Olive Creations

My sister-in-law, Tonyia, suggested that Gary and I find a local store in our area that sold high end olive oil. I was feeling especially lazy that day and didn't feel like looking one up so she found one, looked up the address and URL for me and I checked it out the following day.

This begins my love affair with Olive Creations. It's quite the drive from Buckeye but once we got there we knew it was totally worth it.
They're a small store and I really, really like that they are a local, family and Christian owned company.
As soon as we walked in the door we were greeted and asked if we'd ever been there before. We, of course, said "no" and so she started to explain everything to us. At first we felt overwhelmed. One wall is lined with balsamics and the other wall is lined with olive oils. All throughout the small store were little, plastic cups so that you could sample EVERYTHING and boy did we. They had about 20 different flavors of balsamics and I'm going to guess about 30 olive oils.  Each futis* was marked with what was in it and also gave suggestions as to which oil or balsamic paired well with that one and suggestions as to what to use them for. There were also little recipe pads through out the store so you could peel one off and take them with you! Although the main attraction is the oils and balsamics I noticed they had homemade pastas in there (which are actually Paleo friendly). They also have a good selection of flavored sea-salts and salsas and probably more that I didn't see because we spent so much time tasting all of the oils and vinegars.
We left with 2 bottles of balsamic and 2 bottles of oil.

Lemon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Garlic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

 Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar
Lemon White Balsamic Vinegar











In the end, I'd recommend this store to anyone, especially those who love to cook and discover new flavors.
 I am REALLY looking forward to trying these in recipes and drizzling over salads or anything else I can get my hands on.

Olive Creations
2480 W. Happy Valley Rd Suite 1202
Phoenix AZ 85085
623-587-6005




*Highly polished, stainless steel containers used for wine, milk and olive oil.

Little of this and that

It's been a while since I've updated. The last 2 weeks have been a whirlwind!

Things with me and Gary are going very well. Since my doctor upped my Lamictal my moods have been 99% under control. We've had a few "Meh" moments but nothing to worry about.
It's getting stinking HOT here so we did some summer clothes shopping. Lots of shorts and tees for him and dresses and tanks for me. It's just SO HOT! It's supposed to be 115 today and tomorrow and it's only June... we still have July/August/September to go!

Speaking of September - I booked our airline tickets to go home at the end!!! We'll be gone 9/19 til 9/27. I'm already nervous as crap to fly but I have 3 months and I can't just worry about it the entire time. I have to find somewhere to board Quagmire. I'm hoping our old vet still boards. He's a special needs dog and I really trust them to take care of him properly. We've never gone on vacation without him and this is going to be a long one. I'm going to worry about him the entire time I'm gone and probably drive the vet nuts calling to check on him daily... if not 2 times a day. :D
I'm pretty excited though. Even though Mom and Dad were out here November '10 (wow it's been THAT long?) and Mom was out here last December for my surgery, WE haven't been home in I think July will be 4 years. At that time my sister Lisa was still living in Florida and now she's in Maryland so I finally get to see her and meet 2 of her babies I haven't ever met and 3 I haven't seen in YEARS!!!
It's going to be exciting. We're also going to drive up to NY to visit Gary's family. Yeah, it's going to be a fun trip!

Good thing about living in Phoenix is there is no "Spring" so you can skip Spring Cleaning all together... which has left my house in an atrocious state so I'll be doing that for the next week. Guestroom is done and all I need to finish the computer room and bedroom are 2 bookshelves which I think we're going to run out and get this weekend.
We also need to grab a new printer (our current one is a piece of crap that doesn't work AT ALL now) because I found the cutest little PDF files you can print out to keep you more organized.
Here are some pictures of what I have and if you're interested in any of them let me know via email (rachelcdoyle@gmail.com) and I'll mail them to you to!

What a weird week...

Between Gary's horrible schedule this past week and my uncle passing away it's just been a really weird week.
He did take me to lunch today. We went to one of our favorite Japanese restaurants called Ah-So.
This was our chef. (It's a horrible picture with my cell phone and their bad lighting) ... he was great though. Very entertaining and the food was delicious. He did all the typical habachi grill things like the smoking onion and throwing food at the patrons (Gary caught both broccollis in his mouth!)

Notice the people in the background? They were the only other people at our table. It appeared to be a man, his wife and one of their mothers. Let's focus on him.
He looked like a cross between George Wendt from Cheers and Peter Griffon. The holier-than-thou attitude was unbelievable though. He was one of the most neediest people I've ever had the pleasure of sitting next to in a restaurant. While shoveling food in his face he managed to call the waitress over about 15 times for water, wine, appetizers, more appetizers, butter for his lobster. He spoke to her as if she didn't understand a lick of English. He had the personality of a pet rock. Even our lovely chef said that he was just going to entertain US because THEY weren't even acknowledging his presence. Just a real piece of work. I did manage however to put all this aside and just enjoy a nice lunch/dinner with my husband. We really did have a good time just joking around and relaxing. And the people at Ah-Sos? They gave me a pretty red rose on the way out the door. How sweet is that??

Then we went to Barnes and Nobles so I could find some things for my nieces' birthday in July (yeah I wanted a headstart) and hit the jackpot. I love that place.

Now, to talk my husband into finding me a hugemongous pile of chocolate from somewhere because I NEED IT NAO!!!

On a side note: My sister (and husband and one of her babies) and my mom and dad are all driving to KY for my uncle's funeral. There is still a lot of flooding and road damage in KY so if you could just keep them in your thoughts and prayers that would be really nice.

Smoke free?

I've been trying to quit smoking for about 3 years now.. and DAMN that crap is hard. I envy those who can take Chantix (I can't take it) and those who can go "cold turkey" without killing someone.
So my girlfriend Hope, told me about electronic cigarettes. They DO have nicotine but they DON'T have all the tar and chemicals and crap. They come in various strengths of nicotine all the way down to zero (if you just want the taste and hand to mouth feeling).
There is no smoke involved. You inhale vapor and you exhale vapor. (There is a short video on the page I linked.)

Let's talk about the cost. The initial cost is kind of high. It's about $90 for the starter kit but they currently have a 19% discount and they're always having discounts. There are different levels of starter kits but they all come with 5 "Cartomizers" which is equivelent to 5 packs of cigarettes. A pack of 5 Cartomizers costs roughly 9 dollars (not including their discounts) and if you were to buy 5 packs of cigarettes in Arizona off base that would cost you about $32.50 instead of about $7.30. If I buy it ON base it's $21.50 so either way I'm saving a LOT LOT LOT LOT LOT LOT of money and saving money always makes me happy.

I started with the VAPOR KING-Ultimate Ultimatum Automatic Kit ($71 with the discount) plus an extra 4 Cartomizers and with shipping it was 114.32. That is 45 packs of cigarettes costing me $7 more than if I had just purchased regular cigarettes. This is with the STARTING kit. If I buy 4 Cartomizers a month including $9.95 shipping I'll save $132 a month... not including any discounts they're running. If I lost you in all the math basically it's saving you a buttload of money so when it gets here and I've given it a fair trial I'll let you know how it goes. :)

Oh, and since there is NO smoke, only a pleasant smelling vapor (because they have 1000's of flavors you can choose from) I don't have to go outside!!! Double Score!

Well at least Gary made out...

I just got back from World Market (I love that place). I didn't really find what I was looking for (for me) but Gary is making out like a bandit.



Also stopped by the vet for more meds for Quagmire. $75 for 2 antibiotics. I'm in the wrong business. This dog is quickly turning into my million-dollar baby. Did I mention that one of the pills are gigantic and it's hard enough getting him to take tiny pills? UGH!