Home Organization Challenge Week 1 - Laundry

This weekend I started the 2020 Home Organization Challenge.  I have done this challenge a few times in the past, the first being the 21 day challenge in 2011 and the last time being in 2016 though I didn't make it through every room and didn't blog about that one as much.
This was a tough one.  I'm very glad that now that I'm in a house and have a baby this is a 14 week challenge instead of a 21 day challenge.  There is no way I could complete that again with my current life.

My laundry room is also the primary entrance we use to get into the house (aka, the back door) and by some sort of magic it never gets really out of control but lives is a state of not quite clean and not at all organized.   I followed the steps set out by the challenge kit and in doing so realized that the reason it lives in this state of just shy of chaos is because our shelves become a catch all for stuff we don't want to put in the garage/shed but don't really have a home for in the house either.  We also just kind of stacked the leftover paint from when we bought the house in a corner in there so it was in a climate controlled space but it wasn't really organized.

So here are my before pictures

As you can see the shelves are piled with random things, the deep sink is in desperate need of a scrub (though it is still stained pretty badly, it is much better) and for some reason we have 8 folding chairs just hanging out in the laundry room.  Also our ladder never made it to the shed after we cleaned the pine needles off of the roof in the fall.

This is the corner we stashed the paint cans in between our deep freezer and water heater.

And here we have more paint, and the ladder, and brooms and mops and a random box of books that I need to take to the little library at the end of our street. 

Unfortunately the jogging stroller has to stay even though it takes up a ton of space in the laundry room.  That is really the only place we have to store it and I use it frequently enough it can't really be shoved in the back of a closet.

And so after a day of pulling everything out of the laundry room into my kitchen.  Scrubbing stuff down, throwing away 1 bag of trash and loading the car up with items to donate I now have a much more organized space.   

(The ladder does still need to go out to the shed, but I couldn't find the key, so that will get done later this week.)

My shelves are neatly organized and only contain things that actually need to be in the laundry room. I do think I am going to put to gather a small in-the-house tool kit to keep on the top shelf over the deep sink.  We can never find simple things like a hammer or screwdriver when we need them, then we run out to the shed to get one and it just gets put in a random place creating a vicious cycle.  

You can't see it in this picture but all of the paint is on the bottom shelf of this unit, then I have any chemical stuff (bug treatment stuff from when we had an ant problem outside, weed killer, motor oil, windshield washer fluid, miracle grow etc) is on the second shelf.  Paper towels and small kitchen appliances (Stand Mixer, Bread Machine, electric griddle) on the middle shelf, paper plates, plasticware, and extra laundry detergent are on the 2nd to the top shelf and on the very top I have our coolers and my husbands bike stuff (helmet, bike lock, tire pump).

Overall I consider week 1 of the home organization challenge a success.  I eventually want to tear up the cracked tiles on this floor and either replace them or paint the concrete underneath.  I also want to paint the entire room white and sand/refinish the metal pipes that run along the walls so that they really pop out in either a copper or rubbed bronze finish (depends on what they are actually made of, there are too many coats of paint over them now to tell).  I don't know if any of my decorating vision for this room will ever happen since this isn't our forever home, but if we get another set of orders to Hampton Roads and stay here for a few more years I might go ahead and do it.  

Happy Monday!

So confusing

So I started doing some research last night trying to figure out the best place to start putting together a household binder.  I thought I would be able to find some cute fun printables that I would like that I could use but as many of the bloggers who had printables available for download stated...One size does not fit all...So instead I'm going to work on creating my own in the coming weeks I am by no means a design artist so I'm sure they won't be the cutest things in the world but for now I'm going for functionality over fun so wish me luck.

What are some things you think I should include in my binder?

Chicken Cabbage Soup

I can't remember where I found this recipe, however the sliced cabbage noodles are really fun and it is a delicious chicken soup.  Perfect for cold weather like what we are having currently (it's 20 degrees here today).  It really does warm the soul.

