Welcome Home - now take your car to the shop

Yes, my car is in the shop. Right before we drove down to Missouri (or it may have been as we were driving down to Missouri) my heater broke... again. Not only is this the third or fourth heater issue this year, I literally just took my car in to get the heater fixed at the dealership last month!! So, thankfully since they didn't really fix it a month ago, they are going to take off what I already paid toward actually fixing it this time, but it's still going to be about $700! Yikes :-( Not fun. But what can I do, winter in Wisconsin, a heater is definitely not optional!

So besides coming home after 2 weeks of spending money on vacation and having to spend more money on my car, vacation itself was fun! We stayed in/near Branson at two different places. The first place was amazing! It was set on 800 acres and certain buildings had been there since the '20s. It got a little chilly, but the weather was nice overall, and the first two days we just stayed at the resort exploring, swimming, and playing miniature golf on a nearly-impossible course. It was all way too slanted!! But we loved it. We also played in the arcade a bit. Both places we stayed had pool tables, and by Thursday I was actually getting pretty good! On Wednesday, I hit in FIVE IN A ROW! But Thursday I was just doing better overall. We played mini golf again Thursday at the new place, which was like a typical motel. We also saw two shows while in Branson - the New Shanghai Circus, which is Chinese acrobats that do incredible things! I just wanted to applaud the whole time. The next night we saw a magic show, Kirby Vanburch. It was also amazing, and at the end of the show, he came out and said there's no such thing as real magic, or being psychic, and did a little illusion and said that if you give your life to Jesus, he'll make you whole. We LOVED Kirby! Also, I helped him with one trick, where I picked a card, and they flew up in the air and he speared it with a sword! And I got to keep the card! :) I also took Adam to Krispy Kreme for the first time, and he really really liked it. It was a long drive, and a long trip, but we really had a great time. Oh also, we decided to stop at Shoney's on the way back, because it's one of Adam's favorite breakfast places. So we picked one randomly and when we got there, we realized that we stopped at that exact Shoney's when we were moving me out to Wisconsin! What are the odds, with all the Shoney's in Missouri, that we happened to pick the same one! Too funny.

So yes, we had a great vacation, but I'm glad to be back. I missed the Jasp a lot. And I'm tired! All that relaxing really takes its toll on you! :-) Hopefully my posting will resume my kind of normal schedule. We'll just have to wait and see!

Vacation

So much to say! Week one of our vacation was awesome, except that I was sick the entire time (sinus infection-type thing, not like nausea, thank goodness). We went to Universal's Islands of Adventure, with Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, which was amazing! We also went to Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom and to Epcot. Epcot is my favorite, and it was Adam's favorite, too. There's just so much to see and experience, and even though there aren't very many rides, the ones they have are pretty neat. We brought our lunches every day to help save money, and I had this brilliant idea on the plane down there - Adam and I both drink a lot of water and we're kind of water snobs. We each have our own version, but basically it boils down to us not drinking tap water. So I thought to myself that we should get those little water bottles that have the filter built in and filter the water as you drink it. It turned out to be a pretty great thing to have, and I was very proud of myself for thinking of it :)

Jasper missed us a lot! When we came home, he was so skinny! I think he couldn't eat very much because he missed me. And yesterday after I picked him up, he just wanted to be close to me - he snuggled on my lap all day, and we let him sleep with us, and he was RIGHT next to me all night. Usually he ends up at the foot of the bed because he gets too hot (I think), but last night he was up against me the entire night up until I got out of bed at 8! So sweet :) That's going to be the only bad thing about going on vacation Week Two - missing the Jasp!

Well, more may come. That's all for now though. Don't expect anything until probably next weekend-ish.

Small-Town Wisconsin

So yesterday, Adam and I decided to use a coupon we had to have fish fry (well, Adam was going to have the fish fry, I was obviously going to order something else). It was for a restaurant that Adam used to go to all the time when he was younger, and I had never been there. So we went there, and who should we see but Adam's aunt and her husband! They had just ordered, so we sat with them and ate with them. About a half hour later, Adam's dad, step-mom, and brother came in! Welcome to small-town Wisconsin! We thought we were going out to dinner - little did we know that we were actually going to a family reunion! It was nice to see everyone, though.

