocchi until they float. Drain.
2. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Cook until butter just starts to brown, about 2 minutes. Add shallots and zucchini ribbons and cook, stirring often, until softened (2-3 min). Add tomatoes, salt, nutmeg, and pepper and continue cooking, stirring often, until tomatoes just start to break down (about 1-2 min). Stir in Parmesan and parsley. Add the gnocchi and toss to coat. Serve immediately.

Nutrition information can be found by following the link to the original recipe at EatingWell.com.

Gnocchi with Zucchini Ribbons and Parsley Brown Butter