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, diced or sliced
• 2 ribs celery, diced (leaves included)
• 8 cups water, vegetable or chicken stock (I used homemade chicken stock)
• 2 cups diced chicken meat, cooked (I used meat from the bird I cooked to make my chicken stock, you can omit the meat for a vegetarian version.)
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• 1/8 teaspoon rubbed sage
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
• 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 1/4 head cabbage, thinly sliced
• 1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, rinsed and drained (or
• 1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas)
• generous grating of black pepper
• 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
• salt to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat a large, non-stick pot. Add the onions, carrots, and celery and cook until onions soften. Add the water or stock and all remaining ingredients except nutritional yeast and parsley. 
2. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook until vegetables are tender and broth is flavorful (at least 30 minutes).
3. Stir in the nutritional yeast and parsley.  Add salt to taste and serve.

Number of servings (yield): 6

The Power of a Praying Wife

For my first focus of the Lenten season I am reading The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian.  My intention is to read one chapter per day, so today I will be reading chapter 4.   I am very impressed by Stormie's straightforward approach and the way she speaks straight to the reader, be they the wife of a devout Christian or of an Atheist.   I find myself relating to a lot of the points she makes (who hasn't prayed for their husband to change and start putting his socks in the laundry basket on his own, or spoken to him out of anger instead of love?) and am going to make a concentrated effort to pray for him in the right way and let God bless our marriage in the way he intends for it to be blessed.   I'm really excited to finish the book and may even read ahead.

Here is an image of the book cover/link to it on Amazon if you are interested:


There is also an edition specifically for military wives, be they the wives of AD service members or service members themselves which is available for free through many military chaplains.

24 Day Challenge Check In

So today was day 11 of my 24 day challenge.   This is my third challenge since March 2015 when Hubby and I signed up as distributors for the discount.   Last year I lost a total of 18 pounds and dropped a full pants size + (12's were tight on me in January 2015, now 10's are loose and I can wear 8's but I'm not comfortable in them yet.)

Today I weighed myself and I have lost another 3 pounds, 1 inch on my waist (which means the 8's probably actually fit me now, 3/4 inch on my hips, and 1/2 inch on each of my thighs.   

I cannot express how much I love the Advocare products and how glad I am that hubby and I have found a program that works for both of us.   The food lines up with my normal eating habits, (with the exception of cutting some of my sugary-food-vices) and has really taught hubby the importance of a balanced diet and helped expose him to a better idea of what healthy food really is verse "healthy" frozen dinners and ranch dressing.   He is now truly 60+ pounds lighter than he was at this time last year and for the first time in our relationship he has lost the weight at a safe rate and continued to loose without massive rebounds.   I am so proud of him and so excited to see where we end up.  If you had told me 4 years ago he would be at this point and I would be ok with him continuing to lose weight without looking like someone who is terminally ill I would have laughed...I am amazed by the difference losing weight the right way has had in his appearance.   

We have started going to hot yoga, (we had 1 month unlimited groupons) and when the month is over we are going to start working with weights.  Hubby is also training for a marathon (it will probably be in the fall) and we are going to do the same 5k we did last year in May so I'm going to start using the elliptical more regularly until the weather gets a little nicer then I will start C25K again running to the park down the street.  My goal will be to beat last years time of 38 minutes (wish me luck!)

That's all for now.  I hope you are enjoying the fun 24-day challenge friendly recipes!!!

Lets get organized!!!

A Bowl Full of Lemons is hosting their 2016 Home Organization 101 Series starting tomorrow and I'm going to join in the fun.
I participated a few years ago when I still lived in our apartment in Georgia and it was great, lord knows our house can use some organizational help!  

So who is with me???

Long Distance Marriage

This weekend I was talking to a random person at the apartment complex pool and she complimented me on being so young with a long-distance marriage.  I never really thought of what Adam and I are doing right now as having a long distance marriage since our plan is for me to be with him soon (yes I think 1-3 years is soon when your looking at 50+!)

So I've been thinking about this a lot lately and it has really weighed heavy on my mind and I started doing a little research. 

