Miscellaneous Monday

Yesterday, we were making dinner, and Husband threw an oven mitt at me. I was across the room, so it came nowhere near me, and it landed on the ground near my feet. We had my brother and sister-in-law over, and their dog came as well, so when it landed, we told the dog, Lincoln, to pick up the mitt and bring it back over to him. We stopped paying attention to the dogs, until we were trying to get something out of the oven, and started looking for the oven mitt. We literally looked for about an hour, and finally, after searching every inch of the house, and the outdoors, gave up, and decided it wasn’t worth it. This morning, I was eating a banana, and I had a though to look in this cupboard, and lo and behold, there was the oven mitt. When I asked Husband if he had put it in there, he’s like, oh I must have. So we all wasted all that time, because he couldn’t remember that he put the oven mitt in the wrong place.

Tonight, when I got home from work, I decided to have an epic cleaning day, and clean and mop the kitchen, vacuum the whole house, and clean every bathroom. I decided, to get this done, I should not wear my normal clothes, but things that I didn’t care if they got dirty. So I put on some shorter shorts than I would wear normally, and some long socks (so that my feet wouldn’t be dirty on the floors) and got to work. After I finished cleaning and mopping the kitchen, I made my way upstairs, and the doorbell rang. Wouldn’t you know, it was one of my scouts, and I was kind of embarrassed to have him see me in my shorties. Then I finished cleaning, and took the garbage cans to the curb. Normally, my street is a ghost town, but as I was doing this, I of course saw someone on the scout committee and her husband. She looked me up and down about 6 times, but who could blame her? I looked weird. Then we went back inside, and about 2 minutes later, the doorbell rang again, this time with a member of the bishopric at the door. Finally, about a half hour later, as I just finished vacuuming, a knock at the door again, and it was another scout. This has to be the only night in the history of my house that I’ve had this many people at my house, and all when I was wearing the shortest shorts ever.

I am yet again, having a tooth replaced. There’s nothing wrong with the current one, but since the teeth surrounding it are all crowns, I decided to have this one replaced so that they’re all the same colors and look alike. So last week, I went in and had the procedure started of getting it replaced, so they ground the tooth down, fitted me for a temporary, and now I need to wait for the permanent. To get it colored the same, I had to go have my teeth looked at for a new shade at the lab. That’s a humiliating experience. You just stand there while two guys compare shades of white to your teeth, and then start taking pictures of your mouth. I’m glad this is most likely the last time I’ll have this done, because I don’t want to do that again.

Meatless Pasta

For dinner today, we had Husband’s brother and his wife, who is currently pregnant. Lately (the last two weeks or so) when she eats meat, the baby doesn’t like it, and makes her sick. So, having this in mind when I was thinking of what we could have for dinner, a friend of mine had this recipe, and sent it along, for me to try. It’s Linguine with Summer Vegetables, and 100% meat free.

3/4 pound linguine (I just used the whole box)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups corn
2 cloves garlic, sliced
Kosher salt and black pepper
2 pints cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
2 small zucchini (about 1 pound), cut into thin ribbons with a vegetable peeler (or just sliced with your regular knife at an angle)
2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves
4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled

Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve ¾ cup of the cooking water; drain the pasta and return it to the pot. Meanwhile, heat oven to 350° F spread the walnuts on a rimmed baking sheet and toast, tossing occasionally, until fragrant, 8 to 10 minutes. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the corn, garlic, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper and cook, tossing occasionally, until the corn is tender, 2 to 4 minutes. Add the corn, tomatoes, zucchini, and ½ cup of the cooking water to the pasta. Cook over medium heat, gently tossing, until the liquid is slightly thickened and coats the pasta, 2 to 3 minutes (adding more cooking water as needed to loosen the sauce) Serve sprinkled with the oregano, walnuts, and goat cheese.

The things I did: Turns out, I didn’t have corn in the house, even though I SWEAR WE DID, so I substituted red bell peppers for that, and walnuts are of the devil, so I just put in almonds for that instead. And I didn’t have any goat cheese, so I just used some parmesan cheese instead. The fancy kind – powdered kind in the can. But this was crazy delicious. I really really liked it. And I felt healthy, because there’s not sauce and hardly any cheese. Make this, my friends.

