Hot in here.

Today reached 94 degrees. Not fun considering the AC did not work. I also found out today I need to replace my entire air conditioning unit. Ah, lightning struck somewhere it shouldn't have and messed up our circuit board.

So even though I break a sweat standing and walking in my house, there are many things I found I am grateful for over the past few days.

1) The FURiminator

Actual FURminator session with a Siberian Husky:

Seriously, where have you been all my life, or at least the past 10 months?! I decided to share this particular picture because that dog is seriously Daisy's twin. I am not saying I do not have hair in my house, but the amount of hair that finds the garbage can instead of my clothes, couches, and even vacuum cleaner makes me a lot happier.

2) Carpet Cleaners- Even through the revolving door of electricians and AC repair men today, I still managed to clean my carpets. I love the feeling of cleaning carpets.

3) P90X- Yesterday I decided to take my workout to the gym. I filled my notebook up with all the necessary exercises. I did a 40 minute workout and managed to belt out 120 push-ups in that workout. My favorite comment coming from the sterotypical "meathead", "Whoa, that seemed like an intense workout".

I feel my body getting so much stronger and I absolutely love it. While I may not be able to run like I use to ( I did get in a 1 mile run), I am loving the changes I see in my arms, stomach, and even back.

4) His sister- I love having her around. I, of course, got her on board with P90X so its nice to have a workout partner not to mention we take turns making dinner so its nice to always have a cooked, healthy meal.

What is cilantro?!

I do have to admit since he deployed, I am quite proud of myself and my adventures and sometimes misadventures in the kitchen.

I laughed today as I used my garlic press and chopped up the cilantro. Mostly because a year ago, I did not even know what this stuff looked like or that Kitchen Aid dedicated and developed a kitchen utensil soley for its purpose.

Paying a decent amount for P90X, I now believe it was worth every penny, especially for some of these receipes. I used four of them already and loved all four of them.

Tonight I invited Barrett over for vegetable soup and we both agreed it tasted great and bonus...its actually healthy for you!

Recipe:

10 cups of chicken broth, low sodium
4 red potatoes
4 cups of onions, quartered
1 cup of carrots, sliced 1 inch thick
2 cups of zucchini, sliced 1 inch thick
8 oz can of tomato sauce
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 bunch of cilantro, chopped
dash black pepper

I definitely recommend it.

Nightly Routine

My nightly routine:

Wash face
Brush teeth
Face moisturizer
Chap-stick

My new routine:

Wash face
Brush teeth
Face moisturizer
Chap-stick
Hand lotion

Why hand lotion? Calluses are beginning to form on my hands from lifting weights. Ah, I hate calluses and I am too stubborn to go buy gloves.

His other PL is now home on R&R. With no family or significant other around just yet, I invited him over for dinner tonight. I made a yummy pan seared chicken with veggies.

In return, he brought over a pull-up bar for me to use while he is away. Setting up the bar was the highlight of my night, by far. I even did a little dance.

What is wrong with me?

Cookies

When I think of cookies, I think of round, chocolate goodness.

Tonight I decided to bake cookies for this month's care package. In the past, I hated baking. I always found a way to mess it up, but as of late, I might even consider myself a baking goddess.

I found a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Chips and followed the recipe closely on the back. While checking on the cookies at the midway point, I noticed pancakes.

My biggest fear when baking cookies.

I immediately grabbed the bag and scanned each ingredient. I did everything correctly. Then I noticed at the bottom of the recipe reading:

"Spread batter in greased pan. Cool completely in pan; cut into bar"

BARS? You said cookies. I wanted cookies. And if you wanted me to bake bars, please change the recipe to "Reese's Chewy Chocolate Bars" not "Reese's Chewy Chocolate Cookies"

A few tears...A few cookies

This weekend I am heading out of town for one of our very good friend's wedding. I am excited to see his friends who over the years have turned into my big brothers/best friends/family.

However, I am forgetting about two very important things. Dakota and Daisy.

I kept putting off what to do until tonight. I called my mother and toyed with the idea of driving 6 hours north to Chicago to drop them off and drive another 14 hours south to the wedding.

I began researching boarding places. Dakota is tough and stayed with some crazy people down at flight school. With Daisy, I am more sensitive, especially after her surgery experience. I looked up a place everyone raved about here. I began reading the reviews:

the packages of food I had expected them to eat were still in the bag. As soon as I got them home, the female jumped out of the car and let loose a large diarrhetic stool

My friends dog got killed here.It was a small dog, and since they were careless, they let it in the large roaming area with big dogs. The poor thing got mauled to death.

I was told by more than one reliable source that a large dog died while at the Guest HouseI was told that the Guest House was negligent in caring for the dog and that the dog died a traumatic and terrible death.

So I started crying about the thought of boarding them. I sucked it up and called a good friend stationed here. I asked him about the possiblity of house/dog sitting and he agreed. I wanted to reach through the phone and hug him.

I still feel guilty about sitting around so besides running and rollerblading, cooking and baking take up a lot of my time now.

I made a yummy homemade salsa for a nice healthy snack for when I get home:

1 med green pepper, diced
1 med red pepper, diced
1 med vidalia (sweet) onion, diced
4 regular tomaotes, diced OR 6 roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 bag frozen sweet corn
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup olive oil
1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
1 packet good season dry italian dressing mix

Combine all of the ingredients and refrigerate 2 hours before eating.

And on Sunday, my poor friend had one of our friends fall through her attic floor into her kitchen so I brought over Dijon Orange Roughy Fillets (fish very similiar to Tilapia)

It might be the easiest, best tasting recipe ever.

