Uninspired

I've been slacking on the blogs lately, but (steaing a line from mari) I've just been uninspired. Work has picked up a little lately, but not so much that I've ever had to stay late. It's good, I like feeling like I'm doing something. Even better - Kurt has spent a record three weeks at home lately. If you take away the reasons for him staying - car trouble, Micaela getting sent home for being sick (not really sick though, just a mouth ulcer), bad weather in PA, our trip to California, and now Kurt's sick with something (too much baking soda?) - it's actually been nice having him around the house. Not only does he clean occasionally, but it's just nice that I have someone older than 7 to talk to at dinner. One of the weekends he was home we went out and got a Christmas tree. It was fun decorating, we really haven't ever had a tree before, but luckily Kurt had all the necessary decorations from when he lived in Alabama. Here are the pictures, but it looks better in real life:

Oh, and one more thing I forgot to blog about back when mom and dad were visiting - the Sock Hop. I got the flyer for Micaela's Sock Hop a while before the dance and threw it away knowing that we wouldn't be going. Then the Thursday that mom and dad arrived, Micaela came home begging to go to the sock hop the next day. My instinct was to say no, but mom convinced me otherwise, so we all went to the Sock Hop together. I kind of forgot what a Sock Hop was and told Micaela it was a great idea to where her Cinco de Mayo dress, but she didn't really care that she was dressed differently. It took her a while to get over her shyness, but once she found her little gang, they had a great time. I'm dreading her high school dances, she already looks too grown up.

A New Kid

Despite being a little concerned about Micaela missing a lot of school, we decided to let her go with Grandma and Grandpa down to Aunt Weezy's house for all of last week. When we got down there Grandma said she had been perfect the whole week (probably mostly true since she is usually good), but I witnessed a lot of attitude in those last few days. I was a little concerned that she had been spoiled, but when we got home on Sunday it was like we had a new kid. She woke up on Sunday and let the dogs out and fed them, got herself breakfast, let the dogs back inside but shut the gate so they couldn't go upstairs and wake us. Then she started cleaning the downstairs all on her own. It was great. And she never forgot her manners or gave us lip. As a reward we took her and a friend to see Enchanted, which was actually pretty funny. Could it possibly be a fluke? Nope, she was this weird new kid again today. She came home from school with a sore throat and a slight temperature and helped Kurt swiffer, her new favorite activity. And she didn't complain once about her homework. I guess we should send her out to see Grandma Ginny more often :)

Now on to pregnancy news since Mari was complaining about me neglecting Alfred(a). I need new pants. I'm not really that big, but the old ones just don't fit and the two that do are getting worn out. I have to wear my Class A uniform on Thursday and my Dress Blues on Sunday, wish me luck fitting into those. So far, that's been the only bad part. I never really got sick and I can eat and sleep more and exercise less without feeling guilty, it's great. Four months from now I'm going to read this and laugh, but for now I don't mind. Although it's been easy so far, don't expect a Duggal, Druggars (whatever their name is) type family from the Weavers, after one screaming baby and nights with no sleep we'll be done!

Pictures

I just downloaded pictures off Mom's camera so here they are-

Kurt's flyover at Heinz stadium (he's the one on the left):

For those of you who haven't seen Kurt's new computer, it's the big monster to the left of the desk:

Finally, Mom and Dad went grocery shopping for me and did a great job:

1000+ miles in 4 days

For someone who hates driving, I sure do a lot of it. Last weekend I drove from Williamsburg to State College on Saturday afternoon, Pittsburg on Sunday morning, back to State College and then on to Elysburg on Monday, and back to Williamsburg on Tuesday. It was a lot of driving, especially when Micaela and the dogs were in the car, but they were good travelers for the most part. It was an exhausting weekend, but I saw everyone and did everything I was supposed to, and I didn't even wreck the car. Kurt's steelers flyover was pretty cool. Once I get mom's camera I'll put some pictures up. Gram seemed to be in a good mood and told us all about her days as an ER nurse. I have to tell you, for an old lady, you'd be surprised with the stories she can come up with. She definitely doesn't have a weak stomach. I was able to clean up the Elysburg house before mom and dad showed up and despite all the ladybugs, it was pretty comfortable staying there. Now that I'm home, I'm sleeping a lot better, but still going full speed. With Kurt gone, my only real free time is the half hour after I put Micaela to bed before I fall asleep myself (which is why I'm blogging at 7:30am). Micaela and I are both very excited to have Grandma Ginny and Grandpa Dennis come visit today, maybe I'll even get a chance to sit down and watch TV tonight.

Happy Halloween!!

Aren't we scary! When Micaela asked me what I was going to be for Halloween I immediately said witch thinking that it was the easiest costume. I was shocked when she said she wanted to be a witch too. I was even more shocked when she actually stuck with it and didn't change her mind and want to be a princess at the last minute. One phase down, many, many more to go. We decided we were going to be the Wicked Witches of Williamsburg (and then she changed hers to Matthew Whaley - her elementary school). She even asked the other kids if they had heard of the W.W. of M.W. and a few said yes - liars, we made that up! :) Halloween was good. We went to a neighborhood party where I knew no one but Micaela knew everyone and we found a group to go trick-or-treating with. After eating 2 chicken nuggets for dinner, Micaela was ready to go (no time for real food, there was candy out there). The group took me to a part of the neighborhood I had never been to and we were lucky to find our way home. After a little over an hour, her bucket was full and my back was tired so we called it quits. Nothing like little kids running all over the place to wear you out. I slept like a rock, so did she. I'm proud of myself, except for about 8 or 9 Now-&-Laters (and maybe a few smarties) (and maybe a few sweet tarts) I've kept away from most the candy. Here are the rest of the pictures, sorry they came out blurry, I'm not a good photographer.

