Product Preview: The PC Quick Slice

I thought about titling this a "product review" and then thought about calling it a "product practice" but that doesn't quite fit either. This is more a preview than anything else.

At the monthly team meeting (a short two days after I signed up to be a Pampered Chef consultant) our director raffled off one of the new products from the Spring Catalog and I won! This product is not yet available for ordering. New products should be on the site March 1st (but contact me if you want to get new stuff ordered before then and we can book a party!). By the by, if you're so inclined I totally suggest you peruse the Outlet for items that are being discontinued.

Back to the awesome freebie I won! The Quick Slice (link takes you to a short product video)

Tonight was the first opportunity I had to use it. I made teriyaki chicken with bell peppers and thought I would bust it out and give it a whirl.


It's definitely got some nice weight to it and feels very sturdy. Look at those blades; sharp and slightly serrated with the graduated V formation on the downward. It is my experience that this structure seems to make "starting" the slicing super freaking easy.

I kind of did some trial and error practice with it to put me through my paces and feel comfortable using it... I wish I had more to slice tonight. Seriously, it is a fun tool.

First I tried with the pieces of pepper skin up and slightly stacked.The Quick Slice worked well and made gorgeous even slices. The only "issue" I experienced was a piece of the pepper was a little off the mark, but that didn't stop this puppy from slicing it up. 

Second attempt, I put the pepper on skin side down and the blades cut through it like butter (I so hope you read that in a southern accent like, "buttah").

Both methods left me with perfect, even, beautiful strips of bell pepper deliciousness. 

Once all done, I gave it a quick rinse and placed it in the top rack of my dishwasher.

As someone who is big on food prep, I am just beginning to fantasize about all the things this bad boy will be able to help me do. I'm not giving up my knives, but I must admit this sucker is going to come in handy on the days my hands just aren't working. In this moment I am fdrooling about greek salad with sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, oh, and caprese salad.... Mmmm... 

So that's it. That's my first experience with the Pampered Chef Quick Slice. A super handy gadget to have around for so many reasons (I am barely scratching the surface of possibilities). The only thing I wish it did that it doesn't: Potatoes. Those starchy bastards are just too thick. And it's just as well as they are carb laden and we are trying to limit those... Hahaha. 

Feel free to visit my page and peruse the catalog. Message me if you want to host a party; virtual or in the flesh. 

Next post (unless my kit arrives) eye ball update!

Flash Flooding My Mind

In my last post I shared my decision to start hobby-ing (not work at all!) with #PamperedChef. Now my mind is flooded with ideas about party themes, people I want to reach out to about hosting a super fun cooking party and who might want to host an online party. Fair warning, there is a good chance you might hear from me in the next week.

Keep in mind, I won't spam you, hound you or otherwise make you want to block me. I will present fun ideas for getting a group of people together and help teach people how to make delicious, healthy meals at home. All I would ask in return is that you allow me fifteen minutes to share some fun tools and gadgets with you and your friends.

The gift ideas that I have started mentally compiling for the holidays are endless! There are literally gadgets for everyone and anyone regardless of skill level. And, oh my goodness, the new products they are releasing in March?! CRA-mazing!

The following is just a snippet of awesome party ideas that YOU could host. I'd be there to plan, teach and demonstrate.

Cheese and Chocolate
Couples Cooking Class
Fun Family Treats
Grill Parties (HELLO, SUMMER!)
Dude Snacks (snacks for everyone but geared for the daring dudes who want to book a party)

So many others. If any of these sound like a good time to you, shoot me an email or message me on Facebook. If you'd like to dip a toe before you step into the kiddie pool of hosting, feel free to peruse my personal page by clicking here. Take a moment to read My Story about one of the many reasons I decided to do this.

I promise never to push, maybe just a nudge here and there. I will be marketing myself though, so bear with me if sometimes we get a bit redundant. I hope to keep it fresh and share my experiences with these amazing products.

Next post I share the fun new gadget I won in a raffle at the Spring Launch party.

ADVENTURE!!!

The last ten days have been a whirlwind of life and death.

Shortly after midnight on the morning of the 22^nd, Collin’s amazing, strong, wise, wonderful, beautiful grandma passed away. She was made as comfortable as anyone can be. I mean, how do you gauge that?

That made for a rough Friday. The way we tend to grieve is not super healthy. There was copious amounts of unhealthy food and alcohol and tears.

The following day I had class. An hour in my body began to ache and I thought I was going to become a popsicle. I knew this didn’t bode well but pushed through the class. I pray I didn’t infect any of my class mates… Once I got home I went to bed and slept for a few hours, got up for a couple and then slept for another eleven. I am fairly certain I had the flu or a flu like bug. Thankfully we are pretty certain the rest of the house dodged it.

