Dinner Party and Catch-Up

As much as I would loooove to get really chatty about the dinner party we hosted last night, I don't have a lot of free time before we head over to my parent's house for yet another Christmas celebration, so I'll make it quick because I want to get to a recipe I promised to post like a week ago.
So long story short--last night Darrell and I had four of our close friends over for dinner, and it was super fun. I got to pull out some fancy wedding gifts that we hadn't used yet and try a few new recipes. We had two "appetizers"--spinach artichoke dip and fruit with dip, and then for the main course Darrell made his Cajun chicken pasta (soooo good. And the dish that takes credit for introducing me to the deliciousness that is red peppers). And then I made a dessert in the crock-pot! It was pretty interesting, but surprisingly had quite a bit of cake-texture like it was supposed to and then lots of fudgy goodness to scoop out on top.
I didn't really have an opportunity to capture pictures of all the components of the meal, but here was our table setting.

We were fancy and I was excited. I did accidently pour wine into the water glasses initially, but quickly fixed the mistake. I'm just not used to being fancy!

So on to the recipe. Last week when Darrell had to work and I didn't I decided to surprise him with a new recipe. Not always a good idea, because I tend to get easily flustered when I cook. But the end result was edible, and actually tasty, so that's all that matters.

Salmon Cakes with Cool Lime Sauce

Sauce:

1 lime

1/2 cup mayo

1/4 cup sour cream

Zest lime to measure 2 tsp zest, and juice to measure 2 tsp juice. Combine with mayo and sour cream; mix well and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Salmon Cakes:

2 cans (6 oz) skinless, boneless pink salmon packed in water, flaked and drained

1/4 cup finely chopped red bell pepper

1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions with tops

1 tbsp snipped fresh cilantro

3/4 cup unseasoned dry bread crumbs, divided

1/3 cup mayo

1 egg white

Combine all ingredients, reserving 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs on a small plate or shallow bowl. Scoop the salmon mixture into desired size, and place in bread crumbs. Flatten to 1/2 inch thickness and turn to coat evenly with crumbs. Heat skillet over medium heat until hot and cook salmon cakes 6-8 minutes or until golden brown, turning once. Serve with lime sauce.

If you can't tell in the picture, my cakes got a little burnt because our skillets cook really hot, so I probably should have cooked ours over low heat and not medium. I also attempted to halve the recipe, which was a little dicey to figure out half an egg white, so ours were pretty crumbly and didn't hold their shape. We got five medium sized cakes out of half the recipe, so I'd say the full recipe would probably feed around five people. The book I got the recipe out of recommends making them really small and serving them as appetizers, which I suppose would work pretty well too. Oh, and to health it up a bit, I've heard that Greek yogurt can be substituted for mayo in most recipes (I think?), so that might be something we'll try next time (at least in the sauce). And definitely make sure you taste-test the sauce to ensure it has a lime-flavoring. The lime is very tasty with the salmon and pepper.

If you try it you'll have to let me know what you think! This is definitely something we'll be making again!

Christmas in ATL

Snow and all, we had a wonderful Christmas down in Atlanta. It's always great to see Darrell's side of the family--I only wished we lived closer so we could see them more than once a year!
We flew out of MSP on Christmas Eve, and it didn't exactly look promising that we were going to make it out.

Four inches of snow on the ground Friday morning, and it was still coming down as we sat at the airport. Thankfully, Minneapolis is fully equipped to deal with snow, so flights weren't terribly behind. We actually boarded our flight when we were supposed to, but apparently we boarded without a pilot because his plane was delayed getting in, so we had to sit on the plane and wait an hour for him. I slept through most of that, so it went by pretty quickly. Then we had to wait for our plane to get de-iced, and since we were leaving after our scheduled departure time we had to wait behind the other flights that were on time. But, we made it out and to Atlanta with plenty of time to spare before the Christmas Eve service, so it wasn't a major issue.
After the service we went to Waffle House (per tradition) and subsequently tucked ourselves into bed with a grease coma. We were staying with Darrell's aunt and uncle (mom's side) who have three little ones, so Christmas morning came early with eager anticipation to see what Santa brought (a Wii! They played it pretty much the rest of the day). We left mid-afternoon to spend time with Darrell's other side of the family and have a massive Christmas dinner (cue food coma number two for the weekend).

As I already mentioned, a few inches of snow wrecked havoc in ATL, so Sunday morning we got to sleep in and then go play in it.

Breezy on the attack

Susie playing catch with the snowballs we were throwing

We then spent the rest of the day celebrating Christmas with Darrell's mom's side of the family, which is quite a bit larger than his dad's side, so there was a lot of catching up to do. After grazing on the spread of food all day and a quick stop for ice cream, we went back to where we were staying. The girls already had the Wii fired up, and were playing Just Dance 2.

It was awesome. The big kids kept the dance party going after the younger ones went to bed--there's a few videos on Facebook--and although there is no evidence of it, I will say that we got to witness Darrell shaking it like a polaroid picture. It was quite spectacular.