Finding something edible

It's been an on and off week for me lately as far as cooking goes. Once Grandma Weaver's left-overs ran out, so did the good food. On Tuesday I decided to go with something that I knew Micaela would eat - Tuna Helper. She loves tuna fish, plain tuna fish, no mayo or dressing or anything- weird kid, huh? She liked the tuna helper (she actually gave me a high-five), but I wasn't up to making a vegetable, so that goes down in our unhealthy catergory. On Wednesday I realized I had a ton of vegetables and that I needed to make up for Tuesday's meal, so I consulted with Kurt and made homemade vegetable soup. I made it early and had some for lunch and it was decent, whether or not Micaela would agree was doubtful. As soon as I picked Micaela up from daycare I warned her - "tonight we are having chicken and also vegetable soup and you WILL eat all your soup and you WILL NOT complain, got it?" We got home and I heated everything up and she stirred the soup around for a little bit asking what everything was and then she took a pretty big spoonful. "Hmmm, not bad. High-five mom!" I actually got a high-five for vegetable soup, definitely a weird kid. It took a little pushing to get her to actually eat the whole bowl, but she did. Definitely healthy. Tonight we regressed. I dropped her off at 7am this morning (an hour before usual) and picked her up at 6pm (an hour after usual). It was just a long and boring (but busy) day. Having no energy I told her that we could go out to eat and of course she picked McDonalds. I can see why it's so addicting, and I'm not just talking about the fatty foods being addicting, but the convenience and the easy cleanup. I picked her up at 6 and we had eaten and cleaned up by 6:30 - a record seeing as how she is a very slow eater. Now it's 6:45 and I have to get on with the normal quick clean of the house and prep for tomorrow. Thank goodness Kurt is coming home tonight or else tomorrow we would be eating microwavable __________ (insert favorite food).

Another week

Well, I didn't get a chance to blog much last week because it was actually pretty busy. Kurt finally came home and all of a sudden our social calendar was filled. He left today for Drill up in PA, so now it's back to watching TV. Funny how opposites attract. I realized that we are also opposites when it comes to cleaning. I was looking forward to Kurt coming home, in part because I was thinking that he would help out with cleaning the house while I was at work. I forgot that Kurt is very similar to Dad in that when he cleans, he'll tear one room apart and spend all day dusting that room and it will be spotless. Meanwhile, the dishes will still be in the sink and the laundry will be piling up. I guess I'm more like Mom, in that having a room look clean is good enough for me. You can get a lot more done that way. I'm glad we're different, but now Kurt is gone again and I still have a house to put back together. Thankfully the Weavers are in town. Sharon is a superstar when it comes to cooking, doing dishes, and laundry. Within 24 hours all of our laundry was washed and folded, I just have to put it away (something I'm not very good at). And at least I know Micaela will eat well until they leave on Monday (I'm getting there).

Success!!!!!

On Monday we got home from a quick, but fun, trip to PA (see Mari's blog). On Tuesday, we needed to go grocery shopping (Micaela and I are still on our own). Being the genius that I am, I broke out my new "Don't Know How to Cook" cookbooks and starting skimming through looking for dinner ideas. My plan for yesterday was chicken enchiladas, but we couldn't find enchilada sauce, so chicken quesadillas had to do. I didn't flavor the chicken, so it was a little bland, but edible. Today I made something called Meat and Noodles and it was great! The steak cubes were supposed to be baked with cream of mushroom soup and onion soup mix for 3 hours, but I wasn't waiting that long so I browned them in a pan first and then baked for 30 minutes. It turned out really yummy. I even got Micaela's stamp of approval (just don't tell her there were mushrooms and onions in the gravy, she hates those). For a veggie I steamed some broccoli and put cheese on top. Micaela didn't want to eat the broccoli, so she started gagging. This works on Kurt because he has some bad childhood memory involving brussels sprouts, but it didn't work on me. I told her that if she threw up the broccoli I was just going to make her some more. Funny how the rest didn't make her gag. I'm turning into Mom... :) For our drinks we had milk and for dessert we had pineapple and watermelon. Pretty good, huh? What I'm not telling you is that for lunch Micaela "didn't have time" for her healthy stuff and just ate her cheeze-its and fruit snacks. All in all, I say we came out even. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Single Mom

If Kurt gets deployed again, I'll kill him. Micaela and I have managed to figure out a workable schedule and we are getting everything done (everything being the essentials) by 8pm so that we can go to bed and get up at 6:30. We are very efficient, but it is not very fun. I just feel pooped at the end of the day after work and then 3 hours of "do your homework, fix this math problem, do that, answering all the "mom..." questions, etc. I feel like a Drill Sergeant / Magic 8 Ball. I can only imagine what it will be like with two. I'm in trouble. I finally understand mom's craving for adult conversation. Thank goodness Mari is pretty good at talking about nothing.... DANG!! I had written a whole bunch more (talking about all the good things too) and then I accidentally erased it and there is no undo button. I give up. I'm going to bed.

Changes

Well, I don't have any good pregnancy stories yet, but there are a few things I've noticed:

I eat a lot. Well, I've always eaten a lot so it's not a huge change, but now I need to have 2 bowls of cereal instead of one to fill me up in the morning. And I get hungry for lunch around 10:30, so I have to eat two lunches too. At this stage I think the baby is about the size of a grain of rice, so I'm wondering how something that small can eat so much?

I sleep a lot. Well, I've always slept a lot, so that's not a huge change either, but now I just feel a little more tired than I used to. I think I'm blaming my laziness on pregnancy, but why not! I pretty much keep the same sleep schedule as Micaela which is convenient. I've been skipping PT in the morning and just exercising at lunch which is a lot nicer than waking up at 0500.

I get headaches. I think I've been getting headaches because I've significantly cut back on my caffeine intake. I still have a few sips of coffee in the morning just to cheer me up, but other than that I'm drinking mostly water during the day.

I've actually lost a little weight. This isn't a huge surprise since now I've cut out the beer or two a day and all the soda that I was having before. Those empty calories are no longer part of my diet (although not by choice). Who would have thought that being pregnant would make you healthier (and maybe a little lazy)?

And finally, the question I get asked most - No, I haven't had any morning sickness. But, there have been some strange noises coming from my stomach. Whether I'm hungry, or food is having trouble being digested, or Alfred(a) is trying to learn to belch, I'm not sure, but I'll take it any day over being sick.

Surprise

Mari says I need a new blog and mom and dad want to know when I am going to write about the current development in our family... so here it is: we're having a baby.

I sent this picture out to my family a week ago and to some friends a few days ago. I would say that only about 50% of the people got that this was a pregnancy announcement. I think it was Kurt being in the picture that fooled them, if it were Mari it would have been a little more obvious. Anyways, I don't feel pregnant, no morning sickness or anything like that, maybe just a little more tired than normal. I won't have a doctor's appointment for a little while yet, but I do have an orientation next week. I don't know what I will be orientated (hee hee - Army joke) to, but I guess I will find out. Other than that, life as usual. Today I got tasked with planning an Aviation Ball so I'll have something to do at work other than read the gossip columns (I rather enjoyed being lazy, oh well). That's about all I can think of for now, I'll post more later.

