A Life Less Ordinary

a little meme for today

2009-04-24T13:13:00.001-04:00

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To:
Erin coming to town in 2 weeks
Eventually visiting WA this summer to see my family, friends and all their new babies
Sleeping a lot this weekend
Someday having babies
Summmmmer time!
Pat Green concert tonight! (maybe, still haven’t decided if I’m going or not)
My hair getting long again
Camping trips this summer/fall

8 Things I Did Yesterday:
Told my boss “I don’t know what I’m doing, I just make things up”. And I was serious.
Ordered pizza
Cried
Talked to a close friend
Read the newspaper
Picked up our CSA share
Read my latest book
Played with adorable children

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:
Cook amazing original recipes
Hold a tune
Complete a triathlon
Draw/ be artsy
Play guitar
Figure out what’s wrong with my back
Get into a grad school
My make-up/ hair

8 Shows I Watch: (i dont think i watch 8 regularly)
Grey’s Anatomy
Biggest Loser
Deadliest Catch
The news
Jeapordy
What Not to Wear
TLC/HGTV home improvement shows like Flip that House

hello world~

2009-03-24T20:32:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since I posted, but I couldn't pass up this opportunity to share the yummy dinner we made tonight. Andrea is starting a group version of Tuesdays at the Table and though I won't always participate, I wanted to share this today. So without further ado (or chatter, or whatever) I present ...

Easy, Delicious Shrimp Scampi! (my changes are noted)
recipe courtesy of my most recent copy of Cooking Light

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1/2 cup orzo mixture and about 7 shrimp)

Ingredients
1 cup uncooked orzo
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (we didn't have any so we used fresh oregano)
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
7 teaspoons unsalted butter, divided (i used a LOT less, and it was margarine)
1 1/2 pounds peeled and deveined jumbo shrimp
2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic ( I used 2 cloves of fresh garlic)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 1 whole lemon, squeezed)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Preparation
1. Cook orzo according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain. Place orzo in a medium bowl. Stir in parsley and 1/4 teaspoon salt; cover and keep warm.

2. While orzo cooks, melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle shrimp with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add half of shrimp to pan; sauté 2 minutes or until almost done. Transfer shrimp to a plate. Melt 1 teaspoon butter in pan. Add remaining shrimp to pan; sauté 2 minutes or until almost done. Transfer to plate.

3. Melt remaining 1 tablespoon butter in pan. Add garlic to pan; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Stir in shrimp, juice, and pepper; cook 1 minute or until shrimp are done.

We steamed up some asparagus to go with the meal. Overall it was tasty and fairly simple.

Nutritional Information
Calories:403
Fat:10.4g (sat 4.8g,mono 2.2g,poly 1.4g)
Protein:40.1g
Carbohydrate:34.7g
Fiber:1.7g
Cholesterol:276mg
Iron:4.3mg
Sodium:549mg
Calcium:97mg

I promise several "real" posts to come including reviews of the 7 books I've read since January, a re-cap of our awesome vacation, and updates on life in general.

The Letter B

2009-02-06T13:09:00.019-05:00

Andrea had a cute post on her blog with a letter theme. The idea is to post a blog highlighting 10 of your favorite things that start with your chosen letter.
I wanted to play too and she randomly assigned me the letter B. Little did she know, i LOVE the letter B! so...here we go!

First off, Blonsky. It's my maiden name and I kinda miss being a Blonsky. It's just such a fun name to say. Though I don't miss everyone adding a third syllable and saying /buh/lon/sky instead of blon/sky.

Next is Bellingham, WA. It's the town where I went to college. I call it my "disneyland" because for me it is where I have some of my absolute best memories. The town is small, yet not too small. Lots of parks, great food, interesting people and of course, WWU.

"Bellingham Blonde" is my favorite beer and it is made (obviously) in Bellingham at Boundary Bay- home of amazing food and great micro-brews. They also used to have an awesome Baked Burrito on their menu. (that was a lot of b-named things at once!)

Boca Burgers- perfect for nights when I am eating alone. They are fairly healthy and easy to make. Topped with lettuce and salsa, yummmmmy!

Basketball- specifically NCAA basketball. I live for March Madness. I fill out at least 2, if not 3 brackets and have color coding and special pens and pencils depending on the bracket. I love the excitement of small schools making it past the #1seeds and I'm a huge Gonzaga Bulldogs fan.

Bamboo- we have a small forest of bamboo growing in 3 separate vases on top of our counters. It started with a small plant which almost died several times. the other 2 plants have since thrived.

