also of note

also of note,
i will be back to blogging more often,
and generally live a happier,
more content life,
no longer depressed,
wish i could quit my job,
but i can't,
so i will keep working,
but at night i will write,
and take photos,
and cook good food,
and love my husband,
and read the Bible and pray,
and love my church,
and teach the kids on the weekend,
and life will be peaceful,
and restful,
for the following reasons:

- there is no more sun until probably April or May 2010 which cuts down on outside distractions and projects and travel.

- it's rainy out a lot and the drizzle is comforting

- it's friggin cold outside (boo!!!)

+ i'm cutting back on my commitments/activities because of BURNOUT!

+ my 365 photo project will be done at the end of October (so tired of looking at my face. srsly.)

+ i get to start on my annual NanoWrimo project in November! I have enjoyed this so much the past 3 years.

+ i pulled out all my tea and coffee and cocoa set and it sits out all the time now for everyone to enjoy a nice hot beverage

+ i like halloween and fall

+ soon it will be thanksgiving and good food

+ soon it will be Christmas which will be full of decorations and lights and celebrations and Happy

+ i'm going to take Josh out on dates because he has done that for me the past couple of months and it was really fun ^_^

+ i may actually paint the living room.... nahhh.

+ maybe i will finally find a cheap sewing machine. still looking. that would open up a whole new world of good home/house stuff to do that i've wanted to do for a long time.

i'm old

i'm old.

my bookmarks folder in my firefox browser is now just a recipe folder.



oh, wait, no i'm not old yet, i'm not reading or watching the news or listening to talk radio. the only way i get news is through my friend's facebook updates or conan obrien's monologue.

testimony

last night i really enjoyed bible study with my girlfriends - we took a break from bible studying (we finished the peasant princess series and next up is a workbook one that hasn't been shipped from the magic interwebs yet). anyway, last night i got to hear their testimonies (and share mine, which is like, blech, but whatever) and what God had been doing in their lives recently - it was really awesome.

and we had greek food. made by a mexican. i'm not so good at the names, so i call it greek salad (feta!!!!!!), cassie's soup (i think its avgolemono but it's just cassie's soup to me) and uhmmm pita bread and hummus and tzatziki and kalamata olives and ohhh man i'm getting hungry for leftovers....

post storm

Well the storm turned out to be not so bad afterall. We have power, we have seven inches of new snow and still falling, but no trees fell on our house, no shingles off the roof... it's great!

Church was cancelled again due to the fact that we're not going to make people drive in snow flurries, and I doubt they could get into the church driveway anyway. This really sucks for my hubby, I think his heart aches to cancel church, especially at this time of year, Christmas is when everyone wants to come to church, and we will not have a Christmas Eve service... which is very sad for me, because all past and recent memories of my happiest memories include Christmas Eve service at a church - the beautiful music and nothing lighting the hall but hundreds of tiny white candles held in the hands of the people while they sing "Silent Night" or something peaceful like that. Sigh. Oh well. Christmas Eve at home has always been very special too, so that will do.

However, the weather came at a good time for my hubby, too. He has a horrible, awful cold bug, that has really put him down and out, which rarely happens to him (well, compared to me anyway, I get a cold like every two weeks). So I've been making him comfort food. It may not be vitamin C tablets, but I think it's much more beneficial for his overall recovery. And I'm a medical expert, don't forget that.

I'm listening to Feliz Navidad play on the radio while I cook in the kitchen and write a little bit on the lappy - it's a happy day.

saturday sleep in

Today was wonderful. I finally got a good night's sleep, and I even took a nap. I feel like all the sleep I lost in November finally caught up with me. That and I have a cold.

So today so far hasn't been oh so productive practically speaking. I made fudge which made me feel Christmas-y. I'm planning the rest of the Sunday School lesson for tomorrow.

Mostly all of the errands were put on hold today. It's stormy outside and all the cold canadian weather is hitting us. I'm hoping for snow, lots and lots of snow. Josh is not so excited about the whole thing, he is in the church driveway right now spreading snow and ice melt. :-( Tomorrow we have to see how much snow and ice there really is, and warn the older church members to stay at home. (Our church driveway is wicked steep!)

So, nothing left to do except watch the snow fall, sip on tea, eat fudge and watch a good Christmas movie with my hubby.

monkeymunch

i was watching reruns of jon and kate plus 8 while i was sick the other day and i was like zoning out to it and then all of the sudden i saw her making something called "monkey munch" and i was like whoa, we totally used to make that all the time, except we called it chocolate chex or something, but anyway it's super good and at work today that's all i could think about was monkey munch, monkey muuuunnnccchhhh....... MONKEY MUNCH!! ....

so i made some.


and it was awesome.


i mean, still is awesome. cuz there is no way i can eat the whole bag in one sitting. that would be gross.


Ingredients
9 cups Chex cereal (I USE RICE CHEX MMMM)
1 cup
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions
Put chex in a large bowl

Put the chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter into a microwavable bowl.

Stir the ingredients together.

Microwave uncovered for a minute. Stir until melted. Microwave more if your microwave is wussy.

Pour over the cereal and mix in!

Put it in a big Ziploc freezer bag

Add powdered sugar, close the bag and shake until covered well

EAT IT ALL UP


**the internets says there is vanilla in it too but i dunno about that...

meeble weeble

I finally caught up on my sleep, I think.

Last night was pretty fun - we used our barbecue for the first time. Shish ka bobs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs - I love shish ka bobs though. Steak, bell peppers, onions - on a stick. Beth made s'mores. Yes, s'mores, ON THE BBQ. it was AMAZING. There were salads and chips and salsa and caramel corn -- we had fun.

Even church people came, like we have church members who come, but it is people who would come over anytime, friends, you know. But someome finally came who like, had no prior connection - someone from church came to our Bible study, yay.