Soccer Moms

Micaela had her first soccer practice on Wednesday. We showed up a few minutes early because I didn't know exactly where to go. The group that practices the session before Micaela is the same age group and the moms were just crazy. There were about 30 kids out running around with their soccer balls in seemingly no organized fashion and all the moms (about 10 or so) were lined up with their butterfly chairs and coolers watching, sipping their lemonade. You would have thought it was the world cup of youth soccer, but no, just the first practice. I guess I didn't get memo, I didn't bring a chair or a cooler. Instead I sat in the car and listened to a book on tape. I'm a nerd. But Micaela loved it and was much better at it than gymnastics. Plus I think it took a lot more energy out of her. Now I just have to go buy her matching cleats, shin guards, and a soccer ball so she can look like all the other soccer mom's kids.

I killed the frog.

Tonight we had a huge cookout with all of our neighbors (12 adults and 10 kids) and Kurt made his famous rice and beans and it was a great party, lots of fun. We have a fairly large house, but it didn't have quite enough seating for everyone. The ladies ended up eating in the dining room sitting on the comfy chairs while the guys ended up in the living room making due with whatever they could find, as it should be :)

Then it came time for everyone to go home. Some of the neighbors live behind us so they went out the back door. Well, we have this pet frog (sort of) that likes to sleep in our patio umbrella during the day and hang on our glass back door at night. He's been around for months now and we really liked him. I knew he was there, but I didn't pay attention when I opened the door and I accidentally broke the poor guy (or gal's) leg, smashing it in the door crack. He ended up on our wall inside dragging his leg behind him. Kurt didn't think that was very humane, so he took him outside and introduced him to the bottom of his shoe. I asked Kurt if he was sure he was dead and he just laughed. It was very sad. I killed the frog.

Hoodlums and Disasters

Strange title, I know, but I really have two things to blog about. First the hoodlums. On Tuesday, Micaela had school and I had the day off work, so Kurt and I decided to take that opportunity to clean out the garage. We took everything off the shelves and had it all piled up on the floor. It was a mess. I helped Kurt with the mess until around 6 and then went to watch a movie with Micaela. When the movie was over I came downstairs to find that one of the dogs had diarhead all over their cages. I yelled for Kurt to help, but he was gone somewhere. When he got home about 15 minutes later (he was helping a friend buy a nintendo for his boy) he told me that there were two bikes laying in our yard. It was dark out and the kids in our neighborhood don't really leave stuff lying around. Kurt saw 3 teenagers, 2 on bikes and one walking, coming down the street as he left on his errand. He figured that they were stolen bikes and the teens had ditched them when a car drove by. He called the police and they came out and picked up the bikes. A few minutes later I asked where Jason's bike was (he left it at our house after the Chincoteague vacation). Then we realized it was one of the bikes the cops picked up, oops. Why would someone steal a kids bike and leave it at the end of the driveway???? The answer - to steal a better bike. Two bikes actually, two Trek mountain bikes that Kurt and I had just outside our garage. The hoodlum teenagers stole our bikes. Just to add insult to injury, I figured that the theft took place just about the time I was out back cleaning dog poop off the dog's cages. What a great night. The bikes weren't terribly expensive, but I had just started riding mine for exercise with a group at work. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to sleep in now.

Next blog: the disaster.

In keeping with the cleaning mood that we were in (although we never actually finished the garage) Kurt decided that the office and the TV room needed some cleaning as well. With the purchace of one cheap desk for me, he transformed the office and really did a good job making it look nice and organized. After that task was done he headed up to the TV room. We've always needed more seating in there, especially now that college football season has begun. We rearranged the whole room (which included moving a fish tank downstairs, not fun) and now have a good entertainment room. This all sounds great, but what I haven't mentioned is what happened to all the stuff that was cleaned out of those rooms, well here it is, in our entry way and living room:

We are having all the neighbors over tomorrow for a cookout, and tonight I have a statistics midterm so I'll be gone, so I have no idea how we are going to get this mess cleaned up. I guess I'll have to trust that Kurt will do it all tomorrow during the day before he starts cooking. (I have this suspicion though that all this stuff is going to end up in the garage for us to clean up later). Fun times. Here are the pictures of the newly cleaned rooms:

Gremlins

Yesterday was Micaela's first day of school and while she was away, the Gremlins came and cleaned up her room for her. I mean, they practically gutted it. There was a lot of junk. But it looks nice and her toys are organized and now she can't stop asking questions about the Gremlins. She knew they weren't real at first, even after talking to Grandma Ginny (aka the Gremlin expert) she still had her doubts. Then I went online and showed her this picture:



That sealed the deal. They are definitely real. Last night she wrote to them and left out jelly beans and water. She also wants to invite them to go swimming. Something about "they're invisible" didn't quite register. It's pretty cute, but I'm going to have to tell her to keep it a secret or else she is just going to bombard her teacher and classmates with everything she has learned about them so far. They're going to think she's crazy. Oh well, it's fun.

Vacation

Well, we are back from Chincoteague Island, our first real family vacation (well, family + Micaela's friend Jason). Chincoteague is a small old beach town that caters to tourists, but in a very low-budget sort of way (perfect for us). Next to Chincoteague Island is Assateague Island where wild ponies live which the kids were very excited about. We spent most of our time on Assateague because it has a pretty nice beach. Even though it wasn't all that hot outside the water was warm and we brought the boogie boards, so we had fun. The waves out there weren't quite what I am used to though and I got hammered quite a few times. I got Micaela to come out and try to catch a wave with me on her small board and we both ended upside down under the water. That was the last time she tried boogie boarding, but she did good playing in the waves on the shore. Jason did good with the boogie board and was a little braver than Micaela but I think he took home half the beach in his hair. There was still sand in it when we sent him home, oh well.

Other activities included Pony rides, movies, duck feeding, a trip to a NASA vistors center and Xbox playing. The pony rides were underwhelming, three times around a corral, so we bought a hour long lesson for Micaela. She did pretty good but was nervous and wouldn't try trotting. After it was over though she wouldn't stop talking about how cool it was. When we weren't out doing anything, Kurt got the kids hooked on Star Wars Legos II for the Xbox. It was a little frustrating watching them since they didn't really get it (Micaela will need lessons from Isaac next year) but they had fun. When the kids got too noisy, we sent them outside where they could almost always find ducks roaming around. We warned them about ducks biting, but they didn't believe us and wanted to hand feed them instead of throwing bread to them. We laughed at Jason when a duckling bit his toe and he cried. Is that mean? I thought it was funny.

We rented a small house there for a week, but after 5 days, Kurt and I decided that we were ready to go. It was a really nice vacation, but being disconnected from the world (i.e. our computers) took it's toll and we wanted a few days to unpack and relax before Kurt heads up to PA to go fly. And now we're at home, sleeping well and enjoying the Internet, it's good to be back.

