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.