We left pretty early Monday morning, and although most of the airports on the upper East Coast were closed and delayed from the snow storm, Atlanta was running pretty smoothly and we made it home without any issues.

It was quite a whirlwind weekend, but I can't ever complain about a weekend packed with family, food and fun!

Merry Christmas!

It's a white Christmas here in Atlanta GA! First white Christmas in over one hundred years--pretty cool to see everyone so excited (and nervous!) about it. It's such a different snow than what we get in SoDak--super wet and slushy and perfect for making snowballs. Church has already been cancelled for the morning, so I'm sure there will be a snowball fight on the docket in its place. Pictures and more details to come once we get back to South Dakota! Hope everyone had a good time celebrating with family and loved ones!

Workout FAIL(S)

Workout FAIL number one: Assuming that I can handle 50 minutes of cardio just because I used to be able to handle more than that in college. I'm lucky if I get to the gym twice a week these days (possibly a life FAIL? But that's a topic for a different post), but I still thought I could handle 20 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes on the elliptical last night. Not so much. I was seriously ready for bed by 9:15 I was that exhausted from the workout. And walking up stairs today was a serious issue.

Workout FAIL number two: Assuming that wine and push-ups go together. Pretty obvious, right? But apparently, after a glass or two (or three...) of wine, I feel pretty invincible. And that push-up workout that I forgot to do earlier? Totally managable, according to my inebriated state. Or so I thought. I made it through the workout just fine (maxed out at 17--my highest yet!), but I'm feeling the after effects of it now (a mere ten minutes later). Good thing I don't have to work tomorrow... I might definitely be taking advantage of the opportunity to sleep in. Although I do intend to get another gym workout in tomorrow before we head out of town... We'll see how that goes.

PS Food post tomorrow! I actually cooked tonight, and if I were feeling up to it I would upload the photo now, but there's wine that needs finishing and that's my priority for tonight :-D

Update: My camera decided not to work on Thursday so a food post was not happening (what's a food post without pictures??) It's good enough that I promise it will be coming sometime after Christmas though!

Family Weekend Number One = Success

Well, we officially survived our first crazy weekend of family holidays. Friday night we drove up to Minneapolis and stayed with some friends before meeting up with my dad's family on Saturday to do our Christmas celebration. We even set aside time for a trip to IKEA (looove IKEA) Saturday morning, but a darn accident put a stop to that. Early Sunday morning (after a late night Saturday) we drove to Mitchell SD to celebrate Christmas with my mom's family. And suffice to say, we pretty well crashed when we finally got home Sunday night.
And, on an exciting note, I even remembered to take my camera with me to document our family fun! But did I think to take a picture of the massive brackets my aunt made up for our Wii bowling, MarioKart, and dodgeball tournaments Saturday? Noooo. Did I pull out my camera to catch some of the hysterical action of my parents and other aunts and uncles struggle their way through MarioKart? Nooo. Did I document any of the cousin's crazy antics at the pool during adult swim? Of course not. Despite taking my camera, I left it packed safe and sound in my suitcase during the entire day on Saturday.
So, to make up for it, I made sure to take lots of pictures on Sunday. We went to the nursing home that my grandparents are living at and did some caroling for them and the other residents.

Here's a shot of Darrell and I taking a break from the singing (do you like how well I framed the Happy Holidays? Mad skills people, mad skills).

We opted to do a White Elephant gift exchange this year between all the cousins, aunts and uncles. For those of you unfamiliar with the process, everyone brings "a gift" from their home that they are looking to get rid of, all the gifts go on the table, and everyone draws a number. The first person can pick any gift, opens it, and then person number two can decide if they want to steal the first gift or open their own. Person three can steal either of the first two gifts or open their own. So on and so forth. There ended up being 24 of us playing, so there was quite a bit of random and useless stuff floating around and being stolen (coincidently, the most popular gifts to steal ended up being the ones with edible food. And yes, prefacing with edible is necessary). Once the game ended there was some under the table trading going on, and when all was said and done, this is what Darrell and I walked away with.

Not too shabby if you ask me. I also can't refrain from posting one of the adorable pictures I took of my cousin's sweet little girl. She was dancing around during the caroling, snacking on "affels" all afternoon, and generally smiling and giggling at everyone. I captured this picture while Darrell was busy making faces at her.

Isn't she just the cutest?


What little free time we have this week is going to be packed full of preparations for Family Weekend Number Two--pretty much the same story, but with different characters and set in Georgia! Praying for good weather and safe travels!

