The Plane!

Today, the Air Force flew a bunch of jets over a few hospitals in Utah, starting up in Ogden and working their way all the way down to St George. So of course, I camped out outside as soon as they started their trip, to make sure I got to see it. And I did! Yay!

What a cool thing to have seen! I loved it, hopefully you guys all got to see it as well. 

Hiking Fellas

The fellas went hiking today and each got a camelback for the occasion. Look at these hacking cuties. 

Such goobers when you ask for a smile, but I love it. 

Baby Implants

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but my sister is going to be a surrogate for my sister-in-law. It's very surreal, lots of feelings haha. But today she got the egg implanted, what an excitement probably.
I had to go with for a couple of reasons, A, she can't drive herself to and from the appointment because of the drugs involved and B I was there to take pictures for the sis-in-law. I did a good job, but here are the only ones I can share.

Pretty exciting, we'll see what happens.

Stuffing Casserole

Most of the problem with being at home all the time is that we have started to cook way way more. We very rarely go out, and have to come up with food ideas all the tine. Luckily that's where Pinterest comes in handy and I've been utilizing that a lot. Today we made a recipe I found on there, a stuffing recipe. Here it is, just in case you're interested: 

1 lb. ground sausage

4 Tablespoons butter

1 small yellow onion, diced

2 cups fresh green beans

¾ cups celery, diced

2 cloves garlic, mince

Salt/Pepper, to taste

2 cups chicken broth

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup

1/3 cup sour cream

¼ cup Craisins

14 oz. stuffing mix, equal to 8 cups

½ cup crispy fried onions

Fresh parsley, to garnish

Preheat the oven to 350. Brown the sausage, after it is browned remove it from the pan. Melt the butter, add the onion, fresh green beans, and celery. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper, cook for another minute or so. Add the chicken broth. Turn off the heat, mix in the soup, sour cream, and craisins. Add the sausage back to the pan along with the stuffing and stir until combined. Add to a lightly greased 9X13 pan. Bake, covered, for 1 hour. Remove cover and bake another 5 minutes. Add the crispy onions and bake for another 5 minutes. Top with parsley and enjoy! 

Y'all! This was delicious! It tastes like a freaking Thanksgiving dinner remixed and I'm obsessed, absolutely recommend. 

That's a Negative

Utah has this initiative where they would like everyone here to get tested (regularly!) for Corona. Since I love to help out with things, I said, sure, let's do this. So I answered some questions online and then headed to the nearest hospital for the test.
Y'all. The test.
It's not great.
Of course it isn't.
So I drove up (it's a drive thru test, how easy!) and after they scanned my stuff and knew I was who I said I was, they took out a foot long q-tip and shoved that bad boy as far up my nose as it could go. It genuinely felt like they were touching my brain! Holy cow. So they swabbed five times on my left nostril, then stuck it up the other side - even farther it felt like - and swabbed five times there as well. I was gripping the steering wheel in an attempt to try and help refocus something haha. But hey, it wasn't the worst thing that I had to go through in my life, so don't anybody be afraid to get this test! And then today, (btw I got the test done on Wednesday) 72 hours later, my results are in.

Negative! Exactly as I was anticipating (no symptoms leads me to believe no sickness) so I felt good about it. I plan on still taking the surveys they send me every week until such time happens in which I may get tested again. Hopefully I won't get it!

A Free Prize!

A hundred years ago, we bought new couches. Okay, obviously an exaggeration, but it's been a few years at this point. With these free couches, we received two free lamps. We didn't really have the room for said lamps, so I put them in the garage and forgot about them. Then when I was cleaning them this week, I found the lamps again! So I pulled them on out and set them up.

As soon as I opened the box, I found a surprise waiting for me.

An empty cigarette box! What a joy! Specifically a Chinese cigarette box, which made me laugh really hard. I've never had this happen before and probably will not again, bit it was an interesting first.

