A Well-Heeled Life

Cool news to share (and shameless ask for votes)! My husband is a finalist in Cooking Light magazine's "Family Dinner Hero" contest. The magazine selected him as one of the finalists based on an essay I wrote about him. Now the public votes to name a winner. You can pick up the September 2016 issue on newsstands or read it here . Search his name, "Marcus." You should see the following picture. Then scroll down and look for the words, "Vote for Marcus." Screen capture of my dynamic duo of cooking! The Backstory: My husband is an amazing cook. He also makes about 75 percent of the meals for our family. Yes. I do know how lucky I am to be married to him. The BACK backstory: As a boy, my hubby was what was called a "latch-key kid." Back in the '80s, the idea of two-parent working households was still a little novel. The idea of young kids having to come home and fend for themselves for a few hours was still not that common. So,...

I recently did a housekeeping/purge of sorts. Not of the home I live in, but of my social media accounts. The impetus? A ' Real Housewife ' (the city doesn't matter). I was perusing my Instagram feed and realized that for the 5th time in a week, 'Housewife X' was selling something. I found myself annoyed because it occured to me that the only things this particular housewife ever posts to her feed were new clothing items available for sale in her retail shop. Anyway, I decided to scroll back through her Instagram feed to confirm whether I was imagining this phenomena or not. A quick scan of about 1 years worth of posts confirmed that with the exception of 2-3 posts about her hubby/new baby, everything else she "shared" with her followers was about personal care, body care, or clothing items. All of which were available for sale. In fact, I couldn't help but notice several other fans commenting that they were "going to go broke" because...

A Breadmaker is Born! Success! They may not look like much, but they taste wonderful! I baked two loaves of honey whole wheat bread today. Took all day, but that was a combination of poor timing and just a really busy day. The recipe is actually really simple. From start to oven it;'s about 90 minutes. I won't bother to share a recipe because there are so many available online. I just searched for something similar to the type I buy each week. I found several recipes and decided to try one that called for ingredients that I already had on hand. Well, except for yeast. I bought a three pack at Fred Meyer for $1.89. Everything else I already had in my pantry. So, I got two loaves of bread for $1.89. The house smells amazing! My official taste tester (e.g. my 6 yo) said it was delish straight out of the oven. We toasted up a slice this morning and it was equally good. This will definitely stay in the weekly routine.   A bakery window in Paris, France Def...