Judgmental

I admit it. I totally judge a book by its cover. I love looking through lists of popular and highly acclaimed literature and the searching the books on Barnes and Nobles to see which ones I want to add to my "to read" list (the list is currently over 400 books long...I can be ambitious, right?). But in my searches I've discovered lots of books that deter me based solely on their outward appearance. Take for example, this one: 

I'm not a fan of partial images of people on my books. It's just weird. And often overly cutesy (although this image verges on creepy...) And from my experiences, a lot of books with covers like this tend to be young adult fiction. Not that I have anything against young adult books, but when I curl up with a book I don't exactly want to find myself roaming the halls of a high school and dealing with teenage drama when I'm dealing with paying bills and busted transmissions.
Or then there are books like this:

Does anyone else see a fantasy/supernatural/weird mystery/suspense story? I'm just not feeling it. Plus there is just so much going on--I'm a little overwhelmed and I haven't even opened the book. And don't get me wrong, I've read a few fantasy novels in my time, and they weren't terrible, but I've hardcore been sucked into historical/real-life fiction and I can't get enough of books like that. 
Now here's a book that I can get on board with:

Simple, cute cover with no overly-fancy lettering or excessive editing. Looks like a picture I could take (and would want to take). This is a book that when it pops up during my slew of searching, I take the time to read the synopsis to further decide if I should add it to my list (for the record, it's on there). Superficial? Yes. Judgmental? Yes. But I have to rule out books somehow--there are just so many good books and not enough time to read them all!

Christmas Shopping

Darrell and I have gone out shopping three times with the intent of getting some Christmas shopping done. And here's what the list looks like so far:


Gifts needed for Archer Christmas: 4
Gifts purchased: 0.5


Gifts needed for Griggs Christmas: 5
Gifts purchased: 2


We've gone to the stores three times people, and that's all we have to say for ourselves (should I mention we bought stuff for ourselves on those trips? No? Okay). And the only reason we have two done for the Griggs side is because we always just buy gifts for the Angel Tree and that's our "gift" to Darrell's parents, so of course those were easy ones to take care of (navigating the toy section at Target, however, was not so easy). It's not like we haven't tried--but they are either out of what we want, or the thing we want is WAY overpriced ($30 for Toy Story at Barnes and Noble? No thank you!)  And now we're stuck in a position where we are out of town this weekend and Darrell has training ALL of next week, which means I'm probably going to end up going by myself to get the rest of the gifts. And I do not like driving in crazy Christmas-week traffic. We really need to be better organized next year..... Or maybe the year after that.... 

Toffee Squares

So thanks to the blizzard last weekend, I got a chance to try out some new baking recipes. I definitely spent more time in the kitchen than I intended, and finally got all the counters wiped down and ingredients put away last night, but it was well worth it.
One of the new recipes I tried was for these toffee bars.

They turned out amazingly. And because I'm too lazy to type out the recipe, click here to find it. I did make a few revisions though--one especially worth noting is that instead of using regular chocolate chips I used dark chocolate chips. Some reviews had said these bars were too sweet, but I didn't find that to be the case with mine, so I'll attribute a little bit of that to my chocolate swap (and also to the fact that I have a ridiculous sweet tooth--I eat frosting straight out of the can, so very little is "too sweet"). I also discovered that on Saturday morning I was out of parchment paper, and thanks to the blizzard I was not going to be able to make it to the store to get some. Instead, I used shortening to grease the bottom and sides of the pan, and then floured it slightly. I haven't had any issues getting the bars out of the pan (on a side note, I also discovered the wax paper is not a good substitute for parchment paper--I tried this with a different recipe and when I poured the hot ingredients into the lined pan it loosened the wax and caused it to stick to the pan--and probably to my bars as well. Removing these bars from the pan was a pain, not to mention the lingering wax on the bottom of my pan. I will no longer use waxed paper for baking in the oven or to line pans while hot recipes cool). 


If you try these you'll have to let me know what you think!

The Invisible Wall

I'm not a fan of book reviews/synopses that have spoilers in them, and I especially won't give any spoilers about this book because I think EVERYONE should read it. I LOVED this book. It had some romance, some poverty, some optimism, some heart-breaking moments, and some sweet moments. There were defiant characters, there were characters rising above the odds, but most of all, there were characters who never lost hope. Throw in some serious religious tension, a few drunks, and a war, and you've got yourself The Invisible Wall. 
What I loved most about the book though was it's honesty. These were things that actually happened. These were people that actually lived. And, in our human history, these were barriers that were self-inflicted out of fear--fear of people who were different. In the book the primary focus is on people of different religious backgrounds, but the incidences of discrimination could be easily re-written to exist between different races, different political beliefs, or even different genders. It was utterly captivating--but at the same time disheartening. Because I know, eighty-some years later, that many of these biases still exist. They may not be presented in the same fashion, and they may not be as extreme, but they are still there. And frankly (sadly), I think they always will be, because as a race many humans are inherently scared of what is unknown and different.

Blizzard!

So yesterday I went running outside and today it looks like this:

That's a legit blizzard people. Every now and then we can't see our neighbor's house directly across the street. Ridiculous. As you can well imagine, pretty much everything is closed, which means we have no reason to leave the house today. Perfectly wonderful. I keep my baking supplies stocked well enough that I only needed to borrow two eggs from my neighbor, and she was even nice enough to bring them over--through the two foot drifts in the middle of the road. Darrell has been able to do some work from home, although he's spent the majority of the past 30 minutes documenting this blizzard. On the agenda for the rest of the day? Baking, games, movies, and of course, cocoa!