First--I found some great tips at the blog of A Lady Scientist in my first general Google search.  Number one is a biggie we are dealing with already--End the conversation when there is nothing left to talk about.  Last night I was sick and losing my voice yet Adam and I were still on the phone for nearly an hour and I'm not sure what anything we talked about was.  Oh yeah, and I was drugged up on Nyquill at the time so I'm sure that what little I did contribute to the conversation was SUPER meaningful...I'm actually forwarding the link to her blog to Adam to read too.  Not sure if he will but if he does I think it would be helpful, either way I know that I learned a lot and it will help me.

Second--THIS military.com article summed up a long distance marriage pretty much the way I expect it to go.  It made me feel good to read this article and realize that  I am going into this with my eyes fairly open.  I fully expect the next few years to be absolute hell, however as stated in this article, I also bet that I will shave my legs every time my husband comes home or I go to see him :)

Those of you who have actually visited my blog page and don't just follow me in RSS or Google Reader know that my "tagline" is "happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance"  I don't actually believe that it is a matter of chance but I do believe that meeting and marrying the person who will bring you happiness is chance.  I was lucky enough to meet the man who makes me happy and who I make happy.  That being said one thing I learned from watching my parents during their 25 year marriage, (23 years of which I was alive for and actually watched...) is that marriage is work.  There is give and take, and sometimes one person takes more but at other times they will be the one who gives more.  I think that no matter what kind of marriage you have long distance or co-habitating (is that even a word?) lots of work is involved.  When you live with your SO you have to deal with them leaving towels on the floor (me!) or squeezing toothpaste from the middle of the tube (hubby!) and when you don't live together you have an entirely different set of problems to deal with like phone calls and bad times that you feel like you have to take and travel expenses to visit each other.

Adam and I have been married for 22 months now, of that 22 months he has been in the Navy 4 months, worked 3rd shift 4 months and we have lived at least 6 hours away from one another 9 months (including the 4 he has been in the Navy) it has been a fairly crazy start to our life together but it has been fun so far and I'm looking forward to see how the next 20 years go!

Something that I am still a little worried about is the stigma I have been told is attached to the wives of geographic bachelors in the military.  I've heard people say/read in other blogs etc. that wives like me are often frowned upon.  As if we are not supporting our husbands by being away instead of being with them.  But sometimes we cannot go with our husbands for a variety of reasons.  For me it is simply a matter of I am not willing to give up my career at this point.  If I can stay here until he has a rate and gets orders to his next PCS where we will be staying for a while then I will be better able to continue my career.  Also, we currently have a mortgage in Louisville and my ton of student loans.  Because of this we simply can't afford to go without my income right now even for a short period of time.  Just because I am not with my husband at his duty station does not mean that I am not supporting him though.  I am providing all of the emotional support I can from 10+hours away right now.  Also I am supporting him by continuing my career because he wants me to be successful as much as I want for him to be successful.  We support each other, it is a give and take.

So now to open the can of worms--What is your opinion of long-distance marriages?  What kind of marriage do you have how do you make yours work?  What experience have you had with military families who are living with long distance marriages?  Feel free to disagree with me but please do so respectfully.  I know this can be controversial and normally I avoid controversy on this blog but it is my blog and this is what I am thinking about right now so I want you to feel free to sound-off as well.

Ok--go comment now but play nice! :)

Crazy Days

OMG...What a crazy day! 

This afternoon my realtor had some free time (he is one of my best friends husbands) and went by my house in Louisville to make a list of the things I need to do now that the tenant had moved out (who is another friend)to get the house ready to sell.  I am absolutely pissed! How in the WORLD can someone who claims to be a friend leave such disarray in my home when I am trying to sell it?????????

His lease ended May 1, he moved into a new place April 28th.  He should have been out of my house by now!  I knew the realtor was going over this week to make the list and had told our friend this.  The friend said that the upstairs was empty last week when I talked to him and that he still had some stuff in the basement he wanted to sort through so that he wasn't paying to store stuff he didn't want.  Which I was fine with because I knew the upstairs would need a little bit of work done before we could list the house. 

