Ridiculously Simple? I think not

What do you think of when you see this picture:

A. Children's Book (1)
B. Cartoon from a newspaper
C. Mr. MedSchool's latest art work

Answer:

None of the above.

It's Mr. MedSchool's Microbiology book. Seriously (2).   Although it has a whimsical and charming cover, it also makes false claims.  Even after skimming intensely studying this book, Microbology is still not ridiculously easy.  It's not even remotely easy.  In fact, it's still hard.

Cute pictures do not make up for false claims.

1.  Don't worry I haven't let the Sam's ad go to my head
2. Come on.  Mr. MedSchool's artwork is much better than this...

Sam's Club is Conspiring Against Me

So it's school time again, which means back-to-school shopping.  Unfortunately no new school clothes for me, just school supplies.  So I begin to scour the newspaper ads for sales on paper, pens, binders and the usual.

Unfortunately, in my search, I received this wonderful ad sent to me in the mail:

So what worried me was not that I forgot to pick up cereal or paper towels but that top headline: "Mom's back-to-school stock-up."

I understand how this marketing works.  They purchase lists of people in certain areas of certain ages. Apparently, I now fall into the "mom" age, and not just 'I had a baby last month' age but 'my child is old enough to be in school' age.  Great!  Not only is my mother continually pushing for a grandchild but apparently Sam's Club is too.  Super .. Here's to another school year.

Peanut Butter Amazingness

I think that peanut butter and chocolate are perhaps the best combination ever created and will eat anything constructed of this concoction.  Every summer my mother makes a peanut butter pie, which is to die for.  Unfortunately this summer, we didn't get to see my parents, and I missed out on the pie experience.  Due to this misfortune, I decided to try my hand at this pie with a few twists of my own.

The result was glorious, an amazingly peanut butter and chocolate explosion.

 Reeses peanut butter cups, chocolate and peanuts mmmm...

Yum .. Here's the secret to the deliciousness:

Peanut Butter Amazingness

• 2 cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs
• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream 
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 8 large Reeses Peanut Butter Cups
• 1 12 oz bag of miniature Reeses (chopped)
• 1/4 cup chopped peanuts
• Chocolate sauce

Mix graham cracker crumbs and melted butter until moist.  Press into bottom of 8" spring form pan (lined with parchment) to form a crust. Stick 8 whole Reeses Cups facing outward onto the sides of the spring form plan.

Mix cream cheese, powdered sugar and peanut butter until combined.  Whip cream with 2 tbsp of sugar and vanilla until stiff peaks form.  Fold whipped cream into peanut butter mixture, until smooth.   Fold in half of the bag of chopped miniature Reeses.  Pour mixture on top of graham crust.  Top with remaining chopped Reeses and peanuts.  Then drizzle chocolate sauce on top.

But don't enjoy yet.. you need to freeze it for at least 2 hours.  It can be hard but you can resist.  I have faith in you.

Adventures in Hammering

So it has been just under 4 weeks of Project Bathroom and have now a a floor, walls, paint and a sink.  To advance our project, Mr. MedSchool enlisted my help the other evening.  However, that's not how the evening began.

After a particularly long day at work, I arrived home around 7pm to find Mr. MedSchool had already begun dinner (salmon with grilled asparagus (1)). After a wonderful dinner and a few glasses of wine, I sit in my big, comfy chair to relax for the evening.  However, my relaxation was abruptly interrupted when Mr. MedSchool asked if I could help him for a few minutes on the bathroom.  Being the loving (but definitely not handy) wife, I agreed.

So I walk into the bathroom and Mr. MedSchool hands me a hammer and asks me to tack up some wall covering.  Sure, I can do this.  I mean I have hammered things before ... at some point in my life .. I guess.

Turns out that hammering heavy duty nails into studs is a little different than hammering a nail into a wall for a picture .. particularly after you've had 2 glasses of wine (2).  I take the first swing and nail (3) my thumb.

Hammer: 1
Mrs. MedSchool: 0

After a dramatic pause, I continue with the hammering.  Unfortunately, I am finding it difficult to hit the nails straight into the studs (4).  Mr. MedSchool tries to help me by holding the nails but that was a bad idea (5).

Hammer: 2
Mr. MedSchool: 0

After 2 hours of fighting with the hammer, about 20 bent nails and 2 sore thumbs, we finally got all of the wall covering up and were off to bed.  However, I did learn a valuable lesson from this little adventure. Anytime I believe that Mr. MedSchool wants me to help with a task, I should start drinking and then he'll think twice about how helpful I'll actually be.


1. Handy man, doctor and a good cook, what more could a girl ask for? 
2. Good choice on food Mr. MedSchool but bad call on the wine 
3. No pun intended
4. Or hit the nail at all for that matter
5. That's what he gets for intoxicating me and then asking me to work ... 

Renovation Continuation

Good News: No mold!

Bad News:  The cost of the new floor was an extra $400  (for two hours of work) (1)

Worse News: It's been two weeks (2) and my bathroom still looks like this:

To make matters worse, I loose my workhorse husband to school starting next week.  So we have approximately 3 workdays to get tile up and toilet in (3).  This plan has one fatal flaw.  In order to get everything done ... I have to help.

We'll see how that goes.

1.  After hearing this information, Mr. MedSchool thought for a hot minute that he might try another career.  After a swift kick in the pants, this decision was changed. 
2. On a one week project, mind you 
3. Yeah there's actually a lot more to it than that but I'm a sucker for alliterations 

Baby Jeans

So I am sure that many of you have seen the new Huggies commercial for the designer diapers.    At first, I thought that these were a joke but then I found this at the store.

Although many people have berated this product because seriously, why do you need denim diapers?  I think that it is awesome!  I mean parents are so busy now a days that, skipping a step of putting on clothes just makes things easier and they look so darn cute!

 

Beating the Heat

Living in the South, I have had my share of steamy summers.  It is normal for the highs to be in the 90s.  However, this summer has been particularly brutal.  After 4 days of 100+ heat, it was time to make ice cream!  Fortunately we have an ice cream maker (1).

Mr. MedSchool and I aren't happy with just plain vanilla.  We like to give our ice cream a little something extra.  One of our favorite ice cream shops in Big City South use to make all sorts of crazy ice cream flavors like animal cracker, candy corn and (our favorite) red velvet cake!  One day we decided, we can make that. So we made vanilla ice cream in our ice cream maker and crumbled red velvet cake in it.  Then we swirled cream cheese frosting in it (2) and voila!

Perfection!  The recipe is below so buy yourself an ice cream maker, buy some premade red velvet cake (3) and frosting and get started!

Ice Cream
 Mix 1/2 Gallon of Half and Half
         1 pt of heavy cream
         1 1/2 cups of sugar
         1 tsp of salt
         1 tbsp vanilla
 in ice cream maker canister and begin to make ice cream (4). When the ice cream begins to get solid (15 to 20 minutes), mix in 2 to 3 slices of red velvet cake (roughly chopped).  Then continue to let the ice cream maker do its thing.   One the ice cream maker stops, put half of ice cream in a tuber ware dish.  Then spoon dollops of cream cheese icing onto ice cream.  Cover with the remaining ice cream.  Then spoon more cream cheese icing onto the ice cream.  Swirl with knife and either freeze or eat!

Enjoy!  

1.  Standard wedding gift for Southerners
2. Clutch 
3. Or make it, if you are adventurous  
4. You will also need ice cream salt and ice to do this. Note if you have never made ice cream ... look it up online first.