Sharknado Date Miss!

One way you know my blog is not a reality show is that unexpected things happen. And not always positive ones. It doesn’t matter how much thought I put into date nights, sometimes they do not work out. Sometimes things happen and we aren’t able to do them like I had hoped. But, that doesn’t mean I can’t share my plans with you so maybe some of you can have success with them.

This date night that never came to be was Sharknado date night. I had heard this movie was funny with a sci-fi theme so I figured it was perfect for us. I checked a few months back and he hadn’t seen it yet so on the list it went. The invite did make it to his car and it looked like this:

But that is as far as the date got. On my way home from work that day I got a phone call that went a little like this:

Him: “Hey so I got your invite and you wouldn’t have gone as far back as Jaws for this one, right?”

Me: “No, why…?”

Him: Because I may have watched Sharknado on Netflix not too long ago…I’m sorry.

And that was that. Date night was squashed. We still had a good time together but never got to our Sharknado theme. In some ways it is good because I never quite settled on the activity. Here were the two main options in my head:

1) Saving Tara Reid: Basically I would fill plastic cups with water. One cup i the middle would have shark teeth on it and the goal is to get the objects into the shark teeth cup to save Tara Reid.

2) Adopt a Shark: This one would involving adopting a shark here and playing a game to come up with the name. Basically each of us would get a letter and 60 seconds and whoever came up with the best name in that time would win.

So even though this date night didn’t become a reality it doesn’t mean it can’t be for you. If you try it out please let me know what activity you picked and how it worked out!

Have a sharktastic week!

Chicken Puttaa…what? I am not Italian but trying!

So living with a boyfriend who grew up in an Italian household comes with its challenges. The big one is finding meals. One thing you will learn about me is red sauce makes my stomach turn. I am not sure what it is but the smell and the consistency do not sit well with me. So the only pasta dinners I generally make are with alfredo or just plain pasta with butter. However, this dish I decided to try since he was craving some of that Italian cooking. And you know what? I liked it!

We of course made a few adjustments to make it the perfect recipe for us. The first part that made me a little put off was the name Chicken Puttanesca with Angel Hair Pasta. I could not tell you what a Puttanesca is but I can tell you it is tasty!

For those who want the original recipe you can find it here.

For those who want to try my adapted recipe (small changes only) find it here:

What you need:

1 box angel hair pasta

2 teaspoons olive oil

4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups tomato-basil pasta sauce (such as Muir Glen Organic)

3 tablespoon capers

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons sugar

1 tablespoon oregano

What to do:

Cook pasta in salted water until al dente

In separate frying pan cook chicken until golden

Add remaining ingredients mixing well.

Combine when completed.

Simple and easy recipe! We bought Parm cheese to add but we forgot and it was just as good without it. Feel free to add it for a little extra taste. I have to say the red pepper gave it so much of a kick I didnt need the cheese at all!

And my favorite part? The capers! I was weary of them the first few times I tried them but they are certainly growing on me. The salt lover in me is dissapointed that I didn’t fall in love with them on first bite.

Try this recipe out this week and let me know what you thought!

Pumpkin Carving Date Night!

I will start this post off with a confession. I tried to make this post my first Youtube video and failed miserably! There are a lot of things you learn about yourself when you try to make a video. For one I hate the way I talk! For some reason my mouth moves in such an odd way that looks awful in video. Also, it is hard to make things not boring when you are the only person in the video! I think it will take a lot more time to try and make a good channel.

Anyways it is Halloween and I could not leave you guys without a Halloween post! This year our Halloween themed date was pumpkin carving. Can you believe I have never carved a pumpkin on my own?! I was dying to do this though because I just adore pumpkin seeds! Way too yummy and a great treat to end a date night!

So we started early in the week getting our ideas ready. He knew he wanted to do a puking pumpkin because he thought it looked fun and I knew I wanted to do a minion. Of course neither of these designs come in those handy books they provide with the tools. So online search I went!

I got a great stencil for him but mine didn’t work out so well. So I just drew what I wanted and it came out okay for a first try.

The great thing about this date night is it allowed lots of time to talk and be silly while still not being bored! It was a great time and our pumpkins look pretty cool.

Did you guys have any great Halloween date nights? Tell me about them!

Cajun Turkey Sandwich!

