During the month of February (2010) I hosted the 6th Photo Hunt over at one of my other blogs,  Photo Hunt Challenges.  Ever since the very 1st Photo Hunt I have been choosing my favorite photos for each category and posting them together, with a poll for people to vote for their favorite.  It is incredibly hard to pick favorites from after looking at all the fun photos of the Participants and very time-consuming as well.  I was afraid I wouldn’t have time to do all the work myself this month so I asked for a little help and got Ang and Carly to help me out with picking favorites.  So here they all are!! Please go look through the photos……. talk about eye-candy!! I promise you will enjoy looking at them and have a very hard time choosing your favorites!  Anyone is allowed to look and vote.  If you want to copy this list of links to post on your blog or elsewhere, feel free!

Favorite Portraits

Favorite B & W with selective color

Favorite Chocolate Photos

Favorite “Something Homemade” Photos

Favorite “Something Sweet” Photos

Favorite “Candid” Photos

Favorite “Something Pink” Photos

Favorite “Symbol of Love” Photos

Favorite “Clock” Photos

Favorite “Main Street” Photos

Favorite “Mirror Image” Photos

Favorite “Landscape” Photos

Favorite “Your Own Reflection” Photos

Favorite “Two of a Kind” Photos

Favorite “Tower” Photos

Favorite “Game” Photos

Favorite “Something Romantic” Photos

Time sure flies, doesn’t it? I mean surely I can’t have already been two years since my nephew Bennett was born!! Indeed, my little buddy turns 2 today.  Happy Birthday Bennett! Looking forward to seeing him and the rest of my family at the birthday party on Saturday…

I may have led some of you to believe that since I have been trying a lot of new recipes lately, that I am a good cook.  Well, sometimes I am, but sometimes my meals do not turn out as good as expected.

Example….. I found a crock-pot recipe book recently and thought I would try a recipe for pork chops in orange sauce.  It sounded good at the time, really! I thought it would be kind of Asian-like.  WRONG.  I started the recipe before working a 12 hour day and had been looking forward to dinner all day long.  What a disappointment it turned out to be!! YUCK.  Like inedible, waste-of-food.

I had taken photos of the whole process like I have been doing lately so I will post a photo of the final product but I refuse to share the awful recipe.  Looks a million times better than it tasted.

What is the worst recipe you ever made??

I have decided to add a new segment to this blog on Wednesdays called “Which One?” Wednesday.  How it will work…..  I will give you a couple of choices for a specific item and you tell me which is your personal preference.  This first poll is about your favorite type of chocolate chip cookie……. semi-sweet, milk chocolate or white chocolate chip.

Vote in the poll and leave a comment with your two cents!  Which is your fave and why?

Pictured: Delicious milk chocolate chip cookies made last night by my neighbor, Denise

I was just about to post something else and noticed in my blog dashboard that I had 1,499 previous posts, which makes this  post #1500.  Whoa!!! I know I don’t blog every day by any means but after nearly 5 years of blogging (come April), these posts sure add up!! (Of course at least 100 of the posts are photo posts that I imported from the former “Kristi’s Daily Photos” blog (which no longer exists!)

I thought I would highlight a variety of old material. I might even add more since this list is really old

• Ode to the 80s (what I loved)
• Introducing Annika (my first niece)
• 7 interesting things about me
• Things I’ve done (that maybe you haven’t!)
• Memoirs of a Geisha and Japanese dolls
• 7 years with Bessie (my former car)
• My pride and joy (all about my special cats)
• Sayonara (I was caught being ignorant!)
• Back from Hollywood (my brother Jeff is my guest blogger)
• Driving Tips (Every driver should read this, please!)
• My Vegas vacation ( day 2 day3)
• World’s most expensive foods
• My knee surgery (recovery,
• Counting my blessings (the time the entire front end of my car fell out)
• Madeline Island retreat & More. (weekend away with my best friends)
• History of my name
• Letter to Myth Nightclub (this night still ticks me off!)
• Meet Bianca (my 2nd niece)
• My cancer scare (that turned out to be nothing)
• My Costa Rican dream
• My 30th birthday
• Chocolate
• My first video blog (its really me!)
• My battle wound stories (yes, I am a clutz!)
• Questions answered. (Blog readers asked me questions)
• My poll about Crocs (do you love them or hate them?!)
• Prince 07-07-07
• Shout-out to my regular blog commenters
• Pictoral blog guestbook (go ahead and sign!)
• 35W Bride collapse
• A look back at my senior year of HS
• A look at how I have changed (8 years of school and profile pics)

Here are a few of the most common posts that lead people to this blog from search engines, etc

• Top 10 Hybrid Animals
• Photoshop Disasters
• Celebrity Look Alikes
• Best Friend Forever Poe
• Victory for Celtics
• Genetics and Eye Color
• Fun Sites that work with Flickr Images
• Wacipi Pow Wow
• Loose Change Conspiracy Theory
• Eating at the MN State FairAre you a Movie Buff?

A million thanks to those of you who read this blog (especially to those who actually comment!)

