Huh?

I do not like repeating myself. I frequently work with children under 24 months and it seems as if they listen better than most adults. I'm trying to work on my patience with adults, but so far this week, I've failed. On Sunday we had a Deacon family cookout. Since TheCount and I were there 3 hours early, I helped set up, and ended up being the hostess, even though it wasn't my house. I was in the kitchen reheating dishes and replenishing things so whenever people had questions, the woman of the house directed them to me. There was a big pan of hot dogs sitting on the counter:

 

Dude: Are these hotdogs chicken?

Me: No, they're beef.

Dude: All of them are beef?

Me: Yes

Dude: Are there any chicken hotdogs?

Me: No, he only cooked beef, so they're all beef.

Dude: Are there going to be any chicken hotdogs?

Me: No, only beef.

Dude: So none of these are chicken?

Me: They're chicken. They're all chicken. Go ahead and eat it. It's chicken.

Dude: Ok *gets hotdog, fixes it up, bites into it* This isn't chicken!

Me: *stank face* I know. I told you that. You didn't want to hear it, so I told you what you wanted to hear.

 

I tried. I really did, but seriously, he was a grown man and he was getting on my dang nerves. I wanted to treat him like I do the kids in my class, "What did MrsTM say? Alright, well you need to listen and obey."

 

Yesterday I was at the bookstore and this creepy man decided to talk to me:

Creepy McCreepster: blah blah blah Do you live around here?

Me: Yes, with my husband, I'm gonna go now.

Creepy McCreepster: Do you enjoy reading?

Me: Yes, with my husband, walking away from you now.

Creepy McCreepster: Reading is one of my passions too. Blah blah blah

Me: If you don't leave me alone I'm going to beat you in the face with my keys *walks away*

 

I try to be nice, I really do. But did he want me to invite him over for dinner? Why do you need to know anything about me? I tried to leave politely, but how long was I going to have to point out the fact that I was married before he realized I didn't want to be bothered? I recently put my keys on a lanyard so they swing better. I hope nobody ever makes me use it.

 

Am I the only one that has unreasonable demands of people understanding me the first time? What about you?

Delirious Rambling

I spent Monday-Wednesday driving out to the mountains for work. It was so beautiful out there I couldn't stop smiling as I admired God's work. The 13+ hours of driving I've done has made my body a little tired which is why I'm in bed typing this instead of getting ready for work. I've been going to bed before midnight this week, and I think I'll continue this into next week. TheCount has been out of town, so I didn't have any distractions keeping me awake, but hopefully I can get him on this "let's go to bed before 2 a.m." kick too. It's not even 8:15 yet, and I can barely keep my eyes open. I'm gonna go turbo charge with a green smoothie and kick myself into gear. Have a great day!

Busy bee!

We have a boardroom meeting in 20 minutes, so there is no need for me to try to start any work right now so I'll shoot out a quick post. I had a dentist appointment this morning. I was going to a new dentist so I was a bit hesitant. He was funny and quick, so we have a winner! It's right next to my eyebrow place and across from the mall. How wonderfully convenient. Of course I had to stop by the mall afterward to do some shopping before heading back to work. I got some cami's from Forever 21 (of course) and some hair accessories from F21 and Charlotte Russe. I'll post a picture later. I have 2 weeks left to finish this audit and since I've only been in the office 2 days per week due to open enrollment health fairs I've been attending, it's going to be tough (says the girl that went shopping for an hour today). I'll work on it for 2 hours today and then I have 6 in office days to finish it! At least I learned how to do it now so each person only takes 5 minutes. I spent hours trying to do the first one a few weeks ago. Next week is my last week of health fairs and they're only Monday- Wednesday, so it should be fine. Of course I just remembered an 11 page report I still need to do. And my boss just emailed me something she wants me to get posted to the member site, but I don't know how and don't know why she didn't just do it herself. Geez, back to the non blog reading or writing life, at least for the next two weeks. I guess I'll catch up on reading y 'alls blogs in May. Dear God, does Google Reader ever get full? Over 1 thousand posts to read. Ummmm yeahhhhh, that's too much.

 

I'm still working on the tea party bridal shower, only now it's at the Ritz, so a lot has been taken off my hands. We're trying to come up with favors now. Tonight we're going house hunting walking so look out for some pictures of that too!

Triple Date

We went on a triple date to the zoo last Saturday. The womenfolk didn't take any pictures together, but our fine men did! Young black married men :) We are blessed!

This was the most depressed looking panda ever. Somebody needs to show her some love. I was almost foolish enough to jump the rail and give her a hug. Then I realized animals have been acting like animals lately, and I don't need to be on the news as the latest fool to be killed by an animal.

The Cheetah jumped up to strike a pose for me :)

Riddle me this: Would you open the door if that was on the other side?

Did I ever post the pictures from when we were babysitting last month? I'm sure I did. Oh well, this picture is here and I've already started typing, so I'll go with it. Here we were making rice krispy treat shapes.

Daring Cooks

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

This is my first time participating in The Daring Kitchen and I had doubts that I would like the recipe. I'm glad I was wrong! She posted two recipes and we could choose which one we wanted to do. I chose the easiest recipe and ran into a problem I frequently encounter when cooking: I'm lazy, forgetful, and I don't read thoroughly. I'm going to post her recipe, and (what I used in place of the real ingredients).

