Generally Speaking: Our house lacks history...

Don't get me wrong, I really love our house. But we live in a relatively new town. It's been on the map since 1792, but wasn't really developed until the last 20-40 years. Virtually every single house in the town was built in the last 40 years.

In Northern Virginia if you want a house more than 100 years old you've got to really live in one of this historic areas and pay quite a high price for it.

It hasn't really bothered me, I actually enjoying getting to write the history of our house. I don't have any guilt when it comes to doing things around the house. I'm not damaging any history.

But over the weekend, we visited friends who just purchased a house built in 1908. I didn't snap near enough pictures of but these are just a few of the details that really took my breath away.

The Floors:

Paneling in the foyer.

Eves and window in the 3rd level windows.

I wish you could see the paneling on this door.  

3rd level stairway.

So now I'm on a bit of a quest, to add a bit more history to our house. I'm seeing a lot more visits to antique stores in my future. 

Generally Speaking, I'm Not a "Foodie."

Foodie = A person that spends a keen amount of attention and energy on knowing the ingredients of food, the proper preparation of food, and finds great enjoyment in top-notch ingredients and exemplary preparation. A foodie is not necessarily a food snob, only enjoying delicacies and/or food items difficult to obtain and/or expensive foods; though, that is a variety of foodie.

I don't hate to cook. I don't love to cook. On weekends and when I have time, I do enjoy it. Of course given my choice between spending an hour being creative, or spending an hour cooking, I'll pick creative 99 times out of 100.

I end up cooking 4-5 nights a week, we spend 1 night out and another night or 2 eating sandwiches, or leftovers. On those cooking nights, I'll go really easy at least 1 or 2 times. When I'm in the mood to cook something just a bit above reheating - I've found the perfect recipe site for our family - SkinnyTaste.com.

You can find out more about Gina and her blog here -in short, Gina creates amazing, weight friendly recipes and shares them with the world. For those of you doing weight watchers, she includes the point value. While we are not really watching our weight right now, we're watching other things, like sodium, fat, preservatives, all things that you don't find much of in Gina's creations.

And everything - literally EVERYTHING - I've tried from her site, we've loved. Love to the point of fighting over the left overs.

Here are our favorites:

Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps
- Wow, these were so good! I ate them in the lettuce wraps, my husband had them in tortillas. We both loved them. I've made turkey taco's before just using the seasoning packet and didn't care for them, but these were amazing!

Lighter Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Seriously, best mac and cheese. EVER. Not best light mac and cheese, best mac and cheese. EVER. PERIOD. I used broccoli instead of spinach. And then I refused to let my husband take any for lunches, the left overs were mine, all mine!!! The following week I made a batch simply for lunches, it wasn't part of our weekly meals, it was simply my lunch all week.

Pasta with Bolognese Sauce
If my husband had tried to take all the left overs he would have been sleeping on the sofa, for a long long time. This sauce was amazing. Seriously, amazing. Next time, I'm making a double batch so I have more to freeze.

I could go on and on and on. Every recipe I've tried, we've loved. And I've got a list a mile long of ones that I can't wait to try. This week, we're having 3 of her meals, 1 we've tried before, 2 new.

So while I may not be a foodie, I don't have to be because Gina is, and she shares her creations with us on her amazing blog!

If you've tried any of Gina's recipes, I'd love to know your favorites.