New things

I tackled bread making this week! Not successfully, mind you, but at least I tried. I am having problems getting it to rise properly, so this week I'm adding more yeast to see if that helps. I have a few more things to try if that doesn't work. 3 inch high loaves aren't helpful for sandwiches, but Hubby loves it with his dinners.

I have found that allrecipes.com is soooo cool! I can type in something like 'chicken casserole' and scroll through all the recipes till I find one that has ingredients that I have on hand. Love it. Also, this little magazine is a handy helper too. Its FREE! Just go online to kraftfoods.com/free to sign up. Sure, its a thick advertisement for Kraft foods, but its full of fast, easy and tasty recipes. And if you want to use the name brand ingredients, that's up to you!

Also, we went to Hubby's cousin Kenny's wedding on Saturday. Beautiful day for a wedding, it's finally looking like spring! I could finally get out my strapy sandals too! The bridesmaids were wearing knee length strapless slate-navy blue dresses with light pink sashes. I'd never seen those colors work together so well before. Their bouquets were pink roses and wax flowers framed with broad leaf greenery, and looked really beautiful. The dinner reception was at a hotel in Cape May right on the beach, and we were privy to stunning sunset. Ahhhhh... tis the season for love.

Speaking of which, my mother is getting married in TWO weeks! Cinco de Mayo is the day! She sounds happy but busy busy, as usual.

Branded

How's this for self-esteem? I get to drive around with this plastered on my windshield. NJ requires all vehicles to get 'inspected' every year. A team of disgruntled government employees pick over your car, slam on your brakes, honk your horn, test your gas cap and mess with your mirror and seat adjustments. It's all very humiliating but necessary I suppose to keep our roads safe. Then as a final insult they slap this sticker on my car. Something about having California numbers on my NJ insurance card. I failed inspection in my new home state! Ug. I was crushed. Especially since I had waited in line for 40 min and would have to do it all over again!

Nat'l Telecommunicators Week

April 8-14 is

National Dispatcher Week

Special recognition to all the men and women

under the headset.

I would say "have you thanked your local dispatcher this week?" but don't you dare call unless it's actually an emergency!! Instead, the next time you do need to call the police or 911, listen to what they are saying and answer the questions they ask you. They are trying to help YOU. Please do what they ask you to do. Know that they honestly want to help if they can if you have a real emergency. Please forgive them if they are a little short with you, remember that they are a valuable resource that is abused each day by people who are lazy and rude. They are the ones who can send you the help you need. Take a second and say thanks to the dispatcher before you hang up, it would mean a lot to them. After listening to people in crisis all day, its nice to hear that someone appreciates their help.

911 is about life and death situations and medical emergencies. Every call that they answer that deals with anything else- takes resources away from those who genuinely need it.

Hats and Jackets

Happy Easter!
It was 38 degrees today but
I still wore my spring hat!

And thanks to my hustband,
I gained a new respect for this
piece of spring clothing this
afternoon. Augusta National is
absolutely beautiful.

Oh Spring, where art thou?

Katie and I went to a Beatrix Potter Tea Party. A very 'spring' thing to do. Even the Easter Bunny was there. We had cups of tea, tiny sandwiches and lots of little sugary things. It was in an old Victorian house turned Bed&Breakfast, and after lunch they had readings of Beatrix Potter stories in the carriage house, followed by an easter egg hunt for the kids in the garden. It was a lot of fun. However, it was 34 degrees today. It actually was snowing at our house this evening. Would someone PLEASE tell New Jersey that its SPRING! How am I supposed to wear a nice spring dress, white straw hat and sandals for Easter sunday if its freezing outside?!

Quilting Progress

My first attempt at quilting is going surprisingly well. This leads me to believe I'm either missing something really important, or I haven't gotten to the hard part yet. I got one of those cutting matts and one of the sharp roller dealy-jobbers which is really fun to play with and makes the job a lot easier. Would you believe there are no quilters in Oz out here? After moving from a town rich with experienced quilters, I pick now to attempt making one myself. My timing is really lousy. I love our homemade quilt, btw!!

City of Brotherly Love

This statue is way smaller than I expected it to be. We had fun! Lots of walking, and we stopped at the Amish market on the way home for some goodies.

