Soup's On! With a Side of Football

Our kids are all grown with only one still in college, but Back-to-School time still feels like the beginning of Crazy-Busy time.  So here's the wonderfully easy crock pot soup that we had last night.  It only took a little forethought and effort to be able to enjoy a delicious bowl of Peter's Vegetable Beef Soup before Monday Night Football.  Yup!  He cooks!  I'm a lucky girl.  Except for the football part.

Peter says the best thing about this soup is that you can freeze it, put it in small containers, and then, on a cold winter night, when you don't know what else you want, pull it out for a homemade treat.

Vegetable Beef Soup - I love how everything coordinates!

Vegetable Beef Soup

~ 1 lb. ground beef (we've used leftover frozen burgers, ground turkey, whatever you have)

~ 2 qts. Tomato Juice (not V-8)

~ 1 bag frozen Vegetables for Soup (a must!  not mixed veggies)

~ 1 bouillon cube (dissolved in hot water)

~ Optional additions (diced onion, canned diced tomatoes, green beans, diced potatoes, clean out the fridge)

Brown the ground beef (you can do this the night before, drain it, pop it in the fridge and have it ready for the morning). Put the browned ground beef, tomato juice, bouillon and frozen veggies in a crock pot.  Turn on to LOW, 6-8 hours. That's it!

We served it with hot rolls and a Temperanillo.


So, back to the football game.  Last night was a challenge for us.  I'm a Washington girl and Peter's been an Eagles fan since birth.  I'm not crazy like he is about my football, but I definitely care.  We had to establish some game rules about not getting pouty or being sore losers and then, whoa!,  the Eagles came on like gangbusters.  Before I knew it, someone popped out of the room and came back in his throwback jersey (Randall Cunningham).  We forgot to make a rule about getting cocky!

I went to look for Watson's jersey, but it's somewhere in a storage unit.  No puppy jersey, no cat scarf! This is how it should have been:

Love these guys!  Hail to the Redskins!

Half of my clothes are still in storage due to the move, so no Redskins' tees were around, but hanging in the middle of all my dresses was my new throwback jersey (thank you wonderful brother-in-law and fam for my Sonny Jurgensen jersey).  Wearing it helped a little in the second half, along with my supportive yelling at the team, but we still lost.  Just less badly.

Anyway, I figure it's better this way.  Mr. Crazy About the Eagles can strut a little and I can insist he make his soup again for the rematch in November.

We can meet in the middle.

How about you?  Do you guys have any favorite easy recipes, crock pot or otherwise?  How about football watching traditions?  I promise more about house renovations and moving to come.

The Move Began - And the Lists

I just sold the house where I'd lived the longest ever - 17 years! - and packed up the U-Haul (twice!) and moved two states over.  I've lived in Maryland, Virginia, and now Delaware.  Now I can say I've lived in each state of the Delmarva peninsula (Del = Delaware, Mar = Maryland, Va = Virginia, get it?).

I decided in February to move to Delaware, so Peter and I spent more than 4 straight months getting the house ready to list.  As I said, there were 17 years at that house.  17 years of 4 kids, 2 adults, numerous pets, and tons of stuff (more on that later)!  I'd had house to-do lists for years, so I knew there was so much to do.  For one, the dining room floor needed redoing.  Yikes!  Don't bring in your plants for the winter and put them on a rug with only a garbage bag underneath - doesn't work:

Also, the kitchen needed a major overhaul as it was yucky when we got there in 1996.  Here's the window seat, which turned into a dog bed for Tucker and Eddie, then Roxie, and now Watson:

The "seat" is actually plywood covered with leftover carpeting from a basement re-do and is sitting on the floor.  I love that you can see several iterations of the kitchen underneath it.  Yup, I had once painted the kitchen (and the family room) that bright blue!  Then it was green, now orange!  And the window sills have the remnants of Roxie who would lie there, looking out the window and chew when she was stressed.  She was a rather stressy dog.  And you know how everyone always hangs in the kitchen when you entertain?   I would always cringe when someone (against my urging) would sit there.  It's like curling up in the dog bed!

So that space definitely needed work.  Lots of spackling, sanding, painting!  And then the other BIG thing was the master bedroom bathroom.  I'd been wanting a re-do for years, but the final push came because the little built in seat in the shower, which was tiled with 4" tiles, had rotted out.  It was disgusting, couldn't be cleaned, had little creatures crawling around.  Disgusting!  Did I already say that?  Well, it was.  Here it is being ripped out:

And here I am tearing down the rest of the tile:

That was my first time ever demolishing anything.  It was a blast.  Early in our relationship, Peter said he'd help take this project on.  He'd totally renovated his home and had the expertise and the TOOLS!  Nothing like a guy who knows what he's doing and has the right tools for the job.

Later I'll tell you more about my year with a plastic walled, deconstructed shower, and the bathroom contractor hunt, but back to what needed doing before moving.  I called a realtor friend and asked her to walk through the house and see what else I needed to do.  Here's that first list:
                 

(looking for that photo-L)

The checks and circles are from May, so you can see what I'd gotten done.  Of course, that was just the FIRST list.  There were many more to come (inside, outside, garage, attic!) but I was finally ready to list the house in July, only a month later than when I'd hoped.

And all the hard work paid off because, thanks to a booming market in Fairfax and a well prepped house, the house was on the market only four days and I got six - count 'em 6! - SIX! offers!

So the story of my move begins.  More later.  I'm just so proud to have a post with photos.  John and Sherry, thanks for the inspiration!

Blatant Rip Off

One of my latest obsessions has been the blog Young House Love.   John and Sherry are a young couple who love all things home and share their DIY projects, home ideas, party ideas, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  I love their style, their thinking, their vibe.  So here's my blatant rip-off of what they're doing - but from the perspective of a fifty-something.