Foto Friday

Lately at work, we’ve been having a lot of food trucks going on, for some reason. I don’t know what started the trend, but almost every day, we have a different one. We’ve tried a couple of them, but on Wednesday, we tried a new one – Waffle Love. They have some delicious waffles, and here’s mine:

It came with biscoff, strawberries, and a delicious scoop of homemade whipped cream. These were really good, but really filling, holy cow. They are also REALLY sweet, so by the time you’re done, you’re full, you’re sugared out, but really happy about it. If you guys see this about town, please, hit it up. You’ll be doing yourself a favor.

Haircut

Cookie was looking so shady lately. Her hair was getting so long that she started to look like a small homeless dog that we had just picked up off the street, so I decided it was time to give her a haircut. I booked her an appointment at the grooming place, and dropped her off the following morning. She was so psyched to have a car ride, and then we got about 5 feet to the door of the place, and she figured out where we were going, and she was not happy. She was fighting me the whole time, trying to get me to leave. After I signed her in, they had me take her back to the kennel, which I’ve never done before. When I picked her up and put her in it, they told me to take her leash and her collar, and that they’d be giving her a new collar that I could keep, and I thought that was cool. So I told her goodbye, and picked her up after work.

When I went to get her, she was SUPER JAZZED to see me, and almost jumped out of the kennel, a few feet off the ground. I got her, but there was actually no collar. They didn’t give her a collar, they straight up lied to me! I got her and out we walked, and I put her in the car and snapped a pic.

Doesn’t she look straight-up majestic? I like her new haircut, and now that I look at her, a little later, I realize, her head looks too small for her body. They asked me, when I dropped her off, if I wanted her to have a cut like a yorkie or a cut like a schnauzer, and I said I didn’t know, but just cut it short all over, and especially get her chin hairs. Now, that’s what they’ve done, and she sort of looks rat-like. So cute though. And she looks tinier than ever, if that’s possible.

Miscellaneous Monday

Last night, I was getting undressed for bed and putting on my PJ’s, and I just dropped my bra straight onto the floor. (COVER YOUR EYES, MEN, THIS STORY IS NOT FOR THE WEAK) and kept going. Cookie came in, and apparently had never seen one before (because, why would she?) and decided to take it. I told her no, and she dropped it immediately, then I told her it was time for bed, so I think she decided to go for broke, and picked it up and ran with it at full speed. Of course, this has me laughing like crazy, so through my laughter, I’m trying to tell her to stop, and she got out into the hallway before she dropped it and kept running. Dogs are weird.

For work today, we had a few police officers come to the office, and just give us tips on avoiding crime, how to not be a victim, things like those, and they were actually really funny, the two officers. I’ll give you the tips they gave us, to prevent crime from happening to yourself. Use common sense. Lock up your car when you leave it, lock your house when you’re not there (doesn’t hurt to lock it when you are there) and if you have any valuables in your car, either hide them from view, or don’t leave them in the car. If you have a bike, register it with your local police force, in case it does get stolen, they can use the number on the bike to find it better. That’s actually all I remember, but good tips, I say.

And in yet another dog story (I’m sorry about them all, but to be honest, she’s around all the time, so it makes sense that I would have a bunch of stuff about her), recently I bought Cookie a chew toy, and she LOVES it. I didn’t think she would, actually, because she doesn’t seem to chew on anything, but she loves it. I throw it away from me, and she sprints after it, and brings it back, it’s awesome. Then, when I was trying to get it away from her, she holds on tight, until I lift her off the ground, and it makes me laugh.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Today, we were having a family dinner, and I was asked to bring a salad or dessert. Since it was Sunday, and I had zero salad fixings on hand I had to go with dessert. So I quickly scoured Pinterest, and found this gem of a recipe, Peanut Butter Cupcakes. I was really jazzed when I saw them, I thought, “these look easy enough, and I like peanut butter, and I’ll pair them with a chocolate frosting and make them zing!” Then I read the recipe a little closer, and I see that it makes 12 cupcakes. Since I’m a girl that likes to have treats, I decided to double the recipe to 24, and call it good. I assembled the ingredients, and here they are for your (possible baking later) pleasure. I’ll just put the regular 12-cupcake making recipe, you can double it or keep it single as you see fit; I’m not here to judge.

