Slices of Life

It's the second Monday and time for Share Our Lives. The monthly link up where we share snippets of our lives. This month we're talking about our go to lunches on the go. I really, really struggled with this one. Since my kids were homeschooled I pretty much never packed lunches for them and since I haven't worked outside the home since my oldest was in second grade I have rarely packed a lunch for myself either.  I finally decided to show what I typically pack for snacks/lunch when we go out hiking. Now, most of the time we take shorter 3 or 4 hour hikes and end early enough that we can be back at the car and either home for lunch or stop to each lunch out somewhere. But when we do longer hikes we have to pack food and snacks to keep us fueled up. My favorite "go to" lunch is fruit and granola. I pack them in our reusable containers with a little sandwich baggie of granola and a spoon. You have to keep the granola separate until ready to eat or it will absorb the...

My husband makes pulled pork fairly frequently.  I started making pulled pork in the crock pot years ago and we've since tried a few different recipes (like this cranberry BBQ pulled pork ) but it wasn't something I thought about very often.  All that changed when my husband got a smoker as an early Father's day gift a couple of years ago!   Now, I feel like we have been eating pulled pork at least a few times a month (and when I say we I really mean they as I hardly ever eat any at all because I don't like pork or smoked meats).  He'll usually smoke up a few pork butts and shred them both then we eat some for dinner and sort the rest into a couple of freezer portions for easy, nearly ready-made weeknight dinners.  1. Pulled pork sandwiches -- The simplest way to serve pulled pork; everyone just piles the pork and cheese (perhaps coleslaw) on a bun.   2. Pulled pork rice bowls -- I cook up some white rice and veggies and everyone portions out th...

It's the first Thursday of the month and time for Share Your Shelf with Dara and I.  I hope you all look forward to this monthly link up as much as I do. I just love getting new ideas for books to read or listen to.   Oh wow did I ever have another fabulous month of reading/listening! I also ticked a lot more books off of my 52 book list (many of which happened completely by mistake-- which is really unusual when I've gotten so far into the list).  1. In Your Dreams by Sarah Adams (When in Rome book #4) -- This was a really cute finish to the series. I enjoyed reading about Madison and James working together to start a new restaurant on James' family farm. James has secretly been in love with Madison for years and had no plans to follow up on his brother's suggestion to open a restaurant until he heard from Madison and knew it would be the perfect way to get her to move back home.Madison barely finished her courses in culinary school and has been dying to ...

 It's the first Wednesday of the month and time for Currently with Amy!  Digging – These views!!     Weeding – We weeded 2 bags of clothes from Alec's closet as he's outgrown so much of his clothes. Hopefully we can find replacements for most of it... though I'm not sure there is a whole lot we're going to find with even longer inseams.  Enjoying – Time spent exploring with the family. Eating/Drinking – All the vacation junk food.  bourbon burger yogurt bowl   brisket, sweet potato fries, and cornbread   triple chocolate mousse cake Shopping for – This week we're shopping for souvenirs only but once home we'll be buying Alec clothes.  He also needs to find some comfy size 15 or perhaps 16 sized shoes as his toes are poking out of this old size 14 sneakers. Plus I have a list of things I want to get for his Greece trip that will be here before I know it.