Notice the wild ponies in the background

Update

It's been a while since my last blog. There are a few reasons for this - 1. visitors (Higerd's followed by Weaver parents) 2. Between visits not much happened 3. The things I want to write about involve pictures on Kurt's camera that I can't get because the battery died and the charger is MIA. But here is an attempt at what we have been up to:

The Higerd visit was very nice. I particularly enjoyed getting my nails done (thanks mom) with Mari and Micaela while the rest of the Higerds went sightseeing in Williamsburg. And getting rained on at Busch Garden's was also a little funny since that was the second time it had happened. Those are pretty much the hightlights from their visit.

Not much happened during the week, but on Friday, Micaela got invited to Kings Dominion with the neighbor's church group and I had the day off (training holiday) so Kurt and I actually got a day alone to... clean the house. We hadn't cleaned since Mari left and we knew Kurt's parents were on their way so we spent all day vacuuming, dusting, and mopping. It was lots of fun, really. My reward for being such a good help was a hot stone massage from Kurt (he got a box with stones and a little book from the clearance rack at B&N). He didn't read the book, but he did look at the pictures. He started by putting a stone on my back and then it would slide off. He put another on, and it slid off. He got annoyed and just dumped the whole box of stones on my back. It was funny, the stones were barely warm. The massage was a little underwhelming. Shellie, he needs some help.

On Saturday the house was pretty much clean except for the guest room. While cleaning that up I found the air compressor we were missing. For Micaela's birthday Bob got her this big inflatable yellow ball with windows that you get inside and just roll around in. It was a pain in the butt to blow up because it had about 12 different compartments, but when it was done the kids had a blast. The neighbors have three boys and the boy from across the street came over and they all fought for turns. I wish I could show you the pictures. There were doing somersaults and flipping all over. It was pretty cool. They were like little hamsters that you put in the ball and just let run all over. Just one note: make sure you clean all the dog poop from the yard before you let the kids roll the ball all over the place, that was a little gross. Next we need to find them a big hill and just push them down it and see how they do.

I will update with pictures when I can get them. That will have to be it for now. I have to go to bed so I can get up early and play golf tomorrow with Kurt and his dad. I love that no one will notice if I don't show up to work until noon. It's rough being your own boss at 25. :)

Happy Anniversary!

Mom, since I know you read this and I keep forgetting to call - Happy Anniversary! I always remember at 8am EST, but forget by the time it's a decent hour on the West Coast.

In anticipation of the same thing happening on Monday - Happy Birthday Bob! I'll call if I remember.


Not too much going on right now here. Oh, but look at the fantastic home-made sushi lunch I made Kurt:





Yeah right... that's way beyond my abilities. But Kurt did a fantastic job. He found a "how to make sushi" book on clearance at Barnes and Noble and was able to actually figure out the recipes/instructions (unlike me).


Onto other news... Kurt and I have spend the last week paying for a mistake that I made while he was gone. The mistake - not mowing the grass. He didn't cut it before he left, and then I went up to PA two weekends in a row, so by the time I had a free weekend it was really long. (Yes, I could have cut it during the week, but I had sitcoms to watch). Two days before Kurt came home I went out and tried to start the mower, but I couldn't do it. I swear it was broken, but it started for Kurt on the first try, so maybe it was just me. Anyways, it was so long at this point that Kurt had to had to take off the cover that throws the grass down toward the ground because it kept clogging. After that, there were so many grass shavings that we had to rake them into piles. There were about 18 piles that filled up 9 big black trashbags. It was a lot of work. Kurt told me it was just as bad as bailing hay. I think he's still a little upset that I was so lazy. I made up for it today by helping him edge and mulch the flowerbeds that run around the outside of the house. The fact that it was around 99 degrees didn't help, I'm exhausted. Well, Mari and Gabe just got here, so I have to go help move them in. That's what it seems like with the amount of stuff the drag along with the baby, but really I think it's just all Mari's shoes :)

Cooking Lesson #1

Last week I told myself that I was going to make 3 things before Kurt got home - a quiche, lasagna, and chocolate cheesecake. Well, last night I made a valiant effort in the kitchen and had, what I consider, moderate success. Moderate success meaning that nothing caught fire or gave me food poisoning. Here are a few of the things I learned:
(1) Read the whole recipe first. The recipe for the quiche went something like this- Step one - fry the bacon in a pan. Why would I do that, putting the bacon on a papertowel in the microwave is so much faster? Step two - use the bacon grease to ... Shit, hope olive oil works okay.
(2) A "dash" is a stupid measurement. What the heck is a dash?? I even tried to look it up in Wikipedia, not there. I know it's small, but how small? Because it was referring to red pepper, I erred on the side of caution and put in just a wee little bit.
(3) Aluminum Pie Pans are not the most stable platforms. I just barely avoided disaster trying to put the quiche in the oven (almost had quiche all OVER the oven) by deciding to use two hands at the last moment.
(4) Don't frown at a 30 minute cooking time. That's just about the exact time needed to clean up the mess you just made and prepare a dessert (in this case chocolate cheesecake - yum).
(5) Cup vs. Ounce. Now this is just silly. The cheesecake recipe called for 16oz of whipped cream cheese and 1 cup of sour cream. Why not 8 ounces of sour cream and make it consistent. I had to refer to the internet again just to confirm that 1 cup does equal 8 ounces, I'm not really into measurements.
(6) The cheesecake recipe said to mix the cream cheese, sour cream, and chocolate pudding mix with a strong spoon. What they forgot to mention is that you will need a strong arm to use the strong spoon. The cheesecake really turned out to be more of a chocolate flavored cream cheese, but that's okay with me, I like all kinds of cheese.
At this point I felt pretty good. The kitchen was clean, the chocolate flavored cream cheese was in the oreo pie crust (not a great crust to use, crumbles easily), and the quiche was in the oven looking pretty good. 30 minutes went by and I checked the quiche. Still looked pretty wet. I didn't like the idea of eating raw eggs so set the timer for 5 minutes. Still didn't look quite ready, so I set the timer for another 5 minutes. This time I took it out (with two hands) and cut a little piece out. It could still use a little more. 10 minutes later it wasn't burned and looked pretty good. I was very proud of myself. I took a picture for you. Then I cut myself a piece a took a bite. The quiche consisted of eggs, milk, spices, bacon, and onions. I didn't taste any of those, I tasted dough. The pie crust never cooked. Damn. The first step of the recipe was to put the crust in the over for 10 minutes or until golden brown. I was so worried about burning it I took it out after 8 minutes. So, to not let it go to waste, I ate the stuff off the top of the pie crust and just threw the crust away. It was alright, but it was essentially an omelet and I could have done the same thing in a frying pan with a lot less effort. You have to give me credit for trying though.
As for the lasagna... well after seeing that the "one step lasagna" took up two pages of directions, I opted to go for the REAL one-step lasagna, the frozen kind that you just put in the oven. We're having that for dinner tomorrow.

