Life here in the south...

Hello all -- thought I should update you all on what's going on here. Not too much of great excitement at the moment. I just posted a pile of pictures that should appear below if all goes according to plan. So, our life, in heading form:

COMPANY!!: Bethany was here from Friday through Tuesday. We had a blast and now I feel like I need to recuperate! = ) We crammed a lot of stuff in the time she was here, but it was really fun to get out and see what this place has to offer. Dave was busy with school part of the time, so I'm looking forward to doing some of the things with him that Bethany and I did.

THANKSGIVING: That would be today, for the Americans. So, Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. Dave and I ended up going to a family's place from church. I didn't know them yet, but it was fun to visit get to know them. Dave said on the way home and I quote, "Tomorrow would be a good day to see the fountain, except for the mobs of people slaughtering each other to buy tickle-me-elmos." Maybe it's not funny anymore, but it hit me funny at the time. I was picturing it all, very vividly in my mind. I have done the black Friday thing before, but there's NO way we're going to attempt anything like that here. I can't even imagine the traffic tomorrow when on a normal day it's insane. Dave has off for almost a week which is wonderful. He's been working his brains out with school, got a cold last week, so the poor guy needs a break. As for myself, well, I've been just swamped with um... feeding him... and um... running around sight seeing with my guest. So, we're very happy for the break. = P On the way home today, we thought we would stop and get a movie at this cheap, not Blockbuster place. The old releases are cheap. So, I'm ashamed to admit it, but when we went to check out, he told us that we could get THREE more for a dollar cheaper! They have a 5 movies for 5 bucks deal! And you can keep them for a week. Yikes! I don't know if we'll get all of them watched. Dave is pretty excited about Citizen Cane though. = ) And I guess we're trapped in the house anyway, with the mobs of people slaughtering each other in the streets outside...

HAIRCUTS: This will be a boring story. I have been Dave's sole hair dresser since our sacred nuptials back in the summer. Not to toot my own horn, but I feel that I generally do just as good a job as the ones he pays for. And I can cut it just like I like it. Well, in theory anyway. And I'm hoping with all the money we save by me cutting his hair, I'll be able to actually get my hair cut one of these days. I have also not had one since our sacred nuptials, many a fortnight ago. Anyway, so lately I've been getting more and more daring with the actual clippers and not just using scissors. The only problem I have with using the clippers is the dreaded ledge! If there are women out there who cut their husbands hair with clippers, they should know exactly what I mean, by the ledge. It looks so nice and neat to use clippers along the sides and back, but the top should be longer, so how do you blend it nicely together without having this obvious line/ledge thingy? So this morning I cut Dave's hair and I used a smaller clippers than I had used last time. Which made the ledge even more pronounced. At first I was freaking out thinking I had made it look terrible. Oddly though, I did exactly the same thing on both sides, and one side had a huge bumpy ledge, while the other side blended perfectly. I declared it a problem with his head rather than my haircutting ability. (hmmmm... good thing I don't do this for money) Anyway, I played with it long enough that I think with enough gel in it, the final product looks quite smashing. So there really is no point to this story.

JOB SEARCH: I did a job interview yesterday. sigh. I'm not sure what to think. The interviewer said he would call me on Monday and I'm hoping to buy some more time after that, if he does offer me the job. I would sort of like to do some more interviews first. Anyway, the job is being a coordinator for mentally handicapped people of all ages - babies through elderly - making sure they have the services they need. Here's the pros and cons of the job that I know of at this point:

pros -- After a probationary period, you can set your own hours and work from home. The money is okay, not great, not terrible.

cons -- This is not the population that I'm most comfortable with or have much experience with. I prefer to work with kids or teenagers. Which leads me to the next drawback - in this job, you barely see the clients anyway - it's so much paperwork and behind the scenes work, with a little interaction here and there with the clients. It's a huge caseload and a lot to juggle.

And, this is both a con and a pro. At my 3 month job as a case manager that I had before I took my last job, we had to bill medicaid for services. It's sorta a long story how it works, but I HATED it! We were suppose to bill 5.75 hours PER DAY and everything was written down on notes, some in 15 minute increments. So we would run around like chickens all day and then at the end of the day, you had to be able to come up with all your "billable" services and write them all down. I could never get up to that many hours, even though I was busy all the time. It was just a huge pain. This job requires that you bill medicaid as well, but it's only 2 hours per day rather than almost 6 which would be much more doable.

Anyway, I have no clue what will happen and what I'll decide. Okay, I think that's all for now. I have to go watch a movie with my hubby. = P Or we could watch 2 and then go shopping...

