My Original DSLR Is Gone Forever…But…

Daytime Eats

So guys, turns out my DSLR is gone forever…but let’s start with breakfast before I get into that story…

Hubby and I picked up Honey Whole Wheat bread from Great Harvest yesterday. Whenever I get fresh bread, I CAN’T WAIT to dig in!

So, I toasted some up this AM

and topped it with Barney Butter and white chia seeds.

Good morning!

Lunch: toasted chicken sammie with harvarti on my delicious Honey WW bread with a side of microwave-steamed mixed veggies. I didn’t microwave the veggies long – just 30 seconds…long enough to make them a tad tender. I just seasoned them with salt.

After lunch, my sweet tooth kicked in. Luckily, I took the rest of my vegan chocolate chip cookies to work today and had one set aside to eat myself. I enjoyed my cookie with black tea with cream and sugar. Mmm…

I gave the rest of the cookies to my co-workers. I simply offered “homemade chocolate chip cookies.” After they said how good they were, I told them they were VEGAN! One of my co-workers asked what the difference between a “vegan” and “vegetarian” was, but we were able to explain. I forget how uncommon some of the terms and lifestyles and foods are in the real world” compared to the “blog world.” Anywho, I also explained that I made my cookies with 1/2 white-wheat flour and 1/2 spelt flour. I also emailed a link to some additional info on Spelt, and I think my co-worker may try to bake some spelt bread. Neat, no?!

One of my co-workers only took 1/2 a cookie. The other 1/2 stared me down in my cubicle until…yep…I ate it! It was delish. I need to make these cookies again SOON. They were so easy and tasty! I also like that you can make these cookies even if you’re out of milk or eggs because they’re vegan and don’t use either!

*

*

*

Camera Update

In camera news, I turned my camera in to Geek Squad to be fixed on Dec 20th and it was shipped off. On Dec 22 it was assigned a repair technician. As of this week, I had zero updates. Grr. I checked the online “status update” on geeksquad.com using my repair ID almost every other day to no avail.

On Jan 5, 2010, I decided to call the Geek Squad to see if they could get an update. They said they’d email the 3rd party company they use to fix the cameras (Precision Camera in my case) to request an update. I was very nice (no need to be that PO’ed customer who freaks out – that’s not cool) and the Geek Squad agent was very friendly. I felt a bit relieved after calling.

On Jan 6, 2010, I still hadn’t heard anything and the online status hadn’t been updated, so I checked in again. Again, I was very nice and so was the Geek Squad agent. They checked the system but didn’t have any updates.

On Jan 7, 2010 (today), I checked the status online and it said: Needs customer info – please contact Geek Squad. At first reading, I was a tad PO’ed. I thought maybe they’d let my camera sit around for a couple weeks and just now figured out they needed more info. So, I called Geek Squad again and again was quite nice and friendly and really just wanted to get whatever info to them they needed to move things along. The agent checked the system and said…my camera was being “junked” and that they were going to give me a replacement!

So, the bad news is that my original DSLR is gone forever (I hope they are able to salvage it and sell it as a re-built camera or something)

*

*

*

The good news is that I got a new camera! I had to pay a little extra because of a price guarantee refund we received on the original camera, to update the Geek Squad Protection Plan, and because I decided to get the XSi this time!

There were some features I liked better on the XSi than the XS I had before (more MP, more auto-focus points, larger LCD, etc) so I decided it was worth it.

I got my battery charging while I worked on dinner….

I used some Hodgson Mill whole wheat elbow pasta to make my Dad’s Mac and Cheese (still perfecting the recipe but hope to post it soon!)

I couldn’t find any bread crumbs so I used toasted wheat germ as a bread crumb substitute. It was a darn good substitute! It reminded me of a finer panko.

I used earth balance to help the top of the mac and cheese brown on top.

To go with the mac and cheese, I also heated up a Trader Joe’s Organic Tofu Veggie Burger. I wondered how to cook this veggie burger since it didn’t have cooking instructions, but I figured I’d just cook it like I do the others – either pan-seared or roasted. I decided to roast it and broiled each side for just a couple minutes.

I also microwave-steamed some frozen veggies and added a tad of real butter for flavor.

Dad’s mac and cheese was ready before I knew it!

Trombone! (that’s for you my “viola” friends…haha)

The mac and cheese was, of course, delicious!

The veggie burgers were pretty good and certainly easy to heat up. They reminded me a bit of marinated tofu – dark with marinade on the outside and lighter inside. The texture was a bit different than tofu.

Seconds on Mac and cheese!

Just after dinner, my camera battery was charged!

It’s go time baby!

I’m being very gentle with my new camera. I’m so scared of anything going wrong with it now! lol I can’t wait to try out my macro lens on this puppy, though!

How’s everyone doing with their resolutions? If you need exercise motivation, check out this post.