Cheese

I love cheese. I think all Erdman's are cheese-lovers actually. Except maybe Bob, he said something once about lactose-intolerance, but I think he was at least a former cheese-lover. Anyways, with Kurt and Micaela gone, cheese has gone from a dairy product to a meal for me. Last night for dinner I had a block (big block) of Dubliner Irish cheese and a glass of red wine. There's some nutritional value in that right? Since that wasn't all too filling, I had cereal for dessert (now a much more complete meal). But, I am determined to go grocery shopping at some point before Kurt gets home and to cook a meal from my new cookbooks that I hopefully won't make a mess of. I will let you know how it goes. Back to being lazy...

My turn to rant...

I'm very pissed off at mechanics today. When we got the Grand Cherokee from Kurt's mom it had the brake light and the ABS light on. She had her mechanic in Podunk, PA look at it and he couldn't figure out what was wrong, said her brakes were fine. We got the car and knew that the anti-lock braking system wasn't working, but we thought the normal brakes were okay. Then we started hearing this horrible grinding. We knew something was wrong so we called the Jeep dealership and made an appointment for the next morning. They took a look and said that the computer for the anti-lock brakes was bad and that's why those two lights were on. Repair cost: $600 (ouch). We told them to go ahead, brakes need to work properly. A day and a half later I got another call, it wasn't the computer that was bad, it was the pump (which caused the computer to go bad). Updated repair cost: $1000 (double ouch) and three more days. It was during that same phone conversation that I asked the guy if he had a chance to look at the brakes (refering to the sound). His words were very similar to this "Yeah, we took a look and they are at #### (some number), that's ## under the legal limit so they are fine." Being the retard that I am, I didn't check the receipt to make sure that it stated that they had checked the brake pads/rotors and that they were good. I picked the car up and drove it a block down the street. It didn't feel right. When I pressed on the brake pedal my foot almost went to the floor before I felt it start breaking. I took the car back and asked them to look at it. The mechanic said he could bleed it again, but he had already done it twice, and it was probably just because of the new pump (which has nothing to do with normal breaking). I trusted them and I drove the car up to PA and back over the weekend. When I got back I noticed that there was still that grinding sound and it was a lot worse. I took the Jeep to Meineke today. The driver-side rear brake was metal to metal, absolutely no pad left (no exaggeration, I kept the old pad). That's what was causing the grinding noise, needed a new rotor now too. Also, both front rotors were at the point where they would fail an inspection (but just barely). Repair cost: $500 (getting old). Finally, they informed me that the reason that the pedal was going down so far was because there is a leak in the Master Cylinder, he got out a flashlight and showed me the fluid leaking down. Repair cost: $500 (decided to defer this repair for a little bit). That's when I got angry. Those shady mechanics at the dealership flat out lied!!!! They told me they check my brakes and they were "fine" when in fact, they were horrible! And they blew me off when I told them about the pedal going down so far. I'm pissed, but I'm not a confrontational person and Kurt is just scarier looking, so when he gets back I'm sending him down to the Jeep dealership to raise hell. It's just too bad I don't have anything in writing about having them look at the brakes. On a good note, I did spend a lot of time today educating myself on car brakes and now I have a pretty good idea of how they work and what to look for so I won't get screwed again.

Blah...

Life is very boring without Kurt and Micaela here. I've realized that I have zero self-motivation to do anything. I tend to come home from work, make myself something to eat (mostly stuff that just goes in the microwave or toasteroven), and then sit down to watch Cash Cab, How it's Made, King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, then the Colbert Report and then it's time for bed. That would be okay, except there are so many other things I should be doing. When Kurt and Micaela left, they left quite a mess behind and in the past week I've added quite a bit to it. But what reason do I have to clean up? I can just do it this weekend (isn't procrastination great?) That's what I thought last week, but ended up driving to PA to spend the weekend working on the loft. I have a load of laundry that I've had to wash three times because I keep forgetting to put it in the dryer. I do the dishes purely to keep the house from stinking. I eat a lot of cereal and milk starts to smell after a day in the sink. I just feel so LAZY!! The funny thing is that when Kurt and Micaela get home and there is a ton going on and I'm dying for a chance to sit and do nothing, that's when I'll do the chores. I don't get it. But anyways, have to stop typing because Harry Potter is calling and I want to finish before someone spoils the ending for me (I know I'm not the fastest reader in the family so don't you dare tell me!).

Levels of blondeness

I've reached a new peak - try to top this one. What happens when you go to slam a car door shut but forget to move your head out of the way first? You get this:

I was cleaning the trash out of the pocket in the drivers door and went to close the door but didn't move fast enough to get out of the way. The inside of the door hit my face really hard and it hurt! I even heard something crack and my upper teeth on that side went numb for about 5-10 minutes. How the hell do you slam your face in a car door!!!! I don't think I could replicate the incident if I tried. It's been about a half hour now and it still hurts a little and will probably bruise. Luckily that part of your cheekbone is pretty strong so I don't think I broke anything. If I did though, I would blame it on my blondeness which has reached a new level - something to be proud of, huh?

Not the only blonde in the family...

Last Friday Kurt and Micaela left for Pennsylvania for two weeks. Kurt was going up there to fly and get a lot of his annual flight requirements out of the way. Micaela was going up because it's a lot more fun with Grandma than it is at summer school. They packed Friday morning and left after I got home from work. I was actually a little excited to have a weekend all to myself to get the house cleaned, ride my bike, go to the pool and swim laps, and to just relax. Then I got a call Friday night. Kurt asked what my plans were for the weekend and then asked if I felt like coming up to PA for a night - he had left his helmet and flight vest in the closet. Oops. Those things are kind of crucial to flying. Being the good person that I am, I woke up at 6am on Saturday, did a quick clean of the house, threw in a load of laundry, bought car sickness medicine for the dogs and was on my way. It's not a bad drive, about 6 hours if there's traffic. The only thing that sucked was that I was in a rental car (Jeep is in the shop for bad brakes) that didn't have cruise control. I realize now that it's a necessary feature if you're going to be driving a lot. Overall, it turned out to be a nice weekend. It's good to know that I'm not the only one in the family who has blonde moments.

