Case of the Mondays

Why does Monday get such a bad rap? I’ve been dreading Monday every weekend for the last 20 or so years of my life. Even now, when I work Saturdays so I have most Mondays off, I still have a hard time with the day. Maybe I should start scheduling all the fun things in life on Monday, like getting my hair done or going on an out of town shopping trip. Now that its Monday evening and my weekend is officially over, sigh, Tuesday seems just as ominous.

So here is a list of good things that happened on this Monday, just for the heck of it.
1. I got my temporary PT license renewed, not a day too soon. It expires tomorrow, and by the grace of God someone actually answered the phone at the PT board of CA. Now if the FBI will just figure out I’m not an ex-con, I may get my permanent license in the next month or so.
2. I learned that the bushes along the side of our house and in the back are indeed rose bushes. I can’t wait to see what color they are when they bloom. I know that I’ve had some major issues with this house (see last post) but at least there will be roses!
3. I got a handle on the ant situation in our kitchen-I think. Woke up this morning to armies of ants crawling on our counter tops and around the sink. But I’ve been vigilant with the ant spray, vinegar water, and baby powder around the back door, so hopefully I’ve won the war. Now if I get up tomorrow and they’re back, I will be cursing myself for speaking too soon.
4. I’ve been training for the last two weeks for the Rock-n-roll half-marathon in San Diego on June 6th. It’s been slow going because I haven’t really ran since the Vulcan 10K in November. But today I made it over 23 minutes without stopping to walk. I know I have a long way to go, but it’s a start.
5. I saw a baby owl in our front yard. It was about 6 inches tall and just sat there and looked at me for a moment before flying away. (Okay, that happened last week, but it was too cute not to mention.)

I finished off the last of this yummy soup that my sister-in-law gave me the recipe for. It is super easy, and low fat. Hope you get a chance to make it before the weather gets too warm!

Italian Sausage Soup (from Cooking Light magazine)

This soup has that simmered-all-day flavor but takes just minutes to prepare. Serve it with hot crusty bread.
Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 1/3 cups soup, 1 1/2 teaspoons cheese, and 1 1/2 teaspoons basil)
Ingredients:
* 8 ounces hot or sweet turkey Italian sausage
* 2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
* 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic, and oregano
* 1/2 cup uncooked small shell pasta
* 2 cups bagged baby spinach leaves
* 2 tablespoons grated fresh Parmesan or Romano cheese
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Preparation:
Heat a large saucepan over medium heat. Remove casings from sausage. Add sausage to pan, and cook about 5 minutes or until browned, stirring to crumble. Drain; return to pan.

Add broth, tomatoes, and pasta to pan, and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes or until pasta is done. Remove from heat; stir in spinach until wilted. Sprinkle each serving with cheese and basil.

Dressing Our Nest

I preface this post by saying I am grateful to have a roof over our heads and a place to come home to when we’ve had a long day. But our rental house has its imperfections, to say the least.

Chris had to find us a suitable place to rent before I moved out to CA; he had been staying with a friend, and we needed a place that allowed pets; this one in particular:

With this being such a dog-friendly town, we didn’t imagine it to be such a large feat. Everyone has dogs here; they are welcome in the local coffee shop, I see them tied up outside the library, or being let off leash to run on the Dept. of Water and Power land. Yet no one wants to rent to you if you have a dog.

So we were very limited in our housing prospects, because there wasn’t any way we were going to leave Virginia behind. Chris found and immediately signed a 12-month lease for a 2100 square foot house within walking distance of both our jobs. Which if you only take location into account, was perfect.

The first time I saw the house and peeked through windows I was excited. The second time when we actually went inside and had a tour, I cried. Now granted, I was emotional and homesick. But we had lived in some not so nice places before, and this 1940’s home sat at the bottom of the spectrum. Here’s a summary of why:

1.) The extra large living space (how exactly do you make one living room out of space for two?) boasted a 10 ft long built in aquarium. With fake fish hanging in it. Apparently the owner who had built it hadn’t sealed it correctly, so it wasn’t even functional.
2.) The kitchen, normally my favorite room in any house, has shoddy carpentry with cabinets that won’t close. The wooden molding around the tile countertops doesn’t meet up correctly, with cracks between the wood and the tile, just asking for bits of food and germs to deposit there. The drawers have cracks between the face and the bottom, so when you open them you can see straight through them down to the floor. What DIY class did this guy go to, we ask ourselves on a daily basis. And don’t even get me started on the dishwasher. You couldn’t pay me to open that thing up. (But sometimes we dare unsuspecting dinner guests to!)
3.) I don’t know if it’s a California thing, or a 1960’s thing, but mirrors are utilized throughout the house as a means of décor. When I say there are a lot of mirrors, I mean it. The non-working aquarium, for instance, is surrounded by two walls of gold edged, you guessed it, mirrors. There are also mirrors in the dining area, our bedroom, and the guest room; this guy really liked some mirrors. And considering he had a fit when the carpet installers covered all the gold-patterned linoleum up, imagine what suggesting some of the mirrors come down would do.

Needless to say, it has taken some work to make this place a little more aesthetically pleasing. And since we left all our furniture and decorative items in Alabama, the task has been even more of a challenge. We have a lot of second hand furniture at the moment, most of which doesn’t really match or have a decorative scheme, but hey, how can you compete with a 10 ft aquarium? But yesterday I hit the gold mine, racking up on some used furniture and artwork from my friend’s garage sale inventory. Now we actually have bedroom furniture other than just a bed:

and our fireplace went from this

to this:

Now when I’m in the kitchen I don’t focus on this

or this

I focus on this

and this


I plan to make some curtains for the kitchen and bedroom window along with replacing the cabinet knobs, so I’ll put before and after pictures up of that soon. Meanwhile, here is a recipe for soup that I made a couple of nights ago that was easy and delicious, and of course had the essential ingredient, cheese. It’s adapted from a recipe that I got it from my BFF Anna, who had the same appreciation for cheese as me. One of the many reasons I love her!