(For the record, this weather is apparently nothing like what Minneapolis is getting. They've gotten twice as much snow as we have in the past twelve hours. My well-wishes to everyone up there--stay warm!)

It's beginning to feel a lot like... March?!?!

It's a day for the record books ladies and gentlemen. On this 10th day of December, in the year 2010, I went running outside. OUTSIDE. In South Dakota. In December. Unheard of (and least for non-hardcore runners). Decembers in South Dakota are usually either way too windy or too snowy to run outside, but not today. The temp was in the high thirties (as it's been the past few days), and even in our partially undeveloped neighborhood there was hardly any wind to speak of. It was glorious. I busted out two miles in no time at all. Which felt really good, especially since my last few treadmill runs have felt terrible. I do not like those machines--but I dislike running on a 200-meter track even less. Makes me feel like I'm constantly turning.

Anyway, we're off to a date night (reservations at 6:45!), which is MUCH needed after this crazy week. Have a good weekend!

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Thursday nights are quickly becoming our crock-pot nights. Darrell works until eight so it is my night to cook, and many weeks I end up working until seven or eight myself, so I usually just put something in the crock-pot before I leave in the morning. Yesterday's meal was even more last minute than usual, as I had been planning on making a Thai pasta dish, but then found out that I needed to work until eight. So Wednesday night I dug through our pantry and freezer looking for an easy alternative. Luckily, we had just bought some hamburger buns for burgers last week, and since I've been craving BBQ pork sandwiches for weeks I was sold. And they couldn't have been easier to prepare.

Enter glorious crock-pot:

That's some good ol' pork cooking away. All I did was put a little BBQ dry rub on it (we make our own), covered it in rootbeer (I think we'll use actual beer next time), and let it cook on low for eight hours. It was so tender that it started to fall apart as I tried to pull it out, which made shredding it really easy (just pull at it with two forks and you're golden). We lathered them up in some home-made BBQ sauce and we were good to go!

(For the record, they turned out delicious.)

I was also excited because I got to try out a feature of our oven that we haven't used in the 14 months that we've owned it. Our oven has a delayed start feature on it, so I slipped some acorn squash in the oven, set it to turn on at 7:40, and walked away. I’ll admit that I was a little nervous—it seemed like there were so many things that could go wrong—but in reality the only problem we had was not starting it soon enough (I forgot to take into consideration the time that the oven needed to pre-heat when I set the start time). Here is the squash waiting patiently for the oven to turn on and cook it.

The squash is super easy as well--in fact, it’s a new favorite of ours--just cut it in half, scoop out all the seeds (like you would a cantaloupe, but they have more the texture of a pumpkin), place it on a cookie sheet (clean-up is way easier if you line it with foil), and bake at 400 degrees for 30-ish minutes. You want the insides to be nice and soft and easy to scoop out; an easy check to see if it’s are done is to squeeze the sides. 

All in all a pretty solid meal considering neither of us walked in the door until after 8:15 and we were eating at the table by 8:30!

Thoughtless Drivers

I consider myself to be a pretty tame driver. I'm cautious (sometimes maybe more than I need to be), I respect speed limits (90% of the time), and I rarely use my horn because I try to give other drivers the benefit of the doubt. When I'm stuck behind a slow driver, I let it remind myself to slow down and relax--wherever I'm going will still be there a minute later. Besides, especially in winter weather, I'm often that too-slow driver, so I figure it's only fair not to get mad when it happens to me. When someone cuts me off, I try to remind myself that they are perhaps rushing to an emergency, and I would be driving like that as well in their situation. When someone doesn't use a blinker, I remind myself that perhaps they are attempting to use it, but it is broken. I went an entire summer being "that" driver because we knew it was an electrical issue and needed to save money up to pay for it. 


But when people are driving in the right lane and get stopped at a red-light when they are NOT making a right-hand turn--man, that drives me crazy! Especially when they are driving in the right-hand lane for no reason at all. I have watched people drive in the right-hand lane for MILES before making a right-hand turn, and holding up turning traffic behind them at many a stoplight along the way. I understand that traffic sometimes get congested during "rush hour" and people may be afraid of not being able to make a lane change, but really people? It's Sioux Falls. Traffic isn't THAT bad. And you are doing more of a disservice by backing up cars behind you who are trying to get off the "busy" road anyway. And what about when there are no other people on the road? C'mon people! If you are coming up to a red light and you aren't making a right-hand turn, move into the left lane so the people behind you can get on their way! Right turns on red are allowed for a reason--they help keep traffic flowing!


Now, I'm not claiming that I'm perfect, and I occasionally find that I've spaced off and am holding up people--but I have honestly made a right-hand turn at a light that I wasn't planning on turning at because cars were backing up behind me that needed to turn. No joke. Now if only other drivers would return the favor....especially when it's 8:15 at night and I'm heading home for the first time since 7:30 that morning....and there are no other cars on the road.....and all I need to do is make a Right. Hand. TURN!