¼ cup butter, softened
½ cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
2 whole eggs
2 Tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ cups flour
1 ¼ Tsp baking powder
1/3 cup milk
¾ cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and peanut butter until smooth and creamy. (Cream until creamy? A concept!) Add sugar and eggs and beat together until fluffy. Add vanilla and mix for another minute or so. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Add half of the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Add milk. Once mixed, add the rest of the dry ingredients. Fold in peanut butter morsels. Scoop into cupcake tins and fill 2/3 way full. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Let cool before frosting. (Like anyone needs to be told that)

So there it is; an easy recipe. Until I just typed it up here, though, I didn’t notice that it said to add half of the dry stuff, then the milk, then the rest of the dry, I just did all the dry, and then the milk, and when I tried to add the milk, it sloshed everywhere, and out of the bowl, and I needed to add a little more. It did mix in well, that’s just what happened. This dough is THICK. And I’m not kidding around when I say thick, I had to scoop it into the tins, and then it wouldn’t settle for me to see just how much dough I had in there, so I mostly guessed and just kept adding stuff. But doubling the recipe for my 12 cupcakes left me with 36, so that was weird. But they ended up being pretty good, but they’re really dense. Like, you’ll need some milk (Or water, if no milk is available) to eat these, because they require moisture like crazy. I don’t know if that’s something I did wrong, or if this gal just created a thicker cupcake, but that’s ok, they’re not gross, I really like them. Plus the chocolate frosting is the perfect topping.

Foto Friday

Last Friday, coming home from Germany, I was tired. We’d been up late the night before, and got up early to get to the airport, so basically, I got on the plane, watched the safety video, and fell asleep, which was awesome. Not awesome, however, was Husband’s idea to take a picture of me sleeping. Behold:

Ugh, right? So not only do I look amazing while sleeping, but apparently, I sleep with my mouth full-on open. Sorry, passenger next to me, for having to see that face for a little while. Luckily for the both of us, we’ll never see each other again.

Slow Cooker Quesadillas, Lasagna Jars

This past Sunday, I did a bunch of cooking. There was my dinner, of course, which I got off of Pinterest, for Slow Cooker Chipotle Steak Quesadillas. I’d like to say that I took pictures of it, and made it all look amazing, but to be honest, I was cooking two things at once, so I didn’t get anything. They were awesome though. The recipe:

1 ½ pound flank steak
4 chipotle peppers
3-4 Tbsp. adobo sauce (from the can with the peppers)
4 scallions, diced
About a cup of cilantro, divided
Juice of one lime
3 Tbsp. salsa
½ red bell pepper, diced
2 cups Mexi-blend shredded cheese
8 tortillas
Salt and pepper

In a slow cooker, place the flank steak, chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, scallions, ½ cup cilantro, lime juice, salsa and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Cook on medium high for 4-5 hours, flipping the steak every hour or so. Shred the meat right in the cooker, and taste it. Add more salt if needed, more pepper. If it’s on the dry side, add some more salsa, and cook for a bit longer. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add a tortilla to the pan. On one half, arrange some shredded cheese, then layer with the shredded meat, red bell pepper, and more cheese. Fold the tortilla over and sauté until the quesadilla is golden brown on both sides and the cheese has melted.

Ok, so I wasn’t sure where to find the chipotle peppers, so instead, I used a red and a green pepper, and just added chipotle powder, and I think I got about the desired effect. For juice, I used the juice from a can of Rotel. Then, when it was time to make the quesadilla, I just drained out the juice, and put the red/green peppers into my quesadilla, sort of reused them. They were delicious! Honestly, these were so good. I dipped them into salsa, yummy. I dipped them into sour cream, delicious. I really recommend these all around. While that was slow-cooking, I made some lasagna-in-jars. We’ve been having the salad-in-jars for a while now, and just needed a change. So while perusing Pinterest, I found a recipe for lasagna, and wanted to give it a shot. The recipe:

12 oz wide egg noodles (I used the whole 16oz bag)
1 pound ricotta
1 egg
Parmesan cheese
½ Tsp. kosher salt
2 cups mozzarella cheese
3 cups marinara sauce (your favorite kind)
4-5 Wide-mouth Mason Jars

Boil noodles according to package. Drain and add back to pot. Mix in 2 cups of sauce. In a separate bowl, mix together ricotta, egg, a handful of parmesan cheese, salt, and mozzarella. Fold cheese mixture gently into the noodles, do not over stir. Place in greased jars or greased 9x13 pan and top with remaining sauce, and sprinkle more parmesan cheese on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

I threw some ground beef into the mixture with the noodles and sauce; I thought that was a good idea. I really liked this. And then the next day, when I finally got to eat it, it was awesome! I really recommend this to people. It’s easy to make a bunch of them at once, and then I can throw it in my bag to take to work the next day, so easy.