Blonde Blog 4

I had a long day at work today, although that's hardly an excuse for the following comments that I made this evening on the way home from having dinner with our neighbors:

Mike (neighbor)- "look, there's a rainbow. I can see all the colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet"
Jason (his 7yr old son) - "I didn't know there were 8 colors in a rainbow"
Liz - "yup"
Mike - "no there aren't, there are 7 - ROY G BIV - way to go liz"


later on we're driving home and we missed the turn to the neighbors house (other side of the loop...)


Mike - "Kurt, why don't you just drive around the block?"
Kurt - "it's just easier to flip a louie"
Liz - "what's a louie?"
Kurt- "Mike, tell her what a louie is"
Mike- "it's a u-turn to the left"
Liz- "well, then what do you call a u-turn to the right?"
Kurt- "have you ever made a u-turn to the right?" (huh, maybe that's my problem...)

Fun in the kitchen

Can you guess what that is a picture of? No, it's not dog poop. For the first time in a while we were having a normal boring weekend. Micaela has a list of 100 activities that she has to do this summer and one of them was to make something in the kitchen using measuring cups. We hadn't been grocery shopping in a long time, so we decided to see what was in the cupboards. We thought we had what we needed to make brownies. We had bakers chocolate with an easy recipe on the back of the box but not enough chocolate squares. Luckily the hershey's cocoa powder had a note that said it could be substitued for baker's chocolate if you just add oil. Well, with Micaela helping me, 3 tablespoons of powder and 1 tablespoon of oil, didn't quite come out right. Or at least I think that's where we went wrong. It may have been the stick and a half of butter, I'm not quite sure that was the right amount. Anyways, the consistency never got to looking like brownie batter, but I'm not smart enough to know what I had too much or too little of, so we just threw it in the oven and hoped for the best. When it came out I knew something was wrong since it was kind of sloppy and oily. I let it cool for a while and it started to look a little better, but when I took it out of the pan it came out like you see in the picture above, strikingly similar to dog poo. The good news is that with extra oil, butter, whatever it was that we had too much of, it still takes fantastic. And I'm sure it's good for us (or at least Micaela who needs some more meat on her bones). One of these days something will come out right :)

Socialites

So I haven't really been updating my blog lately, but Mari's done a good job of covering what's been going on, so you can just read hers to catch up. Now that you've done that... you know that Kurt and I have had a lot of time alone lately. You would think that with Micaela spending the week at Mari's and then going up to PA with Grandma and Pappy Weaver after her birthday, that Kurt and I would be partying it up not having to pay for a babysitter and all... not quite the case. We had all these good intentions of going to the gym together, going to Busch Gardens, playing tennis (even though neither of us have a clue), etc. and what ends up happening? I read a 200 page book in 2 days and Kurt reformated his computer again. We lead exciting lives. We have enjoyed cooking outside though and having beer/wine and cigars and just relaxing. The weather is perfect right now, reminds me of CA. We expect to do a lot of cooking outside, drinking beer and just doing nothing when we go out to CA next year, so get ready.

Snot

I hate colds. They're worse than the flu. When I'm really sick, I don't complaint too much and just suck it up, but with a cold it's different. I feel fine except that there's all this pressure and mucus coming out of my nose/lungs and it's just ANNOYING, and I'm such a baby about it. I've tried Emergen-C, Zicam, Coldezze, Sudafed, Advil Cold and Sinus, and just regular ibuprofin, but nothing really helps. It sucks. Food just doesn't sound good (something to do with not being able to smell I think), and I love food, another reason why colds suck. And I don't understand how I can go from only breathing out my left nostril to only breathing out my right nostril in a matter of minutes, why can 't I have both?? I've had thing dang cold for 36 hours now, it's time for it to go. Any suggestions for things I haven't tried?

Army Streamer Ceremony

Yeah!!!!! It's over!!!!!! I am very happy now. I can go back to surfing the internet and being bored at work :) The ceremonies went pretty well. We never rehearsed with the band, so for the first show, we learned that the band was louder than the narrator's microphone, so no one really heard the actual ceremony, oh well. There were also a few audiovisual glitches, but not much you can do about that. For the second show, we fixed all that and it went off flawlessly, but of course no VIPs attended that show. On Thursday we went to Fort Monroe for a third show, but I wasn't in charge of this one, the band was. It was very cool. Monroe is right on the water and they have a park with a gazebo overlooking the bay and that's where they had their show. You were supposed to bring your own chair, but I didn't know that, so Kurt, Micaela and I just walked around. Part of Fort Monroe is surrounded by an actual moat, built way back. I think like 30 years ago (just kidding). It is really neat though, I should have taken pictures. The picture up top is of the actual participants of the show. When we started making certificates for all of those involved the number got up to around 55... big production huh? Time for me to go to Hollywood.

Blonde Blog 3

You know how when you go swimming and accidentally get water up your nose it really burns. I hate that feeling (it's why I exaggerated my back pain to get out of dunker training at Ft Rucker). Anyways, so I was taking a shower the other day and somehow I got water up my nose! Not quite sure how, but it burned. I'm swearing off showers. Mari, be ready for me to be stinky when I come visit.

Generals....

What a pain in the a$$. About a month ago I got put in charge of the 232nd Army Birthday Streamer Ceremony for Fort Eustis. When I tell that to people who know what it entails, they ask me who I pissed off. The ceremony is high visibility show / production that's put on to celebrate the Army's Birthday. All high ranking Officers (Colonels and Generals) and Enlisted Soldiers (Sergeant Majors) are expected to attend ... fun. I know absolutely nothing about putting on a show and I am the least creative person I know. But I did all the planning and most everything has been coordinated. Notice I said MOST everything. The show is next week and I have all the props, but no people to perform. Kind of key, I'm going to work on that tomorrow. Also, I wasn't quite sure of how to invite the Generals and other VIPs so I waited until the last minute on that too. I guess I just assumed that the General would have the Army's Birthday on his calendar and plan on attending the event, but when I called his secretary she said she had no idea and that I should send an invitation ASAP. Oops, maybe I should have called earlier. So yesterday I figured out how to write an invitation and I sent it to the Commanding General (CG) and I sent another invitation to this other Brigadier General on post. We have two shows so I need two guest speakers to do the opening comments. The CG wrote back that he would attend and give the opening comments. What a relief, the first show was taken care of, or so I thought. Then I get another email. The General wants recommended comments from me. What the hell. He's the general who's been in for a million years and has been to every Birthday celebration for those million years and he's asking me what he should say? Um... Happy Birthday, thanks for coming, here's a cookie? I have no clue!! Please refer back to the comment where I say I am the least creative person I know. Damn Generals... more work for me to do. And I'm still waiting to hear from the other one. One more week, wish me luck.