Just so my readers know, I will be on vacation this week. So don't expect any posts until maybe this weekend. We will be in Florida tomorrow through Friday. Orlando, here we come!! :)

Adventures in Pressure Cooking

Brown Rice - check
Pinto Beans (for refried beans) - check (I used too much water, but that will be modified next time)
Beef Broth - check (very tasty with the pot roast I made!)
Chicken Broth - check check (although the second time was not as chickeny as I'd like...once again, I used too much water, I think)

...yep I think that's all I've made so far. More adventures to come. I'd like to make potato soup. Or just red potatoes. I decided that I really really like red potatoes.

Sorry my adventures are not all that exciting. But at least I'm getting more comfortable with the PC! This way, by the time we have people over for dinner (as infrequently as that is), I should be a real pro with the PC :)

Olive Garden tonight with Michelle and Popp! When I met Adam, he did not like Olive Garden. He'd had one experience that tainted his view of it. But when I got the job I have now (it was a promotion from where I was), he said we could go anywhere I wanted to celebrate... so I picked Olive Garden. He whined and complained and tried to convince me to go somewhere else, but I stood firm. We went... and he LOVED it! Now it's one of our favorites :) So we're definitely looking forward to dinner tonight. Note to self: eat a light lunch!

Fun at Church

So the other night at church, we were rehearsing for the worship team. The first few songs we did were more contemporary songs, and then we did a hymn (a traditional song). At the end of the hymn, I said "Way to hymn it up, guys!" Just being a weirdo, you know. And then a little while later, we had done a few more hymns, and one of the worship team members, who is a mom with five kids, said "We just hymned it up. Whatever that means." Oh my gosh, that was hilarious! I couldn't believe someone else said it! I was just messing around, but now I guess that's going to be a "thing!"

If you go to church or ever have another opportunity to use this, you have my blessing :)

Food, part one

This will be one of a series of weird food things about me. If you know me in person, you know that I’m… not super picky (I used to be really bad!), I just have passionate views about certain food items. I even write poems and quips about my preferences. With that introduction, I will talk today about fish and nuts.

I have never been a fan of fish. When I was little, the one time I remember having a babysitter that wasn’t a family member, said babysitter forced me to try tuna. I hated it. I wouldn’t say it traumatized me, because I have since tried fish, but that event certainly didn’t help my bias against fish. So, for some reason, I came up with a little poem about how I do NOT eat fish: If it swam in the sea, it’s not for me! It’s kind of catchy, if I do say so myself :-) And it does help people remember that I really don’t eat fish. I have tried blue gill (fresh caught by Adam and my mom), mahi mahi in Hawaii (which was not super fishy, but it DID have a macadamia nut coating on it – see below), garlic shrimp, and one homemade fish-and-potato-patty thing. I’m still not going to eat fish. The shrimp I tried had a weird, chewy texture to it (which I would assume applies to all shrimp). I also cannot stand the smell of shrimp cooking. It just permeates the whole house. Oh man, I better stop writing about fish. It’s making me feel queasy.
Another thing I don’t eat are nuts. I have tried them (including walnuts and pistachios) and while they don’t particularly have a bad flavor, I can’t tolerate the texture of nuts. They get stuck in my teeth and are just not something I want to eat. I eat peanut butter (creamy, of course), but I don’t eat nuts plain. I would probably be ok with almond butter, too. But I will never be one to put nuts in my cookies or brownies or anything else. And because just about everyone asks if I’m allergic to nuts because I avoid them so fervently, I created a little catch-phrase (not exactly a poem): “The only nuts I eat are donuts.” I sometimes say, “The only nuts I eat are donuts and corn nuts,” because I really DO love corn nuts! Probably more than donuts, even.
Anyway, that’s enough for the introduction to my many food preference oddities. We’ll save the rest for another day.

Membership

So Adam and I have been attending our church for almost two years now. I sang with the Easter choir our first Easter there, then I started teaching Sunday school that September, and Adam and I both started helping with the high school group. I sing with the worship team about twice a month, and this year I’m directing the Christmas play. Adam is on the Missions Board (that makes decisions about supporting missionaries and things like that). So we’ve been very involved almost from the get-go. We met with the deacons and deaconesses, and gave our testimonies. Because of the way our church is “governed,” they had to “vote” us in with a majority vote, which they were going to do during the second service (it’s just a formality, but that’s the way they do it). Before the first service, one of the church members said, “Oh, I have your membership certificates,” and handed me two certificates commemorating Adam’s and my becoming members. Since we hadn’t officially been voted in yet, I figured that meant it was a done deal (which it was anyway!). So during the second service, we went up in front of the congregation and they all voted us in to be members. We’re official!! It’s kind of nice :)