I will admit to my fellow bloggers that I am not much of a sandwich person. Problem is I get bored very, very fast with all type of food. A long time ago I had a boyfriend who worked at Subway. In order for me to be able to eat any of the subs he made for me he came up with a plan. Instead of making me a sub out of turkey or roast beef or whatever he made me a sub that changed as I ate it. The first quarter might have been roast beef with lettuce and mayo, then the next section could have been turkey with mustard, and the next section could have been salami with something and so on. This was the ONLY sandwich I have ever been able to eat in it’s entirety (except the last bite, but that is another post entirely).

Until now that is.

My friend posted about this “awesome” sandwich she made a few weeks back. I took a screen shot of the ingredients and logged it in the back of my mind as a I will try it when I am out of ideas. Well that moment came this past week. I will admit I was less than excited to try it out but I liked the idea that it was fast for a weeknight. So I figured, why not?

Here are the ingredients:

Cajun Turkey

Bulkie Roll

Bacon

Peperoncini

Mayo

Iceberg lettuce

For the bacon she used already cooked bacon in a box. We had some frozen bacon so we decided to fry it up fresh for the sandwich.

I will admit the sandwich was super hot but it was also extremely good! Both my boyfriend and I were surprised at how much flavor there was! And of course it was quick and easy to make. Here it is right before my first bite:

Do you guys have any sandwiches you love making on a week night? I would love to hear about them!

My version of Choctoberfest!

Sometimes when I begin planning a date night I decide to throw all my previous ideas out the window and go with something that someone else has already perfected and make it my own. Coming off of a failed date night I wanted to be sure this date night was a win. And it was…in some ways.

This date night is eloquently titled “Choctoberfest” by the Dating Divas. I get lots of ideas and inspiration from them so it should come as no surprise that this date came from them with a little of my own twist to it. I love the idea of Oktoberfest but I knew that a date in the house was preferable to a big party with lots of drinking so this date night was a perfect fit for us.

To see the Dating Divas date click here!

The thing I loved about their date was the chocolate fountain. Now of course being on a budget a chocolate fountain was not possible for me…but that doesn’t mean chocolate fondue is out of the question.

Instead of a chocolate fountain I bought bags of chocolate chips and melted them in the microwave. Simple as that. I now had a bowl of melted chocolate ready for dipping!

From here we needed to decide what we were gonna dip. The dating divas also made chocolate treats so their dipping items were not very extensive. We were using this food to eat for the night so we needed a bit more options. We came up with a pretty decent spread:

The only thing I didnt get out that I wanted to was the bacon. Chocolate covered bacon is amazing and I really wanted my boyfriend to try it but time constraints made that not happen. Next time!

And finally as always with my date nights I had to have a movie to pair with it. This time the movie was appropriately “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

The boy had never seen it and I hadnt seen it in awhile. Its not my favorite Johnny Depp movie but it has some fun parts so it was a nice silly distraction from daily life.

So my friends I ask you, what is your favorite thing to dip in chocolate?

AirForce One Date Night

I know this post is a day late and I missed my post on Friday BUT I got a new job! I now do sales and marketing for a local print shop. And guess what? I love my boss! It is great to work with people who like to hear your input and appreciate your efforts.

But enough about my sob story as to why I am delayed in blogging and on to the post!

Now as I told you before, all my date nights do not go over great. There are times I just miss the mark. This was one of those times. I am still sharing the date with you in hopes that it might be a home-run for someone else.

The movie this date night revolved around was AirForce One. This was my first mistake. Although my boyfriend is a huge war movie buff, he had already seen this movie and was not in love with it. I still need to check the movie out but because of this theme, he was less than enthused about the date.

I started the night by sending him a text with this challenge:

I thought this would be a fun way to end a long day. What I didnt realize is that he was exhausted from his day at work and did not really want to be doing anything too physical. Fail.

The other part of this that failed on my end is I never got around to doing the little “extras” that make the night that much better. I had planned to make some water bottle airplanes but never got around to it.

So needless to say this was a date night that failed but could be some fun for you.

I am always curious of your thoughts. What do you think could’ve been done to save this date night?

PrintableWallStory review!

As I have mentioned before, one thing I feel is a blogger’s duty is to help small shops get their name out. Today I want to introduce all my lovely readers to a little Etsy shop called: PrintableWallStory. This shop is wonderful for the quote lover like me!

Just take a browse through the shop you will find multiple prints to suit so many needs. The prices are reasonable and the best part is it is sent directly to your email as soon as you purchase it! I made a purchase over the weekend. I got one to have in my home with my wonderful boyfriend:

I honestly love everything about this print! The color is a bit different than it is showing on this post but the overall idea is right. One thing I love is I can do whatever I want with it.