By Wednesday I was able to survive a whole day at work, but throughout the five days from Grams’ passing until then I had three mild symptomatic occurrences in my stupid right eye. I will be going in for a consult with my corneal specialist in the next couple weeks. Might be time for the polishing procedure.

Friday arrived and I was utterly hopeful for a much need dose of positive.

My neighbor invited me last minute to a Pampered Chef party that night (she invited me on Wednesday). It was a blast. I got some awesome new kitchen stuff that I can’t wait for it to arrive.

Keeping with my goal for 2016 and my 31^st year, this party pushed me to do something I have been considering trying for a while. Some of you may remember last year when I was considering doing some direct sales for some products I had tried and loved. I ended up not doing it for a few different reasons. It was like a part of me knew that there was something that is so much more intrinsically me.

I took a few moments to talk to the consultant who was running the party. I listened to why she worked with Pampered Chef and how she feels about the products. I looked at the consultant agreement and all the support that they have and I decided to take the plunge and become a consultant myself.

For me, this was a simple choice. I am big on homemade food and I think everyone and anyone can be an excellent cook in their own home. Making healthy foods at home is a big contributor to my successful weight loss. I also love indulging in fresh baked goods from time to time, and I love the taste of homemade so much better than any store bakery.

I feel I need to note here, this decision was not made lightly. It wasn’t an impulse buy, or irrational splurge. I have vacillated over doing something like this for months, and thanks to my awesome neighbor inviting me over this opportunity all but punched me in the face. It also must be noted that I have 100% support from my husband. That in and of itself means the world to me and just pushes me all the more to succeed in this.

And I will.

I will be awesome!

So look for updates from me and don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you would like to host a party.  

I Do Things With My Hands For Money

Better than my mouth like some people. I mean I use my mouth too, but my hands are typically more critical for the international customer base.

I communicate.

The past few days have been spent quietly journal-ing and writing and re-writing lists and thoughts and answers and questions. Non-digital writing. Whodathunkit, eh?

I have been mostly abstaining from digital media for the weekend other than my precious Kindle app. I needed to have some introspection and internal reflection. Removing the pull of other people's bullshit really allowed me to find peace with some of the many things that have been looping through my mind like a skipping CD.

I am still trying to figure out what my next step will be in my career path, but in the same breath, whatever it is I don't intend on taking it for a couple years. With exception of course, but there are always some.

The main thing I am focused on for this year is kicking ass and taking names. I am working on being the best strongest me I have been so far as I skip past my thirty first birthday at the end of this month. As I did with my thirtieth birthday, I am planning to embrace my thirty first with all the energy and passion of two twenty somethings rounding second. First step? You shall see on my birthday.

First "hardcore" thing I did this year? I ate half a boneless wing smothered with mother fucking ghost pepper sauce. Holy shit, did it burn? Oh hell, yes it did. I imagine that is what it feels like to swallow fire and brimstone. Devil ain't got shit on me.

This is me presenting the wing:

This is me, full of terror, taking a bite of said hell fire wing:

This is me, fanning myself, in a futile attempt to relieve the intense burning in my mouth and spreading throughout my body after I swallowed:

It was mildly traumatizing and I would do it again in a heartbeat just for the simple bit of life experience it provided.

After this week, filled with loss, both personal and that felt by the world, I think this is something we all need to remember. You've only got one chance. Take it. Do everything and anything you can (within reason).

Enjoy every moment. I'll try to share mine with you, maybe they will inspire you.

Tomorrow morning I will be out and running in the wee hours as normal. Hopefully it is enough to carry me through a morning of back to back to back meetings.

Two Little Letters

N

O

They are currently a buzz word in our household. The wee one, in her effort to flex her maturity and independence, has been using it in excess. In some cases, yelling it at others; us, her teachers, her friends and even the poor old cat.

Some times her use is warranted. If the cat is clawing at something, or if one of her classmates is hitting, but let's face it, 80% of the time she is being a toddler.

If this and the nuclear meltdowns are the terrible twos, I think we will survive.

In order to be adaptive parents and work on working through the major developmental explosion that occurs at this age (part of the reason they are such little shits) we are committing ourselves to the state hospital.

Bad joke.

We are going to lead by example and we are committing ourselves to not using the word "no" unless absolutely necessary, and preferably in the form of "no, thank you." The first evening has been a challenge.

You really don't think about how often you utilize such a small and simple word to convey so much until you force yourself to stop. It reminds me of a paper I had to write in high school. I believe it was a narrative piece where we were not allowed the use of the word "I" or maybe it was an expressive piece with no "and," or maybe we did both in separate instances... I can't recall for certain, but I remember the immense difficulty trying to stumble through the writing process without one of the most basic words in the English language.