Now, I’ve given you two meals that you can make, and enjoy, for many meals at a time. Get cooking!

Miscellaneous Monday

When I got home from the airport Friday night, I was exhausted. We’d been awake for over 24 hours, and I was sick of traveling, and just wanted to be home. I took one step into the house, and HOLY COW something smelled like it had died. I followed the source of the source, and found that nobody had taken the garbage out before we left, so it just took the week and smelled the house completely up. We threw open the windows, lit a bunch of candles, and several hours later, the house finally started to smell normal. The next morning, it was still a little bad, but by the afternoon, it was completely gone. Lesson: empty the garbage before you leave for an extended period.

I was brushing my hair yesterday when I got out of the shower, I had washed it, so it was soaking wet. After a few minutes of trying to guide the brush through my hair, it broke. In half.

I couldn’t believe it; I’ve never had this happen to me before. I have to go get a new one now. Wish me luck in finding a good one.

Yesterday, Chelle and I visited a new church. Well, new to us. We have a coworker that is an assistant/associate pastor in a Christian church here, and he invited us to come to his church, and see his daughter sing in the worship band. It’s the Calvary Mountain View church.

It was actually pretty cool; it was a completely different experience than I’ve ever had at church here. Where in the LDS churches we’re quiet, and have speakers, their band plays for a while, singing worship songs, then their pastor gets up, and teaches from the bible, interpreting it for them, and speaking, telling stories, etc., then the band plays again, and we go home. It’s only 1 ½ hours of church compared to my 3, so that was nice, but it was just so odd. I’m glad we went, though, I like knowing how other religions compare. I think I’ll try hitting up all the different religions in the area, see what kinds of things I’m missing.

The Woes of My Toes

Last weekend, I went and got pedicures with Chelle and her mom, plus a manicure. As the guy was doing my toes (We went to a new place, I’ve been disappointed with my place of late), he kept trying to do something – I don’t even know how to explain it, he was maybe trying to pull out hangnails that I didn’t actually have, but mostly, he kind of kept hurting my toes. One of the toes, he made bleed for a few minutes – I have no idea what the heck he was trying to do, but I told him I didn’t like it, and he was hurting me. He then cut my toenails waaaay too short. Like, they hurt they were so short. Finally, when all was said and done, they were cute, even if they hurt.

There are all of our toes, cute as always. The next few days was just me waiting for my toenails to grow out, even a few millimeters so that they didn’t hurt when I was just sitting there, and finally, they were feeling ok. Then, on Wednesday, we were waiting in the customs line in Germany, and the gentleman in front of me dropped his suitcase on my toe. OUCH I said, but thought nothing more of it. That night, as I was crawling into bed, my toenail snagged on the sheets, and I was like, oh no. So yes, my toenails that were already ridiculously short, were trying to go shorter. I didn’t want to cut it, because there was nowhere else for the toe to go, so I just tried to be really careful, and not let anything touch it. On the flight home, my jeans snagged the nail a little, and pulled it just a little off, dang it! I tried again to be really careful, but last night, I was in my closet, cleaning it out, and I was kneeling, and then as I stood up, my nail snagged on the carpet, and ripped off, and it HURT! I had to cut the nail off where it didn’t rip completely off, and now it hurts and is ugly, and alas. My poor toe.

So there it is. Now my toes are no longer pretty and painted, and I’ll have to wait a really long time to go get them fixed. Its ok, it doesn’t hurt unless it rubs against something. Or something falls onto it. Or touches it at all. So now, I feel good about my decision to always wear flip flops.

Saturday PhotoDay

Normally, I would do these on Friday, as you know, but since that was already taken, I am spilling over into today. There are a few random pics that I took that I just wanted to share from Germany.

How much sluttier are the German bathroom signs than ours? Seriously, these are tiny mini skirts.