When the realtor got to the house the alarm had been set.  My friend did not use the alarm the entire time he lived there so it did not occur to me to give the realtor the alarm code.  My friend was still listed as the first person for the alarm company to call before dispatching the police.  When they called him he told them he had no clue who was there and to send the police...HE KNEW THE REALTOR WOULD BE THERE THIS WEEK!!!!! WTH!!!! So I call the alarm company tell them to remove him from the account and get it put back in my name.  The call to stop the dispatch but the cops were already on my street so they stopped anyway.  The cop started laughing when he saw the realtor signs on our realtors truck and him locking the door behind him with nothing except a clipboard in his hands :)   Turns out the cop is getting ready to move and needed a realtor YAY my friend has a new client wanting to look in a fairly high-end part of town.  Hopefully this means he will make enough off of the cop's house to make up for the fact that he is helping me soooo much with this house and it is worth peanuts.
After all of this I get a text from the Realtors wife.  She said "Realtor just got home, he was going to call you but wants you to call him after you are home and in a place where it is safe to scream."  My only response was FUCK.  For those of you who don't know me I don't use that word very often, and when I do it is in more of a lighthearted fashion...my girlfriend knew I was pissed and apparently started laughing when she got my text. 

So I came home and called the realtor and my wonderful friend Laney came and got the puppies and took them to the dog park for me so I could concentrate on being pissed off.  Here is the damage:
Upstairs still has a lot of little stuff, a large china cabinet, kitchen stuff, oh yeah and 2 bags of trash in the kitchen that is full of bugs....WTH! BUGS!!!!  The two rooms with carpet will probably have to have the carpet replaced.  There is so much dog hair he couldn't even see the floor he is pretty sure that it is ground into the carpet and probably won't come up :(  Luckily there is decent hardwood under the carpet so we can sand the floors and polyurethane them when we do the living room.  I'm also going to have to paint the entire upstairs, I was expecting to have to paint 1 bedroom, the living room, and maybe the kitchen but the kitchen is a most definitely and the bedroom I thought would be OK has all sorts of marks on the wall from furniture banging into it.  Marks that weren't there 6 months ago. 

Now for the basement--There is so much shit in the basement that the realtor didn't even leave the stairwell...our friend has more shit in the basement than we did...

Last of all the yard--There is dog shit everywhere and the grass is almost knee high in the back yard.  For those of you who live under rocks the Kentucky Derby was on Saturday, for those of you who aren't from the Louisville area the Derby is a HUGE deal in Louisville, this is the city's time to shine.  Because of all of the attention that the city draws the metro government goes crazy on making sure everything looks nice.  I am lucky that I don't have a $200-$500 fine on my hands for the yard not being mowed...I can only assume that from the road you can't tell how bad the back yard is.  It should have been mowed 3-5 times since the last time he mowed...that is not acceptable!
So I got off of the phone with my realtor, drank a glass of water, counted to ten and called my friend.  I told him "you HAVE to mow the yard tonight!" he said "It's not bad but it does need it I was going to take care of it tonight"  I thought NOT BAD! my realtor had no reason to exaggerate about the yard...I'm pretty sure it's at least over your shins...but I just bit my tongue and said "the city has been issuing fines lately and they can be as much as $500, mow it tonight or if I get one you're paying it."  He said it would be done tonight and that he still had a "couple of things" upstairs that he was getting out tonight.  I almost died...a couple of things...SERIOUSLY there is still furniture upstairs!!!!
He did explain the basement at least...Next week is bulk junk pickup for my neighborhood.  He has a couple of old couches in the basement that he needs to get rid of so he is going to start leaving stuff on the curb to have hauled off...which I am fine with...I gave him until Monday to have everything out of the house and has to run the vacuum well in both bedrooms before he moves out.  I will be there next week and expect it to be clean so that I can finish cleaning it.  I am considering driving up there on Saturday after the 5K to see how bad it really is/get started on the stuff necessary to get the house ready to sell...maybe tape off the ceiling etc. to paint and if it isn't too bad maybe even get the floors sanded and ready to polyurethane over.  It wouldn't be my smartest decision but I think it might be the best idea.  The sooner everything is done the sooner it can get listed. 