When it comes to posting pics on my blog, I just don't know when to quit

So, here you have it. A pictorial tour of our very busy and fun weekend. These pictures are also intended to lure folks to come see us. Look at what the south has to offer! It was so much fun having company! And, miracle of miracles, I think these are mostly in chronological order. So, here we go... Bethany flew into Baton Rouge last Friday. I arrived at the airport rather weak and shaky - didn't expect that traffic to be that bad at 1o:30. And I'm a wuss in the big city. Anyway, united, once again. = ) (oh, some of these pics are mine and some are hers) You will see many pics of the Miss. river with the Baton Rouge bridge. I apologize. But here's the first. Beth took this pic. Friday night we went to Tsunami's Sushi restaurant and this pic was taken from the amazing view right outside the restaurant. And we spent about 10 bucks between the 3 of us there. = P It's rather upscale and we're well, not. Mostly we came for the view. We took a bunch of pics from up there - most of them turned out pretty bad. The ones with people in them anyway... Saturday we went to New Orleans. It was fun, but we probably had just as much fun in Baton Rouge. Anyway - here is the famous cafe du monde, right by the Miss. river. I LOVED this place! You know why? There's only one thing to order! Now that's my kind of place! Sorta minimizes the trouble of decision making. 3 french donuts for 1 something - perfect. And free water. = ) More of New Orleans. A living statue - saw these all over the place. I thought this was a really neat picture - Bethany was trying to take it on the drive home and this is the result of the night setting on her camera. Back in little ole Baton Rouge. Sunday afternoon we went to see Mike the Tiger at LSU. This is one of about 37 pictures that Bethany took of him, trying to get his head and not his rear. Um, here's us and a statue. You never would have guessed... Sunday Bethany and I walked on the levee as it was getting dark and she got this picture. A really pretty fountain down town with the old governor's mansion in the background. (former, not old governor) Monday Bethany and I went back to the levee and did a couple boat tour thingys. This is the USS Kidd - a real army ship from sometime long ago. It was really interesting looking around in all the rooms inside. I was trying to capture the sleeping quarters. This actually looks quite roomy compared to some - can you imagine? The USS Kidd This was a smaller boat that apparently sails all over and was docked in Baton Rouge for a couple weeks. We got to go and look around. And here is Bethany with Jack Sparrow. = P It was sort of creepy - the resemblance. This was the USS Bounty. But the Canadian in me kept wanting to say the USS Mountie. Duh. Once again, the river, bridge, levee... Along the levee - this is where we walked to get on the Bounty. Can you read this?
The old governor's mansion. Below - we went to the capital building and it was really neat. Dave and I had been there once before. There is a lookout over the city on the 27th floor. When Dave and I were there back in January, it was closed. When Bethany and I were there on Monday, it had started to rain, so we could go up to that floor, but we couldn't go outside. = ( Below is a picture of a bullet hole in one of the columns in a hallway at the capital building. A long time ago, one of the governor's was shot there. Apparently he was the one who had the building made and did a lot of good, but was somewhat of a dictator and people were freaked out about him running for president. All the names of the states are on the steps up to the building, along with the year they became a state. The house of representatives side - the dandy little voting desks. The much more plush and beautiful senate. It was decorated for Christmas and was quite amazing. Monday Bethany and I went to a swamp to hopefully see some alligators and such. It turned out that we didn't see so much as a toad, when it came to wildlife. = ( It was a nice walk though. There was a nature center inside and there were lots of snakes and other reptillians.
The end. We left the reptiles and headed to the airport.

Is it a happy story, is it a sad story... you tell me.