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablesoon Dijon mustard

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 1/2 tbs fresh lemon juice

4 Orange Roughy/Tilapia

3 tbs fresh bread crumbs

Preheat over to 450 degrees. Melt butter over low heat in saucepan. Add mustard, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice. and mix well Place fish in lightly greased baking pan. Pour sauce over fillets and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake for 7-8 minutes.

I also made layered oatmeal-chip cookies tonight for our pot luck dinner tonight. However, I made 30 cookies and while they were cooling, I forgot about them and walked out of the room. My beautiful husky snatched 4-5 of them. Grrrr.

Week Twenty

side note: No I am not crazy, in Indiana, its the BMV standing for Bureau of Motor Vehicles :)


I honestly sat down for the first time in five days last night and even questioned myself if I should really be sitting down and not be doing something else.

In addition to my first week of work my schedule consisted of Pot Luck with the girls on Tuesday, Book Club on Wednesday, Choir Church Concert on Thursday, not to mention my whole Driver's License issue.

I am forever thankful for my boss. She fought the issue with our HR department in California and I sucked it up, paid $50 more dollars, stayed up until 2am on Wednesday completing the online course, and finishing yet another online Driver's Safety course. I just wanted my license reinstated. In seven more days I should be legal once again. I describe the whole situation as just lame, very lame actually.

I am falling into a nice routine which both I and the dogs need and appreciate. I racked up over 25 miles on the rollerblades this week with the puppies. Since the weather reached the 60s all week with sunny skies, I rollerbladed not only at 6:45 every morning, but everyday after work.

I finally started running again and felt pretty good after two short runs. I am going to attempt a long run this weekend and even try my first kickboxing class since bruising my tailbone.

Some more deployment goals:

• Sent my third care package to him full of Gator Golf, my delicious Black Forest cookies, a Spiderman kite, People & US Weekly magazines, baseball gloves + baseball, and two old school DS games (Space Invaders + Command & Destroy).
• Cooking and baking well over three new recipes this month. Besides my Tofu Fried Rice, Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and cookies, I am planning to make homemade Salsa, Orange Roughy, bowtie pasta receipe, and and a new chicken recipe all on Sunday for my upcoming work week.

With all the warm weather and rain, I now need to go cut my front and backyard. Wish me luck!

All I need is an apron.

I am refusing to run until I feel better. Today my head still hurt a little.


So since I could not:

1) workout
2) read (head hurt)
3) watch TV (no good TV on)
4) clean (already cleaned Saturday)


I baked and cooked! I knew getting back into the full swing of work, I could not spend as much time cooking dinner or making lunches, so I decided to cook lunch/dinner for the rest of the week. Nothing too crazy, except I made a rather large batch of Fried Rice with Tofu for the first time.


And in honor of my most recent Pampered Chef purchase

I made cookies. He's a big fan of Craisins, especially the Cherry Flavored Craisins. I made a very delicious batch of Black Forest Cookies. I am not going to lie, I ate two of them and they tasted heavenly. I wanted to eat more before I remembered he's in Afghanistan.

And my product review of the medium cookie scoop: I love it. I enjoy making cookies, however, I am that girl with the cookie dough all over her fingers while trying to make them even on the cookie sheet. It made my life a lot easier and my cookies are all the same size for the first time ever.

Hopefully I'll continue my adventures in the kitchen.

Week Thirteen

13 weeks down on Friday the 13th.

After three days of feeling just down right lethargic and miserable, I do not think I am going to run the half-marathon tomorrow. My tailbone, believe it or not, hurts a lot when its cold outside. Temperatures should reach the high 40s with showers all morning.

I do not feel like pushing it especially since I start work on Monday.

I hate, hate, hate that I am not going to run. I also hate sitting around doing nothing, but even standing for awhile makes me tired.



This week, after 13 weeks, I am starting to "forget" what life with him is like. When he left the walls echoed his name and our memories together filled the air in the house. I hate saying this, but our house now feels like my house. I am falling into a steady routine of life without him.

Not to mention, my current reading selection: The Day After He Left for Iraq by Melissa Seligman

I never thought I would pick this book up and read it, however, with subbing, reading became an addiction. I read two other books (Celebutants by Amanda Goldberg & To Have And To Hold by Jane Green) in less than 3 weeks.

Some chapters I want to shake her and tell her to get it together and other times I think to myself, you poor, amazing Army Wife, trying to survive deployment with 2 young kids and living at Drum with all that snow. Either way, this book really makes me think...

I am glad I am reading it. It shows everyone handles deployments differently. The author writes honestly. However, I think she concentrates more on "poor me" instead of "thriving".

Here I handle deployment with denial and numbness. And to be honest, in 13 weeks, only 2 days stick out in my mind where I thought to myself "I do not want to do this". Seligman, on the other hand, does not deny her feelings, her loneliness, her pain, or her anger at her husband. Her emotions and energy pours over into developing her 2-year old daughter's attitude toward her daddy being at "work".

Oh so many thoughts on this book. I hope to finish it in the next few days.


Besides reading, I did manage to cook something new for our pot luck this week. I love how I force myself to make new things every month. This week our theme was "Soup and Sandwiches" and I volunteered to make the sandwiches.

Instead of the traditional sub sandwiches, I found a recipe for Awesome Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. I finally used my panini press and the sandwiches consisted of mozzarella, roasted turkey, red peppers, and Texas Toast slices.



Being sick does has its perks. I managed to have a two hour conversation with him over Skype, our longest conversations since he left. Sometimes I forget how sweet he is or how lucky I am to be falling in love with my best friend. My best friend who always makes me smile.

While talking about my new job.

Him: I just don't think you understand how good you are
Me: Ha, what do you mean?
Him: You have the body of a porn star, the attitude of a Midwest girl, the drive of a CEO, and more passion than anyone I know and you don't even know it.

I may not get flowers or sweet emails all of the time, but that's ok...