THEN--I got off of the phone without screaming or calling my friend a liar, went to the dog park to get the puppies and came home and went for a run.  About 1/2 way through the run I got this super sharp pain in my abdomen that was so bad I almost hit the ground.  I stopped moving until it got bearable then walked back to the apt.  I was scared to death it was my appendix (and it may be but I highly doubt it) I have a history of small ovarian cysts which rupture from time to time.  I haven't had one rupture in about 4 years and had forgotten how bad it hurt but  the pain has gone mostly away so I am sure that it was a cyst and not my appendix.  On the bright side it did make me read my TriCare paperwork so that I could look up where I need to go to the doctor/er if necessary :) 

Now I am sitting here complaining to the blogosphere I apologize for venting to all of you!  Thanks for listening :)

Stuffed Bell Peppers and Stuffed Tomatoes

Tonight for dinner I thought I would use up some bell peppers my sister in law gave me from her garden before they went bed.  I called my mom this morning and asked her for her recipe from when I was younger.  She informed me that she had never used a recipe she just made meatloaf and stuffed it in the peppers then baked them...fat lot of help that was!  So I looked up some recipes online to get ideas and here is what I came up with :)  (Scroll to bottom for full recipe without pictures)

I'm going to start with the tomatoes because I used the same stuffing for both but I left the meat out of the tomatoes, on and I didn't really measure anything...oops!

1 can of corn
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 cup instant rice (uncooked!)
2 Banana Peppers--Diced Small
2 TBS minced garlic
1/2 onion diced small
Tomatoes--for stuffing
Bell Peppers-enough to stuff plus 1 or 2 diced small
1-2 lbs ground meat (I used Turkey)
Parmesean Cheese
Any shredded cheese (I used colby jack but mozzarella would be awesome!)

Preheat oven to 450ish

Start with your peppers and tomatoes in a baking dish with sides high enough to catch any liquid that might overflow from the peppers and tomatoes, I used my super cute green one that Charlotte from my moms church gave me as a wedding present.

Core and seed your peppers and tomatoes. Then place them in the baking dish (if you are doing a whole lot I would recommend putting the tomatoes and peppers in sepearte dishes.  The tomatoes really take a little less time to cook so mine ended up good but if I had made more than two they wouldn't have reheated very well.

Put your instant rice in a microwave save bowl (I used the green mixing bowl that matches my pan because they make me happy) :)

Add 1 cup of liquid to the rice, (I used the juice from my canned corn then made up the difference with water) then cook for 5 minutes (even if the box says 6, trust me you don't want soggy rice!)

Remove rice from microwave and fluff up with a spoon then add your corn

1/2 the can of tomato sauce (1/2 cup)

1 Tablespoon (ish...ok maybe 3 tablespoons) of garlic (that is totally my version of 1 tablespoon of garlic.  If you are one of those crazy people who don't like it use less or leave it out. You probably don't want to use much more though because it might overpower the other flavors)

Add 2 diced banana peppers (or japaleno's or any other spicy pepper if you would like, you can also leave these out but I had them so I used them!) 1-2 diced bell peppers (any color) and 1/2 diced onion

Mix everything up really well

Add 1-2 hand-fulls of Parmesan cheese and 1-2 hand-fulls of shredded cheese of your choice

I "accidentally" put some cheese in the bottoms of my peppers and tomatoes too!

I made my tomatoes vegetarian style so I mixed everything up really well and stuffed the tomatoes at this point :)

Add your meat I used ground turkey but you could use any ground meat try to stick with fairly lean meat though since we are not pre-cooking it for this recipe.

Mix everything up really well again

Stuff the peppers

Top everything with more cheese (the Parmesan gives it a nice crust on top and the melty cheese is just delicious)

Cover in tinfoil and bake until internal temperature is fully cooked for the type of meat you are using (polultry 170-180, beef could go as low as 140-150) These took about 1 hour at 450 ish (my apartment oven is a little off)

If you want to be super awesome when they are almost done take off the tinfoil, add more shredded cheese and let it cook uncovered so you get this yummy bubbly crust on top!