2 ½ lb TOTAL diced stewed chicken, turkey, and ham, with broth - yes, all three meats (I cut up 2 chicken thighs and a turkey wing. I don't know how to buy ham, so I left it out)

3 medium diced potatoes (I used 3 red potatoes)

2 medium ripe crushed tomatoes (1 large can of crushed tomatoes)

2 medium diced onions (I only used one)

3 cups/ 689.76 grams / 24.228oz frozen corn (1 cup of frozen corn)

1 ½ cups / 344.88 grams / 12.114oz frozen lima beans (Lima beans are the devils candy, so I omitted them)

4-5 strips crumbled bacon (2 strips because I burnt the third one)

½ stick / 4 tablespoons / ¼ cup / 56.94 grams / 2oz of butter (wait, I think I used the full amount of butter)

1 Tablespoon / 14.235 grams / .5 oz sugar (1 teaspoon)

1 Tablespoon / 14.235 grams / .5 oz ‘Poultry Seasoning’ (Didn't have any, probably added something random)

Dash of red pepper (yep)

2 diced carrots (optional) (yep)

Tomato juice (chicken broth)

I cut up the chicken thigh and chicken wing and seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I cooked it in the pot.

Once it was cooked I added the can of crushed tomatoes and all the other ingredients. I let it cook until the carrots and potatoes were tender. I guess about 20-30 minutes. I added in some chicken broth because it looked a little thick.

I served it with some drop biscuits, but it would probably taste excellent with corn bread.

That's the end of my first month as a member of The Daring Kitchen :)

{I have a post scheduled for tomorrow too. Goo me!}

Let's all rant and rave...

I'm going to do a full day of work today. I didn't want to come in today, so I'll teach my bad attitude a lesson by making it do work.

 

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At work, our department normally gets together to take people out to lunch on their birthday. There's normally about 7 or 8 of us that always go. There is one guy in our department that has never gone to lunch to celebrate anybodies birthday. His birthday is today, and now they've scheduled to take him out tomorrow. I don't think that's fair. If you don't ever have time/money/interest in anybody else, why are we going out of our way to celebrate the second birthday this week? I think we should have gotten him a cake and had a 10 minute party in the kitchen. I'm not normally a spiteful person, but I don't like when people blatantly misuse others' generosity. Thankfully, I'm out of the office tomorrow, because I didn't plan on attending. Dude doesn't know how to find my face when he's talking to me. His eyes rest squarely on hips during our conversation- no thanks.

 

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While I'm on a roll putting other people out there, stop acting like you have it all together. You don't, you aren't perfect and there are still lessons to be learned (totally talking to me). Seriously, if you're asking God for something and He hasn't given it to you yet, it's because you aren't ready! Come on, a blessing out of season is not a blessing. You won't know what to do with it if He gave it to you right now, and that's why you don't have it! The Bible says, He won't withhold any GOOD thing from you, so stop tripping. Figure out what you need to fix, fix it, and submit yourself back to Him and He'll go on ahead and give you what you need (and a lot of times, what you want too). TheCount and I want a house. We don't have it yet. Why? Cuz we aren't ready! I wanted to buy one last year, and wasn't understanding why God wouldn't make a way. Over the past few months as I've gotten my spending under control, I see why we didn't have a house yet. I wasn't disciplined enough financially. There used to be a time when I couldn't leave a store without buying something, God has dealt with me on that and now we're on to the next lesson. There are other things we're asking God for that we haven't gotten yet, and it's because it's not time. He knows more than I do, so I'll (patiently) wait on Him. Do your part and believe that God will do His. If you believe the Bible, then BELIEVE THE BIBLE. You say you believe, but when it comes to your situation, you don't have any type of faith. God said He hears and answers prayers, so wait on the answer. He knows and sees all, you know and see a part- His view is better.

 

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I have been super lazy with cooking lately. I've been eating lunch out a lot because I've been traveling for work, but even when I'm in the office and can bring a lunch, I don't. I need to get it together with that. I have a bunch of recipes I want to try, maybe I'll do a months worth of meal planning to see if I can get myself back on track. I can't tell y'all how many nights TheCount has eaten cereal for dinner the past two weeks (speaking of which, we're out of cereal, let me go get some).

 

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Random: When we buy a house, the first thing I'm going to do is call the bug people and set up a schedule for quarterly bug spraying. That is my favorite thing about our apartment complex, they are regular, and on point with the bug spraying. Today is our spring bug spraying day :) Since it got warmer a little earlier than usual, bugs have been deciding they can come live inside with me (and we live on the bottom floor, them suckers think they should just walk right in). We've had a wasp, a bee, and 2 spiders inside. Ummmmmmmm, no. I'll leave out the part about how I saw the wasp at 3am, thought it was a demon and started running around the apartment like a crazy woman and then locked us in the bedroom and made TheCount get up first thing in the morning to go kill it. Yeah, I won't tell y'all about that.

Walk it Out

Hey y'all! I took a little spring break from the blog so I could do some actual work. I have been crazy busy these days at work, and every time I try to catch up, they throw down another pile of work. I'm grateful to have a job, so I'll keep on chugging along :)

 

So, let's see, what have I been up to these days.  We're looking for a house. I really want to stay in the town we live in now, and the house prices are out of control. Right now, we could afford to buy a condo for less than we're paying in rent, which isn't a bad option and we'll do that if we have to. We're praying about it, and looking at everything. We're looking at condos, townhouses, single family houses, and really big houses. We have a little notebook that we take with us to write down what we see. On the front of the notebook is my current favorite verse:

        A man's heart plans his way,
      But the LORD directs his steps. Proverbs 16:9

 

We drive to a neighborhood, park the car, and walk around stopping at all the sale signs to take down the information. We get exercise, family time, and a chance to add a physical dimension to the verse. Yesterday as we walked around a neighborhood, TheCount said, "let's turn down this court." I thought it was just another little court and only saw one house. Y'all we walked up that court and we saw houses with tennis courts, farm houses, real tree houses, and in law suites. I drive down that street every day and had no idea any of those houses were up there. Our lease isn't up until September, so we don't have to decide on a house until July/August and we're excited. I'm excited to see where God leads us!

 

What's new with you? Anybody else planning a move?