Updates and stuff

A quick update on the house: they apparently found the issue with the wet insulation. It was with the siding; there was a small tear in some sheeth (plastic stuff used for keeping water out) under the actual siding that water was leaking in through. With all the rain we have, and the wind we had the last few weeks, it was seeping in from every which way the rain was blowing. They tore siding down off the house, caulked the tears, replaced the siding and it was re-painted yesterday. The holes are still above our master bedroom window and those are supposed to get fixed next Monday. They referred to this as a "freak accident" and said they've never seen this before. I hope they're right, because I'll be pissed if we find more of these issues. And unfortunately, they can't do anything to check to see if this is a problem elsewhere without tearing off the siding on the entire house. The little device they use to check moisture levels didn't even pick up the soaking wet insulation the first day they were here because it was so far back in the wall. So now we just wait and see...and hope to God that dark patches don't start appearing on the walls (that's a sign of water damage soaking through). Luckily though, they are considering this a warranty issue and we don't have have to pay for this and is covered in the 10 year warranty. So IF we should find more of these issues, it will be covered as a structural issue for the next 10 years. But lets hope we don't have anymore issues.

In other house news, we've been having problems with a circuit tripping. I work from home and have to have a good set up for work. Long story short, when the printer is plugged in and turned on, if the upstairs guest bathroom light is turned on, it trips the circuit and kills the power to my office (losing any of my unsaved work!!!) and electricity in the bathroom. I thought I noticed that it happened when I flush the toilet in that bathroom, but toilets aren't connected to the electric, so I thought it was just a weird coincident that it happened twice. Well it happened again yesterday and I am absolutely positive it happened after I flushed the toilet. A guy came out here on Tuesday to look at it and replaced the breaker box, but that didn't fix it. So I'll be calling them again after I do some more testing this weekend. Oy vey.

In GOOD news, tomorrow is a chili cook off for Seth's battalion and I'm making a white chicken chili! My dad made this chili once for a chili cook off at work and he won, so I'm hoping it has winning powers and I win tomorrow. Seth has been getting into making cutting boards and has been making a lot of them for family and selling them to co-workers, and the prizes are his cutting boards. Last I heard, there were 6 entries for the chili cook off and there are prizes for the top 3 chili. I so badly want to win - because I never win ANYTHING!!! - but I can get a custom made cutting board any day of the week! (If you want a custom cutting board, let me know and I'll send you pictures!!!) There is also a silent auction for donated baked goods for a formal that's taking place in August after the deployment is over. I'm baking cookies and also these lemon blueberry cupcakes!!! Oh they look so heavenly!

Tomorrow is the start of spring break and I can't wait. I have a long list of items to accomplish before my parents come up here next week and I'll definitely be using the extra day to do it. I'm so excited for a break from work!!! I hope the weather is decent!

It's a.....

We found out the gender of our baby the other day! It’s a…

BOY!!!

We have pretty much settled on a name and have been calling him by his new name all weekend. I’ve also started feeling him move around and he’s been using my bladder as a trampoline. It’s awesome, yet totally weird, feeling him move inside of me. It’s surreal really. It feels like popcorn popping inside my belly. He’s pretty active throughout the day. (He’s actually moving right now – maybe he can sense me talking about him?!) The movements aren’t strong enough to wake me up at night though. We were bowling on Saturday night (one of Seth’s favorite activities) and the baby was moving around. Seth was excited that the baby seemed to like the noise of the bowling alley. 

Which leads me to....