Vacation

You would think that after spending the first 11 years of my life living near the beach, that I would be a decent sand-castle maker. Not the case. I tried and it looked more like an eyeball with a cone on top. Good thing Micaela didn't know any better. She collected a bunch of seashells and 'decorated' it until a wave came defeated us. We only spend one morning at the beach, the rest of the time we were at the pool which was pretty cool. It had a little island and three waterfalls and most of the pool was shallow enough for Micaela to touch. She didn't really make any friends at the pool, so she ended up taking swimming lessons from Kurt. Kurt believes in the sink or swim philosophy, which Micaela didn't really like, but it worked. She is still a little timid, but she can touch the bottom or swim across the deep end when we make her. After making her swim everywhere for the first two days, we took pitty on her and got her an innertube for the last day so she could just play. Overall it was a very nice vacation, but it's taken a week to recover, especially after driving 16 hours on Tuesday to get home. The 2 hour stop at the Audi dealership in Jacksonville, Fl was especially fun. One of the passenger seat's adjustable axis broke and we had to get it fixed on the way home before we out-drove our warranty. Kurt got pissed when these 3 college-aged girls came in and all of a sudden there were like 10 employees around to help them. Not much need to explain why we waited for 2 hours, and the girls were out of there in about 35 minutes. Oh well, we got it fixed.

Blonde Blog 2

I've reached the end of my dreams. That was a thought I had this morning. I had a dream last night where Kurt and I were stealing stuff from a store. We took the stolen stuff out the back and onto a loading dock. Little did I know that Kurt had called the cops and was planning on turning me in. He helped me get all the stuff on the dock and then he went back inside thinking that the police were going to show up, but they never did because we were on this mountain and there was an accident at the bottom of the mountain that blocked the road. So I got all the stolen stuff and packed it into the car, never knowing about Kurt's plan. I said my farewell to Kurt, because he wasn't coming with me and I drove off. My dream briefly stopped, but I didn't like that ending, so it started again. After I few minutes I drove back to the loading dock and ran up and told Kurt that I didn't want to leave without him (sappy, I know). He was happy that I came back, despite trying to send me to jail earlier. We hugged in that dramatic ending way and then my dream went blank. It had ended. I was still sleeping so I expected a new dream to start or something to keep my mind going, but there was nothing. I had reached the end of my dreams. My brain had just stopped. How does that happen? Strange huh? :)

Blackberry

I got an email from my boss yesterday with "come see me about the lost blackberry?" in the subject line. Nothing else. My first thought was "s*@$, I forgot to tell Mr. Jones about that". I walked over to the next building, already a little shaky from my morning caffeine jolt and knocked on his door. Mr. Jones is a big guy who always looks serious, but is pretty good-natured. He looked really serious that morning. He asked me to tell him about the phone, so I told him that I had it turned off and couldn't figure out how to turn it on, left it in my passenger seat, then had to head home unexpectedly, etc. He looks at me (I'm expecting a lecture) and says "have you looked in the freezer?". What? Then he turns around and grabs his wallet and tells me that I'm looking at a once frozen wallet. One day he laid it on top of the fridge, forgot about it, opened the freezer door and it fell in, didn't find it until months later. Then he tells me something even better! Last week COL Russell, my boss's boss, lost his laptop computer. After having the young Soldier who works for him call all the places he had been that day, he ended up finding it with some honest guy who worked at the car wash. He did lecture me on how I should have told him first, but he didn't make a big deal of it. Thank goodness.

Meatloaf Part II

Murphy is one SOB. If I ever get my hands on him, I'm going to kick his butt. The meatloaf was cooking at it really looked and smelled good. So to pass the time, I started to clean up the kitchen. I went to get a garbage bag out of our cleaning cupboard and down falls the floor cleaner/wax. It's it's falling in a way where the bottom of the container is heading toward the counter so it shouldn't spill, but of course the cap is up and the cleaner squirts right into my eye. I was Johnny-on-the-spot getting to the sink to rinse out my eye, but even after rinsing it felt sticky, so I rinsed again and checked to cleaner bottle- WARNING: Eye Irritant. In case of contact with eye, flush immediately and call a doctor. Great. That's what I needed. I sent Micaela and her friend over to her friends house, turned the oven off (poor meatloaf), and headed to the emergency room. As far as emergencies rooms go, this one was nice and I was seen pretty fast. They scanned my eye and it looked fine and then they did a 15 minute flush. It was the strangest thing, they put this thing that looks like a big contact in your eye, but it has a hole in the top that they connect to a water bag and it just floods your eye and spills out onto a towel. It was a strange feeling. Got home, and restarted the oven. Meatloaf turned out a little crispy, dry, something. Edible, but not great (although it looks good, right? haha). So much for my cooking ambition... And I still have a week to go before Kurt gets home. I think I'll go buy some hamburger helpers, those are pretty hard to screw up.

Meatloaf

Last Friday Kurt left for Alabama for two weeks after a 12 hour notice that he needed to be there. The timing was fine, I had nothing special going on where I couldn't miss work in the mornings and Kurt is between classes. The only problem was that it left me in charge of all the household duties that he normally does. I was good last weekend, despite it being Mother's Day, I spent all day Saturday cleaning while Micaela played outside with some friends. On Mother's Day we went to Virginia Beach and to the aquarium and had dinner out at a restaurant down there. It was nice. Then came the typical week. On Monday I got home and was starving so I ate some cereal and made some Chef Boyardee for Micaela. I got off easy on Tuesday because Micaela went over to the neighbors and they fed her there. Wednesday the house was getting a little messy, but I let it go and made a homemade pizza for us. Thursday I planned on having the leftover pizza. This time the neighbor's girl came over and had it with us and the two girls made the house even messier. Friday I planned on taking Micaela out to eat before we saw Shrek, but the restaurants were packed so we ate at the movies, and guess what she asked for... pizza. So after three dinners of pizza in a row I decided that I was going to cook something for dinner tonight. I've been hungry for Meatloaf, why, I don't know. I don't think I've had it in at least a year or two. So I went online and typed in "easy meatloaf recipies". After looking at a few, I got the idea of what they were supposed to have in them - meat and whatever else you want. I decided to go mostly with Kraft's recipe of ground beef and stuffing. I told Kurt what I was doing and he gave me his recipe and then I called mom to see if I really needed to put it in tinfoil and she gave me some of her recipe. By that time, the meatloaf was already made and I didn't feel like adding anything else. So, here we are, the meatloaf is cooking. I'm almost positive that Micaela won't like it, but like a good mom, I'm going to force her to try it (as long as it's somewhat edible). So, the house is still a disaster and I'm just not motivated to clean, and the yard is turning into a jungle, but at least I'm attempting to cook a dinner that uses more food groups than a cheese pizza. Wish me luck.