For my mom- I'll add Breakfast. She instilled in us the habit of eating breakfast everyday. I'm still in this habit and usually stick to the traditional foods like cereal, oatmeal, waffles, etc. My sisters however eat things like Ramen Noodles, Spaghetti-O's and sandwiches.

Butter, of the Peanut variety. I could and would live on peanut butter. But only Jiff, creamy style.

Blue Jeans. I live in my jeans, despite how unprofessional I may appear at work.

and finally, Babies. I love babies and kids of all ages and sizes. I love working with them and playing with them and watching them grow and learn and change. Though I didn't realize it at the time, my mom having a baby when I was 13 was one of the best experiences of my teenage years. It was a blast getting to help Celeste grow and learn. I am so excited for all my friends to be having babies and (someday) can't wait to have LOTS of my own.

2009-01-29T20:42:00.008-05:00

where the heck did the month of January go? It seems like we just got started and now it's time for end-of-the-month madness at work! (it's how i mark time these days-by thinking "okay, how long until my billing is due?" anyway.)

This month was rough at work with 4 people being let go from the Family Services side of the agency. I was lucky and have been spared so far but it seems we are working with a constant cloud of doom over our heads called "budget cuts". Today was my slightly-early 6 month review with my supervisor. Things went as I planned, nothing surprisingly good or bad. And we went over all my errors that were found in our big audit last month- again, nothing glaringly horrible but a few mistakes that I'll be sure not to make in the future.

I'm really proud of myself for being social this month. Normally this was never an issue as I have great friends and family in WA that kept me busy. But down here I find it hard to connect with anyone due to the shore duty thing. Lyle has a group of guys he loves to hang out/ play video games with and so I find myself going out to eat or hosting them at the house every now and then. But as far as my OWN friends... I kinda lack in that department. This month though I made the effort and feel good about it. Lyle and I went to a Stingrays hockey game with Andrea and her husband. The guys went through the Pipeline together down here back in the day and Andrea and I work together now (she actually told me about the job opening). The game was a blast and it was fun to see A & J! I hope we can go to another one soon. The next week I went to a Bunco night with a wonderful group of ladies. I met the host online via a message board I participate in and have been to Bunco one other time at her house. It was a fun evening with lots of laughter, wine and dice rolling. Two times in one month friends- big deal around here. And i might even go out on a limb and host Bunco at our house next month :0 !

I'm full swing into a pretty tough work-out routine. Saturday is boot-camp class, and I work in 4 other days to do cardio and/or weights. This week I decided to suck it up and pay for some personal training as I know I am not getting enough "working out" done when I'm on my own. So I'm working the BootCamp class coach one day a week in addition to Class. I'm sore all the time, but my energy level is up, i find myself eating healthier by choice and my jeans are a little looser. Another bonus was that I found out we (Lyle and I) qualify for a free membership at the YMCA as a result of the Naval Weapons Station being on the BRAC list. I'm looking into it seriously since they offer spin class AND have a pool, which would be awesome to have access to.

This weekend is Lyle's 4 day! yay! We went and saw Defiance tonight. Consensus was that we both really enjoyed the movie, especially the little bits of Jewish humor. I'm kinda weird in that whenever we go out to the movies I bring along earplugs because the sound is always too loud for me to be comfortable. but tonight I forgot to bring earplugs with me. luckily the movie theater we were in was small and the volume wasn't too loud. Tomorrow we are going to be tourists in our town thanks to Andrea who gave us her un-used passes. This is a neat little program that encourages locals (or those pretending like us) to explore attractions in town during January. I think our adventure tomorrow will take us downtown to explore the shopping and then to go to Ft. Sumter. We might also try and make it to the Hunley tomorrow, and if not then on Sunday before the Super-game-Bowl (did you know the term "Superbowl" is copyrighted?) I'm definitely gonna look into the passes next year.

As if I haven't rambled enough I wanted to quickly mention the book binge I have been on, errr, went on earlier this month. I might have mentioned this before, but at the start of the month i bought 3 new books; Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison, Multiple Blessings by Jon and Kate Gosselin and Almost Moon by Alice Seabold. I flew through the first two, have been plodding along through the third and now have a 4th waiting for me on the shelf- Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet. I promise to give full book reviews in my next post.

making progress

2009-01-15T07:46:00.003-05:00

So in my list of New Year's "resolutions" or whatever, i mentioned that i want to work on eating healthier and getting better exercise. well, I'm proud to say I'm on the right track for both of those!