Yah I don't know, it doesn't seem like this church has had a home Bible study before - or maybe not in awhile? I don't know. I invite people and they stare at me like, what's that? Bible? Study? at a home? Dinner? Eating with other people? In their home?

Anywayyyy. It was nice to get to some people. That's really what we want, to fellowship and just get to know people and have them feel welcome in our home.

Now to just get them to our home...

2 people down, more to go.

I really like cooking for big groups. :) Last week I made one of my favorite dishes - Paella. With prawns and mussells and clams. MMmm. Feliz cinco de mayo a mi!

bok bok

We had bok! choy! tonight! bok! bok! choy!

Anyway, I think the month of April deserves some applause. It has been the most dreadful, snowy, rainy, coldest and LONGEST winter I have seen in my 23 years living in the Pacific Northwest. It wasn't particularly the MOST snow, the MOST rain, or the coldest EVER - or anything, just the most of all of the above, for an extended period of unrelenting time. And now, finally, the last few weekends in April, some sun here and there, and tolerably above freezing (most of the time). And flowerbuds.

Bad weather or not, we lived April to it's fullest and I have no complaints about the past month at all, it's been an immense lift to my spirits:


Josh took a full weekend off, so we both had the same two days off which never happens, and he took me to Seattle to be tourists and stay in a nice hotel. I always heard couples (usually older) talk about how it's important to get away, together, and how just getting away helps and whatever, I don't really know what they say about it exactly that is about the point that I start drifting off -- anyway, they are probably right. I felt like we were on vacation for five days, and I got home so refreshed, and felt closer and that I got to know Josh even better, and made memories - it was just, awesome.

Okay more pictures from that because all parts were fun:



We had brunch at the top of the Space Needle thus giving us free admission to the observation deck and much snapping of fotos.



The Seattle Center, Monorail, and downtown shopping are always fun, and I liked being Josh's tourguide (somewhat not so expert but lovable tourguide).





We met up with Michael Saturday night to see the Mariner's play what you could call baseball and catch a comedy show.

Weekend after that:



Took the train to stay with Lynnae (cousin) in Portland. Happened to be Earth Day weekend (Earth Day is a two week long event in Portland I guess). So, I saw pretty much the hippiest of the hippies, I'm pretty sure. I could be mistaken. But I'm pretty sure I'm not. It was fun though, but very cold. It was snowing at my house but luckily I was much farther south at the time - but Lynnae travels via bicycle, and so in all my pictures you see I am bundled up. FOUR layers. Brrr.




Meanwhile the church had sader, seder, sedar service and Josh will talk you ear off about it and how great it was, etc. etc. - Josh being the new pastor it was the first time this church had participated I think in a all-church thing, like this. Our sister church is messianic church and they do the whole sh-bang, so we will probably be participating more with these things I think. At least we would very much like to. I wish I had more to say about this but unfortunately I missed it due to me taking the train home. Which was a very enjoyable ride. Ahhh. Cars, never again.



Last weekend we stuck around and learned more about the history of our town. Not really though because the festival that was celebrating the town's founder was like a nonevent and we must've gone at the wrong time or something because there was no-one around except a guy selling kettle corn. But we stuck around town anyway, and it was fun. And people stacked rocks (impressive, actually, you should really check that out. I tried, so did Josh, but it was not half as impressive as those other rocks. For a few minutes I dreamed of what it would be like to stack big pointy rocks on top of little smooth round rocks for a living. But then I realized you can't make a living off of that.)

I really do like living up here, but I also like getting away and seeing other places. April, you've impressed me - but I am so ready for SPRING weather. Please?




P.S. I added photos to our "new home" set so you can see what it looks like with furniture and things, for those of you not able to come stop by!

I'll catch you up on a few things since I haven't had time to post in awhile.

The most exciting thing that happened for Josh this week is that he got a new trash can. I've had this horrible long week at work so Josh was being nice and going "grocery shopping" for me (I usually do the shopping because when Josh does it somehow it ends up being much more of an expensive trip). Josh comes home very excited about this:



So, I really don't know what it is about guys and stainless steel step on trash cans, but apparently they are "the coolest!! thing!! ever!! must!! have!!". Josh explained to me his dilemma at Fred Meyers, does he get the $99.99 one that has a flat back and step on feature? Or the one that costs half that is round? (Apparently a flat back is much more desirable since it goes flush against the wall.) Josh chose the cheaper, which saved his ears much harmonics from me about the subject.

Josh also brought me home flowers one night:


And food. Food is very important. He knows I love Olive Garden to go.

The rest of the week I really haven't done anything but work it seems like - we did have people over for dinner and Bible study Wednesday like we always do, which is becoming my favorite part of the week. I like having people over and eating food together. Grilled cheese tomato basil sandwiches with tomato or butternut squash soup is good, or this week we had never ending pasta bowls, linguini or spaghetti with red or alfredo sauce. I think I just like cooking for more people than just two. It's 6 x more fun.

Yesterday I came home from work (late) and laid down on a pillow on the living room floor, and that's the last thing I remember. I was so tired that I instantly fell asleep and woke up only to get into bed and sleep there the rest of the night. Probably the lamest Friday night ever. I'll try to make it up tonight.

urpdate

We just had our second weekly Bible study with the young couples from church. I've been making them dinner every tuesday which I love, because I actually have people to cook for. I mean, I have Josh, but he's only one person, and then we have to eat the leftovers like everyday for the next week, and that's annoying. Last week I made spaghetti and ceasar salad with garlic bread, yum. This week I made mexican food - and made salsa from scratch. Yum.

So yah, it's been really fun to cook for other people. I really rike it. I like Bible study with people my own age, too.