As someone who works in a print shop, ideas for this run wild! I think I am going to have this printed on Matte Vinyl and mounted on wood to get the look of a chalkboard. I think this will be a great whimsical addition to my small apartment!

Bloggers I urge you to look around the shop and comment below about your favorite pieces.

 

BONUS: All readers from my blog are eligible for a discount until the beginning of October! Use the code CESTLAVIE and automatically get 50% off your purchase!

 

 

Lego Date Night!

I know you guys love when I post my date nights, so I am back to post another one! I will admit this one was a bit lame because money was tight so I am going to add a little section on how I would add to the date if I could do it again.

So this date night was centered around the “Lego Movie”. I decided I wanted to do this because my little nephew constantly has references like “where is my pants?” and “Everything is awesome” (be on the look-out for this song in Friday’s blog.) I knew at this point that we had to see the movie and since I knew my boyfriend absolutely adored legos as a kid I thought this was a perfect combination for date night!

Now my original plan was to have the night’s “activity” be where we create characters from movies out of legos. The person who got the closest to making a lego version of a character would win a prize. However I quickly learned that buckets of legos just aren’t sold in stores. According to my by, you must buy multiple sets of legos and create your own bins to have such a thing. Who knew? So this is the activity we settled on:

Not bad for one night but there was so much more we could have added to make the theme that much better. 

How about a lego costume?

Or lego food?

Or even this awesome lego game?

What would you have added to this date night to make it more legotastic?

Grimm Date Night

You know the one thing about Date nights is coming up with ideas! I always want to do something to make the man smile but sometimes my creativity is lacking. This time around I knew I wanted to do something that would allow me to buy him season 2 of Grimm. His obession with this show is entirely my fault as I bought him season 1 but his pestering about getting it is all on him. Regardless I knew he would really enjoy getting it so I decided to make a date night around it.

Here was the problem. What exactly can two people do when the theme is morbid fairy tales? Well I actually came up with something!

The first episode of season 1 was a Little Red Riding hood theme. So that was my starting point. I decided we would have an indoor picnic ( only because we had no where to really have an outdoor one) and we would play a themed game. Hurdle 1 took no time rearing its ugly head. Picnic baskets that are reasonably priced don’t exist! Target has a $100 one with all the bells and whistles. But my thought is if I want to sit on the ground and eat with my hands, I certainly don’t want to spend $100 for it! So I found a substitute at Savers:

I thought it fit the morbid Red Riding Hood theme plus it’ll make a great DIY project down the road (stay tuned)!

Now since I work all the time I needed to have a way to clue him in to the fun when it was ready since set up had to be done with him at the house. So I let him stay in the other room when I set up and he knew everything was ready when he heard this song:

The song is the one that was playing the most in season 1 episode 1. If you have seen it you know why!

Finally the game! I decided to set up a game I saw on Jimmy Fallon called Box of Lies. It looked like fun and I liked that deception went with my theme. The execution was done by my sister since if I created the boxes I would have been cheating. Here is one of them:

 

Basically the game is simply this: Both people get a box and you must reach in and describe to the other person what you have in the box. You can choose to be honest or lie. It is up to the other person to decide if you are being truthful. Can turn into quite a funny little game!

Overall the date night came together pretty well considering I had limited time. What do you guys think? What would you have done for a Grimm date night?

Zombie Date Night

Now you guys know I love sharing my date nights with you, which is why I have another one to share. However, in the spirit of honesty I will tell you this one did not turn out the way I had hoped. After planning the night the boyfriend actually hurt himself at work and was unable to partake in the “activity” part of the night. That is now on our “to-do” list. But I will share the night as it should have gone.

Recently I got my boyfriend into the Walking Dead and we finished all the episodes available on Netflix. Not quite ready to end the zombie fun I decided to make a date outta it. This is what I came up with…

When he got home he was as usual greeted with his front door indicator. This time, this is what he saw:

Then when he came in the house he was served dinner. Now dinner was a bit harder to decide on because I mean really what is there to eat during a zombie apocalypse? All I could think was twinkies but that is not exactly dinner. So I decided to go a little creepy with it:

Worm on a Bun

When you are desperate anything looks appetizing right?

Then once dinner was over he was handed his zombie survival kit:

Crude I know. But it did its job. In it was scratch tickets, squirt gun and the activity portion: Groupon to have an archery lesson!

My thought was the best way to kill zombies would be to take after my Walking Dead man crush Darrel, bow and arrow the suckers!

He was super excited but sadly couldn’t do it. I am hoping we will make use of the groupon soon though!

Anyways what did you think of our zombie date night?