Broccoli Cheese Soup
(adapted from a recipe on emealz.com)

2 bags 16oz. frozen broccoli
2 cans low fat/low sodium chicken broth
1 can rotel tomatoes (do not use hot rotel!)
Two cups cut up rotisserie chicken

Dump all this in a large pot and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and keep at a low boil for 10 minutes.

Cube 10 oz. Velveeta light and add a few pieces at a time to pot until it’s all melted. Sooooo delicious.

However, I still do not know what to do about this:


Any ideas?

It's a Bloggy-Blog World

I'm the first to admit, I'm way new at this game. I would love to be the kind of person who enjoyed doing lots of research before venturing on a new hobby, but the fact is, I hate research. I wanted to start a blog for a couple reasons: 1.) to keep my family and friends in Alabama up to date on what's going on in our lives, and 2.) have some sort of creative outlet. Yeah, it would be so nice to have a mega-successful blog that paid my bills every month and earned me celebrity status like www.dooce.com. But I don't think that is the reality for someone who has zero experience in web design and no children to buy me mommy-blogger status.

So, I'm slowly figuring out things like how to add photos, links, and try and make my page pleasing to the eye. But the thing I'm still totally in the dark with is blogging etiquette. I think I have a hard time with the fact that most of the blogs I follow are written by perfect strangers. No, I'm not on the internet at all hours of the night seeing whose unsuspecting blog I can stalk next. Usually I find them through friends and family members' links. I just wonder; what is the protocol for putting links to these said blogs, whose authors don't know me from the barrista at Starbucks, on my blog? I for one, would love to know that someone other than my mama and my best friend is interested enough to read my blog on a regular basis. But is it rude to link without asking? The Southern girl in me wants to know.

On this same line, one of my favorite bloggers took a 6 month break and will be launching her new blog on March 22. She is an artist in the Atlanta area, and an incredible interior designer, I must say. And for the record, my brother and sister-in-law actually know her. So there. Here's the link: http://thepaintedhouse.blogspot.com

Another issue is one of a more personal nature, one that I'm trying to hash out on my own. How revealing do I really want to be? I've written blog posts in the past month that I've got sitting on my desktop, in limbo. I'm just not sure how much I want to open up, whether I've got 5 readers or 500. On one hand it could be cathartic; on the other, what if my husband's grandmother starts reading my ranting about our latest fight, (or gasp, the sex!)-she is my friend on facebook, afterall!

Any advice from fellow bloggers?

Beaches, Baby Seals, and Cheddar Cheese Beer Fondue

Okay, not doing so well on blogging regularly. Now that two of my major distracters are gone: studying for boards and “The Bachelor”, maybe I will do better.

A couple of weeks ago Chris and I traveled 6 hours to Del Mar, just north of San Diego, to see my favorite aunt and meet her fiancé. Carol married my dear Uncle Mike not long before I was born, and ever since has been one of the closest family members outside my immediate family, despite residing in Minnesota. Carol has always been fun; however, it was not until my adulthood, or perhaps since Mike’s death seven years ago that I have gotten to appreciate her as a friend and confidant. And though everyone in my family has gotten to meet her fiancé Scott, Chris and I had not had the pleasure until this visit. He had the same ability as Carol to put you at ease and make you feel completely at home. Needless to say, they were wonderful hosts and we had the best time. I also got to hang out with my cousin Laura, who at 23 years old, reminds me a whole lot of myself 7 years ago. She is in that limbo time between college and graduate school, trying to decide exactly what she wants out of this life and whom she may want to share it with. At the same time, and in spite of some of the familial anxieties that we share, she does some pretty amazing things-aerial dance, for instance; and performing with one of her gifts we do not share, a beautiful singing voice.

How blessed am I to have such awesome people in my life; and to be related to them, at that! I know not everyone is able to cut loose and have fun with family, and I’m thankful that I have that kind of family.

Our weekend in Del Mar just happened to coincide with the seven year anniversary of Mike’s death, so you can imagine it was an emotionally loaded time. I think of Mike often, and mourn his loss from this world as well as the fact that my husband never got to meet him. But I can only imagine what his absence has done to his immediate family’s life. We shared our favorite jokes that Mike told over and over with such animation over fishbowl margaritas. And I was in awe of Scott’s grace in sharing these moments of remembrance, us toasting and mourning (yeah, we are a weird family) someone that sat in his place. He just took it in stride as if he had also lost a dear, dear friend. It definitely showed me his character. Needless to say, Scott scored big with us!

While we were in Del Mar, we collected stones from the beach, toured La Jolla and saw the seals at the cove, went to the lighthouse at Point Loma, and watched the sun set from Mount Helix. We also enjoyed Carol’s fabulous cheese fondue, which I am including for my recipe of the day. Beer + cheese= my favorite meal. Enjoy!

Cheddar Cheese Beer Fondue
(Adapted from a recipe found in The Fondue Cookbook )

¼ c. butter (about 2 T.)
¼ c. flour
Scant ½ t. Accent (MSG)
¼ t. salt
¼ t. dry mustard
12 oz beer (nothing too dark or heavy; PBR works well)
1 ½ t. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 lb. cheddar cheese

Melt butter in heavy saucepan and whisk in flour. Stir in Accent, salt, and dry mustard. Gradually add beer, whisking each addition of beer until incorporated and thickened. When all beer is incorporated, add Worcestershire sauce and start adding cheese, an ounce or 2 at a time and stir until each addition is melted. Serve with bite sized chunks of bread; suggestions: baguette and caraway rye.