Let cool a little while before eating or you will burn your mouth.

I used about 1/2 of my filling so I added the tomato sauce to the rest of it and mixed it up then put it in a freezer bag to use later to either make more stuffed peppers or to use as a base for stuffed pepper soup I'm not sure which.

Enjoy!

Condensed recipe:

1 can of corn
1 small can of tomato sauce

1 cup instant rice (uncooked!)

2 Banana Peppers--Diced Small
2 TBS minced garlic
1/2 onion diced small

Tomatoes--for stuffing

Bell Peppers-enough to stuff plus 1 or 2 diced small

1-2 lbs ground meat (I used Turkey)
Parmesean Cheese
Any shredded cheese (I used colby jack but mozzarella would be awesome!)


Preheat oven to 450ish

Start with your peppers and tomatoes in a baking dish with sides high enough to catch any liquid that might overflow from the peppers and tomatoes

Core and seed your peppers and tomatoes. Then place them in the baking dish (if you are doing a whole lot I would recommend putting the tomatoes and peppers in sepearte dishes.  The tomatoes really take a little less time to cook so mine ended up good but if I had made more than two they wouldn't have reheated very well.
Put your instant rice in a microwave safe bowl

Add 1 cup of liquid to the rice, (I used the juice from my canned corn then made up the difference with water) then cook for 5 minutes (even if the box says 6, trust me you don't want soggy rice!)

Remove rice from microwave and fluff up with a spoon then add your corn

1/2 the can of tomato sauce (1/2 cup)

1 Tablespoon (ish...ok maybe 3 tablespoons) of garlic (that is totally my version of 1 tablespoon of garlic.  If you are one of those crazy people who don't like it use less or leave it out. You probably don't want to use much more though because it might overpower the other flavors)

Add 2 diced banana peppers (or japaleno's or any other spicy pepper if you would like, you can also leave these out but I had them so I used them!)

1-2 diced bell peppers (any color)

1/2 diced onion

Mix everything up really well

Add 1-2 hand-fulls of Parmesan cheese and 1-2 hand-fulls of shredded cheese of your choice

I "accidentally" put some cheese in the bottoms of my peppers and tomatoes too!

I made my tomatoes vegetarian style so I mixed everything up really well and stuffed the tomatoes at this point

Add your meat I used ground turkey but you could use any ground meat try to stick with fairly lean meat though since we are not pre-cooking it for this recipe.

Mix everything up really well again

Stuff the peppers

Top everything with more cheese (the Parmesan gives it a nice crust on top and the melty cheese is just delicious)



Cover in tinfoil and bake until internal temperature is fully cooked for the type of meat you are using (polultry 170-180, beef could go as low as 140-150) These took about 1 hour at 450 ish (my apartment oven is a little off)

If you want to be super awesome when they are almost done take off the tinfoil, add more shredded cheese and let it cook uncovered so you get this yummy bubbly crust on top!


Let cool a little while before eating or you will burn your mouth.

My Week

Sorry for the lack of posting but for some reason last week was crazy!
Classes started yesterday and I can tell that I am going to really enjoy my German professor.  He stayed after class to chat with me since I'm in a bit of a strange situation (I took the same level class roughly 4 years ago before my study abroad in Austria, and am a masters student, paying masters rates, for an undergrad class) and promised that I would get my money's worth and by the time I'm done with next year's classes (I acutally only need to take semesters 3 and 4 for my degree, I'm retaking 2 because it's been so long) I will be beyond conversational and if I truly apply my self (I'm paying graduate rates out of my pocket you better believe I'm going to apply myself!) I will probably be able to call myself fluent.  A major improvement over my undergraduate German experience.  Tonight is my international business class so I'll let you all know how that goes later!