It’s definitely different than the Lutheran church we were attending before. The pastor knew I wanted to help with the Sunday school, and they put announcements in the bulletin that they needed volunteers to help, but I couldn’t because I wasn’t a Lutheran. To some extent, I can understand their hesitancy to make sure that the person teaching their youth is a believer, but I had been meeting with the pastor about once a week, and he knew that I was a Christian. It didn’t matter – I wasn’t a Lutheran. At our current church, they called me and asked if I wanted to teach Sunday school – after having attended the church for about eight months at that point. It may sound judgmental, but I’m really not trying to judge them or say that our church is better or something. I’m merely noting a difference.

Under Pressure

Well, I finally got a pressure cooker.

I was hesitant, of course, because of the horror stories people hear about old pressure cookers exploding, and sometimes, believe it or not, I am kind of accident-prone.

BUT we got one that has a bunch of safety features that make it impossible to open while there is still pressure in the cooker. So we got it. We ordered it (a Fagor Duo 8 quart, in case you were wondering) on Amazon, of course, and it was supposed to arrive as early as today, Friday. However, when I got home last night, there it was, sitting on our kitchen island in all its new and boxed glory! I had every intention of doing this test I found online to familiarize myself with the cooker, how long it takes to do things, etc. But I decided I wanted brown rice and scrambled eggs for dinner (a delicious combination with soy sauce, similar to fried rice), so, I made pressure cooker brown rice. It was a success!! Definitely not as mushy as when I make it on the stove, although not quite as good as the one time I made it in my rice cooker. With a little tweaking, I'm sure it'll be one of my regular recipes.

One of the main things I will want to make in it is stock/broth (beef, chicken, vegetable) because, as I stated before, my husband and I are hippies. He's much more of a hippie than me, and does not want to consume any store-bought broth/stock anymore. Hence the pressure cooker. I made vegetable broth in a stock pot Monday afternoon, but from now on, it'll be pressure cooker broth/stock all the way! I think it's going to be awesome, once I get the hang of it. Tonight I am going to try tackling the beef stock... wish me luck!

Where have you been?

That's what you might be wondering. Well... Tuesday I was home sick. Mainly sinus stuff. I was cleaning in the morning and lazing in the afternoon. I don't know what happened Wednesday and Thursday, but here I am now!

Monday night I made minestrone. My goal was to have it taste like Olive Garden's (my second favorite soup in the world - the top spot being held by the vegetable barley soup at Vince's Spaghetti in California. Man that is the BEST) and although it was pretty good (Adam loved it), it still wasn't quite right. I think it needed to be more tomato-y. Then again, I'm like a tomato fanatic, so... :)

Also, Adam and I beat Donkey Kong on the Wii! Really really beat it! But now we are so "Donkey Kong" wired, we tried to go back and play Super Mario Bros. Wii and we are not that good. We've beat all the normal levels in Mario, which means that at one point we were pretty awesome. But now... it's going to take some un-DK-ification before we can rock Super Mario again.

So... all that to say, my life has not been too exciting. I have some more ideas for upcoming posts, so keep your eyes peeled.

We need to have a talk

This is another of my sneezing stories.

When I worked at my first serious, real, after-college job, I was in a cubicle next to a bunch of other cubicles. So when I sneezed (loudly), sometimes it carried in the quiet work environment. We were often on the phone with customers, and after I sneezed one time, my neighbor said that her customer on the phone said to tell me "God bless you!" So, among my team of co-workers, my sneezes were well known. One day, my manager wanted to have a talk with me. She pulled me aside, and said that some people had said that my sneezing was interrupting their work.

--It's a SNEEZE, people! You can't hear a sneeze six cubicles away without it interrupting your phone call? What happens when you sneeze yourself? Do you have to go home for the rest of the day?--

Anyway, she asked if there was anything I could do so that my sneezes weren't so loud. It was then that I realized I couldn't work there any more. I was a great employee, I did my job accurately and efficiently, customers liked me and I followed company policies and regulations. And you're going to pull me aside and ask me to change the way I naturally sneeze? Outrageous.

After having left that job, I told my next supervisor at my next job about that, and she agreed with me that it was ridiculous. From then on, every time I'd sneeze at work, she'd say "Megan, we need to have a talk about your sneezes."