I recently bought 2 packets of organic cilantro and oregano seeds. I planted them in organic soil, watered and have been holding my breath in hopes that little green sprouts would soon emerge. and i checked them yesterday after not looking for a couple days and they've sprouted! yahooo! now, i did have the cilantro on one side and the oregano on the other, but one night i mistakenly left the planter on the ground in the hall and my dog thought it would be fun to dump it over. then when i picked up all the dirt and scattered seeds, they all got mixed up. whoops. I am VERY excited to have my own little herb garden this spring/ summer. I plan on buying seeds to grow mint, rosemary and who knows what else.

in addition to growing herbs, lyle and I also recently purchased a share at a local farm, through a program called CSA. Basically you pay a set amount of money to the farm and in return, each week during the growing season you are provided with a box full of veggies and fruits that were ripe. we get to pick it up right around the corner from our house and then at certain times during the growing season the farm is open to go do "u-pick" for some crops.

and the biggest event in my life right now is the Boot Camp/ Biggest Loser competition i have joined at the gym. The Boot Camp class meets once a week for 8 weeks and is one of the toughest workouts i've done in months. Last week was the first week and we were flipping tires, pulling firehoses, doing countless lunges, squats and crunches. I really liked it because there was only 4 of us in the class so it almost felt like an hour of personal training. the second part- the biggest loser part is a spin-off from the tv show. those of us in the boot camp class, along with a few others are all competing for $500, paid to the person that loses the most weight, inches and decreases their body fat percentage between January 10th and March 7th. It works out great- we are set to leave for Costa Rica that weekend too, so with lots of sweat and hard work I'll be looking good and feeling great just in time.

that's all for now.

vacation!

2009-01-04T15:02:00.003-05:00

After a few months of debating, pondering, and quizzing our family and friends about where we should go on our late Honeymoon/ 1st Anniversary vacation we decided today- We are going to Costa Rica! wahoooo! Our first choice was New Zealand/ Australia but after looking at the cost of airfare and the time it takes to travel to/from there we knew we couldn't do it (this time at least). Plus, we have to think about boarding the cat and dog and I can't take off TOO much time from work. Lyle has put in for leave(to be on vacation in non-Navy speak) from the 10th to 25th of March, so we've got a good window of time to work with.

Now I get to search for the best prices on flights and hotels. Oh and get my passport. Kinda important. If you've been to the area, we'd love your advice about must-do activities, sights and places to stay.

a look back, a look ahead

2009-01-01T19:02:00.004-05:00

Goodbye 2008, hello 2009! 2008 was a long year full of changes, both good and bad, happy and a few sad times.

Some highlights of the year include: getting married, buying our first house, getting a dog, my new job, surviving life on the other side of the country from all my family and friends and becoming best friends with my husband.

I won't dwell too long on the sad moments but a wonderful little girl named Madeline Lester passed away in January and she is missed dearly. My not-technically-related but still very close to me Aunt Helen passed away in the spring. And probably the hardest death was Sue Bruneau- she fought cancer for 2 long years and left behind many family and friends that miss her.

In 2008 I proved to myself that I still take on too much at once, but somehow make it out in one piece. I didn't get into grad school (again). Our move to South Carolina was both a good and bad thing. It was tough leaving a group of friends that I had become very close with over the past 2 years. I missed my sister's birthday for the first time in her life, all 12 years. The move has also brought positive things to my life. I have a great job where I feel like I truly do make a difference in the lives of children I work with. I have a beautiful home. We are almost completely debt free which given the downturn of the economy I am very grateful for. And I have an awesome best friend- my husband.

Looking ahead to 2009, I have a couple things things I'd like to accomplish. I need to make the time to take care of the important things in life, like my health.I finally want to take control of my weight and get into shape. In addition to getting in shape, I really want to eat healthier including more organic and local foods. The second major thing I want to do is get accepted to a Masters program. And lastly I want to be more "Jewish". I want to take advantage of the great Jewish community here in Charleston and go to Synagogue on a regular basis, celebrate more than just 1 or 2 Jewish Holidays and overall re-connect with my faith.

Some other events for 2009 that will be exciting is our yet-to-be-planned vacation/honeymoon in March, at least one trip home to Washington to see friends and family, and at least 3 of my closest friends are having babies in 2009! I am so excited for the "East Bremerton Baby Boom". (and any other friends who become pregnant this year)

Here's to a new year, a new president and a chance to make changes for the best.