On to the fitness goals--
Hubby is going to the gym with me tomorrow to set up his membership and I went yesterday morning before class like a good little girl. 
I didn't record my calories over the weekend but all of last week I came out near my goal of 1600+exercise.  The exercise calories I am considering bonus, I can eat them if I am hungry but I don't have to, I'm making sure that I hit at least the 1500 mark daily and my max without exercise is 1600. 
As of yesterday morning I lost 2 pounds, I forgot to measure my waist though so that will wait for next week.
I have been drinking at least 6 cups of water every day.  I've hit the 8 I want to be at every day if you count juice and I have been over 8 most days.
So far I'm off to a good start.

As for not counting my calories over the weekend, Friday night I went out with a friend who turned 21 last week.  I stayed under my calorie allowance but didn't realize how many rum and diet cokes you can drink for 300 calories.  Around 11 I texted hubby and told him I wouldn't be able to drive home which he was fine with, just to call him when I was ready to go.  I also stoped drinking at this point (free drinks were included with cover until 11) but about 1130 the 21 year old ordered shots of tequilla (or as she said it the one with salt and lime)  I'm pretty sure that shot of tequilla put me over the edge.  I officially had my first real hangover this weekend.  The most I've had to drink in the past year is 2 or 3 glasses of wine or mixed drinks...I'm a bit of a lightweight anyway.  oops!   Needless to say I have no business going out with a newly 21 year old unless I'm the DD every again b/c I'm going back to my method of ordering 1 or 2 drinks tops...I don't care if it's included in the cover!  (So I didn't count the calories b/c I ate a lot of greasy carbs on Saturday) 

Saturday night was Derby Dinner with hubby SIL/BIL and MIL for MIL's bday.  Hubby's uncle got to come too.  The play was Death and Taxes which I enjoyed  it was very well done and I like the story line.  The food as usual was amazing.  Odly enough it was a vegetarians dream meal though.  They always have a good variety of vegetables but Saturday night they had a huge variety spread out that tasted amazing.  My second plate was meat free.

Wild Turkey = Yummy

As promised here is the Thanksgiving weekend post...

Thursday was spent at hubby's aunt and uncles with his extended family. Dinner consisted of both domistic and wild turkey's and it was yummy! I made a super easy appetizer consisting of sesame seed breadsticks wrapped in bacon and baked (bacon--yummy!) and a warm pumpkin dip that was delicious.

After things started to wrap up at hubby's uncles (about the 4th quarter of the last football game) We headed back to Louisville and played with the puppy for a while and I started wrapping Christmas presents to take inventory of what we already have purchased and made a list of where we might find the best black Friday deals and who we still needed to buy gifts for.

Then we headed for MIDNIGHT BINGO!!!! (yes we are crazy...) It was so much fun. Midnight Bingo is so classy and white trash, if you have never been you must try it at least once, I've only been 2 or 3 times but it was a good way to stay awake and it let out at 3am, giving us just enought time to go home, eat a snack and head out for the crazy black friday deals. We mainly went to laugh at the idoits who were out shopping hard core but we did hit a few good deals. Around 9ish we got tired of shopping and headed to Cracker Barrel then went to the U of L game...I slept through the first half...and the hubs fell asleep once or twice too...we were a bit exhausted. Thank God that Kragthrope is gone...he isn't necessarily a bad coach, I think that on a college level the fact that the players liked him is EXTREAMLY important because at that point his job is as much to teach as it is to win, but if we're going to be opening up a bunch of new seats in the stadium next year we need a coach who can put butts in the seats. The game Friday about 1/2 the stadium looked empty to me, I'm not sure what the final count was though.

After the game we hit McDonalds for the glasses that they were giving away then (and for lunch) then headed home and slept for a couple of hours. We woke up around 8 and put up the Christmas Tree and played with the puppy then it was back to bed until about 10:00 Saturday morning.