Look at that Baby Go

Today I got a text from my sis, telling me that she had taught Epifanio a dance from a TikTok video. I asked for proof, and got the following: 

Y'all I love it. It's so freaking good and he's having such a great time. 

Quarantine Project: Cleaning the Garage

Well, as we know, I've been cleaning/organizing up a storm with all this free time on my hands. I think I'm down to the last place, the garage. I thought ahead and tried to take a 'before' pic, but hey, I had already done a few items of cleaning in there before I realized, so it's not a good indicator of what it looked like, alas. 

 So here it is. What I did was, I took every single thing that was in the garage out. I cleaned some of it, I did a 'toss' or 'keep' pile, and put some of the stuff in the shed, since that where it should have belonged. That took a while. From start of project to end, it was about 6 hours. By the time it was done, I was sweaty and filthy haha the garage is not a clean place! When I was finished, I had two visits to the city dumpsters to get rid of broken/left/garbage in general. And then when I was done:

Ta daaaa! Looks so good to me! And the stuff in the front left, the orange fan, the yellow box, the Amazon box, is not my stuff. That belongs to people (we borrowed them but it doesn't seem a good time to return them during this time haha) so I'm just waiting until it's better times and then I'll get rid of them as well and have even more space. 

I'm honestly so jazzed to have so many clean and organized spaces. What will I do now that those projects are all done? I'm not sure! Stay tuned! 

Dance Party

y'all, the fellas are sometimes too cute for words. Their dance skills are just undeniable.

Quarantine Project: Organize Papers

I have said before that Husband is currently getting his PhD at the U of U. He's in the research/paper writing/dissertation part, so he spends a great chunk of his time reading other people's papers, writing his, all that jazz. In order to do this, he has printed off a very great number of papers and has been leaving them ... all over the house. For the last year or so this has been infuriating to me. Paper piles everywhere! It's nuts! You can't find anything! They're everywhere! So, finally, he let me organize his papers in these boring quarantine times. There wasn't a way to get a before pic, since it's just piles of papers everywhere, but look how great they look being organized into his desk drawer. 

Look how great! And it felt so nice to get them all organized. I'm rapidly running out of things to organize ... hoping quarantine doesn't last much longer! 

Homework in the Time of Social Distancing

If anyone has kids in this social distancing time, you know that now you're the teachers. My sister is doing this now for Darth, who, as we know, is the absolute weirdest kid ever. He had to send in his homework the other day and it was going pretty well ... until the very very end. I was dying at this and of course had to share.

Quarantine Project: Degrease the Kitchen Cabinets

This morning I was like, Self, we're gonna clean the tops of the cabinets today. At this point, I've pretty much cleaned and organized most of the house, so, just gotta keep on keeping on, I think. So I decided that since I was up there the other day getting something and I realized, it's gross up there. So, I searched on Pinterest to see the best way of cleaning it and I got some tips. One of them was just to go to the store, find a degreaser and use that. The other tip (on this same website) was to use vinegar and baking soda. I decided to take a gander at our cleaning supplies and see what we had. What luck! We had a degreaser! A Lysol one.

As I was using this, I was texting a friend about my project. She asked if I was using a chemical one or the vinegar/baking soda one. I said chemical, and she was like, okay good, because the vinegar one just doesn't work haha good to know.

So the first step was to spray this on the cabinet top, wait 2-3 minutes and then use a credit card-type apparatus (I used a frequent diner card for a sushi place I haven't been to in years!) to scrape the top of the gunk off, and using a paper towel to clean off the card. Then I sopped up the liquid with paper towels. I sprayed again with the Lysol, and then wiped it off. After it was dry from that, I used a Clorox wipe and just wiped it down for good measure.

Here's what that looked like as I did it:

Gross!!!! So I slaved on this for a good few hours. And then I ran out of the Lysol, ah, oh no. Husband went into the (NEWLY CLEANED) shed to find another degreaser, he was sure we had one.
Lo and behold, we did!