I have had a craving for pesto & shrimp ever since trying the pesto shrimp at CRAVE and the pesto shrimp pizza at Pizza Luce back in January.  (Not to mention the habanero pesto that Jeff made with the pork fusilli).  I know you can buy pre-made pesto at specialty stores but I figured I might as well try my own version.  It turned out pretty good but since I did not have a food processor, the consistency isn’t as fine.

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1-2 serrano peppers
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Romano cheese
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts
• 5 medium sized garlic cloves, minced or pressed
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 lb medium sized raw, de-shelled shrimp

If shrimp are frozen or still have shells, set aside in water to defrost

The original pesto recipe that I followed calls for a food processor to finely chop all the fresh ingredients but since I didn’t have one, I first chopped my basil leaves very fine.  To my dismay, the large package of basil leaves was barely a half cup when all chopped up.  I would suggest making this when basil is in season so that you can buy a ton of it or grow it in your garden!

Next I toasted a small package of pine nuts until they were golden brown.

In a skillet on medium, I cooked my shrimp after seasoning them with freshly ground sea salt, garlic, and red chili flakes.

I cooked a side of penne pasta to go with this, but I think it would’ve been better with an angel hair pasta or even cheese tortellini.  You can make this low-carb by skipping the pasta.

Finally after combining basil, chopped serrano pepper, romano cheese, olive oil, toasted pine nuts and fresh garlic, I had my pesto.  (Sorry, my photo turned out terrible)

I topped penne with shrimp and then pesto.

Then tossed!

The flavor was pretty good, it would’ve been better with more basil and if it had been processed and with a different noodle.  Glad I added the serrano pepper, I would even add another next time.

Does anyone have any special pesto recipe to share with me? I’d love to improve this one!

I might be slightly biased here, but I think my nieces and nephew are some of the cutest kids out there! I mentioned that Brian and Michelle recently took the kids to Florida, well you must go check out the BEAUTIFUL beach pics Michelle took of the kids while they were down there.  So sweet!

Photo by Michelle Sauer Photography

One.  Lets start of with something positive………the SUN is shining!!! Has been out all week.  I just opened my window and can hear the birdies chirping away out there.  Spring is near!

Two.  After a three days of having my car in the shop, I now have it back.  I am sure no one wants to hear my car drama of the week but I am going to summarize it for my own records here.  A few weeks ago my speedometer quit working and simultaneously I noticed some hesitation with my transmission shifting out of 1st gear.  I made an appt to get it looked at…naive and positive me was hoping it wouldn’t cost an-arm-and-a-leg to get fixed.  Diagnostics showed that the wheel speed sensors that send signals to the speedometer and transmission (telling how fast to go) were malfunctioning.. Inspection showed the rear two were completely rusted out and corroded.  Only $330/ea for the parts. &*!$@.  Replacement of these did not completely solve the problem, I also had bad tone rings on my rear axel shafts.  Unfortunately Lexus does not sell the tone rings separately ($60/ea), but only pre-assembled on new axel shaft (for $1050 each). WHAT!! Not only that but my axel shafts were rusted into the berrings (to the extreme) and they were worried about doing more damage to get them removed.  A this point they told me it could be up to $4k to get fixed.  That is when I had a minor melt-down, and feelings of hopelessness about the dang car.  Who has an extra $4k floating around to dump into a car just to get the speedometer to work??? Not me. The good news is that my mechanic found another local place who rebuilds axel-shafts.  They were able to over-night the part I needed and get everything back together by 6pm on Wednesday.  The best news is that all repairs came in at $1300, which was the absolute best-case-scenario for everything that needed to be done.  My car runs better than ever now! It is great to drive a Lexus (until something goes wrong and then the repairs will cost you!). By the way, overall my Lexus is a great car and has been very reliable for me over the past three years.  This problem was due to damage from the terrible MN winters….salt is an absolute car killer.  Thinking about possibly leasing a car at some point in the future but want to look into it more.

Three.  My parents are driving home from Florida right now.  I have missed them!  Both of my brothers and their families (including Amanda) were all able to go down to Florida over the past few weeks to spend time with them.  My nieces have been to Florida as many times (3) as I have in our respective lifetimes.  They are 3 and 4, I am 33! Maybe next year??

Four.  I have had bad chest pains the past few days.  I do get bad indigestion and take a Rx for it, so not sure if it is related to that or just stress.  Something similar happened around this time last year and I had my heart fully tested out and I am just fine, so don’t think it is heart-related.  Unless dealing with my car almost gave me a heart attack?! Kidding. Must be the stress.

Five.  Go check out the awesome participant galleries for Photo Hunt #6.  I have a couple of Guest Judges helping me out this time around.

Six.  I am taking an online photography class right now that my SIL Michelle is teaching.  Great stuff for learning how to use my new camera! The others in the class are all in the same boat.

Seven.  No school tomorrow! It is a teacher work-day to get ready for upcoming parent-teacher conferences.

Eight.  No big plans for the weekend.  Hoping the sun stays out!

Nine.  My taxes are done and I do not have to pay in this year!

That’s all I have to say at the moment.