On the 1st day of Christmas...

Happy Early Birthday to Me!

My sister is the most impatient gift-giver ever.

She went out shopping for my birthday present today, found it, and brought it straight over to me, even though my birthday is only a mere 7 hours away. Impatient, but I'm not complaining!

She knew we've been looking everywhere for some neat stuff to put on our walls, so she got me these! Cool, huh?


We hung them over the fireplace and they look awesome. Now we just need to find something for that middle spot.


Mike is taking me out shopping tomorrow, then we're heading over to my parents' for a birthday supper and perhaps a movie. Fun fun!

HAPPY THANKSGIVNG!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone stuffs themselves silly with obscene amounts of delicious food and takes a little time to give thanks for all the blessings in their lives.

And while you're at it, enjoy some of these Thanksgiving jokes!

What is the turkey's favorite black tie celebration?
The Butter Ball

Did you hear about the X rated turkey?
It was served with very little dressing.

Which side of the turkey has the most feathers?
The outside!

How does a turkey drink her wine?
In a gobble-let

What is the difference between a chicken and a turkey?
Chickens celebrate Thanksgiving!

And my favorite...

A few days before Thanksgiving, a lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at her local grocery store, but she couldn't find one big enough for her family. She asked the stock boy, "Do these turkeys get any bigger?" The stock boy replied, "No ma'am, they're dead."

Yesterday's Sunset

Yesterday I was going to the grocery store to get stuff for my Thanksgiving dishes. On the way there, I noticed the sunset, pulled over and grabbed my camera. Good thing too, because by the time I got to the store, the cool jet lines were gone and so was all the pink. That, my friends, is why I take my camera everywhere!

Some Things Never Change

When my sister and I were little, we would play for hours in any over-sized box that would come into our possession.

Some things never change.


Here we are, not watching the new awesome tv, but playing in the giant box it came in. With creepy eyes.


Miraculously, we fit Mike in there too.

Some people just never grow up. I hope I'm always one of them....

Recipe of the Week

More like recipe of the month. It's been awhile since I've tried anything new, and it's been even longer since anything new I've tried was something to write about.

So in efforts to get this recipe of the week thing kick-started again, I'm busting out one of my favorites that we use pretty much every week.

My Favorite Garlic Bread

For this, you will need:

1/2 stick of butter
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1/2 T parsley (more or less)
1/2 loaf of French bread
Parmesan cheese

First soften your butter in the microwave. Try not to totally melt it or make it explode like I have done in the past. But even if you do, it will be okay.

Next, chop your garlic and add to the soften butter. Then add your parsley. Give everything a good stir, then spread it onto your French bread that you've cut in half long-ways. In the event that your french bread has gone moldy without you knowing it, the garlicky/parsley butter goes just as well on regular sandwich bread.

Put the bread in the oven @ 400 degrees and bake for 7-8 minutes.

Take the bread out for just a second, sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top and pop it back in the oven for another 2-3 minutes until crusty. Then enjoy some of the best garlic bread ever!

Christmas Came Early!

Instead of buying each other gifts for Christmas, Mike and I decided to pool the money we would have used, plus any other Christmas money we get, to buy something we've been dreaming about owning for a long time.

And being the impatient, highly excitable people we are, we went out and bought it today...

Here it is!!!



It's a 42" LCD super awesome tv. Mike was actually skipping down the aisles at Walmart as we were buying it.

We hooked it up and it's amazing. We broke it in by watching IU beat Purdue at the last minute in football. It was so clear we could actually see the players sweat and the Purdue fans cry. Well, I made that last part up, but if they showed the Purdue fans, I'm sure we would have been able to see the tears.

Best present ever! Merry Christmas to us!

Lost and Found

My Grandma Nancy was a wonderful cook. She made the world's best fried chicken and meringue pies. She also had the coolest cookbook ever, full of recipes she collected throughout her years in the kitchen. When she passed away two and a half years ago, I decided I should start making a cookbook like she did. And I have... it's been one of the only self-assigned projects I've actually stuck with. So far I've filled one and a half notebooks and am still going strong!

For the last few weeks, I haven't been able to find one of the notebooks. The first notebook. The completely handwritten notebook with 100+ recipes in it. Needless to say I was a bit distraught. I searched high and low, every nook and cranny, and still couldn't find it.

So today, I was just randomly cleaning up a bit and I saw a papery corner sticking out from behind the fridge. The light bulb clicked on in my brain... there it was! I must have put it on top of the fridge "for safe keeping" and it fell off. Hooray! So now I can enjoy my recipes again... except now I have in mind to digitalize them all so I won't ever lose them. A new project awaits!