The worst part, I honestly don't believe she fully understands what the word means when she uses it sometimes. She'll say, "No, don't want to eat mac'n'cheese." Then promptly gobble it all down.... Makes me contemplate if she is just trying to be contrary to be contrary.

Heaven help us when the teen years get here. It'll be great or it will be the terrible twos all over again.

At work today I had a really scary moment; whilst pulling invoices from the system I became insanely dizzy. To the point even using a focal point was questionable. I sat there for about five minutes trying to deep breathe and it barely began to fade away. Considering how it left me feeling and how I still feel, I am confident it was tied to a sudden pressure change in my ears.

I was prone to ear infections as a child and have actually had a couple in the last several years as an adult. I am currently, like as I type this, feeling a not so lovely pressure in my right ear.

All in all it was unpleasant. Trying to message Collin was a challenge because even watching my fingers type was enough to make me want to pass out. Reading his responses was even more fun. Luckily, it abated and by the time the day was ending I was mostly okay. The only remnant other than the pressure in my ear is a bone weary sense of exhaustion, almost like one would have after fighting off a fever.

Since the little one decided she needed to go night night at a quarter to seven, I am inclined to follow her lead after an episode of Jessica Jones (Netflix) or Gate (Crunchyroll).

I just finished the series "Charlotte" on Crunchyroll; I must say a very interesting little anime. If you are into the idea of supernatural abilities that onset at puberty and disappear at the end of adolescence and scientist trying to exploit this and so on, you might want to peruse it. Crunchyroll is a free streaming service (with the option for subscription). Most shows are not dubbed, but that is the way to watch them in my opinion.

And now I realize I was letting my nerd flag fly pretty big there... Oh well. I am what I am.

Next time I will try to finally go over the nerdgasmic previews we saw when we went to Star Wars, and also my experience dealing with some serious heat.

Difference, Discord, Dispute, Duel, Death

This is the revised Conflict Continuum as defined in my in my most recent leadership class.

We, the students, added the final two Ds. We all have an excellent sense of humor.

At work I have been focused on writing more and more process documentation. It has been sapping my free time writing energy, but I am going to try and make an effort to balance the work writing and the fun writing. The biggest struggle I find with the process documentation writing is that I really have to limit myself. There are so many known exceptions to each and everything we do in my department it is hard not to note each and every one... I could probably write addendum's to 70% of the actual process documents just for known exceptions..

This weekend has been amazing and wonderful including my class Saturday morning. The class is every other weekend until mid May. It's slated for five hours a session, but we made it out in four this time.

Following my super fun class I came home for a light lunch while the mini me napped. She awoke from her nap just as her aunt arrived to spend the afternoon/evening with her so Collin and I could go on a much needed DATE.

Yes, we went on a date, outside of the house, together, without the child. We've only done that a couple times so it is truly special to us. We regularly have date nights at home where we pick an activity (B-D movies, cards, Minecraft, etc.). We're homebodies so this is sufficient for us. The whole point is to enjoy each other's company, right?

For this year, or at least the first part of it, we are going to put the effort into going out on monthly dates as our sitter's schedule allows. We recognize when we make a hopeful addition to the family in the future, it may get even more difficult to plan for these kind of outings. I'll share the dates we go on, but they will mostly be movies, I think.

That's what this one was.

We went to see Star Wars.

It.

Was.

MINDBLOWINGLYAMAZEBALLS.

And that is all I will say on it. I know others are yet to see it, and I am blessed enough to have wonderful humans around me that did not spoil it for me. To continue carrying the torch, I shall not provide any commentary on it.

I can't wait for the next one.

The theater was awesome too. Recliner seats... So comfy. Even with my jacked up tailbone it only hurt about fifty percent of the time. The main reason it hurt is because it's difficult to adjust my position without potentially being in someone's way or disrupting their movie watching experience. I should have brought a pillow or something.

Once the motion picture ended we made our way to a little Scottish pub that is across town from the theater. They were slammed being that it was 6pm on a Saturday night. We ended up at the bar where Collin had a Sam'l Smith's Organic Cherry Ale.... Oh my goodness. It was scrumptious. I skipped the booze and stuck to water and the sip from his ale. By the time an actual table was available our food had arrived, so we just opted to stay at the bar rather than move the plates and glasses and such.

We shared a chicken curry pasty, sausage rolls (so going to follow our mate's advise and try my hand at making them at home; should be fairly simple), and a plate of bangers and mash. It was superbly delicious.

We finished the evening off by picking up some frozen yogurt and heading home just in time to put the little one to bed. Our movie started at 3:20; we aren't to big on the late nights since 90% of the time we are up by 5-5:30am.