They leave these gummy sheep on your pillows, in the hotel rooms. Adam ate his in the afternoon, and then spent the afternoon sleeping, which we chalked up to just being tired, but then he said he could not wake up, and I was like, how weird. It wasn’t until we were going to sleep, that I actually looked at the gummies, and saw that the first word is Shclaf. Well, due to my singing Silent Night in German, I know that schlaf is German for sleep. So Adam took sleep gummies in the middle of the day, and then couldn’t stay awake.

Speaking of beds, this is how the beds are there. Two twin beds fused – yes fused – together. We each get our own blankets, and the sheets are the fitted kind, so you don’t sleep under them. This place is loco.

This is a sign that hangs up when you’re going through customs in Atlanta. You probably can’t see it, but on the bottom of the screen, it says “No Phones or Cameras” so of course I took out my camera phone to snap a pic. After I got it, a lady by us was like, “It says no phones or cameras” and I said, yes, that’s why I took the picture. Worth it.

Germany: Day 2 Part 2

After finishing up with the museum, we had only had time to get to a chocolate shop in town to get chocolates, and then we had to get back to the hotel so that Husband could have another meeting. While he had his meeting, I was all set to spend those 2 hours getting ready for the gala, and then I sort of lost track of time…while I was looking at Pinterest, oops. Finally, I got my butt into gear with about an hour to go. I hurried and did my hair, curled it all up. It looked really cute for about 15 minutes, I think, and then it started to fall, even though I had used my super-duper extra hold hairspray. Finally, when there was like, twenty minutes to go, Husband finally came back to the room, and was a flurry as we both hurried to get ready. I pulled on my Spanx (honestly, these are the devil. Has everyone worn these? They are awful.) and got my dress on, added the jewels, and I was done. He finished closely after me, and we went as fast as we could downstairs. While waiting for our transportation, we snapped a pic:

You can’t see the curls, but they were there, at least for 3 more minutes. We made it to the location of the gala, which was a secret, and found out, it was being held at an old steel mill. Holy crazy! We stepped in, and they were handing out alcohol aplenty, and we couldn’t see any waiters with no alcohol, so we didn’t get anything to drink. We took a look around, and saw that they had a moving sushi bar.

I didn’t partake, naturally. For the first half hour or so, it was all schmoozing with people, and finally, we made our way to our seats. While we were sitting down, there was a gal on the stage, on a pole, just sort of going back and forth, high up in the air. I can’t describe it any other way.

We watched her for a while, then there were the opening speeches – three of them, and they seemed to go on for a while. Luckily, we had some water by then, so that was nice. After the speeches, they served us our first course, venison pie and a salad. I wish I could have gotten pictures of everything, but it seemed weird to take pics at such an event. Taking it of the entertainment was ok, but it seemed odd to do it of the food. The pie was not very good, but I’m not adventurous. After they cleared the first course, we had some more entertainment, a guy and a girl who used the poles to do acrobatics. It was pretty cool. After they were done, we got our second course – coconut curry soup and a seafood wonton. Seafood, gross. The soup was pretty good. After they cleared that course, it was time for more entertainment, a drumline. They were awesome! They drummed, and had light up LED stuff on them, which turned off and on in time with the beats. After the drumline, we had another course, a beef filet with potatoes, that was really good, even though the steak was basically rare. I made my way through it, though. Then we had a long wait, so pictures were taken of everyone.

Then I made a trip to the restroom, and in the washings of my hands, I lost my CTR ring. I have never been so sad! I had nothing to do then, I couldn’t find it, I had no idea where it went. I went back to my seat, and we had another act, a singer. I don’t think she was famous, she only did covers of stuff, but she was fun, and really good. She sang a few songs, and then they gave us dessert. For dessert, they gave us pieces of cake cut into the shapes of puzzle pieces, they had three different kinds: carrot cake, coconut cake with mango sauce, and a chocolate mousse cake. This was served alongside a banana papaya ice cream. It was all good, but when all was said and done, it took us 5 hours to eat dinner. You read that right: 5 hours. Finally, after the meal was done (and the alcohol was flowing to everyone but us 4 Mormons) the dancing begun. The singer was singing an oldie tune, which I now can’t remember for the life of me, and Husband and I started dancing. He took ballroom, and I can’t dance at all, so he was basically twirling and spinning me around, and I just followed his lead. My dress was perfect for twirling, it really spins out and is awesome, so a few drunk Germans were trying to get us to go up in the front and dance, and after a while, we finally did, and that was a lot of fun. After that song was over, Husband went to go talk to someone, so I just hung out by myself, sort of near a friend I had made, and danced, just by myself, doo doo doo like I do. When it was nearing the end of the singers set, she was doing the thing that singers do, when they’re like, “Oh, I’ve had so much fun here, thanks for coming out, etc.” and then when she was introducing her next song, she said “Ok this one’s for you, blue dress” and pointed at me, and I almost died. It was a great song, so I danced my heart out (which basically consists of doing shimmys and shakings and some twirls) and then I was EXHAUSTED and HOT. So I went to the back of the room, where there were no people or heaters, and cooled right down.