Sunday morning I woke up with a bladder infection. Ever had one of those?? They SUCK soooo bad. I really didn’t want to go to the ER…last time I went, it was a 6 hour wait. It was terrible and people in the waiting room were annoying. Sunday evening, it was getting worse each time I went pee and it became pretty painful. And I had to go every 5 seconds, but literally it would be a teaspoon of pee. I called the ER room and asked if there were a ton of people and about how long a wait would be (apparently, I thought it was like calling ahead for a reservation at a restaurant) and was disappointed that she couldn’t give me an answer and all she could say was “it’s been steady.” I figured a bladder infection would be low on the list of priority things in an ER room. Eventually, I sucked it up and went to the ER, where I was pleasantly surprised when I checked in that I would need to go to the Labor and Delivery ER room because I’m 20 weeks pregnant and if there’s any pain in the ab or girly part areas, I have to go to that ER room. After getting lost in a creepy, quiet, dimly lit hospital on a Sunday evening, I found a janitor who pointed me in the right direction to where I was supposed to go. There wasn’t a wait whatsoever and I was in a room immediately! Hallelujah! I was feeling the baby move so I really wasn’t concerned that he was in danger, but I was in pain and that’s the only reason I went, instead of waiting to go to my regular DR on Monday morning. I got some meds, got lost in the hospital again on my way out and then was home at about 8:45 pm. I was only there for about 3 hours and I’m so thankful that it wasn’t all night long like the last time. Seth was home though, so I was bored as hell in the hospital by myself. We were in the middle of making a bunch of cookies for some of his friends that are deployed and I was making mac and cheese for dinner, using a recipe I was sooo excited for! He said he would finish the baking and cook dinner while I went to the ER.

i parked here. because i could! and because i knew it'd be dark and late by the time i left 

I saw this recipe on pinterest on Saturday morning and we decided to make them on Sunday. They didn’t turn out nearly as pretty as they are in the pinterest pic but they are very good. Very rich too. Ours turned out ugly. 

proof ours were ugly!

We put a little dab of brownie mix on the bottom of the cupcake pan, but clearly the original picture indicates just put the Oreo on the bottom. We also overfilled them so they overflowed from the cupcake pan and were really difficult to get out. Oh well, they tasted good and Seth’s coworkers are enjoying them for a while.  

MilSpouse Friday Fill in # 13!!

It's Friday already?? Dang. I'm not complaining though. Head on over to Wife Of A Sailor to link up!! :)

1. What do you see your life like in 10 years?
I'll be 36.5 years old!!! Whoadang. If all goes as planned, we'll have at least two kids. I'm sure we'll have some pets, and Seth will still be in the Army. By then, he'll have about 18 years in, so he'll be nearing retirement.

2. What do you like most about your job?
This might sound lame, but I'm really glad I have a job that allows me to talk to Seth. We chat on gmail a few times per week and I'm able to call him and answer his calls whenever that may be. Other things I like: (most of) my coworkers, lunch time with said coworkers and I like that I literally knew nothing when I started this position and I have learned SO much in my

3. What are three things you do every day, no matter what day it is?
Go pee, check my email, talk to Seth's pictures. I'm a creeper, whatever.

4. What would you do with an extra five hours in the day today?
I definitely would have gone to the gym. Not for 5 hours though, don't be crazy. I took a little bitty nap when I got home on accident. After I post this, I'll be wrapping Christmas presents :)

5. What is your favorite Christmas (or whichever holiday you celebrate) cookie recipe (please share!)?
I have a new as of this year favorite. I got it from a Better Homes and Gardens holiday collection of cookies. It's titled "100 Best Cookies: Love on a sheet pan." They're called Chocolate Mint Creams. I can't find a picture of them online, and of course I didn't take a picture of them when I made them last weekend. (I made a big batch to send to Seth). Here's the recipe:

Prep: 25 minutes
Chill: 1 hour
Bake: 10 minutes per batch
Oven: 350 F

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon water
1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten
Pastel cream mint cookies (I couldn't find these in the store, so I used Hershey's Dark Chocolate Mint Truffles. The picture in the recipe book shows a mint green Hershey kiss, which makes them look extra pretty, but the truffles make them super delish!)

1. In a small bowl, stir together the flour and baking soda; set aside. In a medium saucepan, combine brown sugar, butter and water. Cook and stir over low heat until butter is melted. Add chocolate; cook and stir until chocolate is melted. Pour mixture into large bow; cool for 10 minutes.
2. Using a wooden spoon, stir the egg into chocolate mixture. Stir in the flour mixture until combined. Cover and chill for 1 to 2 hours or until dough is easy to handle.
   
3. Preheat oven to 350 F. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet
4. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately place a mint kiss on top of each cookie. Bake about 2 minutes more or until edges are set.
   
5. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; cool until melted mints are firm. Makes about 48 cookies.