STRESS

I've been a bad blogger recently. It's just I've had other things on my mind.

Warning: venting about to occur...

I've been stressed about my job... it seems I was hired in the middle of a office political hail storm. I still LOVE working with the kids, but the snarkiness is getting old and it seems I'm having to pick up a lot of the slack.

I've been stressed about the dance team. I've had to suspend two girls from the team due to grades, and now the routine has fallen apart. And to top it off I've had to deal with snarkiness from a parent. Principal involved snarkiness. Oh my.

We had Marley neutered/declawed/vaccinated yesterday. That was a large chunk of change and was I worried about him because we took him to a different vet due to cost issues with our regular one. My normal love bug of a cat is kind of grumpy and shaved in awkward places, but all in all he's doing fine.

We also had to switch Mike's car insurance because his policy with his parents is over. We've been fighting for two days over it because Mike agreed to coverage that is waaay too expensive for what we are getting. Not only agreed, but put a 2 month down payment on it. Now I have to get my dad to help fix it because it seems that Mike can't manage to do it himself. Sigh.

And to make things worse, I'm out of my medicine that helps me deal with stress. So all these stressors that most people could easily deal with seems like huge, monstrous ordeals to me and I end up falling to pieces over everything. I go to the doctor on Friday, but for the last week I've been falling apart over stupid little things. And the thing is I know they are stupid... I just can't help it. I'd say I'm somewhere between a nervous break down and a horribly foul mood. Friday never seemed so far away.

Venting complete.

So in conclusion, I'm a nutcase who hasn't had time to blog. But I promise I'll do better! New recipe coming soon!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Today we had the afternoon off work, so I decided to do some heavy duty Christmas shopping. Some may think I'm crazy, others might think I'm ultra-prepared. But really, I just really really really hate the Christmas crowds. They make me irrationally angry. Irrational anger is not a good thing for me, so I try to get it done as quickly and as soon as possible.

I got a lot done today. We got Mike's entire family and my mom's side of the family's presents bought and wrapped. All I have left to get is my parents' and sister's presents, and of course, Mike's.

Not too shabby for only being Nov. 9.

My Little Marley Cat

Here's a little video that reminds me so much of my little Marley cat. All you cat lovers out there will appreciate this too!

The Wake Up Call

Boo Patriots...

That is all.

Drat you, time change!!!

So we woke up, showered, got ready, etc. to go to church this morning at our usual time. As we were putting our shoes on and taking the dog out, I happened to walk by our digital cable box and saw the time. The following was my internal dialouge.

"9:15? That's not right. It's 10:15. Wait. It is 10:15, isn't it? Am I going crazy? Oh wait, it IS 9:15. Time change! Drat you, time change!"

It's just a good thing our cable box changes on its own! So now we're enjoying our extra our before church. Mike is cooking bacon and I'm browsing for Christmas present ideas on the internet. I'm kind of disappointed that we didn't get the triumphant sleep in... I love that smug feeling... the feeling like I've beat the time system or something. But it could have been worse. We could have sprung ahead and totally missed everything this morning. Or work tomorrow. EEK! Someone was smart to declare the time change on Sundays... a dum dum mistake buffer of sorts!

Candy! Glorious Candy!

My mom and I volunteered to help out with the promotion of our church's education center by stuffing treat bags for our town's annual trick or treat walk. We had to take a little break to relish the huge amount of candy that we had in our possession.


Check out Mom's face. She looks like a candy eating lion lady. It's so nice of her to keep supplying me with all these wonderful blackmail pictures!

First Performance

My dance team girls had their first performance today. It's been a long time in the works.

When I first signed up for the job, I wasn't totally sure what I was getting myself into.

When I had to come up with the dance on my own, I was like "WHAT HAVE I DONE?? WHY ME??? WHY????????"

And then I had to deal with the t-shirt people and slow orders. IIIIEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! I finally got the shirts in yesterday afternoon. I hate cutting things close, so I was just a tad bit stressed!

It was a lot of hard work and a lot of practices, but also a lot of fun. I've got 16 wonderful girls to work with and a fabulous assistant (who also happens to be my mom) that helps me out when I can't be there because of my other job at my other school.

Today's performance was GREAT! It was the best job they've done so far! I was nervous for them all day long because the last practice didn't go so well, but they got it together and just blew me away!! They crowd cheered and the principal gave us a good review. I'm so proud of them... it's like my little baby birds have flown from the nest!