Getting Ready for Christmas

I must confess, Pandora has been playing Christmas music in full swing at our house this past week and half. Amazingly, Darrell has been on board with it, and he even discovered a new artist whose Christmas carols he liked so much he went out and got the CD (Straight No Chaser--they've got some really fun Christmas medleys). We started decorating our house Thanksgiving Day, but it just wasn't complete until last Saturday when we went and cut down our tree, which was a fun (but chilly!) experience.
Here we are with our find:

Darrell was able to cut it down pretty effortlessly, much to my appreciation (I took a few unsuccessful pulls on the saw before handing it back to him)

We got it all decorated that evening (with decorations we bought on clearance last Christmas!), and I love the way it looks all lit up!

And of course, we couldn't refrain from using the tripod to take a few cheesy Christmas card-esque photos in front of the tree (don't worry, we aren't actually using these for our Christmas cards)

Darrell was a trooper through the whole process--he had a hard time getting his legs to bend that way, so he just stayed put during the whole ordeal while I kept fiddling with the settings and trying to find a comfortable position for myself. 


And then on Sunday we woke up to this beautiful sight outside!

Now I know, we live in South Dakota, it snows all the time, but this was the first pretty snow we've gotten all year (and truthfully, I don't remember ANY pretty snows last winter. Last winter was miserable). Usually when it snows the wind is blowing thirty miles an hour and it's miserable (like this snowfall), but Sunday morning it was just peacefully dropping little bits of snowy heaven. I was seriously ready for some Christmas festivities on Sunday, so Darrell and I decided to use the afternoon to get some shopping done. We may have ended up buying more stuff for ourselves than for actual holiday gifts...but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. 


Still no update on the car, but Darrell is good and ready to chew their asses when they do call! Apparently, if it's the piece Darrell thinks it is, we're pretty sure we can prove that they damaged it while it was in the shop. Besides, it's just TOO coincidental that the light came on for the first time EVER as soon as we turned the car on in their parking lot. I made sure to tell the guy that when I dropped the car off last night and he just kind of looked at me blankly. Apparently he's not used to getting lip from women about cars. So hopefully good news on the horizon about that!

My Dear Car

So I'll be honest, I've been feeling some major animosity toward my car recently. Not only did the transmission crap out on me (see here), but prior to that my coolant sensor decided to stop working so it beeps at me EVERY. DAY. to remind me that I need to check my coolant. Which I don't. So I've taken to just dealing with it. Because electrical issues are expensive. Additionally, only half the lights on my console work, but thankfully it's just the ones on my RPM gauge and the speeds of higher than 90 mph, so that hasn't necessitated getting fixed either, because really, I never use either of those. And it didn't help matters any that while my car was in the shop to get its new transmission my neighbor was kind enough to let me drive their spare truck. And I LOVE trucks. Like, I would totally buy one as my next car if it were even slightly practical. So when Saturday came and we were able to go pick up my car I had some mixed feelings. It did look a little sad sitting there in the parking lot, so I was feeling good about getting behind the wheel again, but it must have sensed my shifting alliances because as soon as I started driving away it decided that it wasn't done being in the shop. Yeah, that's right, ANOTHER issue. But a much more significant one than the previously mention annoyances. My airbag light came on. Now, I'm a very cautious driver and have never been in a situation where my airbag has needed to deploy, but let's be real. It's winter in South Dakota and I'm not about to tempt Murphy's Law. Darrell did some research and we're pretty sure it's the "clock spring", which connects the steering wheel to the rest of the car. The car is still technically fine and safe to drive--just no airbag. Or cruise control. Or horn. I can live without the last two, but (quite literally) probably not without the first one. So back into the shop it goes. And back to my neighbor's truck I go (thank God for wonderful friends!). This should be a much quicker, and cheaper, fix...but at this point we might as well have a running tab at the mechanics. Joy.


And just to remind myself that my car is cute and fun and I do actually enjoy driving it, I decided that I'll post a picture of it. Not my car exactly, but the same make and model. My cute Little Boy Blue. 

100 Push-ups?!?!

That's right, as of this morning, I have officially started the 100 push-up challenge. In a mere six-weeks I will be fully capable of busting out 100 push-ups. Or at least that's the goal. I'm already off to a rough start--for my first exhaustion test this morning I thought that I would surely be able to do at least 10 "good" push-ups. Apparently that was too optimistic, because my arms caved as I was attempting to push back up on my seventh one. 