Today started with a sky filled with stars. For the first time since the snow last week I was able to get in an honest to goodness run. When we woke up I looked at my phone and it informed me it was clear and just above freezing. I pulled on my gear before it could change, did my jumping jacks with the little monster and was hitting the pavement and marveling at all the beautiful star sprinkled across the sky.

I need to figure out which planet we can see just before dawn towards the south east horizon. At least my prior experience with the celestial tapestry led me to believe it is a plant based on it's coloring. I have an app for that...

Once I completed my jaunt to the cop shop and back I made breakfast and we took care of the minimal grocery shopping we needed for the upcoming week. A couple of items were on sale so I bought them in triplicate. I know they will be used so why not, eh?

I went to visit my father during the little one's nap time today. It was a great visit. He is expected to be released from the physical rehab place by the end of the month. He can walk pretty well with a walker now. It's great to see him healing. Even though his plans after he is done at the rehab place don't align with what I feel is best for his longevity, I am still glad to see how quickly he has recovered. I shared pictures of the little one's first time playing in the snow and we chatted about work and school. It will be hard when he leaves there and returns to, well, what it is he intends to return to. It's not my place, he is an adult.

That is my biggest personal growth opportunity for this year:

I need to focus on what is best for my health and the health of my family. I need to not exert my energy on those that do not want my help. I will always be here for those that need it and can be happy with what I offer, but I will not allow people to use me again and again to further a debilitating or unhealthy lifestyle. I just don't have the resources to do it anymore- mentally, emotionally or physically.

I shall leave you on that sobering thought for the night.

Maybe I should buy a Powerball ticket tomorrow... I could fix a lot with that kind of money.

Yea, Why?

Frozen is playing in the background. The wee one has been feeling the effects of her two year molars finally grinding their way into place. Low grade temperature and touchy emo attitude. Sunshine in rainbows to nuclear apocalypse in five seconds over the best things. Her trying to go take her jacket off and I kiss her forehead on the way. On the floor. Luckily not wailing. Toddlers are such amazing and weird little creatures.

Yesterday was a trial, and not because of the emo kid. I had a follow up eye appointment, managed to be at work for about two hours before the daycare called for her to be picked up because of the temperature; not at the mandatory go home threshold but her behavior was indicative of potential other symptoms on their way. Thankfully, other than a lack of appetite in the extreme and being tired, she never had any other symptoms.

After dinner I ran to the store because we burned through milk a bit faster than we had in the weeks prior. I got about a half mile from the house and it felt like I had a soft blow out while taking off from a stop light and the check engine light started flashing furiously. Scared the crap out of me. I limped back home and after a certain tiny person was in bed Collin checked the code and it informed us that it misfired in one of the cylinders... Joy...

Called the mechanic shop today and got the car towed in. They were able to get a quick prelim diagnostic done and found that there seems to be an issue with the compression in the cylinder; they will have to pull the engine back out to figure out what happened. This is the same engine just rebuilt six months ago. The upside? The shop is covering it under the warranty on the engine rebuild. And that, that right there, is why I love my Subaru shop. Plus, they were able to set up a loaner at no charge (other than fuel).

Good times. We are all interested to see what the root cause was.

While at work I typically listen to a myriad of music depending on my mood and the level of focus I need to have on the task. Commonly when working one particular report I listen to instrumental; predominately piano/classical pieces. The music doesn't stop when I take a call, it just mutes into the background. At one point I took a call and when I answered my headset it was this climactic and intense piece on cellos that had been building and building. By the time the call ended it was a solo pianist caressing the notes for Fur Elise. It was almost a letdown.

As a circle back to the car issue, Mercury is yet again in retrograde (it appears as thought it is traveling in reverse of the Earth's orbit. Fascinating in many ways. Commonly thought to be a time of communications and technological issues, but also a time for fixing mistakes of the past. Yea, so the car thing isn't as shocking to me now. The struggle with some of my associates is also more easily understood. Not that I don't take great pains to ALWAYS communicate clearly in openly, but in these phases I take an even more exhausting approach at being patient with everyone else's stupid.

I feel even worse for the hubs though; being he is an IT person these retrogrades hit technology hard. You can imagine what this entails for him combined with difficult communications. Just the other day there was a wonderful moment as I pumped a cup of decaf a woman from another department, whom I had chatted with before, said, "I didn't realize your husband was the IT guy."

_blink blink_

THE IT guy, huh? I hate it when people put it that way. Surely there are no others within our organization....

Of course, in my eyes, he is the best of them, but I may be biased.

I chuckled and replied, "I hope that means he fixed an issue of yours."

"Nope, he was working on so-and-so's machine."

.........

Now it is time to put in my FML drops and enjoy a delicious comforting dinner of chicken and veggie soup. Mmmmm....