Jinxed

After my "phases" posting, dad wrote me this, "As for the phases, I’m glad that you got the car wrecking phase out of your system early on and hopefully it will never make a re-appearance. " And then this happened. Yes, that is scotch tape holding my tail light on. How did it happen? Well I was too lazy to walk three houses down carrying heavy poker chips, so I drove. We finished playing at around midnight and I went to leave. Our friends driveway is sort of long and it's gravel with a big ditch near the street. I was using Kurt's trick of using the mirrors to back up instead of turning around and looking where I was going. Bad idea, don't do that. I made it out of the driveway and over the ditch and to the street where I turned the wheel hard and kind of missed that our other friends car was parked on the side of the road. Oops. Luckily their car wasn't damaged. Total cost for a new tail-light - $100, preparing for the crap your brothers are going to give you - priceless.

Blonde Blog 1

This morning I was telling Kurt a story and he told me that I need to start a blonde blog. I'm not sure exactly if that was a statement, and compliment, or a slight, but here's the story:

I went to bed really late last night, but after I finally got to sleep, I slept pretty well. Except that I was having bad dreams. I was dreaming that people were dying. I woke up and thought to myself that maybe if I rolled over and slept on my other side I would have good dreams... makes sense to me.

Birds

I hate birds. I still have a very clear memory of waking up in the middle of the night when I was about 6, walking out to the entryhall and seeing this bird going crazy and running into the walls. It scared the crap out of me and remember screaming bloody murder. I haven't really liked birds since then. Moths either. Really, not a big fan of any flying animal/insect. So when I got home today I was less than thrilled to see two finches flying around the garage. Stupid birds, the garage door is big, and they still couldn't figure out how to get out. I tried throwing crackers down near the door and just ended up with a messy garage. I'm leaving the door open, I hope they're gone by tomorrow. I hate birds...

A New Phase

I've been through many phases in my life: my shy phase, my akward phase (still might be in this one), my hat phase, my lost wallet phase, my party phase, my car-wrecking phase, and now I think I'm onto a new phase... my lost phone phase. For pretty much all of last year I used the Treo as my cell phone. A treo is one of those big blackberry email phones. Once Kurt got home I didn't need that phone anymore so I switched to a small black phone that Mari gave to me for free. It took about two months for me to lose it. I think I left it in a rental car, but I'm not entirely sure. Conveniently Mari had an extra little black phone and I was able to reactivate my account after about a week. In the meantime I used my Army cell phone, a big blackberry phone. I don't really use the blackberry except to check my email when I leave work early and feel guilty. So the other day I was at the hospital for a doctor's appointment and I turned the blackberry off. After my appointment was over I drove straight home. On the way home I tried to turn my blackberry on to check for messages and I couldn't figure out how to turn it on... I'm not all that smart. So I threw it on the passenger seat and that was the last time I saw it. That was a week and a half ago. It's bad enough losing your personal cell phone, but losing an Army cell phone... now that's embarrasing. That's the kind of thing you yell at your Soldiers for. Oops. I honestly don't know what happened. I've scoured the car, cleaned the house, it's gone! Agh. Maybe I should counsel myself.

Unfortunately, I think Micaela is starting to take after me too, her first lost wallet. She had $26 in it too, more than I've had in mine for the past week. Can't really get mad at her about that one though, can I?

I'm helpless.

Golf

It was a rough day today. I went to work at 0815, went to a meeting, read a few emails, left work, changed into regular clothes, went golfing, changed back into my uniform, read some more emails, and went home at 4:30. And today was my busiest day at work yet.

Kurt's friend Dunlap (his first name is Scott) was in town and the two of them made plans to golf and it was only natural that I tag along, who cares about it being a "workday". Dunlap is a pretty good golfer. Kurt and I are okay golfers, I usually get a little bit better of a score even though he can hit the ball much farther than me. But today was a different story... just watch this stellar performance:


Golfing

Chores

Kurt and I do pretty well splitting up the chores that are involved with being a family and keeping a clean house. Kurt takes care of the cooking, cleaning, yardwork, and getting Micaela ready in the mornings and watching her when she gets home. He does most of the work really, but I do the things he either dislikes or forgets- helping Micaela with her homework, remembering to feed the dogs and take the trash out, and I pick up stuff and move it around to make rooms look clean. But there's one chore the we both are HORRIBLE at - laundry. When I was living by myself in Alabama, I got into this bad habit of laying my clean laundry on my bed until I put it away. The only problem was that I only took up half of the king size bed and my clean laundry ended up on the other half for most of the six months that I was there. I thought once Kurt got home, we would get better at it, but no... we wait until we have about 8-10 loads of laundry to do, run the washing machine all day on Saturday and get it all clean, and then we dump it on the bed so that we have to put it away before we go to sleep. That trick didn't work so well. The clean laundry either ends up on the floor or on the guest bed. It takes a visitor to get us to finally put it away. We're pathetic, we know. I'm sure you have some chore that you hate doing too...

Kitchen Disasters

I fully admit that my culinary skills suck (and that's being slightly generous). Ask anyone in my family and they'll agree. I tried to boil water once and the pot caught on fire... I still don't really know what happened. But as time goes on, I imagine that I am getting better, and then I have nights like the other night. Kurt was out, so I took it upon myself to throw some chicken in the oven. I called Mari to make sure that I was doing the chicken right, and it seemed to be going okay. Then I went to make rice, one of the boxed versions. I started boiling the water and then I got distracted and forgot all about it. When I remembered, I was all worried about how much water had evaporated so I hurried and tore open the box and dumped the contents into the water spilling half of the rice all over the counter. Of course there was a seasoning pouch that went right into the boiling water too. Being the genius helicopter pilot that I am, my quick reaction was to reach in and grab the pouch out, slightly burning myself in the process. So, with half of the water evaporated and half of the rice on the counter, I figured it couldn't get any worse and I just put a lid on it and started laughing at myself. How in the hell do you mess up boxed rice?? If you want to know, now you know who to ask.

First Entry

First I learned of Bob's Marathon Quest blog, then Mari and Gabe's impressions of Fayetteville blog, and now I learn of Doug's blog / rant... I can't be the only former-Erdman not to have a blog, so here it is.