Wedding Photos

Wedding Photos

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas 2012

The season has been a busy one.  Spending time with friends, shopping and arranging things at work to be able to take time off has taken up all my time to blog.

I did not want to let the holiday pass without wishing you all a wonderful Christmas. May the time you spend with family and loved  ones be a treasured memory.

If you have an extra minute check out my honey's page for some holiday fun..

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Finders keepers

I have mentioned that I am the main one to do the wash in our home, but it isn't my chore alone!  One of our first agreements when the honey and I moved in together about the laundry was that he was NEVER to do my laundry unless he was willing to dish out money to replace anything he ruined.  My honey is not the type to stop and thoroughly read labels on how something should be washed.  I however have always taken special care of my clothes and for that very same reason I have items that are years old and are still in great shape..


Money laundering
The second agreement we made about laundry came after my honey requested that I always check pockets before throwing things in the washer.  Ahemmm..  I don't know if it's a  woman thing or not, but I usually do that before my clothes make it in to the dirty laundry hamper.  Instead, in order to ensure not to be responsible for what got missed and accidentally wash something important I suggested we agreed that who ever did the laundry would get to keep any cash that was found in the wash. That kind of encouraged my honey to check his own pockets!

The only times I do check his pockets is on items taken to the cleaners.  It doesn't happen often that our washer yields cash in the laundry, but here is today's jackpot!




Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Kitchen calling

Cooler weather calls me to the kitchen.    Between the pumpkin cheesecake, the pumpkin muffin mishap (unbelievably I forgot to add milk to the batter) and the banana muffin comeback; I have been cooking up a storm, starting with the Thanksgiving holiday. We cooked the traditional turkey and our beef stuffing.  Ok, ok.. "dressing" not stuffing.  Each year I get a lesson from my father-in-law about not calling it stuffing if it isn't actually cooked IN THE BIRD!

My honey doesn't care as long as I make it.  He is a true carnivore so the 4-meat (beef, bacon, Vienna sausage & ham) ensemble is something he salivates for all year long and when it finally comes is reluctant to let go of (in form of guests taking left overs home).

Each year I get one step closer to writing down the recipe, which I've had every intention of giving to my siblings. I learned it by helping mom & grandma in the kitchen and mostly I "eyeball" it just like they do.


Beef "stuffing"
It's hard to stop and write down a recipe which you only cook once or twice a year. Especially when one is cooking and trying not to kill the other people sharing the stove.  This year I had a little "snap" and declared ONLY TWO PEOPLE AT THE STOVE!!

 It happened when we (me included) kept turning up and down the wrong burners while cooking the Thanksgiving meal: both my in-laws (insisting they help with the cooking), the honey and I reaching to control the burners.

At one point all four had our arms extended reaching for a knob to turn.  I had to send a couple of them away from the stove afraid we would burn part of our feast.  Of course my honey has been enjoying the fruits of my labor no matter the outcome.  I was just telling my mother-in-law about her son.  Any food I put in front of him he will eat it!  As long as he is fed, he is happy!  There has only been one dish I've cooked that he hasn't liked.  He mentioned he didn't care too much for it, and of course at the time still being a new couple it absolutely hurt my feelings.  Now neither one can remember exactly what it was that he didn't like, might have been a "new" recipe" but he has never complained again. 

Anyways, the temperature is dropping and I am already in the mood for stew.  I found a recipe a few years back when I went hunting on the FoodNetwork website for stews that has become my "go to recipe" for winter comfort food. I've modified it a bit to our liking (add mushrooms, reduce wine & onion), but I recomend it.  Just a few more degrees in temperature drop please, I am ready to cook!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

"Driving Ms Daisy" to madness!!

Like most husbands, my honey usually takes charge behind the wheel driving us around. Yesterday we spent too much time trapped in a car together.  Early in the morning we left town towards San Antonio (we live 30 miles north of the city) so I could participate in the Dirty Girl run.  It was a 50 minute drive of which he decided to take "the scenic route" veering off thru his old neighborhood (pre-marriage) that caused me to stress. Not quite the best idea when I had a set time to meet my team. We bickered a bit; him reassuring/mocking me we had plenty of time but then we encountered 30 more minutes stuck in the event traffic  In his defense, neither one of us had attended before so we had no clue of the amount of people (participants and spectators) heading there.



Team of co-workers & spouses 12-01-2012
After the event we were stuck in line trying to get out of the parking lot for AN HOUR AND A HALF, during which there was plenty of huffing, puffing, and storming out of the car to walk to the front of the line and see what was going on. I could have easily stood in line for what had looked like a 40 minute wait to the showers instead of opting to just change clothing and head home. I'll let you guess which of us did the storming though it was not the one with mud in places that had never seen mud before. I had my own little breakdown, mainly to stop all the comotion inside the car and remind my honey there was someone with him who was even more uncomfortable sitting in traffic. There were a few other people who I thought were going to get in to fist fights with the poor guys directing traffic, but I can only feel bad for the folks working the event not the organizers.

Anyways, there was our trip back home (six hours after we left) only to "immediately" (as quickly as I could scrape off all the dried up mud) turn around again to drive in to San Antonio for a dinner party and guess what? Yep,  more traffic.  How we survived all the driving is beyond me, but the benefit run and later a great time with friends Saturday outweigh the hours trapped in a car. 

It always happens.  We go for a couple of weeks being hermits enjoying time at home, and then there are weekends when we are so busy we pretty much just come home to sleep.  Luckily we balance each other pretty well and manage to hang in there together to make the best of bad situations and still enjoy ourselves.