At this point, I looked at my watch, and saw that it was midnight. Now normally, this would be just fine, but we needed to be up at 5 the next morning, to catch our flight on time, so we left, right as the party was going to get started. We heard a DJ was up next but I just couldn’t justify in my head staying up all through the night and then just catching my flight and trying to sleep there, since I already know that I wouldn’t have been able to sleep there, so we called it a night. After getting some pictures taken by the photog they had there, we went back to the hotel, and finally, went to sleep. A smashing night, a smashing success. Hopefully they’ll put the pics from the party online, and I can show you them soon!

Germany, Day 2 Part 1

Today was our last day here, so we had to make the most of it all while going to all of the work obligations that we’re here for. I should have explained, the reason we’re in Germany is because the company that Husband works for is having their 40th year anniversary. So they’re having a gala tonight, and that’s why we came – to go to the gala. This morning, we had to go to a thing of speeches, which was interesting. Because we speak English, and the founder of the company doesn’t, we needed an interpreter. They handed out headsets to all of us, and while they spoke their German speeches, and interpreter spoke into my ear while I was trying to pay attention to that. The only issue with me, is that my brain kept trying to listen to the German speeches, even though I kept trying to tell it to listen to the English coming in through the ear piece. The way they interpreted this, and I didn’t know this, but it makes sense, is that those speaking get their speeches to a girl, and she translates them into English, and then reads them. Well, when the founder got up to speak, he kept going off his speech, so our interpreter couldn't keep up. She would laugh at something he was saying, but then apologize to us, saying that since he was going off speech, she couldn’t follow him. It was funny.

Finally, the speeches ended after a few hours, and after a good lunch, we split into groups. One of the groups went on a tour of the factories, but since we went on that tour in December, we chose instead to take a free afternoon. We walked into town, and found a museum that we went into. I honestly don’t know what the museum was about, because they had such a varying list of things inside. The outside had light sabers over the entrance:

And then on the first floor, it was all movie memorabilia

And then the second floor was religious stuff.

And there was a place I could use a feather quill to sign a piece of paper, and it took me forever to sign my name, those things are hard to use!

The third floor was animals and medieval times things

And the top floor was Star Wars.

They even had the movies playing (In German, naturally) to sit there and watch. I don’t know what this museum was, but it was so much fun to look through. Look forward to the next part of Day 2!

Germany: Day 1

Hello, friends! I am writing from Germany, I once again have had the good fortune of being able to go to Germany with Husband while he is on business. Not here for very long, only 2 days, in fact, but still, awesomeness. We landed this morning at about 8:00 AM, and made our way to our hotel, 2 hours from the hotel. I was pretty wiped, I didn't sleep as much on the airplane as I would have liked. I woke up today at 3:00 UT time, to be able to be tired enough to sleep on the airplane. I even took 2 Zzzquill on the plane, hoping it would help me sleep, and I didn't get more than about 2 hours sleep in the whole 10 hours, so that sucked. So, we get picked up by the airport shuttle guy and its me, Husband, his coworker, the coworkers wife, and their 4 month old baby. We were told by them that the baby had been so good the entire flight, and that's awesome, but then the baby cried/screamed/etc. the entire drive down to the hotel. Holy cow was that awful.
So finally, we get to the hotel, and they all have a work meeting, which means I got to come up to the room. I explored a bit, and learned that they have a thing in this hotel that the lights don't turn on until your room key is inserted into a slot, what? That's so weird.

Its so that you don't leave the lights on when you leave the room, but still, so weird. Of course, I had to see if they had weird toilet flushers in here, and they do. I don't understand why we have a different way of flushing the toilets in our different countries.