So I poured this into the Lysol bottle and went to town.
Phew! This was so much stronger! I mean, of course it was, it's industrial, but oh my lord it was so much easier! As I was doing this, I snapped another pic, to show the difference between the cleaned section and the not cleaned section.

Wowza!
Now, I know that I should have taken a pic of ALL of the cabinets after I had cleaned them, but alas I didn't. After they were all clean and dry (with all the windows opened on this chilly and window day to get the smell out) I put some parchment paper on the top of the cabinets. This way, when I want to clean them in the future, I just have to swap out the paper!

Happy Easter!

It's weird to have holidays while in social distancing. You can't see your family, so dinners are out, no Easter egg hunts for this holiday, everything is just ... blah. So it doesn't even feel like a holiday, which is just sort of the worst. I know we're staying home for the good of the country, but sometimes it just sucks a little. I did get this pic of the fellas today, so at least I get to see their cutie faces.

This was the best pic of the bunch, according to their mom, and I just love it.

Fashion Icon

I got this pic today from my sister, and y'all, Darth is my new fashion icon.

Quarantine Project: Shed

Now that we're nearly a month into quarantine, I'm going a bit stir crazy. Unable to see my loved ones or hang out, I've had to just think of stuff to do in the house (since Husband is still working on his PhD, his days are spent writing dissertations and papers so I have to occupy my own time. Which is fine, I'm just letting you know). I've done cleaning and organizing and then a couple of days ago, I decided to tackle the ultimate project: the shed outside.
The shed is a monster. It's a good sized shed, but the thing that I have working against me is that the people who lived here before us left a ton of stuff in there. I never realized how much they left in there until this cleaning endeavor. I now know they left:
Enough wood (fence wood? Wood slats? I'm honestly unsure of what they were there for or being used for) to fill the back of my SUV twice (in taking them to the dumpsters).
Oodles and oodles of paint cans, stain, spray paint, cleaning supplies from 1900, and garden supplies
Tubes, empty cardboard boxes, ropes, PVC pipes with giant rebar inside (??)
So yes, a lot. I've filled up 2 garbage cans with garbage, the aforementioned twice filling of my car, and then I spent a good chunk of time organizing, sweeping, mopping (YES I mopped my OUTDOOR shed and I honestly feel good about it).
It took me a few days and honestly, I have never been so proud of something I've done before in my life.

I understand that I forgot to get a 'before' picture, and that's okay. The view here is just so pretty ... it's probably better if you knew the hellhole it was before, but I think this is pretty dang impressive nevertheless.

More Cards, More Cards

Time for more cards guys, and I did my best on these.

I know they don't compare to cards of those who are good at this, but I still really enjoy them.

I Made Bread! From Scratch!

Y'all, I have bread. From scratch. Using YEAST! Oh my goodness, I am so proud of myself. I'm going to just link straight over to the gals recipe I used, there are too many steps to write down !

https://www.somethingswanky.com/chunky-french-toast-caramel-syrup/
Here it is, much delicious. And here are some pics to highlight!

 Here is my dough as soon as I had mixed it!

And here it is after I've broken it into pieces and dipped in a cinnamon butter dip.

 So then, I forgot to get pics of the other stuff (my bad, guys, it was stressful to make bread!) and then here it is, after baking, after cooling, after cutting, and ready to be put into the oven to bake into delicious French Toast.
And then I didn't get pics of the finished product. But !! It is delicious. Guys, I felt like a real bona fide baker and master of my domain with this, and I absolutely recommend this recipe.
Enjoy!

Taco Bell is the Dang Best

Today, we had a small parade in our neighborhood. The local elementary school was having their teachers drive around in their decorated cars, waving to students. I invited my sister over with her kiddos to enjoy (honestly, anything is a fun time in quarantine), and luckily, she brought with her something she ordered for me online.

Yes, you are seeing this correctly.
A Taco Bell onesie, fit for a king. It's a hair too big for me, but honestly, I don't even care. I love it so much. So I enjoyed the parade in my lovely onesie, cheering on the teachers as they drove by.