Hodge Podge

I don't know why, but I love random posts.  So I'm doing one of those :).  This one will reach as far back as Easter.  Because I don't believe I shared this story, and it's hilarious.  Classic mom.

So we were at my grandmother's for Easter dinner.  My mom had gotten all the kids a couple of Easter things.  One of them was a bunny that "pooped" eggs, but also, when you pressed down on it, it would say, "Happy Easter!"  Well, that's what most of us heard.  Want to know what my mom thought it said?  She said to us, "Isn't it weird that that thing says "Hop the rooster!"  Oh. My. Goodness.  I laughed so hard.  We told her what it was really saying, and she laughed too.  (Meanwhile I was flashing back to comments of fig trees (not fake ones) and Rapper Shaker (as opposed to Tupac Shakur).  She kept saying, "But it really does sound like that!"  Okay, maybe so.  But considering it's an Easter bunny -- purchased for Easter...  I'm thinking "Happy Easter" would come to mind before "Hop the Rooster!"  Who's with me?  Haha.  I love my mom.  She keeps life interesting.

So my sister's husband just got a new job.  Part of that means he has a month of training.  At night.  When Christina is working some nights.  So my mom and I have been taking turns keeping the girls.  Jeremy is on swings right now, so the schedule actually works out perfectly, since I am staying up late for him to get home anyway :).  So last Thursday was the first night I had them.  I picked them up from the funeral home and then brought them to my house, because my visiting teachers were coming by for a bit.  Plus I wanted to get my shower.  (Showers are an important part of my life :)).  Emily found my ear plugs (they were necessary when I lived in the basement and could hear the tv through the ceiling/floor).  I use them now for the hour after I go to sleep and Jeremy is still up eating his dinner.  I'm a bit of a picky sleeper.  I need it dark and quiet ;).  Anyway, she thought they were awesome, so she wanted them in her ears.  And she wanted to make sure they were noticeable in the picture!  She's a cutie.  Oh!  When I picked her up at the funeral home, she said, "I'm so glad you came, Aunt Hiwa!"

And of course I needed a picture with my other sweet princess.  My Desiree is growing up so fast.  She's already 7.  Almost done with 1st grade.  Where has the time gone?  She told me all about how we would need to do exercise after we ate McDonald's, because that was fat.  She learned that in P.E.  She's precious.  So precious.  So loving. 

Anyway, we went to McDonald's after the visiting teaching visit (and my shower).  Mostly so they could play at the Play Place.  They play well together and always make a new friend.  And Desiree is reading so well!  She read a sign that I didn't realize she'd be able to read!  I can't remember what the word was that surprised me.  But wow.  So I took them home to their house, they got their bubble bath, and then I read them a story and put them to bed.  Christina was home shortly thereafter, and then I headed home.

I had them again on Friday.  This time I had Christina bring them to me (since I was off all day), and I cooked arroz con pollo while the girls played outside in my fenced (very small) back yard.  They do so well!  They make up fun games where the deck is their house, and over on the side of the house is the village and they are sisters -- but Desiree was also the mom.  I tried to upload a video of them playing outside.  But for some reason it didn't show up.  Anyway, Desiree is a really great big sister.  So when dinner was ready, we enjoyed some arroz con pollo while singing some of the songs they are learning in Primary this year.  We then made some chocolate strawberry banana smoothies, and then started cutting out the jello jigglers (or as Emily calls them "her jellos").  Here they are, cutting out their shapes.

They didn't eat all those, but they got to take them all home.  I kept the "scraps" and Jeremy and I have been snacking on them :).  Cherry limeade and cherry lemonade :).  So fun!  It was the first time I have ever made them :).  Then we snuggled on the couch, watched Garfield Halloween and some old family videos so they could see their mommy when she was a little toddler (who loved to run around in the buff -- the girls thought that was hilarious).  Jeremy got home from work early, and then Christina got here to pick up the girls a little after 10. 

And have you ever enjoyed 8 hours of church?  Haha...  Jeremy and I did that on Sunday.  Phew!  What a day!  I had a meeting at 10, then we had choir at 12 and choir at 5:15 and I had a meeting at 6.  And so we just decided to just stay rather than going back and forth.  A full day, but a good one.  So that's about it :).  Don't forget to hop the rooster ;)!

The Eyes (Don't) Have It

Today I went to the eye doctor.  It's been a little over a year since I went last.  I'm not the best eye taker-carer :).  At least when it comes to scheduling eye appointments.  And also when it comes to disposing of my contacts every two months like I'm supposed to and using a new pair.  But the result of that is that I can fudge my contacts for another year and replace my glasses (which are 5 years old) now. 

And let me just say, glasses are pricey if you don't want to go with the el cheapos (like I did before, since I let my insurance cover my costly contacts).

Because here's a newsflash:  I'm blind as a bat.  Seriously, I've never had an eyecare professional comment on my poor eyesight.  Until today.  The eye tech (or whatever her official title was) said, "You are blind with that prescription!"  Ummm yeah.  So true.  But don't we all love to hear those things?  Anyway, I have some seriously bad myopia (or near-sightedness).  Plus an astigmatism.  Makes for pricey lenses.  Like in the neighborhood of $199 pricey.  Because I figured I'd go with the thinner lenses so I didn't have to feel like I was wearing bottle caps.  Even with my insurance, that still left me paying $48 (because the frames were in addition to the lenses).  Isn't grown up stuff fun?  Oh well.  If these last me another 5 years, it'll be worth it :).

I also got the joy of having my eyes dilated.  Always fun.  And then, for one of the tests (not the air puff.  I hate that one! -- Though I did have that one.  I got puffed in my left eye 3 times!!!) the doctor was like, "Do you see two eye charts?"  At first I thought I did, so I said yes.  Then he was like, "Let me know when they are side by side."  And then I was like, "Wait, I don't see two anymore."  I felt like an eyeball failure.  Haha.  But I think that was a good thing, because he was trying to test the strength of my eye muscles, and my eyes and brain pretty much determined that, regardless of what he was trying to accomplish, they were all going to work together and see just one image.  He ended up testing me another way, and said pretty much that:  that I have good eye muscles.  (I told him I've been lifting weights...).  At least my eyes got a pat on the back for something. 

I went walking with Sue this evening for the first time in 7 months.  Yes, I was a slacker.  Luckily the weather was nicer today than yesterday.  And by nicer, I mean more tolerable temperature-wise.  My dad says I'm never happy with the weather.  Probably true.  Nilla-land will have the temperature always be a balmy 67 and sunshine most days (with enough rain to let gardens and such grow).  Yesterday hit 80.  (Yes, I know some of my Alabama friends probably are mentally slapping me for whining about that).  This house was pretty warm yesterday.  I don't look forward to July and August.  But today was 71 and tomorrow's high is supposed to be in the 60s.  So if we could just keep that trend, I can be comfortable :).

Tomorrow is Wednesday.  Yay!  That means I'm halfway through the week :).  Oh yeah, Jeremy is back on swing shift.  So I hang out at home and do my own thing.  Tonight I enjoyed popcorn and a smoothie.  I am loving making smoothies!  I throw in a banana, a few strawberries, some yogurt (vanilla or strawberry), some chocolate pudding mix, and some milk.  Blend.  And voila!  I think I've got it down to an art.  And it's pretty healthy (aside from the pudding mix, but sometimes I use honey and sometimes I use nothing).  And I felt like blogging, so I did.  Fun stuff, eh?

Laundry Adventures

Life is entertaining.  And it goes by really fast -- in hindsight.  Sometimes, like when I'm bored at work, the time seems interminable.  But then I get to a nice quiet Saturday and zoom!  I realize a lot of time has passed.  No idea where it went.

So I will regale you with a tale of the laundromat variety.  I'm pretty sure that, with the adventures at the laundromat, Jeremy and I will make the purchase of a washer and dryer among our top priorities once we have a new place to live where we can have them :).  That will be blissful indeed!

So Jeremy likes to help me at the Laundromat.  Unfortunately, 90% of the time when he goes with me, we encounter "issues."  The first time that happened, we had started our 3 loads of wash, gone out to the car to read our scriptures while we waited, and then returned inside at the appropriate time to make the transfer to the dryers.  And it turned out one of the washers froze at minute 33 (it started at 34 minutes) and was waiting for us to press the button again.  That would have been nice to know 33 minutes earlier...  So we had to wait extra time for that load.  This Thursday, it was a new adventure.  We got our 3 loads in.  We waited to make sure all the machines passed minute 33 and the doors locked (we figure this is a good sign :)).  And then we went out for scriptures.  We came back in to find only one washer with 2 minutes left.  But the other 2 weren't far behind.  One was at 5 minutes and one was at 8.  So we got our two of the loads transferred without incident.  But we went back to that last washer, and it was still on minute 7.  What!?!  It was like I was back at work where 1 minute lasts 10!!!  Seriously...  It had issues.  It actually took 15 minutes for that washer to finish out its 7 minutes (we used the dryer to verify this...).  And when we pulled them out, we discovered why it was taking so long...  Something was wrong with the spin cycle.  Oy.  Our laundry was sopping wet.  So, since we didn't know how to just do a spin (and Roberta, the attendant wasn't there yet), we put them in our basket and went out back and started wringing them out by hand.  I had to laugh.  We got about halfway through (this is hard work, by the way), and Roberta pulled up.  She said there was a way to just do a spin cycle, so we went inside with the clothes, loaded them in a (different) washer, and hoped for the best.  Well, the best did not deliver.  We ended up on a delicate cycle -- and had to wait the entire 33 minutes.  And if you don't know, the delicate cycle doesn't spin super fast either...  It's "gentle."  So our stuff was still pretty wet (although better than when we pulled them out of the washer the first time).  And so our dry time took a little longer (40 minutes).  Alas, our trip to the laundromat wasn't very quick, and we had thought we had it down to an art and would be home before 8!  (We got home at 9).  Yeah, life's an adventure.  This is the stuff stories are made of :).  The best part to me was us standing outside wringing our clothes out.  I could not stop laughing.

Anyway, Friday arrived, and that is my favorite (and most productive) day of the week :).  I got up early and went grocery shopping at the local WinCo.  Baked a dessert (for which I threw away the recipe, because, though edible, definitely not make-again worthy) and took it to the funeral home (I used to do stuff like that for them all the time, and these days, I just never even get by there to visit, so I rectified that yesterday).  Then I came home, cleaned the chicken I bought, and also the strawberries (lazy confession:  I love strawberries, but feel it's an extra step to have to clean them and cut off the green part, so I usually don't eat them a lot and then they go bad.  So now I will just clean them all when I get home and cut off the greenery and they'll be ready to go!).  And these were some great strawberries!  Had really big ones.  So I thought, "Hmmm.... It'd be fun to do chocolate dipped strawberries!"  And wouldn't you know, I had a few squares of semi-sweet baking chocolate!  So I started melting the chocolate and at one point pulled it out and smoke was hissing out!  Yikes!  And let's not even mention the smell!  Okay, so I've never burned chocolate before (and trust me, I've melted my share of it...) and this was nasty!  I had to air out the house (and tolerate the flies that decided to fly in while the screenless windows were open.  Blah).  But I did have enough chocolate (of the non-burned variety) to dip 4 of our big strawberries.  :).

And since I don't think I have a picture with Jeremy since we got married, we took one in the kitchen before dinner.  And then took one of our dinner (including our strawberries :)).  I'm totally loving this cooking thing.  I love to cook.  So last night I made these stuffed shells.  It looks fancy, but it's so easy!  And I made rolls a couple weeks back from our family reunion cookbook (thanks to Elka for the added info on letting them rise twice).  It made so many rolls that I froze half of them before the second rise.  And so I figured we could enjoy those with dinner, basted with garlic butter :).  And it was fun!  Plus salad.  And I have decided I just need to have things like mushrooms on hand.  They really spruce up a plain salad (yes, Dad, mushrooms are wonderful... even when raw :)). 

And today has been a wonderfully relaxing Saturday so far :).  We are going to make jalapeno chicken enchiladas with tex mex rice and (hopefully) home-made fiesta corn (if I can find a recipe or something....).  Then popcorn and movie night :).

Oh, and I'm moving forward with planning our open house thing.  We tentatively plan it for June 23 (assuming we can get the location).  Food, some games with cool prizes...  Hopefully make it fun for anyone who wants to attend.

On a Clear Day I [Can Feel My Nostrils]

I'm unimpressed with allergies.  Spring has mostly sprung (though it's still chilly most nights -- like high 30s, low 40s) and with it has come the unpleasant discovery that I have allergies again this year.  It baffles my mind that I lived in Alabama 10 years with pollen so thick my white car looked yellow and was never affected by it; but now 4 years after I move to Washington, I get slammed with allergies (and trust me, the pollen here -- though visible -- is nothing like what it was in Alabama).  So anyway, while I love the sunshine, I know I will be punished with a sneezy, itchy nose.  Blech.  Makes me want to scratch off my nostrils (and it hasn't even reached how bad it was last summer!).

Clearly you can see I have taken my time uploading the last few pictures I have chosen to upload from our wedding day. These were from my mother-in-law's camera. Sometimes I love the candid shots (Jeremy would not agree...).  They make me laugh though.  Like this first one.  Do we look like a couple of people about to get married?  Haha...  not so much.  

I love happy laughing shots :).  And any shot that has my blouse tucked in is a bonus!

See?  That didn't last long.  And yeah, it might look like I'm about to slap him.  But I'm really just fanning my flustered face :). 

And these were taken a month later.  This was from my post wedding bridal shower.  They actually make a necklace that says "Bride to Be" so it must not be completely unheard of to have a bridal shower after a wedding :).  And either the camera adds 10 pounds or I have gained weight.  (Yeah, pretty sure it's the latter.  Blah).  Marriage does that.

I had a lovely, quaint little shower and received some lovely gifts.  Some of which caused me to blush, it's true.  I am choosing not to post pictures of those :).  It was a lot fun.  My new sister-in-law was in charge of the games.  My other not-as-new sister-in-law is pictured below helping me deal with the presents.  The games were hilarious.  The most popular one was when everything I said while opening my presents was recorded (unbeknownst to me) and read back afterwards as part of a different scenario. 

And a lovely picture of me indeed... 

My mother-in-law got us garlic stuffed olives.  She is awesome.  And trust me, they fit the romance theme ;).  She also gave me potted garlic.  So we get to grow our own!  Jeremy and I love garlic.

So the other thing I should mention is that I am working on putting together our little celebration for June.  Truthfully, I said we'd do that only to avoid being massacred by those who knew nothing of our nuptials until after the fact (which was the vast majority of everyone).  That way, if people so desired, they would have a time that we could celebrate.  Now, however, it seems sort of silly.  But people keep talking about it.  So I'm moving forward with it.  After all, we are taking our honeymoon at that time...  So here's a request...  What sorts of activities or games would you do at such an event?  I don't see this as a reception so much as an open house or party, I guess.  So I'm thinking food -- that's a no brainer.  And I have that all figured out (except maybe another sweet finger food.  I'll gladly take suggestions).  Decorations are simple -- pictures of us on our wedding day and also the ones Stacy took.  I'm thinking something trivia related and maybe some "share your memories" type stuff.  What other suggestions do you have?  I'm pretty open to most anything, because, really...  I don't know what I'm doing.  I figure people can come and eat if they want to, and if they don't...  No biggie.


I guess that's about all for me.  Though I will say that I am sometimes a little freaked out by the new blogger information that tells me that people google my blog.  Ugh.  Oh well.

Also, it's been an interesting few weeks at work.  They are training me to do accounts payable stuff, so that's pretty awesome.  I actually enjoy that.  So that's Nilla's life at the moment.