 The way you flush is by pressing the top button there. Anyway, after taking a nap, then eating lunch...napping again, finally, it was time to get to dinner. They were having a dinner for the company, and before we had come, I had asked if I should bring any clothes that are nicer than jeans, just in case, and Husband told me no, it wouldn't be needed. Wellll...at this dinner, we were literally the only people in jeans, I've never felt so underdressed in my whole life, it was awful. The dinner was good, and nobody made me feel weird about just wearing the jeans, so it was just myself putting that sort of pressure on, but ugh I was so irritated that I hadn't brought other clothes. Also, they had carved the hotel out of butter there.

After dinner, we decided to go down to the saunas, which are apparently a huge thing in Germany, I had no idea. They had like, 4 or 5 different kinds, but I'm not entirely sure what the difference is, because when I go in them, they're all just so hot to me, and that's all I can think of. And to top off the experience, I saw a naked guy. Full on, full-frontal, with a shot of butt afterwards, naked guy. I've never been so creeped out in my whole life. Of course to him, he doesn't care that he's naked, whatever, but to me, I just wanted to leave after that.

So there's day one. We're only here for one more day, so stay tuned to find out what happens next!

Card Times

It is card times again, my friends. This time, we were asked to make a Thank You card, and a Halloween/Fall card. I chose some good ones, I think, and away we go!

Here is my Thank You card, I thought it was pretty good, I followed our template on this one:

Its straight-forward, easy. The next card is my Fall card, and when I first found the card that I wanted to do, I was psyched. I thought it was cute, I really liked how it looked, then I got started on it. I failed to realize, in my card-haze, that the cute leaves on it meant I had to cut out individual leaves. 50 leaves, to be exact.

I’m so dumb. It took a few hours, but when I was finally finished, I was so jazzed with myself. The finished product:

And there they are. Card Swap is the day after I get back from Germany, so I had to finish them this weekend, and I’m glad I did!

Miscellaneous Monday

We had pack meeting last week, when all the scouts get together, not just my Webelos, and we had a bike rodeo. I was in charge of this zig-zaggy course, and if the bikes went over the line, I would buzz them out, and they're not allowed to continue on. Well, I'm the first to admit, I'm kind of a hard-ass about this stuff, I don't want to be like, oh...you did your best, so you get a treat! No, if you cross the line, you're out, end of story. Well, after I buzzed almost everyone out, they started to complain to me that I was too mean, and I was like, I don't care if you think so. Then, they started to be like, we don't like you, and I told them I didn't care if they liked me or not, and then they kept riding my course, complaining the whole time. I told them they were welcome to go to other stations, but they kept coming to mine, so maybe they like it when people are mean to them. Kids are dumb, man.

I'm getting ready to go out of town for a few days, so I've been preparing like crazy for it. Basically, that just means I've been shopping for a dress for it, because so far, I've had no luck. We're going to a gala (yup, that's the word used on the invite) and I feel like I'm supposed to dress fancier than just a regular shindig, but I don't know how fancy it is, so I'm searching for a dress that's halfway near regular and full-blown fancy. I'm not having much luck, and now I hate dresses, and hate events in general. Hopefully I can find one soon that I will just love and want to wear.

Today we went shopping for luggage, because Husband is still using the ones from his mission (not that there's anything wrong with that) and the zippers are all broken, so he decided to get new ones for the trip. I went with on the off chance that maybe I could sneak some luggage in there, and I was in luck! I found some that were on super sale, so I got those, and now I'm jazzed to have new stuff as well. It took a really long time to find some luggage, not only do you have to worry about style, but color too! I went through many colors: gray, teal, green, purple, and brown before settling on the brown. I really like the brown one, but its kind of old school, so I wonder if its the hipster in me that loves it. Here's about what it looks like, I pulled this pic off the web:

Fancy, kind of, and I like it. Hopefully it will serve me well, and transport my belongings safely!

A Storm’s a-brewin’

So yesterday, I was on my way to the mall, and the sky suddenly turned from fabulous blue to this:

The clouds came out of nowhere, and then, the rains and the winds came. If you were outside or even looked outside, you know what I was talking about. It got crazy, and fast. We were pretty near the mall when it broke, so we hurried into the underground parking, and found a space, thank goodness. Underneath, they were having some problems, and there were some flooding problems.