On the second batch, I let the cookies bake for 10 minutes and then pulled them out and put the mint kiss on top. The mint kisses looked more like a kiss this way, because they didn't melt in the oven, and the cookie was more crackled on the outside. I hope the guys like them!!!

Christmas Dinner - belated

Seth will be home JUST after the holidays. By "just after" I literally mean a week or two after the holidays. Since he'll be missing out on all the homemade yummy-yummy goodness, I thought it'd be fun if we hosted our own belated Christmas dinner, with our families!!! I shared this idea with him and he said, “what are we going to serve though?” I said, “it’s our party, we can serve whatever we want!!!” That apparently got his mind rolling with ideas and he said it would be fun if we tried to make “stuffed Cornish hens!!! And some good green beans. And scalloped potatoes. And some sweet potato pie for dessert. And a checkerboard cake. Maybe some chocolate covered cherries. Or we could try fondue.” Then he went on to tell me that he’d like to try to make some homemade biscuits too, like his dad.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a Cornish hen and so I asked him, “how are they different from a turkey?” and he goes, “they’re like little personal chickens! Each person gets one!” Haha. I said maybe some of us can share. I said, “since I only eat white meat, maybe we can share and you can have the dark meat.” And he goes, “not uh. I’m eating my own whole chicken!!” (Excuse me for thinking we could share!!) Don’t get me wrong, I love me some of those rotisserie chicken things from the grocery store, so I am all for this idea, but I really don’t think I could eat a whole hen.

I was actually surprised when he suggested the Cornish hens, because they are rather “traditional” and he’s all about trying new and different food things. Towards the end of the conversation, he said maybe we could do lamb chops or lamb shanks or something like that. I would definitely prefer a whole hen (to myself…haha), but if he wants lamb, we can do that too. The lamb idea sounds much more like him, anyways. This is really all for him anyways, since he won’t be home in time for the actual holidays.

Either way, no matter what we make, I’m already so superduper excited for this!!! We both love hosting, cooking and baking. I can already picture us getting up earlyish, and getting all of our cooking started, while listening to Elvis’ Christmas CD and it'll be a cold and snowy morning. We’ll stuff the little hens, then we'll take our shower, then we’ll do more cooking (ok, he will, while I do my hair), and we’ll do more cooking and baking and I’ll clean up our apartment and get table settings ready, and we’ll do more cooking and baking and then we’ll get dressed in our nice clothes and we’ll welcome everyone in for our first holiday party together.

Ahhhhh!!! I really just want to fast forward through November and December and for it to be January already. At least it’s another day closer. :)

I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU BABES!!!

Sweet Spiced Nuts - recipe

Like any good military wife/fiance/girlfriend, I bake a lot of stuff to send Seth. I found the following recipe in Food Network Magazine* from a friend. I think it will be a good taste from home, and a little different than the normal cookies I send him.

Sweet Spiced Nuts

Ingredients:
1 large egg white
2/3 cup sugar
Kosher salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie** or chai spice blend
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 cups assorted mixed nuts
2 dashes Worcestershire sauce

(aren't my granite counter tops just gorgeous? lets pretend like they are and you said yes)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 275. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper***
2. Whisk the egg white with 1 tablespoon water in a large bowl until frothy.
   
3. In a small bowl, combine the sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, the spice blend and cayenne pepper.
   
   
   
4. Toss the nuts in the egg white mixture, then stir in the sugar-spice mixture and Worcestershire sauce.
   
   
   
5. Spoon the nuts onto the prepared baking sheet in small clusters and bake until golden, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool completely then break into pieces.

*The Food Network site has this picture of this recipe, which is completely adorable and I LOVE the waffle cone idea! However, since I'll be sending this in the mail, I will not be putting my baked nuts into cute little cones with cute little ribbons to my soldier. (Thanksgiving and Christmas though...you bet I'm doing this!!!)

**Note: if you suddenly find yourself sans pumpkin pie spice (like me), here's a quick little recipe that makes a lot of it:
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Stir all spices together. Store in a glass container.

***Parchment paper is different from wax paper. I learned that the hard way this weekend. Not sure why I thought they were the same, but they definitely aren't. I wasted the whole first batch because every single nut had wax paper stuck to it. I don't have any parchment paper, so I just used some non-stick cooking spray on a cookie sheet and that worked very well.