Saturday we went to our churches Oyster dinner. I had a hot dog (I don't like oysters) and a super delicous slice of strawberry rubarb pie (I like food can you tell?) Then hubby and I went to walmart and returned our last 2 wedding presents.
Saturday night we decorated the tree and had a chill evening at home complete with leftovers for dinner :)

Yesterday was extreamly uneventful. Hubby wasn't feeling good so he slept most of the day and I wrote a paper. After I finished my paper I decided to start on the diaper cake I am making for a friends baby shower (they are so much fun and so easy! If anyone ever needs a baby shower gift I highly reccommend them!) but I was out of rubber bands so I needed to run to the store. When we left Kmart hubby turned away from our house and wouldn't tell me where we were going. I have the best husband in the world, he decided to surprise me with SUSHI for dinner. I heart sushi!!!!

All in all a great holiday weekend. Now just 3 more weeks of work and then Christmas Vacation!!!!!!!!

Yummy Apples

This weekend I went to my mom's without hubby for our local po-dunk festival. I bought yummy apples and met up with old friends. It was a lot of fun. I went down Friday night to a friends house where a lot of people were gathered. There I caught up with about 75% of the people my age from that area I can stand to talk to, let alone care to catch up with. Saturday I went to the festival and after being there about 3 minutes met up with one of my moms’ friends and her daughter. I walked with them for a little bit then ran into an old high school boyfriend (we are still friends, it ended dramatically, but what high school relationship doesn’t, we have both grown up and realized that as adults we can/should be friends still/again) for the sake of ease and to protect the innocent I will call him Drago. I stopped to catch up with him and we talked for a few minutes when some other friends we used to run around with came up. I walked around with all of them for pretty much the rest of the day. I was amazed at the friends from high school who had served in the military who were telling me not to let Hubby join the navy. Drago--Spent the past 4 years in Afghanistan and Iraq w/ the army--Said that he knows I'm strong willed and can handle it but that if we are going to do this I need to make sure that hubby & I are both doing everything we can to cover our own Asses b/c he saw more than one person get royally screwed for stupid stuff that has nothing to do with the military. JU & EU--Married, I knew him (J) but was good friends with her (E)--he was in the Marines and is now a prison guard or something at the state prison near where I grew up--E just simply said please don't do it. I had already been told by another friend whose husband is in the Navy stationed in CA that she hates it and gave me her reasons why, but I am far more independent than her and most of her hates are things I would probably love but that was when we were first just throwing the idea around not since we've made up our minds to commit. After seeing Drago and JU my heart reaches out to all of the military wives with "broken" husbands. I have no doubt in my mind that PTS is real and I never doubted it but after this weekend I'm realizing that it is far worse than I imagined. When I saw JU and EU last year my father had just died so I wasn't very observant to the people around me, however JU had been discharged less than a month prior to me seeing them. Looking back I realize that both of them looked pretty ragged. I noticed this b/c when we walked away Drago said something about how rough JU looked this weekend, so I thought back to last year and realized that yeah, he looks really rough (like he hasn't slept in a month) but that EU looked a lot better. Last year she looked like she was constantly on edge and worn ragged. This year her eyes were aged but she looked well rested and healthy. To me that was a sign that he was doing better, otherwise she would still look just a bad as before. This conversation led to one about Drago and how he was handling being "back from the Middle East. He said that on Friday he saw dental picks at one of the booths and got very excited because they are apparently perfect for cleaning weapons so he bought a handful, then realized that he no longer needs them. I pointed out that he can at least send them to friends which he thought was a good idea. It seems like Drago is handling himself well, but I know that what he saw changed him. I couldn't imagine how hard it has been for EU since JU came home, Just talking to Drago made me almost want to cry but to have the man you love and are married to come home and have to live every day knowing that he isn't ok would kill me. After all of the conversations I had this weekend with people who have known me for a long time I am even more sure that Hubby and I are doing the right thing. I think if he were considering the Army or Marines they would have successfully talked me out of it, however knowing that he is going to be gone, and having the security of knowing that it is normal for him to be gone, not having to worry about him being on a battlefield somewhere...I know it isn't going to be easy but I'm the lucky one. My husband will be gone, but I know that going into this I don't have to worry about war, I'm the lucky one and I can't imagine how much harder it would be to be EU right now....