It was ankle-deep. I was so shocked to see how much mayhem had occurred in this storm within about 10 minutes of the first rain drop. Hopefully nobody was caught up in it, or had any issues because of it.

Foto Friday

I can’t two seconds of peace from Cookie sometimes.

There are times when I can’t find her in the house, and that worries me, because her first instinct when left alone is to empty garbage cans to get any goodies inside, so usually, I like to at least know where she is, and then there are times when I need a bleeding moment of peace, and she sticks to my side like glue.

I’m trying to read here, and she won’t get off my lap. She seemed angry that I was resting the Kindle on her, but not enough to move. So I decide to lay on my side and play Candy Crush, and she moved as well, how thoughtful.

Yes, that’s her, in the tiny space between the back of my head and the couch. What a weirdo this dog is sometimes.

Miscellaneous Monday

On Friday evening, I was cleaning the kitchen after dinner, and I pulled out the garbage bag, to take out to the garbage can. As soon as I pulled it out, something leaked from it. I quickly put it back in, and took the whole can outside. After I took out the bag, I saw all of the stuff that had leaked into the bottom of the can, I’m afraid it was just a big pile of sticky. So I came back in, and I mopped the floor, and went to bed. The next morning when I woke up and went into the kitchen, I found that the floor was still sticky. I quickly mopped it, then went to my race. When I returned home yet again, I found that the floor was once again still sticky. I mopped it ONCE MORE, and then went about my day. When I came out of the shower, I found it still was. Now, I can’t believe this, and I have no idea what was in my garbage can to make it sticky. So I went shopping, and bought more mopping supplies. I came home, and gave the kitchen a huge proper mopping, and thought that was good enough. As I was leaving for dinner, I went to check out the floor and learned that once again, it was still slightly sticky. When I returned that evening, I mopped it one more time, and Sunday when I woke, that had finally done the trick. Then today, I decided to mop it one more time, to make sure that everything is finally back to normal, and it seems to be. Finally!
I had my final race of August on Saturday, the Swiss Days 10K. It was a lovely course, not too hard of a course, and I really like that race in general. I used my new GPS watch that I got for my birthday, and at the end of the race, when I do my final sprint-in, I looked at my watch during it, to see what kind of times I was doing. I watched the pace on my watch tick down and down, and finally, my lowest speed was a six minute-45 second mile. I don’t know that I could maintain that for a whole race, but it was awesome to see that I could sprint that fast at the end of 6 miles.
Today is Labor Day. Husband is working (yet again) today, so I’ve spent most of the day alone. I had a quick run this morning, then went hiking with PJ, but we finished everything at 1:00 and home I came. I didn’t really have anything to do, so I cleaned. I vacuumed the whole house, mopped every room that doesn’t have carpet, washed the rugs in the bathrooms, organized the pantry, put away all the papers loose in the house, and…then I ran out of things to clean. This just goes to show you…I really live the high life.

Zucchini Brownies

It’s that special time of year again, when those who have gardens have loads and loads of zucchini and squash to give to everyone they know. As I was visit-teaching the other day, I was given a really large zucchini by the gal we visited, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I know, there are many ways of using one, but I never know what to do with them. I decided to finally utilize some of the zucchini recipes I’ve been accumulating on Pinterest, and make some zucchini brownies. This is my recipe:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup chopped walnuts – optional

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 baking pan. In a large bowl, mix together the oil, sugar, and vanilla until well blended. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt, stir into the sugar mixture. Fold in the zucchini and walnuts. Spread evenly into the pan, bake for 25-30 minutes, or until brownies spring back when gently touched. While that’s cooling, make the frosting:

6 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

To make the frosting, melt together the butter and cocoa powder; set aside to cool. In a bowl, blend together the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. Stir in the cocoa mixture. Spread over cooled brownies and cut into squares.

Ok, so, here’s the skinny: This is a delightfully easy recipe. In case you wonder, after you shred your zucchini, keep the juice that comes with it, you’ll need the liquid for your brownies. The batter freaked me right out, it was so glumpy from having all the zucchini in there, and I thought I had messed up.

Luckily, this wasn’t the case. I got them cooked, got them frosted, and HOLY COW these are really good. They don’t really taste like brownies, just FYI, they taste kind of like a Hostess cupcake. They’re more cake than brownie, but that’s ok. They are really good.

I recommend this recipe, you guys. It’s awesome.