Now, before you get all judgmental about my fitness level (or lack thereof), let me defend myself by saying that I could very easily lay down right now and complete fifteen push-ups--they certainly wouldn't be pretty, but they'd be push-ups. But I decided that if I really want to see results from this program then I'm going to focus on doing the push-ups right, and doing them slowly. It may take a little bit more work, but hey, I can handle that. Especially if it gives me arms like this:

Just kidding :-D

The Invisible Wall

So I just started reading The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein and I am In. Love. I am totally sucked in. Sadly I have to go to my second job tonight so it will be awhile before I can pick it back up again. I'm so excited though--the last book I read (As I Lay Dying) was one that I stubbornly pushed myself through just because it's a classic and well-revered and I am incapable of starting a book and not finishing it. But try as I might, I couldn't get into it. And it was making me disinclined to read. Although I'm glad I stuck it out because the ending ended up being more interesting than I expected. But I digress. The Invisible Wall is well on it's way to becoming a permanent fixture on my bookshelf--after a quick trip to North Carolina so Darrell's sister can read it (can you believe it? A sister-in-law I can swap books with! Heaven). 

Yum

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the results of my holiday baking extravaganza: 

There are five, yes five, varieties of Christmas-y wonderfulness in that tin. We have the classic peanut butter blossom, also know as the chocolate star cookie. There is also the ever-popular (and ever time-consuming) peanut butter ball. A new recipe for me this year was the cherry bing bar, and they turned out to be little bites of fudgy deliciousness. Unfortunately, the recipient of this tin got unfrosted sugar cookies, but rest assured the remainder have been beautifully iced (I even got asked if it was an old family recipe someone liked them so much! Sadly, it was just an internet recipe). And lastly, one of Darrell's new favorites, the oatmeal cinnamon chip cookie. That's right, Hershey's now makes a cinnamon-flavored chip, but we've only seen it available during the holidays. Needless to say, we have two bags stashed in my baking cupboard.
Darrell and I are also very lucky to have wonderful friends and family who are willing to take one for the team and take some of these off our hands, because lord knows we don't need all of these sugary, diabetes-inducing treats sitting around our house. And we've given so many away that I have to bake again this weekend so Darrell has enough to take for his treat exchange at work next week. Such a disaster.
Can't you just tell that I hate baking?

First Snow

So, I was all set to blog yesterday, I even had my camera ready to go with a picture on it, and then my computer decided it didn't want to upload my picture. Boo. But, I've resolved the problem, and am back today ready to talk about our first "snow".
For those of you who have never experienced winter in South Dakota, I put the "snow" in parentheses for good reason. For starters, I don't count it as real snow unless you can do something worthwhile with it--and since all we got was (and all we usually get is) light fluffy powdered stuff that blows across the roads like tiny grains of sand, I'm not actually going to flatter it with the name snow. More like puffs of ice. Secondly, even if it were real snow, no one would have been able to do anything with it anyway since the temperature with windchill was below zero. Doesn't really scream "Build me a snowman" kind of weather. That being said, it was enough precipitation to cause some travel issues, but nothing quite as bad as the freezing rain we had a few weeks ago. Here is the view from our deck the following morning.

See? Nothing exciting. Just miserably, miserably, cold and windy.

The highlight of the week though has been driving my neighbor's truck! I have always had a secret love for trucks and all large vehicles, and totally wish Darrell and I could justify the gas-guzzling tendencies and other expenses associated with getting one. Probably won't ever happen, so for now I'll just enjoy it while I can.

I'll be back tomorrow to show off the fruits of my labor on the day after Thanksgiving--got to love days off of work!

Blessings

I seriously wish I could take the Thanksgiving that Darrell and I shared and relive it everyday--like the classic movie Groundhog Day. It was so wonderful to just be together and relax. And let me tell you, after the three-day Thanksgiving marathon that my family celebrated, I could use another full day of relaxation. But alas, another work week has begun, and it is quickly spinning into the chaotic holiday season, so for now I will just hold onto that memory and dream of more days like it to come.


Before this holiday season gets totally out of control, though, I do want to list a few things that I am thankful for. I know I don't always cherish these things as much as I should, but hopefully when life gets a little too crazy and I start to throw a pity party for myself I can always look back on this and remember how great I really do have it.

• My wonderful husband, who cooks and cleans and does all the other things I should be better about doing myself (or at least helping with). He is also eternally patient with me, and I can honestly say he's made me a better person (who knew red peppers were actually delicious??)
• My family, who, despite their craziness and ability to turn Thanksgiving into a three-day affair, are always supportive. I heard a co-worker say today that every year around the holidays she pledges to patch things up with her brother, but never quite gets around to it. I'm glad I don't have to worry about that
• My in-laws, who have treated me like a daughter and a sister since I first met them. I always get annoyed when people make the general assumption that "no one" likes their in-laws because I love mine dearly 
• My friends, many of whom have been there for all of my major life events, from the first day of kindergarten to my wedding. It's so wonderful to still be close with a group of girls after so many years. And of course, there is nothing like new friends who will allow you to borrow a car for a week while yours is (still!) stuck in the shop, for the mere exchange of a plate of cookies
• Our house, which despite being located in freezing SD (winter weather advisory today, joy), is absolutely wonderful and so perfect for Darrell and I. I also feel incredibly blessed that we were able to purchase a house at a fairly young age (we closed just over a year ago), and a lot of that is due to great support on college loans that allowed us to graduate debt-free
• Our jobs, which we are both happy with and where we have pretty solid job security. And truthfully, even though both of us working two jobs isn't completely necessary financially, our part-time jobs are at such an incredible organization that we don't really want to give up being a part of it