I have to share about our Saturday. Dave and I frequently talk about wanting to go to a football game, but not being able to afford tickets. This past Saturday we had to go to campus for something anyway, so we decided to just get in on some of the game day madness with out actually going to the game. So we were walking around (gee, it feels a bit chilly out here for the south) and making our way to where the band would be marching down the hill and into the stadium. We kept seeing people with tickets for sale and we'd go back and forth... should we just ask... should we not... then we'll want to buy them... then they won't leave us alone... we really should use our money to buy things we need like um... paying bills and curtains for the guest room. Anyway, we made our way to where the band would pass by and were standing there and then you know you start to get all into the hype and we did really want to go to the game... so this guy walked passed with tickets and Dave looks at me and we thought, ah well, might as well ask. So he asks the guy and he says 20 bucks a ticket. A steal of a deal really, but still, is it responsible for us to spend 40 bucks right now on tickets? So we're standing there debating and I'm thinking about the curtains and grocery bill... and then this other guy standing right beside us in the crown says, "How many tickets do you need? I got 6 tickets for free." OH MY! I said, oh, we only need 2... (we're so nice you can keep the other 4). So 40 dollar ticket man walked off and we got 2 free tickets in the lower deck. Oh my. FREE I tell you... FREE!!!! We were so excited. I mean, how much better could it have worked out? We walked passed so many people selling tickets and didn't stop, but the first one we asked - ahhh, such perfect timing. So anyway, it was very fun seeing the band and I was starting to follow football a little more than usual (which doesn't take much) although I'd still prefer hockey. Anyway, the only problem was that it was COLD and WINDY. And we did not dress for attending the game at all - we were not wearing warm clothes and were just sitting there freezing like mad. So we were talking about what to do... The score at half time was 23-other team 3-LSU. It was looking pretty bleak for them anyway. We decided to leave after the half time show, although we really did want to stay, it was just the freezing factor that motivated us to leave. I kept saying I would like to see at least one LSU touchdown, but it was not to be. So we went to the grocery store on the way home, got back in the car, and would you believe it, the score was 33 LSU/ 31 other team. I guess the score at one point was 31-3 for the other team, but LSU ended up scoring 37 points straight for what their biggest come back game ever. Dave was literally ill. We were THERE! We could have seen it ALL! Anyway, that is my happy-sad story for the evening.

On a completely different note: overheard from someone, somewhere, in a far away land...

"STOP calling me LORD!!! That's an ORDER!!!" (I was just trying to be Biblical, sheesh!)

person 1: "I don't care how PRACTICAL it is if it looks stupid!!
person 2: "I don't care how stupid it looks, if it's PRACTICAL!! It's form versus function!!
person 1: "FORM! I'll take form please!!

"I need to head to campus... and as a man, that's a very powerful thing..." (It's along story, but let me just tell you that adding that to the end of every sentence can be quite fun and entertaining...)

(adoringly)... "you're the best thing to ever happen to you." (huh?)

"We were out of ice cream so I had a bowl of cole slaw." haha. refer to previous post. oh, and gag. yeah, it's still hanging around.

For Sabrina and LaRonda (I spose the rest of you could read as well if you want)

For Sabrina -- I thought I'd add a mouse story of my own since I've been so entertained by yours lately and can so identify with the terror of sharing living quarters with lice infested, demon-possessed vermin. I'm shuddering at reliving the memories. Sadly, there are many tales to tell... It seems that a couple of my older siblings are involved in a diabolical "let's-see-if-Rachel-really-will-have-an-early-heart-attack" scheme. Since they're all older and there's so many of them, hopefully I won't incriminate anyone. haha. Here's one story. And let me tell you, there are MANY similar stories from BOTH of these folks. One night I lay on the couch in older siblings house, trying to sleep. It was the night time. Everyone in the house was fast asleep. I believe I had slept a little while when suddenly, I awoke, with the sinking feeling in my stomach that indeed, I was not alone in that room. You know when you wake up just knowing? My heart is pounding out of my chest, I'm trying so hard to tell myself it's all in my head. And then I heard it. Scurrying. The pitter patter of tiny feet running around, sounded like it was across the room. I wanted to SCREAM. I'm now slightly raised on couch, waiting for the attack, wondering what to do, when, I kid you not, the little vermin came out from behind the entertainment center and started running RIGHT TOWARDS ME! I thought I might pass out. He ran under the couch. There was no way in blue blazes I was staying on that couch. So when I mustered the courage, I DASHED for the kitchen, barely touching the floor, and on my tip toes the whole time. It somehow seems more safe, the less of your body that touches the same floor that the rat is on. So, now what do I do? I'm in the kitchen, the rat is in the living room, where to go? So I sat on the chair in the kitchen for awhile. Pretty soon, oh terror of terrors, the wretched creature shows up AGAIN - he comes right to the edge of the kitchen and stares at me with his beady, evil little eyes. NOOOOOOO!!! What was I to do now? In case the little beast decides to try to charge me in the kitchen and crawl in my ear and eat my brains, or worse, lay eggs in my head so... anyway... I do what any respectable woman would do, and jumped up on the chair. So it's in the middle of the night, I'm standing on a chair in the kitchen, covering my mouth so as not to scream... praying for the rapture, and knowing I'm in for a very long night. I did indeed spend the rest of that night on the chair in the kitchen, alternating between standing on, sitting on, standing on, sitting on, depending on where the little demon was and how intently he was staring at me, plotting to make his move. When FINALLY, someone in the house awoke, I sputtered out the whole sordid tale, and he (brother or brother in law, so as not to incriminate anyone) so casually said, oh yeah, him, he's been around here for awhile... AHHHHHHHH!!!!! Such a casual attitude to the great deal of mental and emotional anguish I endured that night. The end. Thank God, the END! But like I said, there's more. One time, I was actually wearing this heart monitor thing because long ago the doc said I had a heart murmur and wanted it checked out. (It turned out to be nothing but a slight murmur, in case you're wondering) So I'm sound asleep late in the night, when what sounded like a stampede of vermin came charging into my room. I FLEW out of bed, forgetting of course, that I was full of stickers and wires. My heart was thumping as though it would burst. stickers and wires are dangling about me... what do I do now? ugh. I think found somewhere else to sleep, although I don't think I got a lot more. Okay, I'm going to stop now with the mice stories, not that my skin is crawling and I'm jumping at every noise... If anyone has an appetite anymore, LaRonda wanted these cookies, so here they are:

(ooo, I've never done this before... I feel all hilda-the-houswifey)

1 cup butter, melted (yeah, they're not exactly low fat = ( )
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs, beaten

1 cup ww flour
1 cup wheat germ
1 cup rolled oats
2 tsp baking soda

mix wet ingredients, add the dry ones (I added choc. chips to some of them and that was fabulous), mix until smooth, bake 15ish min. at 350. You might be able to add a bit more flour or oats to this - they were pretty soft, but tasty. Oh, and if you care, the original recipe called for 1.25 cups white flour, 1 cup wheat bran (which they apparently don't sell in the south) and .75 cup rolled oats.

More sorting fun

Please! Buy us PENS for Christmas!! Oh my word! Again, I don't feel as though the picture really does it justice. There were SO many.

And now may I proudly present (Clockwise from upper left) pens for the living room, pens for the bedroom, pens for the computer room, pens for Dave to take to school, pens for Goodwill, and pens for the trash.

Together at last... Dave and I discovered that we have had matching staplers for who knows how long. All they have really wanted all these years was to be together. Isn't it just a tear jerker?

random and disturbing pics

The ensuing mess from the cooking described above or below depending on the order in which blogger chooses to post my posts. (I give up trying to outsmart it) Oh, and the mess is pretty terrible and I don't think the pics really do it justice. In real life, it was amazing.


The amazing cookies I mentioned above or below.





A little treasure Dave found while going through his junk... I mean treasured possesions. Note the expiration date. Also note that this is NOT the PB I used in above cookies. These pictures just make me gag.

This might be boring....