Recipe for a Military Spouse

How true...

1 1/2 cups Patience
1 cup Courage
3/4 cup Tolerance
dash of Adventure
1 pound of Ability

To the above ingredients: Add 2 tablespoons elbow grease and let stand alone for one year. Marinate frequently with salty tears. Pour off excess fat and sprinkle ever so lightly with money then Knead dough until payday. Season with international spices. Bake 20 years or until done. Makes unlimited servings. SERVE WITH PRIDE

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

I feel like I've been slacking on my blogging lately. I've had a pretty busy last 2 weeks, and it's not going to slow down for another 12 weeks at least. With that said, here's a lameass re-cap of the last 2 weeks, in bullet form, so as not to get too wordy.

• I'm done house-sitting and I made $100. Not too shabby (especially considering my dad let the dogs out half the time!!!) and that's $100 towards my wedding shoes, that I'll be buying in the next few weeks!!! I might consider it again, I don't know. And I only do it for families that I babysit for...no one else.
  
• My vanilla extract is coming along nicely! It's been brewin' since August 2nd, and I'd say it's ready! But I'm not going to use it just yet, I'm letting it sit for a few more weeks. I'll post the starting and middle and end pictures one of these days. Here's the recipe I'm following if anyone is interested.
  
• The other day when I went to the wedding location, D and Nana were asking me what kind of wedding gift I wanted. Honestly, the only gift I really really really really wanted was a Kitchen Aid mixer. It's $299 (or more, depending on the size) and I wanted someone to buy me one instead of spending that money myself. That sounds extremely greedy, I know. So I registered for one and decided I could wait a little bit longer for one. I told D and Nana that this was what I wanted and they said right then and there that they would buy it for me!! D texted me earlier this week and asked what color we wanted, so after I emailed Seth, we settled on "Bayleaf" or "Caviar." D had a 40% off coupon at Kohl's and she was going to buy it on Thursday!! She said she'd probably have to special order it because of the color, but I am 99.9% sure she won't keep it for 10.5 months until our actual wedding. I told her I would bake lots of stuff for her and Nana as soon as I got it!! I CANNOT wait to get it!
• I think Seth and I are going to try Skyping tomorrow. I have not seen his face (in person or on webcam) since we said bye at the airport in Germany on March 9. That's over 5 months in case you're wondering. I cannot wait to see him!! I am also excited to get a little glimpse of his tent. I'm sure he thinks I'm lame for wanting to see it, but I really am curious.
  
• I ordered a tote bag from Land's End earlier this week and after consulting with Seth on the color, size, zipper or no zipper, monogram or no monogram, I finally got it in the mail on Friday! It's "seaport" blue and I got it embroidered with a B, which is the letter my new last name will start with in a few months! Until I become a B____, the B is for Bitch. haha
• Last night my mom and I canned some blueberries! I can't wait to try them. We made 11 jars, and I'm taking 3 of them. I'm sending one to Seth (he loveeeeees blueberries), I'll bake a pie for the girls at work and my parents, and I'll save a jar for when Seth is home so he can bake a pie. My mom also canned some of her tomatoes earlier this week and she gave me a jar of that, which I'll also save for when Seth is home so we can make some chili....he will totally be into this.
  
• I went shopping today and got a lot of new stuff. I got Seth some new socks, and a t-shirt, and for me, I got some new tennis shoes, 3 pairs of jeans, some bras and panties, a really cute sweater/cardigan with ruffles for work, another comfy sweater for weekends, and some more sweaters for work. One of the pairs of jeans has little fancy things on them...I keep thinking rhinestones, but they aren't. They aren't shiny, and I can't think of the name of them, but when I put the jeans on, I felt I really needed a pair of cowgirl boots. Soooo, I got me some cowgirl boots too!!! I haven't had cowgirl boots since I was about 6 years old when my grandpa bought me a pink pair with sparkles and pink fringe from Mervyns. Oh man those were cute boots. These are just brown boots, but they are super cute and I can't wait to wear them!! I'm ready for fall!!!
  