Holiday Crafts/ Baking photo post

2008-12-30T18:40:00.007-05:00

Here are some pictures of the crafty things I made over the past month.

This is my door to my office at work. We had a "door decorating contest" within our building. Mine was pretty simple- wrapping paper and some hot-glued foam snowflakes. I owe the whole snowflake idea credit to my awesome husband Lyle for helping me figure out what to do with them. There were lots of great ideas around the halls. Check out my coworkers post with more pictures and details here!

this was the wreath i fashioned for the front of Lyle's truck. it's nothing fancy, but he liked it a lot. i wasn't going to put a lot of effort into something that would be traveling at 50+ miles per hour in the somewhat rainy weather we had.

I'm really proud of our front door wreath. I had been searching stores and craft fairs all over town and wasn't finding anythingthat I liked.So I decided to create my own. I bought the basic silver wreath at Wal-Mart and attached the silver bows and lots of (mostly) hidden bells to it.

and lastly our Holiday Tree. As a child i remember telling my mom "when I grow up and have my own Christmas tree, all the decorations will match". Well, i have that tree now. A few years back Lyle and I went to Ikea and bought TONS of matching red/silver/white decorations. We have slowly acquired non-matching ornaments (gasp!) but I'm okay with that. I think we need a bigger tree to fill our larger space in at the house.

We had a good, safe, looooong drive to and from Texas last week. We stayed with Lyle's parents and had lots of fun introducing the dog to all the family members and relaxing for a week. The only slight problem was the cold and pink eye that i contracted on Christmas Eve. It wasn't pretty. I'm over the pink eye now and just have the remnants of the cold lingering. Overall it was a good trip. And i'd like to brag that my amazing little car got 39+ MPG the entire trip. who needs a hybrid when I have my Saturn?

more holiday baking!

2008-12-17T21:47:00.002-05:00

I bring to you this second (or third?) installment of "what Mindy is baking". Tonight I made the aforementioned Peppermint Cheesecake Brownies and Sweet Cinnamon Biscuits. both are for a work holiday somethingorother in the morning. I wasn't told many details about it other than to bring something to eat? So hopefully i'm on the right track with the sweets.

A quick update on the baking from over the weekend- the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies were quite the disaster. I've made them before and they were quickly devoured by Lyle. This time I had a little mishap (read: MAJOR issue) with too much flour, which truly was an accident. I wasn't being careful and was ~~measuring~~ pouring flour from the jar into the measuring cup when POOF, a lot more came rushing out and into my mixture. As a result the usually thin and chewy cookies are thick and thick. They aren't bad, just not how they should be. And my mint fudge, it was a disaster. I'm not sure what went wrong... I know I used milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet for the 12 oz, but that's because I thought I could get away with it. perhaps that was the problem? I'm not sure. I still haven't gotten around to making press cookies and they probably just won't happen this time around. We are leaving for Texas on Saturday morning and between now and then I've got work, need to get an oil change, an orthodontist appointment (for those of you that don't know I have top braces, again) and the usual getting-ready-to-travel things.

On a side note i did do something nice for myself today- went to my regular hair salon which is also a day spa and got my eyebrows done and my bangs trimmed. it was a lovely 30 minutes well spent that makes my face feel a little fresher.

back to the baking. Here's the recipe for the brownies. i've not made these before and they are still cooling so I can't say how they taste. hopefully they are good?

peppermint cheesecake brownies

In my next post I promise to show you all the lovely crafty things i've been making lately.

a mid-week laugh

2008-12-17T08:45:00.003-05:00

Just to give you an idea of life down in South Carolina...

So Lyle and I went to the liquor store last night to get a couple bottles of wine for a dinner thing we are attending Friday night. We get our wine and are at the check-out counter. The associate notices there is a man in the store looking a bit confused (he'd walked around the store about 4 times) and she asks him "Can we help you find something" his reply (and I'm NOT kidding here) "No, that's allright. I'm looking for a cheap whiskey, something that'll go well with coffee in the morning"

yup.

Cookie time!

2008-12-13T07:10:00.006-05:00

Let the baking begin! I love to bake so this time of year thrills me. My plans are to make several kinds of cookies, maybe a bread of some sort, and brownies. I would normally just take a whole day/ weekend and bake non-stop but I'm really busy this weekend so I'm doing little bursts in the kitchen. Here's what I made last night...

This first recipe is from one of my very good friends up in Washington. These cookies are delish, and were quite popular among the FRG at our last command.