but I'm going to do it anyway. In the face of sagging comments and a seeming lack of interest and enthusiasm from the blogging community (hint hint), I'll forge ahead, undaunted by the task ahead. Where to begin? I've had a few blog posts running around in my head the last while. They like wide open spaces so they stay up there for a long time on occasion. Sunday marked our tin (?) anniversary and we celebrated by... um, well, not too much, but it was a nice day. We watched the movie "Wild Hearts can't be Broken" and Dave actually liked it. I hope it's okay with him that I broadcast that. Anyway, we also ate some Qdobas which is a close friend of ours. We are in the stage of being shocked at how much it costs to grocery shop and cook, but at this fabulous Mexican place, we can split our favorite (chicken nachos) for 6 bucks. Not bad at all. So, we do that on occasion. Anyway, that's that. Okay, if there's any guys reading this, it's going to be really boring. This next stuff is all about food. With some of my neuroses mixed in. Okay, so last Friday, I was in charge of taking a meal to a family from church who had just had a baby, or I should say, a family in which the matriarchal figure had just had a baby. I volunteered for this task, thinking if anyone is without excuse, it would surely be me. Besides, I like these people and wanted to take them food. Wait a second. The fact that I like them should make me think 2ce about taking them food. Anyway, back to the story. I freely admit, I'm not well. I felt sort of out of my league here. And I obsessed over it for days, weeks...? As long as I knew I was going to do it. It's like I have this sickness that tells me, it's not okay to just take food, you have to come up with the best whatever it is on the planet. It has to make them drool with delight and exclaim on and on over how wonderful it is. Mediocre will never do. For some reason, it HAS to be phenomenal. Dave says, "huh, that's silly." Another family member points out that it's probably pride in my life. Both are true to some extent I'm sure. So after obsessing hours over what to take and conferencing with a couple friends, this is what I came up with: the maple BBQ chicken recipe that Vicky posted on Robyn's blog ages ago, the corn casserole that Karla posted on their food blog, cole slaw, chips, brownies. Oh, and buns for the chicken BBQ. After receiving sufficient approval for my plan, I set out to the store to purchase needed ingredients. In addition to the pride insists on beyond excellence, I'm also stricken with indecision of greganchuous proportions. Oh, last Thursday was a dark day. I'm sorry my story is taking so long, but you're all used to that by now, right? So I go to the store and one thing I wanted to get was disposable cooking containers, so said family would not have to worry about tracking me down to return dishes. So I stand in the aisle for what seemed like hours and could NOT decide what to get! What size? It was as though the size I wanted didn't exist. 8 x 8 seemed to small and chinsy, 9 x 13 looked HUGE. What to do? I left it and went on to other shopping. The rest went okay, save for the bun buying fiasco. I wanted something nice, not just plain looking buns with writing on the bag. So I frequented the bakery section. There was something wrong with each and every one (too hard, too soft, too few, too many, looks nice and feels soft, but what if they don't like oniony buns... on and on!!) and it was a painstaking and agonizing decision. FINALLY, I settled on basic, boring, whole wheat buns, of which the feel I was not 100% satisfied with. It turns out that's probably because the brain child didn't check the expiration date, and they were moldy the next day! ARG! I know this because I bought some for us. I should say that ours were moldy the next day, so I can only assume that theirs were as well. sigh. I tried so hard. = ( Why would they be selling nearly moldy buns in the first place? I shoulda checked. Okay, so then I went back to the dreaded disposable cooking receptacle aisle and finally settled on 2 of each size and I would decide what goes in what later. The following day, what commenced was a flurry of beating and mixing and blending and pouring and whisking and boiling and slow cookering that transformed my (teeny tiny) kitchen into an utter disaster area. And of course, I thought I was giving myself plenty of time, but ended up scurrying around last minute, flying in 20 different directions, cringing at the thought of taking food to the dear people LATE of all things, thus utterly destroying my phenomenal plan. Well, in the end, here's the final verdict - it became apparent soon after making an exorbitant amount of cole slaw, that it was not worthy of feeding to a, um, well, I would feed it to a pet I guess, considering that Dave and I are trying to choke it all down... but I did not have an ounce of peace about feeding it to nice family, particularly a mother who has recently giving birth. not a nice thing to do at all. I was bitterly disappointed, as I had found what looked to be a fabulous recipe. But in the end, it tasted overwhelmingly bland and way too strong of onion. I added sugar which made it edible, but not giftable. So Dave ran to the store and bought salad. We dashed out the door leaving the kitchen in utter disarray and when we arrived, they graciously offered that we stay and eat with them. Which was SO nice, but I was nearly breaking out in hives, thinking about the possibility that something tasted terrible and I would be present during the discovery of thus. But in the end, we had a very nice time and other than the cole slaw flop, things were quite yummy, actually, very yummy. That is the story of food, pride, mediocrity, and phenomenality.



One more thing on food. A while back I made these cookies and oh my. I wanted something that could be considered a bit healthy and needed to use up some peanut butter. I'm happy to say that I changed the recipe and they turned out amazing. Usually I don't mess with recipes too much, because I have a hard enough time with things coming out edible when I follow it to a tee. But these, ohhhhh my - I don't think I've ever posted a recipe on here, but if anyone wants the recipe, let me know and I can. They had wheat germ, oatmeal, and WW flour, but didn't taste healthy at all. Probably because of all the sugar and butter and such.



What else? I'm in the process of trying to apply for jobs and it's been a rather discouraging and depressing process. I'm trying to fill out an application for some government jobs and the whole thing is just SO tedious and has so many questions that I don't have the answers to - try going back 10 years to a job you had for a few months or weeks, and try to come up with dates, names who can verify employment, etc. It's just a royal pain in the neck.



We did have a productive weekend. On Saturday, we got our computer/guest room all shoveled out! That was a hapy occasion. It was sort of the last of the unpacking and sorting. Everything we didn't know what to do with or didn't feel like dealing with was pilied in this room. Saturday morning the floor was covered and by Saturday evening, the floor was very visible. It looks SO nice. Everything is taken care of, other than pictures that could be hung on the walls at some point and are sitting on the floor. I think I'll post some pics now. I hope I haven't bored you to tears. I wish I had some super exciting things to write about, but at the moment, they don't exit. I like my hubby. He's really sweet. That's about all.