I guess that's it for right now. Happy Saturday night -- I'm going to clean out my closet a little bit so I can make room for my new stuff!! :)

Alcohol laws

Today I went grocery shopping. I went in the morning instead of the afternoon and it's Sunday and I forgot about the stupid Michigan law that says alcohol cannot be purchased before noon on Sundays. I was buying a bottle of vodka so I can start brewing (I don't know if that's the right term, but I'm using it anyways) my own vanilla extract...as a little trial run for our wedding favors. The lines were long as hell and I of course do not like waiting so I hopped between 3 lanes so I didn't have to stand in long lines. On the 3rd lane, it was about 11:53 and the cashier was taking his sweet time, which was rather annoying to me. I had my license out so he could check it, but he wasn't ringing up the bottle. Towards the end of him scanning the groceries, it was 11:57 and he picked up the bottle and he looked at his watch and said, "I'm just going to draw the rest of the scanning out because I can't run the alcohol through the scanner until after noon." Ahhhhh SHIT. There was a girl behind me and I told her sorry that she'd have to wait a few more minutes. Luckily it was only a few minutes, and we got to talking (me, the girl behind me and the cashier) and I told them I was going to make vanilla extract with it. We were literally counting down the seconds until 12:00:01 and it still wouldn't let him scan it. He had to wait until 12:01 for it to let him scan it. He said the scanners literally will not let alcohol be scanned before noon, he said it is a restricted item, and it starts beeping, and doesn't allow the cashier to override it.

We had to wait about 3 minutes total, and if i would have just been patient in the long lines, I wouldn't have had to make the girl behind me wait also. At least she was cool about it.

I have the alcohol but no vanilla beans so really it didn't matter how long I waited. However, my goal this week is to find some vanilla beans so I can start brewing this stuff.

I'm Feelin' What You're Puttin' In Me!

Ok, that apparently is an Army saying that Seth has told me a time or two. (Actually the way he phrases it is, “do you feel what I’m putting in you?”) It always makes me laugh and think pervertedly. It’s awesome. I can easily make it fun to say back to him and tell him I can feel what he’s puttin’ in me. I’ll go no further on this topic. (Apparently it means that you understand what’s being said). I just said it to a friend and made myself laugh.

Onto wedding news…I signed up for allrecipes.com and I get daily emails with fun recipes. I got one the other day for homemade vanilla extract. I love baking!! (Especially for Seth while he’s deployed). He also loves baking (he suggested we make our own wedding cake, but I had to tell him no because I don’t want that stress for myself. And by “we” he mostly meant me, because he will be coming from Germany (unless the Army has a different plan) who knows how much in advance of the wedding). Anyways, my sister likes homemade stuff (to make and to receive), and my mom loves vanilla scented stuff and we love baking. I sent the recipe to the three of them, and said this would be a cool Christmas gift. My mom took it a step further with the bright idea of making little bottles of vanilla extract as wedding favors!!! It’s such a grand idea! I can’t wait to execute it! I talked to Seth about it and he said he really likes the idea. My sister also suggested that we tie a little note to it that has a recipe on it. So here’s where the deployments come into play. I always make him homemade cookies and of course use vanilla. So I will do like 2-3 of his favorite cookie recipe cards for “Seth’s favorite deployment cookies.” Isn’t that the cutest idea ever?!

I like it for many reasons:

• It is practical, first and foremost. I hate wedding favors that are impractical and get thrown out. I don’t want to waste my hard earned money on something for someone to just throw away.
• It’s “us.” We both really enjoy baking. Yep, I said it: big-bad-tough-as-nails soldier boy enjoys baking. We He made a checkerboard cake while he was home last Christmas, and while we were decorating it, he actually took the frosting bag out of my hand and said, “here, let me show you how to do this.” Haha OK let me get my camera!! He really is a good baker though… and he enjoys eating my deliciously baked goods.
• It’s fun.
• It’s unique.
• It’s homemade.

Also in wedding news, over the weekend when I was working on wedding stuff, I came to this conclusion. Our grooms men will be coming from the following states/countries: Groom: Germany; Best man: Oregon; Groomsmen: Michigan (where we live), South Carolina, Illinois, and California. This ought to be a fun task of coordinating everyone’s suit and the bachelor party! Glad I’m not involved in that!!