Misc Things I Love

aYou’re eating a salad and one bite you get a big piece of tomato, next bite you get lots of lettuce, etc.

I had an ephipany moment while eating at The Cheesecake Factory many years back. I wanted salad. The fact it was called a “chopped” salad wasn’t really important to me when ordering. I thought salad was salad. But from that day on my salad expectations would never the same. All the flavors were so perfectly mixed. Chopped salad is how salad should be. Period. 

Side rant: I have ordered “chopped” salad at restraurants many times since and am usually disappointed that the salad isn’t really “chopped” when it arrives at my table. The term “chopped” is misused by many restaurants.

I bought these Trudeau chopping scissors in May 2013. They have been one of my favorite purchses of all time! I’ve given these scissors as gifts.

I find an absurd amount of happiness in small things in life…. like a perfectly mixed up chopped salad.

I have been making this easy, reliable, delicious recipe for roasted whole chicken for years. I make it nearly every week. It’s a staple around here. And bonus that whole chicken is much cheaper to buy than buying boneless skinless chicken breast. 

I own 2 of these vertical ceramic roasting stands. If I’m making one chicken I place this stand in an 8×8 glass pyrex baking dish. If I’m making two chickens that week then I place both stands in a larger 13×9 glass pyrex baking dish. 

The results are awesome. It cooks the chicken from the inside out.

The glossy finish makes it very easy to clean–it is even dishwasher safe. (And the glass dishes are obviously also easy to clean.) I originally was going to invest in this cast iron vertical chicken roaster made by Staub but I saw this which was a fraction of the cost. I love that it stores more easily than an integrated unit like the Staub one would. 

These are strong words to speak for such a small product: I can not live without this case.

I tried. My life fell apart.

See what happened was I had this case for several years for my iPhone 7. I got the bright idea to switch to a Samsung Galaxy Note. They didn’t make this case for that phone. I tried many different cases. 1 year later I switched back to iPhone and got this case. My life has been happier ever since.

I’ve used this stand pretty much daily for the past 3 years. The stand sits next to my kitchen sink. While I do stuff in the kitchen (cooking up ground beef, washing dishes, cutting fruit) I almost always have videos playing. This is when I watch episodes of my favorite YouTubers or training videos in my USCCA member dashboard.

I used to use Skullcandy wireless bluetooth headphones but recently invested in Apple AirPods –which were totally worth it and even moreso now that the price has dropped.

I have this stand in my laundry room. I can move my phone into the laundry room to continue listening while I fold laundry. I like the other stand better. 

Again, I get an exceptional amount of joy from the smallest things. I have had one of these straps on the visor of both of our vehicles for 4 years.

It’s simple and practical. We always have tissues easily accessible.

I can’t stand having trash in my car so having a trash bin is a necessity for me. I used to have this size but two years ago I put that one in my husband’s car and upgraded to the XL size for my van.

I’m not sure which size I prefer. I really like that the XL is designed to take regular plastic grocer bags. It’s pretty big. It holds alot. I’ve had it in different locations. Right now it lives on the floor of the passenger side. The standard size one I had attached to the back of the passenger side headrest. It worked really well. The XL is too big and cuts into the aisleway when I try to put it there. I guess I would lean slightly toward the standard one. Hmmm…. maybe I should get that one back into my van.