*White Chocolate-Chip Cranberry Cookies*

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter or margarine, softened (reccomends using Crisco sticks)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 parge eggs
1 12 oz bag of white chocolate chips
1/2 to 3/4 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350..
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla until creamy. Add eggs one at a time. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in white choc. chips and cranberries.

Drop onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy!

-my notes on this: I like really really thick cookies, so I always want to add more flour to the recipe. I held back this time, but still think it needs a smidge more flour, just to prevent the cookies from sticking to the cookie sheet. otherwise, mmmmmmmm so good!

This next recipe is a favorite to share with friends or work parties. It's also a great recipe to make with little kids as all you have to do is peel, microwave and stir!

*Easy Mint Chocolate Fudge*
Ingredients:
12 squares (12 oz) semisweet chocolate
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
20 chocolate-covered mint candies (about 6 oz)

Line an 8x8 pan with aluminium foil so that the foil hangs over the edges, creating a "handle". Lightly spray the foil with cooking spray.
In a large, microwave-safe bowl, combine all the ingredients.
Heat mixture on HIGH for 1 min; stir.
Heat on HIGH for 1 more minute.
Remove from microwave and stir until melted and smooth.
pour mixture into lined baking pan and spread evenly. Let chill in fridge for 4 hours, or until firm.
Remove from pan using foil handle. Peel off foil and transfer to a cutting board.
Cut fudge into 1 inch squares and serve immeaditely, or return to fridge until ready to serve.

On my list to bake today are peanut-butter chocolate chip cookies, peppermint cheesecake brownies and fun-shaped cookie pressed cookies. Oh, and going to the gym. Because these cookies are not so friendly to my hips. Happy weekend everyone!

quick post

2008-12-10T06:36:00.002-05:00

Here's a quick update to say that I haven't abandoned my blog, life has just been crazy lately. I feel like all I have time to do is eat, work,work,work, sleep. Things at the office have been a little stressful with an upcoming audit, some scary budget cuts, along with all the usual busy-ness. Combine that with working my "other" job (I provide part time ABA therapy 2 days a week) and I'm just exhausted at night. Plus the dog has been mischevious lately, there's holiday prep and shopping to do, trying to keep up with the house and see the inside of the gym every now and then. I'm tired just thinking about everything.

But, I do have plans to do more than just kvetch today. I got a great bloggy award from Andrea, so I wanted to say Thank You and tell you all to go check out her blog- she's AMAZING! I think she should work her make-up magic on me sometime soon.

This weekend I'm tackling some holiday baking and I'm very excited, I haven't done it in a couple years. I'm -this- close to finishing all my holiday shopping and cards will be going out this week also. (better later than not at all right?) And then we leave for Texas at the end of next week- yay for a road trip and a week off work!

someone remind me to share my new recipe for cookies i tried, and my funny Office story. okay? okay.

Our House, in the middle of the street

2008-12-01T20:42:00.014-05:00

So today I thought I'd share some pictures of our house and some of my "big plans" for this place.

We decided we wanted to buy a house when we got orders to move to Charleston for Lyle's shore duty. We got really lucky in having a fabulous realtor that worked tirelessly with us from across the country to find a house. Lyle was able to visit for about 10 days in February during which time he looked at over 30 houses in TWO days. Crazy much? All the while I was at home in Washington looking at houses in pictures and stressing about all the crazy details of buying a house in a place I had never been to, and wasn't enthused about moving to. Details aside, we ended up with a wonderful house, despite it's strange floor plan, at a very good price, in a convenient location.

I'm not ready to show the bedrooms or office yet, as they are still a mess of things on the floor and boxes and weird furniture. I am proud to say we have started to buy some nice, real pieces of furniture, have a matching bedroom set and a wonderful new mattress. We've painted our bedroom, bathroom and the guest bathroom. Probably all the painting we will do, seeing as the living area is one gigantic room and painting it would be a) a LOT of paint and b) i think it would make the room feel small and weird.

As for plans I would love to upgrade the guest bathroom with a new lightbar and a nice, circular mirror just to give it a little extra. We have began begun pricing new back doors as the French doors we have now aren't hung correctly thus making it really hard to open and close them without shaking the entire house. We want to install sliding doors so that we can have the back door open during the cooler months without letting in every bug in the state of South Carolina. That will be a pricey and complicated project, but I'm hoping to do that this spring. Eventually we will have to replace our fence, as weather and the dog are taking a toll on it.

