Busy busy!

Today I got SO much accomplished! I got up with the plan to get something done, and boy did I! I had my cousin help me with Katie, and I decided to mow the lawns. Hah - funny. We have an electric mower that is about 1/2hp and bogs down super easy. I told my cousin that it shouldn't take more than an hour. Hehe... I mowed the front lawn... then moved on to the weeds in the driveway and side yard. Then I sprayed roundup on the stepping stones and pathway that was overgrown with weeds. I cleaned a bunch of trash up and made a few trips to the dumpster.... and felt great about the results of the front yard. I almost didn't even go to the back yard because I knew that would take twice as long....

Front yard: 

So rather than lose momentum, I headed off to the back jungle. This took FOREVER because not only is the grass tall, it's thick! So about 75 minutes into mowing, I finally finished the areas I'd intended to mow, then I figured I'd hit up some of the weeds against the fence and against the house. Hey look! There's a pool back there! Who knew haha. Ok, so I could have swept the patio, but I figured it's windy enough in the evenings, that'll get taken care of eventually.

Back yard...

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After the yard, I went inside and decided to eat some lunch. Earlier before I'd started mowing, I'd put some ribs in the oven (my first attempt). They turned out great! Not bad for my first try. I went a little overboard on BBQ sauce but it was worth it... 

I rubbed them with some S&P and paprika then put them in about 3/4" of water in the pan. Covered with foil then baked at 250* for about an hour and 20 mins. I flipped them and sprinkled some sugar on them, re-covered them and put them back in for another hour and 15 mins. Took the foil off and smothered with BBQ sauce and cranked the oven up to 400* where I baked them another 20 mins. Pure messy goodness. 

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Lately I've been eating a lot of corn tortillas. Since I've been counting calories, corn tortillas are a great way to get substance without too many calories. The other day, I made homemade salsa. Been craving it and decided to just DO IT! So I made my own chips by slow cooking some corn tortillas in a non-stick pan with a little non-stick olive oil spray. Another snack was pico tacos - delicious, and super low on calories! Simply pico and tortillas... 

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For the volunteers, I made egg rolls and fried rice. I don't know how well it went over with them yet, but I know that my cousin and I tried them before we sent them over, and we thought they were great! The egg rolls I made by hand using Nasoya Egg Roll Wraps. I simply put rice, leftover ham (which I could have done without, personally), green onion strip, and cilantro leaf, then rolled them up. Here's the catch though - I BAKED them! Who knew, baking them was so great, and oil free too. I tried them both ways for the sake of quality, and while pan frying them tasted better, it was not working out with the quantity of rolls I had to make. This is a photo of the baked ones we sampled: