Cream of Cabinet = Mexican Lasagna

On tonight's menu was "Cream of Cabinet". In my house this means "take what's already here and make a surprise". It's called "Cream of Cabinet" because it usually it involves a Cream of XXXX soup. But tonight there was no Cream o' Soup in the cabinet so I had to make do with what I had. So, I came up with my own version of Mexican Lasagna with what I had on hand.

First I lined an oval baking dish with 2 flour tortillas. This is the finale for these tortillas, it's the only two I had.

Then I thought to myself: "SELF! You need some cheese!" Sadly, my cheddar cheese supply was limited and what is a good casserole without cheese on the top? So, I decided to save it. Then, getting very desperate, I saw that I still had some pimiento cheese left from the wedding. It's cheesy, a little spicy, very creamy and very melty when heat is applied. So I gave it a shot and spread it on top of the lonely tortilla couple.

Budget home cooks everywhere have a vast supply of rice. It stretches, it plumps, it fills, and it's cheap. So, I made "mexican rice" by adding some paprika, chili powder, Lawry's, and tomato paste and spread it over the pimiento cheese in hopes that the creamy cheese spread would melt into the rice and create yumminess.

Now what is lasagna without layers? I know I said I was out of flour tortillas, and I am, but I also had a couple of whole wheat tortillas. I think they'll get along quite well with their larger, more refined cousins.

Something we always have a ton of in the Wilson house is salsa. Herdez to be exact. It's fresh tasting and it's cheap (if you buy it at Wally World) and it makes everything taste better!! It's almost as magical as gravy.

Now for the freezer layer. I had some black beans in the freezer so I thawed them. Then I got to hunting even deeper and found spinach. Then in the darkest depths I found white corn! I thawed them all out, mixed them up, and spread the mixture over the salsa. I know what you're thinking: "Black beans, check. Corn, makes sense. Spinach? Seriously? Spinach?" Truth is I figured that if anything would ruin this it would be the pimiento cheese and given the small amount of spinach I had, what could it hurt?

Now here I would normally have added more cheese but again, I was rationing. I didn't want to overkill with the pimiento cheese because that in itself was a long shot. But I needed a binder. Something creamy. My first thought: This TON of ranch dressing I have. But how would ranch flavoring go with what I had already? Not too good, not too good. (Subsequently, if you want to give this ranch a home, let me know) Then I remembered that we bought sour cream with the good intentions of a taco night. Well, I'm using up the last of the taco ingredients so I might was well invite sour cream to the party, right?

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Has she gone flaky? Where's the beef?" Well here it is. I would have made two layers but I only had a pound to begin with AND my dish wasn't all that deep. Drum roll please: Here's the beef. I seasoned it with chili powder, garlic salt, Lawry's, paprika, and tomato paste and added an onion while I was browning it. MMMMM.

Finally the moment we've all been waiting for: cheese! I sprinkled some shredded dairy goodness over the beef, then added some crunched up hard taco shells that I had in the freezer that had fallen on the floor several times and busted, and then more cheese. You can always add more cheese! Then I baked at 400 degrees for half an hour and ........... wait for it ............. wait for it.....

And it's brown, bubbly, and wonderful! Try this at home. Please do! And if not this recipe, make your own "Cream of Cabinet" creation and share!

Stuffed Like a Tom Turkey

I had a Daddy-Daughter date tonight. My last one before I leave for Maine. *sniff* We had Mexican food and it was quite tasty. Today was a seriously busy day. I met my replacement today. She's a very nice lady and I feel quite sure she's going to do my job much better than I ever did. But, that's great because I'm going to have a super job this summer and come back to find something I love to do. That's a promise!! Hold on, I'm so stuffed I need me some jammies!

All right, I am a million times more comfortable now. I am absolutely going to have to get back on the Weight Watchers wagon. My skinny jeans that had become my comfy every day jeans are now my skinny jeans once again. I am so glad that this week is only a 4 day work week. Next week will be so busy because of period close that it'll be over before I know it and then it will be time to pack and move! I'm kind of nervous about it. Very excited but I'm just such a home body that I'm not sure how I'll do that far away. It feels like I'm leaving for college all over again. I just have to remember that college was a wonderful adventure and that this will be too. I mean, I met Hubby in college and this time I get to take him with me and live and work with him. What could be better than that?

I have found that going to bed early and catching some z's before Hubby comes home is a wonderful idea. I was able to get out of the bed extremely well this morning. I hope tomorrow morning proves the same.

I've decided to re-read all of the Harry Potter books before the movie comes out this summer. I'm going to have to buy the first 4 again because my younger sister still has my copies. It's no problem, they're pretty cheap. I'm super excited about the movie and love that ABC family is having a Harry Potter weekend this weekend and will be showing clips of "The Order of the Pheonix". Can't wait!!

Well, time to head to bed and get a little nap before Hubby gets home.

G'night!

DAW

Lazy Sunday

We've had a wonderful weekend. Hubby was actually off work all day Friday and Saturday and also this morning.


Friday night we went to a housewarming party for Nick and Sarah. It was absolutely a great time. We made some awesome PW recipes - Pastor Ryan's Dutch Oven Bread and Oatmeal Crispies. I made a little twist on the Crispies: I didn't have plain Quick Oats so I used instant oatmeal packs - Apple Cinnamon flavor. It gave instant kicked up yumminess. Also, in order to use only things we had in the house, I made these delicious chocolate dipped Ritz crackers w/ PB.
Yummy!


Here's Hubby making the bread. He loves the Kitchen Aid. He's not the only one. It beats the pants off a hand held mixer. It's not quite as convenient but that's just the price you pay for culinary fabulosity. Anyway, the bread was great. Check out P-Dub's site for the recipe. If you don't have fresh herbs to put in the dough we highly recommend Mrs. Dash. It's amazing! On the way to the par-tay we stopped at Whole Foods and picked up some nummy cheeses. One was from a dairy in Galax, VA. Hubby read that the cheese is so good that the chef of the French Laundry buys cheese from there. It was pretty good! The kind we got had a nice sharpness to it but it wasn't a hard cheese. Perfect for herby bread. Also we got some nice cream Port Salut. I love love loved that one. Hubby's making me a bit of a cheese snob. But no one, I repeat no one, will ever make me stop loving Velveeta cheese cubes at a party. It's high class! Anyway, we had a great time hanging out with my old friends. I'm so happy for Sarah & Nick and absolutely hate that we'll miss their wedding. We'll have to rock out the wedding gift!!

Saturday was a great day. We hung out, cleaned a little bit, planted some new flowers out front, watched a lot of TV, and did a little household shopping. We very rarely get a full, unadulterated day of nothing but each other's company. It's precious time I wouldn't trade anything for.

This morning we went to church for our special Memorial Day service. It's was very touching and I felt like it was very honoring of all of our members who once served or are currently serving in the armed forces. I cried a lot, it was very special. Then it was home for a very nice pot of chicken & dumplings. Again, nummy. Of course this was all after we had to chase a BIRD out of our HOUSE this morning. You see, the vent for our dryer on the side of the house seems like a nice little cozy place for birds to try and nest. The thing is that they get in and they sometimes fly all the way down the vent to the hose that connects the dryer to the vent in the wall and then they get stuck. Then they get very very mad and make lots and lots of noise at very early hours of the morning. So, when we woke up this morning we heard the critter just flapping and scratching and pitching quite a fit. Hubby thought it would just be a wittle bitty birdy so he got a plastic shopping bag to catch it when he took the tube off of the dryer and then let it go free outside. Well, when he took the tube off the bird did fly into the bag but then Hubby realized it was very big about the same time it flew itself out of the bag. Then it made a couple of laps around the house, scared the cat to run in a frenzy under the bed, scared the fool out of the dogs, made one more lap,a nd then flew outside. Of course most of you should know, I don't mess with birds unless they are dead and edible so I didn't want to have much to do with this process. Well, about half way through the fiasco I thought the bird was out of the house so I came out of my safe place in the bedroom. Then I found out otherwise and ran in the bedroom and while I was trying to shut myself in I started screaming to Hubby "Get the BB gun, Get the BB gun!". Fat lot of good that advice was, the BB gun was in the very room that I was shutting the bird and ultimately Hubby out of to keep myself safe and all the while praying "Dear God, please don't let your beautiful creature poop all over my house!" Finally the bird found it's way out of the back door, didn't poop in my house and didn't scratch or peck either mine or Hubby's eyes out. Thank the Lord!!

Now Hubby is off to work and I'm very bored. I would give anything to send all of the pictures that we currently have from various family members' cameras to have 1 hour printing done so that I could start filling frames and photo albums and most of all scrapbook. Hubby gave me the COOLEST scrapbooking set for my birthday with all sorts of cool stuff in a super awesome carrying case and by golly, I want to use it!!! But the cheapest 1 hour deal I can find is still $60 and it's probably too late on a Sunday anyway and we need that $$ for other projects. So then I thought I may take $20 to the Dollar Tree and have some fun. But then, what do I need to buy more stuff for? We're leaving in 2 weeks and the last thing we need is more stuff.

So I guess what I should do is some laundry, straightening, dishes, and packing. But what fun is that and how does that fit in with a Lazy Sunday?

Well, I managed some laundry and a little straightening in the kitchen including running the dishwasher. Then I got a call from Hubby. The good news: his tenure at his place of employment ends one day earlier than we anticipated. The bad news: he has to work every single night until then. Closing. CLOSING! Which means he gets home way late. Like, he's not leaving work tonight until a quarter 'til midnight. And I work during the day. So I don't get to see him for very many waking hours for the next five days. But, at least I will get to see him at night when he gets home. Maybe I'll nap in the evenings so that I can be up when he gets home and spend some time with him. That sounds like a plan. But, I didn't do that today so I must run and get some z's. G'night!

DAW

The Sounds of Silence

MOTIVATION! Where's my motivation? I think it's in a sewer somewhere. I've got to get to working. Later, when I can read my memory card I will tell the story of the most archaic microwave I've ever seen in my life. It exists in this office enclave in which I've been working and actually achieved mostly heating up my breakfast of corned beef and cabbage. Laugh if you like, it was tasty.

**************************************************

So, they've hired someone into my position already. I found out through mass communication e-mail. How lovely. Quite honestly I'm a little intimidated. She sounds like she is 2000% more qualified to do this job that I am. Although I guess that's a good thing. I guess it's about time that they hired someone that actually had the full training to do this junk. She's probably going to think "Good gracious this girl is an idiot!" And if she does, so what, I'll be getting paid to have a killer view. Nanny Nanny Boo Boo and all that jazz.

Husband, husband, where is my husband? I've tried to call him and to no avail. My guess - he's outside with our doggies enjoying the beautiful day before he has to go to work. Lucky ducky. And he has the next two days off which I'm pretty excited about. I love quality time. No matter how I'm feeling about work or anything else all I need is one great big back cracking hug from him and I'm all better. Cheesy I know. Grab a glass of wine and you'll feel right at home.

Tonight I had Pork Stiry Fry with Rice. It was tasty and I yet again channeled P-Dub and decided to share the recipe with step by step pictures. Keep reading, there's a funny story in the middle.
So first I got out all of these ingredients for a family portrait. Lemon juice & butter were also used but not able to make the group shot. In other words, forgot all about it until I needed it.

Right off the bat I got the rice boiling. About a cup of rice to 2 3/4 Cups of water. I added had 2 C. water and 3/4 C. of chicken broth just because I had a can open in the fridge I needed to use. Hubby would scoff at measuring the water for the rice. He has this trick where he sticks his finger down to the bottom of the pot and measures it somehow. I don't really know how to do it.

Here's the pig. "Boneless ribs". It's a really cool cut of pork because it has the "dark meat" which is much tastier than the "whiter" and dryer parts. It's really inexpensive to boot.

Cube it up like an inch to an inch and a half and then season it up good, real good. Just S&P does the trick.

Heat an eye with a non-stick wok to medium-high. Don't have a wok? Any big ole pan'll do! And don't put the dogs outside. This will come into play later.

Add about two tablespoons of the veggie oil. Let it get hot. Real Real Real hot.

You may not be able to tell but I sliced half an onion pretty thin whilst the oil is heating up.

2 cloves of garlic minced. On a side note this is one of Hubby's fave knives. It keeps a great edge and has a nice light bamboo handle. It's a good thing we live together or I'd steal that thing!!

I've got to get a better camera!! Anyway, chop the green pepper. This dish would be so much prettier if it was a red pepper but we are being budget conscious and the greenies are so much cheaper that we just eat a lot of really green food.

Finally the oil is rocket hot. Be careful that it doesn't splatter but go ahead and add the pork. If it doesn't scare you a little of getting burned when you add it, the oil isn't hot enough yet. It's gotta be that hot. Your first instict will be to stir. DON'T DO IT. LEAVE IT ALONE!

I mean it. Leave it alone until it gets white around the edges. Then check a piece to make sure it has a pretty brown sear. The flip flip flip! Flip until all the brown is up and all of the pink is down.

Round about this time (depending on how many pictures you take if you're a nerd like me) the rice should look like this. Most of the water should have cooked out and when you bite a grain or two it should be 95% done. Pull it off the heat and cover it up. The steam in the pot will cook it the rest of the way without letting it get all sticky. Remember, we're not making sushi here. And if you hear your dogs barking in the back yard right about now, go check on them.

So while that pork's a gettin' brown go ahead and cut up the rest of your veggies. The great part about stir fry is that you can stir and fry anything that's in the refrigerator that sounds tasty to you. I have mushrooms, zucchini, and yellow squash here. Carrots, snow peas, water chestnuts, etc. would also be great here. Again, check on the barking dogs.

So once the pork is all browned up on all sides go ahead and add those veggies. I have a couple that I kept to the side and I'll explain that in a minute. Oh, and if it sounds like someone is knocking on your back door but you're not sure if it's the dog or a knock, assume it's a knock.

Here are the stray veggies. Cabbage and frozen broccoli. I kept them out because they both let out a lot of water when they cook and they'll take a little longer. So, I par steamed them in the microwave.

While the microwave hums you a tune add the butter, lemon juice, soy sauce to taste, about a teaspoon of chili sauce, and 2 teaspoons of hoisin. Mmm mmm good. Stir it all together. Then when the phone rings, answer it ASAP. It's Hubby. Then when there's a knock on the back door, answer it, it's the neighbor. He's come to tell you that Matriarch Canine has made a break for it for the second time this week. Before you go to make a futile chase after Matriarch Canine turn off the stove and move the pan off the heat. Take my word for this. Then go chase after Matriarch Canine and keep Offspring Canine from wrapping around your legs and forcing you to almost go face down in a pile of poo. The phone will ring again at this point, it will be Hubby in quite a hurry to tell you something while he's at work. Go ahead, talk to him. Matriarch Canine will let herself back in the house, 20 feet of cable dragging in behind her, like she never went anywhere at all. Not that any of this happened to me, oh no.

So, once the cabbage and broccoli have steamed just a bit, drain it and add it to the wok. See why I say you need a big pan? Make it a huge one.

Keep stirring it all together until the cabbage is a little wilty but still bright green. Then breathe a sigh of relief. It's finally time to eat and both Matriarch and Offspring are inside the house never to see the beautiful fresh air outside until Hubby is home to take them.

Then you just have to spoon some stir fry over that rice that should be steamed to perfection by now. Make this, make it soon, it's so tasty.

DAW

Nose to the Grind Stone

Wow, what an odd day it has already been at it's only 10:31! I almost got side swiped on Bryan Blvd. this morning on my way to work by a blue Toyota Camry. Yes I saw you you hateful inattentive blond old woman! You almost hurt my car and me! This after I just had a dream last night that I rolled the car down a hill and not on it's 4 wheels. Very scary. Almost had to change my pants. Then I got to work and have been combating various fires since I got here.

I had supper with my lovely mommy (pictured left). It was a truly good time. I am very very close with my mom. In fact one of her co-workers said that we sounded more like 2 teenage girls giggling than a mother and daughter. We are very silly you see. In fact my mom's motto is "Never loose your goof!" It's a very good motto that both my husband and I whole heartedly agree. My mom really is my one of my best friends and I am not ashamed to say that I am just like her.

Below is our supper. Hubby made yummy soup.

And he also took this picture of more of my pretty flowers. Love 'em! But he's home now so I must be off and spend quality time.

Good Night! DAW

Cold Nose, Yummy Supper, Lonely Night

I am down to 12 days left at work. Bless the Lord I just don't know how much more I can stand to be there. It's not so bad, I'm just ready to go. You know what I mean, like when you're on your last day of vacation. You don't want to leave, you've had a great time, but once you've packed you're just ready to be home.



I had a lovely supper tonight. Corned Beef, Cabbage & Potatoes. Yummy Yummy Yummy!



As you can probably tell from the title Hubby is at work. Being that it's almost 11:00 he should be on his way home within the next hour. I really should have blogged earlier but I had a few technical difficulties. You see, I started out the night playing with the background on the blog. Thanks be to my wonderful sister in law Briana for the links. Check out Breezy Bride's blog for more details. Well, then I got, shall we say, crafty. Bad idea. I'm over the age of 20 and without a computer programming and web page design degree I am officially too old to mess with this stuff. I tried to download a photo editing software so that I could be all savvy and do editing wonders to my pictures. I of course had to use a free one because I'm twenty something and fabulous which in layman's terms means broke. So, I download and open a picture and start to play. All I did was make the picture look worse. Then I tried to make a banner for my blog. No such luck my friend, it was awful and I even downloaded the largest chunk of it. Then I wanted to try and change the font on my blog using really cool fonts that I found on various websites. Now, I did take an HTML class as a young whipper snapper but all of that information left my head as soon as my tests were graded. In short, no cool fonts. (Bri, what the crap do I do?) Throughout all of this I apparently downloaded some icky STDs onto my computer because for at least an hour I had no internet. So, 1 system restore, 1 Spybot search & destroy, 2 system immunizations, and 1 Spybot update session later, I am finally able to say I lived to blog about it.



Side note: I kind of want to vomit right now. I'm watching Ripley's Believe it or Not and there is this 110 lb girl who had her back skin pierced with hooks that they then attached to an armored truck so that she could pull said truck 400 feet by just walking forward. It was about the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. I'm sure I've seen more disgusting but none of those things come to mind right now.



Shout out to all of my bridesmaids: Who's missing a handkerchief? It's at my house.

Also, did anyone leave a pair of Acuvue contact lenses? They are at my house too. I imagine they belong to one of by beautiful sisters in law. We will bring them down when we come down for the pool party.


Hubby called just a few minutes ago. He'll be heading home soon. I am so glad for that. I am very cold, kind of bored, and slightly lonely.

The Great Pretender

So here I am at work. At a Director's desk. Answering the Director's phone. Pretending to be a department director. I hope this charade doesn't have to last long because truth be told I wouldn't want this job if my life depended on it. I am also suffering with severe Short-Timer's Disease. It is a chronic condition that typically appears in individuals who have put in their final notice and their current place of employment. Symptoms include fatigue, listlessness, attention deficit disorder, lack of motivation, and in most cases generalized not giving a hoot. I have a rather long and very official looking to-do list. If my boss asks me what I have going on I can refer to it and sound very very busy. However when it's just me in the office by myself I have yet to get jack-diddly-squat done. As long as I look busy and get things done by the deadline, right?

Hubby and I went to see Angels & Demons last night. For those of you who have read the book: this movie will hack you off to no end! Ron Howard took some serious film liberties with the story that in my own opinion really lessened the suspense of the story all together! Hubby and I both read the book while on our Honeymoon and were ecstatic to see that the movie was coming out so soon. It was especially exciting to know that the opening coincided with my birthday weekend. Now, we've had the discussion before about how we typically always think that the movie is NEVER as good as the book. Yet we subject ourselves to this torture time and time again. Read the book and "Oh, can't wait to see the movie!", see the movie, "Oh, the book was so much better". Now this is not to say that if you didn't read the book you won't enjoy the movie. If you haven't read the book you will certainly enjoy the movie. Probably much more than I did. And for those of you who think Dan Brown is a satanic heretic out to destroy religion I would like to point this out to you: while I don't know about The DaVinci Code I can say that in Angels & Demons he is trying to use fiction to bridge the gap between science and God. His main point here (by my own interpretation) is that both worlds can co-exist and even promote each other instead of one disproving the other. Despite what the Southern Baptist Convention might say I do think that the man has a solid faith in God. I do doubt his faith in the Roman Catholic church from time to time. But he believes in God.

Have you ever been to Taco Bell and heard "We are all out of Mexican Pizzas"? It's heart shattering.

Also note worthy today -- For the second time in my life I saw an interstate completely desolate and clear. The first time former President George Bush was speaking in Charleston, SC and was on his way into town within the hour. Today Vice President Joe Biden is speaking at Wake Forest's graduation ceremony and I assume he was also on his way into town. It's an eerie experience. I would have stopped to take a picture to share but I 1) didn't have a camera, 2) was late for work, and 3) didn't really want someone to think I was a sniper casing the area. It was pretty cool to witness though. I did however, for the second time in my life, miss seeing the actual motorcade.

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to buy a new rain coat? I haven't actually had one since I was a child. I want the dressy kind, not the hiking kind.

Also, what's the deal with Twitter? I can't figure out it's purpose!

Here's Hubby enjoying the mack daddy deck chairs we have. If you don't have one I would highly recommend it. If you don't have a deck to sit in them on I would highly recommend getting such a deck and then the chairs. They're so heavenly for enjoying a nice afternoon. We are at the moment outside doing just that. I got home a little early today after a fiasco of a time trying to get my name changed. Actually it wasn't so horrible, I'm just a doofus. The Social Security Office is a terrible place though. It smells like dirty arm pits.

Tonight Hubby and I will first clean the kitchen as it as a serious den of iniquity. I will include before and after pictures later on. And then we will see what our two culinary minds can do with HAMBURGER! I might have pictures of that as well. We just have to see.

Late night addendum: I would like it noted that Hubby just killed my Mii. I was walking along my tightrope as pretty as you please on the Wii Fit and he came right up behind me and tickled me until I lost my balance and fell off. He killed his Nintendo wife. I need to call the Super Mario Brothers to straighten his butt out!

Celebration Summation

As promised here is short pictorial view of my birthday celebration with Moma and Daddy. Hubby and I went to my parents' home away from home: the campground that is a short 15 minute drive from their house. We had a scrumptios dinner of T-bones and sweet potatoes which was followed by leftover wedding cake turned birthday cake and home made banana-pineapple ice cream



Here I am, cutting my wedding cake again. This time I didn't end up with any icing on my nose.







Hubby and I by the lake. It was a beautiful day. I really enjoyed spending time with my parents and their friends. I am thankful for the time we got to spend with them since I will be so far away this summer. I am so lucky to have such a great relationship with my parents and also that they love Hubby so much!




On a side note I got to enjoy my flowers a great deal while taking out the trash yesterday as I cleaned. Here are some pictures of some exceptionally beautiful ones.







Now we are off to the Sticky $3 Theater in town to see Angels & Demons. It's not the nicest movie theater however it is inexpensive and if the movie is good enough you get transported to a whole other world and get to ignore the fact that your shoes stick to the floor.




It's back to work tomorrow. Ick. I have to pretend to be a General Manager for a week and probably won't see my office until next Monday. I guess it will be nice to have a change of pace but I will miss my lunch buddies and will have to endure a whole week of the Hypochondriac Secretary. Pray for me.

DAW

Feelin' Mighty Fine

Today I will put forth my first effort in my own version of "photo-journalism" of my day to day activities. Let me know what you think!

I've had quite a wonderful birthday today. It began with Hubby cooking my breakfast before he went to work. Very tasty. There was an onslought of birthday wishes from friends and family throughout the day which I greatly enjoyed and am very thankful for. I made at least 40% good on my gift of a clean house to myself.

I began in the bedroom. Please note that the clothes at the end of the bed are clean but have just not been put away.

After an hour - I was delayed by a wonderful chat with my Grandmother - this is the finished result. Our vaccuum needs a new bag so I couldn't get the floor but it's not bad!

Then I attacked the bathroom. This task wasn't quite as daunting since I had sort of straightened up at one point this week but everything still needed quite a scrub down. Jennie was on the phone with me for most of this task.

Ah, the fruits of my labor yet again are so sweet!

Then came the living room. I swear, somewhere between the toxic waste dump and the pile of discarded shoes there is a coffee table in there. I had the least amount of motivation to get this done. I tried to put it off by having lunch. Then I tried a nap but God decided to remind me that I should hop to it with a sweet Happy Birthday call from Aunt Judy.

I told you I had a coffee table. Little did I know I also had a floor. Please cue the Hallelujah Chorus.

After all of this was done I decided I had worked hard enough for one birthday. Then I got a lovely visit from my next door neighbor to let me know that the matriarch canine of the family - Missy - had gotten loose from her line outside. Now, had this been Sirius, her gangly yet lovable offspring, I wouldn't have worried. But Missy is more of a "free spirit" shall we say. She's led me on one particularly embarrasing chase in Maine last year and forced me to run barefoot in pink Care Bear pjs in front of members who were ready to enjoy a lovely round of golf. So, needless to say I was a bit worried. To my delight when I opened the back door there she sat! I was geared for her to bolt when I stepped out of the door so I first tried calling her to me instead of launching after her. I was quite overjoyed when she listened and trotted right into the house.

Hubby got home a little after 4:00 and then it was truly time for the birthday festivities to begin. We had a scrumptious supper with my parents at the campground. I will chronicle the second part of my birthday tomorrow. It's late, Hubby is ready for bed and quite honestly, so am I!

DAW

Happy Birthday to Me!

Since it is 1:00am on the 16th of May I am now officially allowed to celebrate my 26th birthday. I am sitting on my couch in the middle of my horrifically messy house, watching Groundhog Day, and waiting on the Hubby to come home. I do have some wonderful plans for tomorrow evening: dinner with my parents and then possibly Angels & Demons at the movie theater with Hubby. I'm not sure if it's because it's still only 3 weeks after my wedding or if it's because I am officially over the hump on my way to 30 but I'm getting the feeling that birthdays from here on out will be celebrated with much less pomp and circumstance than they were for my first 25. I think I'm OK with it. Really, what I want the very most for my birthday this year is for my house to be magically clean when I awake. But, I've apparently pissed off every house elf in the world as this has never happened before and so I made the executive decision tonight that my birthday present to myself tomorrow will be to work diligently and finally get the house up to snuff. That way when I get home from our celebration tomorrow night I can rest and enjoy it for the rest of the weekend. So, happy birthday to me!

Hubby pointed out tonight when I told him about the blog (and my desire to take purty pictures) that this would be a great way to keep in touch with everyone this summer and let them know all of our goings on while we're many many many miles away. I think he's a genious and have added number one million two hundred and eighty six to the list of reasons why I married him. Speaking of Hubby, he's home now so I must go and enjoy my very first birthday present! You know who is perfect. I now have reason number one million two hundred and eighty seven.

G'night!

And so it begins

I have been inspired by http://thepioneerwoman.com to begin this blog. I am hoping to use it to a) kill some time while I'm counting down the minutes left sitting at this awful desk b) chronical the ups and downs and secret weapons I used to plan my bargain basement beautiful wedding and 3) talk about being a newlywed. I realize that it is quite possible that none of this is in any way interesting to anyone but it may be a creative release for me. Also as a life long journaler I am finding that I have no time to journal when I am at home. However getting paid to journal is a whole other story. Also, maybe, just maybe, I can use these posts to put together the book my husband assures me I should take the time to write.

For my 26th birtday which I will celebrate tomorrow I have decided that I would like to really learn photography. And get a really really really nice camera with which to do it. I've always wanted to learn photography and take really cool pictures. I've managed a few lucky shots throughout my life. But I have decided to take it seriously now. Read a book. Take a class. Buy a really cool camera. I haven't shared this with Hubby yet but I will and I think he'll be all for it. Then I can post pictures on the blog too. Speaking of my birthday no one here at work has remembered my special day. This is highly unusual. The Downstairs Ladies always remember my birthday. But, whatever.

Well, I suppose this should be the end of the introductory blog. Darth Vader (the GM at the main hospital) is about to enter my happy domain. I must meditate and put up my mental shield against his pessimistic and demeaning attitude. Then I may leave for the day.

DAW