There are lots of "big dreams" I have for this house, like building some sort of covered patio/porch structure, upgrading the master bathroom with a nicer shower and tub, replacing some of our cabinets, etc. but I don't think we will work on those things since we will be moving again in 2011 and hopefully can sell the house then. (maybe the market will have recovered then?)

So when do you want to come over and join us for a weekend of projects? ;)Happy end of Monday to everyone, only 4 more days until the weekend!!!!

Weekend update (my first real post!)

2008-11-29T19:46:00.010-05:00

It's Saturday evening and I find myself with nothing productive or exciting to do so I'll write about what i have been doing all weekend. Lyle is on swings right now at work, so he's gone from about 3-midnight.

My weekend actually kinda started on Wednesday. I was lucky enough to work from home that day, with my 3 Family Training visits being very close to my house, I packed up my work laptop and stack of paperwork and brought it all home. I was extremely productive since I wasn't driving 30 minutes to and from the office to each visit. I was able to get through my entire stack of work AND almost complete all my end-of-the-month tasks. Go me! And because I was at home, I was able to get a jump start on the Thanksgiving Day preparations, which really started Tuesday night.

We invited over most of the people in Lyle's division at work to come for an early potluck style lunch/dinner (due to having to be at work). We were hosting and therefor cooking the turkey. I have a great recipe for a Brine for the turkey that gives it great flavor and keeps the meat very moist. Only thing is that it is somewhat time-intensive with having to boil the brine, cool it overnight and then soak the turkey in the brine for 6 hours before cooking it. And that is what I started on Tuesday. Wednesday preparations included the usual cleaning and getting desserts ready.

I went to bed at about 2am Wednesday night/Thursday morning and got back up at 7am to start the cooking. so much for catching up on sleep on my extra days off. Since the turkey was so large (almost 19 pounds), I was anticipating a long cook time and I was pretty nervous about having all the food ready by the 2pm timeline I gave to our guests. I began to panic and the crazywoman in me took over and I started the turkey at, oh you know, 9am. Let's me tell you bout the start of the turkey cooking process... in an event reminiscent of last year, I put the turkey in at 500 for the first 30 minutes. Great, exactly like the recipe calls for- high heat to help brown the skin and lock in the moisture. Only just like last year, it also created massive amounts of smoke that filled the entire house when i freaked out and opened the oven door. Too much canola oil on the skin dripping into the cheap roasting pan and I had quite the smoke show. Luckily I was able to quickly ventilate the house and reduce the temperature and all was well. Moving past that minor fiasco, everything was going well. Rolls were rising, veggie and cheese trays were made, and then... the thermometer on the turkey alerts me that it is done. Only problem? It was 1130am and people weren't expected to come over until at least 1pm. Whoops! I had Lyle text everyone and tell them to come over earlier, which they happily obliged as it gave them more time to eat before working.

The meal was great- we had 14 people and a ton of food with all the traditional items and i think 5 pies? Needless to say I parceled those off as leftover gifts since 5 pies are the last thing I need sitting in the fridge for the next week.

In a change from recent years I did NOT go out for "Black Friday" deals. I looked over the ads and decided that the few items that I might be interested in were not worth getting up early to fight the crowds. I did go to Kohls at about 8am hoping to find some good deals on work clothes only to walk in and walk back out due to the lines that wrapped around the store. Nope, not worth it. Thanks though.

The rest of the weekend has been completely boring and unproductive. Last night I decided that I wanted to play a game on the Xbox 360, only to get very frustrated because I am not as good as Lyle. Instead I spent the evening watching Deadliest Catch, TLC and HGTV. Gotta love being able to have total control over the TV for a night. Today we brought out the holiday decorations. I say holiday because we have Christmas-y things and Hanukkah things and non-denominational winter-y things. More to come on the various holidays celebrated in this household later.

We also ventured out to Lowes to get some lights for outside and while there I got a very exciting phone call from a very good friend that made my day. More on that later too.

For now, the dog wants out, I need to eat, and I'm rambling. Thanks for reading!

Welcome!

2008-11-28T22:13:00.000-05:00

Hey all! Well, I've decided to start another blog. Another blog you ask? Ohhhh yes. I've had a few of these over the years and each one has served a different purpose. My hope for this blog is to share my day-to-day life, ideas and opinions, and of course, the random things I think about. I constantly come up with ideas that I want to share with others, or stories that I'd want to tell my friends and family that are in a different time zone, or just have something to get out of my head. I'm not an eloquent writer, nor do I pretend to be one so I hope you are ready for my (mostly) less than ordinary life!