I know there are more, but that covers all the major ones. Even though I know I will inevitably complain about each and every one of these, deep down I do truly know they are a blessing. And I promise, there will be less sentimentality next post; this whole sappiness thing just isn't really my style

Our Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! Hopefully sometime later this weekend, or Monday at the latest, I'll have a chance to blog about some of the things I'm most thankful for this year. But we're leaving soon to go visit my grandparents, so all I'll mention right now is being thankful for this:

Darrell and I both had the day off yesterday, and no family commitments, so we spent the entire day relaxing and preparing our own "mini" Thanksgiving feast. We had spinach salad with cranberries and raspberry vinegrite dressing, garlic cheddar biscuits, sweet potato casserole (had to have at least one traditional dish!), and Moroccan-style lamb. Everything was fantastic, and it was so wonderful to be able to spend the whole day together with nothing to do. Here's to hoping for many more of those days in the months to come!

Junk Mail

Dear Chase:
Please stop sending Darrell credit card applications and special offers and all the other garbage that you are filling our mailbox with. We got three (that's right, three!) pieces of mail from you yesterday, all which promptly got torn in half and recycled. While we appreciate you adding to our recycling, and thereby increasing our RecycleBank points, it has become excessive. It would be much better for the environment, your company's profit margin, and our sanity if you JUST. STOPPED. We have never gotten, and will never get, a credit card from you.
That is all.
Love, Jess and Darrell

Crock Pot to the Rescue!

So an unfortunate side effect of my not having a car is that our dinner schedule gets thrown all out of whack. You see, both Darrell and I work two jobs (a full-time one in the day, and a part-time one a few hours a week in the evening), and we have it pretty well coordinated so that one of us is always home to make dinner. I was a product of "boxed" dinners growing up (and I blame those on my lack of diverse taste buds during my adolescence--some might call it being finicky), but when Darrell and I first started dating and he began cooking for me, my taste buds exploded. I now eat mushrooms and peppers and strawberries and just about everything else under the sun. But I diverge.

As I was saying, we always try to cook something fresh for dinner, nothing boxed or frozen. But when a busted transmission leaves me car-less and Darrell has to stay in town until I get off work at 7, it's rather late for us to go home, roll up our sleeves, and get dinner going. Enter crock pot. To whomever got this for us as a wedding gift, we thank you again and again. Yesterday morning before we left we threw some meat, onions, salsa, peppers, and a few seasonings into the pot, set it to cook on low for eight hours, and came home to a wonderful meal of fajitas. No additional work necessary. It was marvelous. And definitely my type of cooking--throw it together and let it go. Darrell is much more the slave over the stove kind of chef in our house. 

And to reward myself for all the time I saved by not having to cook dinner I decided to make cookies. That's right, the holiday madness has begun. I am a cookie (well, really, any kind of dessert) fiend. I fully plan to utilize my day off on Friday by filling our house with all sorts of sugary goodness. Might have to schedule a few extra gym visits in December, but it will totally be worth it. Totally. 

A Little Unexpected Adventure

I'm not even sure where to begin with our weekend recap. On paper we had a pretty simple weekend planned--date night Friday night, visiting friends on Saturday, and preparing our menu and shopping for Thanksgiving on Sunday. And up until Sunday, things were going as planned. Our date night experience was a little sub-par; it's a restaurant we've been to before and enjoyed, so when we had an opportunity to get a coupon there we jumped on it. Well, turns out that since we've last been there they've changed locations, and we just didn't have a good experience at the new location. To begin, our seats were literally in the bar area, even though we'd waited 45 minutes for a table. Now, I fully understand the necessity of needing to utilize all available seating area--but when we went out for a "romantic" dinner, I wasn't expecting to have to compete for my husband's attention with the basketball games that were being televised. We also weren't given a wine list because of our "baby faces" (word to all wait-staff: do not assume we are under-21. If you are going to card us, at the very least assume we are 21 and provide us with what we need to order. And then do not comment on our baby faces like it is a compliment. We are 25 and 26 people. Comparing us to babies is a good way to hurt your tip). But we brushed that aside and ordered a bottle of the house wine--which was served to us in small water glasses. We're not talking stemless wine glasses here, but honest to goodness water glasses, albeit slightly smaller than the ones we had water in. We were less than impressed. Thankfully, we ended the evening by going shopping for our adorable nephew who is turing two this weekend, and by the time we got home we were in much better spirits.


Saturday morning was busy with both of us at work, but by 1:00 we were on the road to go visit our dear friends and their 2-month old little girl. And, alas, I already broke my first goal of blogging by forgetting to take my camera. Not that we had much opportunity for pictures; they are currently in the process of building a new home (which will hopefully be finished early next week!) so we spent most of the time out there loading and unloading boxes and appliances. Always a good time with those two though, manual labor or not. We ended up staying for dinner and staying way later than we anticipated, which was fine except for the fact that by the time we ended up getting on the road it had started to rain. And in South Dakota in November, when it rains, it freezes. So our two-hour drive home took a little longer than normal, but we made it home without issue. Can't quite say the same for the handful of cars we saw in accidents though.


We were actually able to sleep in on Sunday, which never happens, so we took full advantage of it. We even decided to stay home from church (eek!) since we didn't have to teach Sunday School and treat ourselves to a big breakfast--which subsequently forced us to lay down and nap for about half an hour on our full bellies. After planning our Thanksgiving menus for both the meal between the two of us and the meal at my parent's, we set in to town to do some grocery shopping, but not before hitting the gym. Despite having one of the longest grocery lists we've ever had, we were able to get most of our goods on sale so we didn't blow our grocery budget too badly. And then the fun started....


My car had been in town all weekend because we left Saturday straight from work. After picking up our groceries, we drove over to get my car. We had to spend a lovely ten minutes scraping ice off it (have I told you how much I love our garage?), but before long it was warmed up and ready go. Now, I should preface this story with saying that my car is a 2003 with over 100,000 miles, and over the course of the past week it hadn't been running incredibly smoothly, especially when it needed to change gears. I attributed it to the weather getting colder, though, and left it at that. Sunday afternoon was no different, it was shifting noticeably hard as I left the parking lot, and had some difficulty getting into a gear high enough for me to travel at 40 mph. I started to get nervous when the problem didn't go away after a few miles, especially because my RPMs kept jumping way up whenever I tried to accelerate, and started to stay really high. I called Darrell (who was following me, thankfully) and we pulled over in a nearby parking lot. He decided to jump behind the wheel and see for himself how it was driving. We made it a few blocks from the parking lot and he was able to get it up to 55 mph (within the speed limit, of course), so we figured it just needed a lot of time to warm up after sitting outside overnight. But when we turned around to head back to the parking lot, the card stopped moving. No amount of pressure on the gas pedal would cause the car to move; the engine/transmission just spun like we were trying to accelerate in neutral. Never a good thing (but reassuring for me that it wasn't just my driving causing issues). Thankfully I'm still on my dad's AAA plan, so we were able to get a free tow, but not after sitting in the car for thirty minutes. Some good Samaritan was nice enough to drive Darrell the few blocks to his car so he could drive home and put the groceries away, then drive back out to sit and wait with me. At least the car didn't die completely so it would still run and keep me warm, plus I had my atlas there for some leisure reading. And surprisingly, I was mildly amused by the whole situation. Usually I would freak out about stuff like this, but maybe it was because the timing was good (or as good as timing can ever be for your car to break down), or because I wasn't actually the one driving when it stopped working; either way, I thought the whole situation was rather comical. I have a picture on my phone of them towing my car, now I just have to figure out how to upload it.


The not-so-funny part hit home today when Darrell and I realized the difficulty of only having one car when we work in different cities--and when I work a shift at my second job to boot. Not to mention the phone call to let us know that the entire transmission is shot, which means no car for at least a week and a hefty bill. We hope that in the long run fixing the transmission pays off to be cheaper than buying a new car--and in the meantime, I'm going to be bumming rides off of lots of people! Thankfully it's a holiday week, so now I have an excuse to do nothing but sit at home and bake cookies my two and a half days off work :-D

Setting Sail

Welp, here goes nothing. 
I've been debating about embarking into the "blogging world" for some time now, but always reasoned that I didn't have a good enough reason to take up cyberspace. I'm not training for a marathon. I'm not planning a wedding. I'm not even a "true" newlywed (six months on Monday!). I'm not building a house or moving. I'm not planning to start a family--child, dog, or otherwise. I don't have crafty or cooking expertise to share. I'm just an average Midwestern girl (Jess), married to typical East Coast boy (Darrell)--but you know what, I've decided that's good enough. I've learned that if I wait until the "perfect" time for everything that a lot of opportunity goes by the wayside, and this, my friends, might very well have been one of those lost opportunities. So carpe diem, buck tradition, and all that other inspirational mumbo jumbo.
In truth, I'm hoping to blog more for some personal gains that worldly gains. I'm pretty terrible with correspondences--while I do remember cards for most birthdays, anniversaries, and other major holidays, I've let the spreading of my friends and family across the country (and world!) become an excuse for falling out of touch. It's not as personal as a card or letter, and I do still want to get better at that, but it's a start. I also recently realized that my husband and I are pretty terrible at taking pictures. I was attempting to design our 2011 calendar, and ran out of pictures of us with four months still left to fill (excluding wedding pictures of course. I restrained myself and only did our anniversary month in wedding pictures--and the following month with honeymoon pictures). So hopefully having this blog space will entice me to take more photos and document our lives, because really, we aren't that boring of people. Lastly, blogging gives me a chance to do something I've enjoyed all my life--write. I was a journaling fiend in high school, filling seven in the span of four years. But then college and the real world caught up to me and I fell out of the habit. But I'm ready to fall back in--and this time, I'm taking others with me!