Sis is here

It's so good to have her here, I have missed my family soooo much. My cat too. I begged her to sneak Squeak into her suitcase, but Hubby said no way. We went to DC on Monday and went to an art museum. My sister is very knowledgeable about art and was explaining otherwise meaningless globs of paint to us in a way that actually made them interesting! DC was beautiful with blooms everywhere, and the weather was fantastic. On Tuesday we went to the DC Zoo. I love zoos. One of my favorite animals is the Meerkat, and they happened to have a baby one there! I was tickled pink. They are hysterical to watch. Last night Hubby, Sis and I went up to Philly to see the Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute. It was absolutely amazing. They have a lot of the artifacts found in Tut's tomb along with many others dating further back. Its weird to look at everyday items like a child's chair, and think that a child was actually sitting in it 3300 years ago. (Did I do the math right? ~1330 BC?) What were they like? What did they look like? Did I mention I love history? Hubby really likes Egyptian art and architecture so he really enjoyed it as well. Tomorrow we are off to Philly to do some more sightseeing.

New Baby

For those of you who know my cousin Heidi, here is her new baby girl, Lexie. Congrats to new Mommy and Daddy!

There are some more pictures on my uncle's website:

http://philsautoteacher.tripod.com/lexie/

Missing home

I had the worst craving for shrimp cocktail. Not the kind they have here though, which consists of just shrimp and dipping sauce. Back home the mexican restaurants would serve it more like a soup. La Casita near where I used to work had the best. So, I decided to make my own. Start with homemade salsa, then add shrimp, avocado, cucumber, cocktail sauce, ketchup, green onion, and cilantro. Man, I love that stuff. Served with tortilla chips, it hit the spot. Hubby actually liked it too!

Back from Virginia

We just got home from our last minute trip to Lynchburg,Virginia. Mark and Andrea R. were down there with their family at a home-school basketball tournament, when Andrea was taken to the hospital. She learned she had a massive bacterial infection that started from a bladder infection (or urinary tract inf., I can't remember). After a few days of being really sick, with what she thought was food poisoning, her blood pressure tanked and she fainted in the hotel room. This prompted her to call 911. Before the medics arrived, she drank a Pepsi... Wouldn't you know -it brought her pressure up long enough for them to tell her she was going to be ok. (what are they putting in soda now days?!) Mark took her to the hospital to get checked out at Dr. Philip I.'s advice. By the time they got there, her pressure was down around 70/40, and she was septic. After pumping antibiotics through a central line, the doctor said that if she had waited one more day to come in, they wouldn't have been able to save her. That was Thursday.

Hubby and I drove down there on Saturday. Andrea had been steadily improving, and by tonight she was walking around and looking much better. John and Lorie R. and Joseph and Joanna C. were also down there with us. We ended up having meeting in a hotel room in Virginia, which turned out to be one of the nicest I've been to. Even those who don't normally, participated. It gave me fresh appreciation for Matthew 18:20, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Andrea's doctors say there doesn't appear to be any permanent damage to her kidneys, and she should recover completely. Hopefully she will be released Monday or Tuesday. Morals of the story: 1) prayer is a powerful healing tool, and 2) go to the doctor right away when if you get a bladder or urinary tract infection - it maybe caused by something very bad.


In other news, we got our carpet cleaned by Jim and Brian. They did a fantastic job.

New Toy

Hubby is now the proud papa of a new Xbox 360. He spent all last evening cleaning up the wire jungle that occupied the guest bedroom/office, and installed his this new little box. I was told this is a more space efficient way to go, and he was right, the jungle is gone, and there is just the one little white box. Very nice. Aparently Xbox also has Windows Media Center, so we can watch tv, recorded tv/movies, and music from the Xbox instead of a pc, AND he can play Call of Duty 3! :0) Windows Media Center is pretty cool, I have to admit. It manages practically everything using a computer.

Phun with Photoshop

Woohoo! This small feat took me a whole evening to do. I have been fighting with Photoshop for days. It would help if I actually read the manual first. I have a .pdf file on the computer that is a tutorial of sorts, but I have to keep switching back and forth between screens (love Windows Vista, btw). I got the background off the internet, and Kate is wearing my high school prom dress. Yikes, that was over 10 yrs ago!

Play Day

For all of you enjoying California sunshine, I would just like to point out that it has snowed twice since I posted last. I have uttered "it is such a nice day" a few times, and felt really guilty/annoyed/deceived when I realized it was only in the 50's.

On Saturday, Kate, Jodi, and Jolene came over and went through all of my 'dress up' clothes I have collected over the years. They were having so much fun trying them on and parading around the house I had to bring out the hats and gloves too. I wish I still fit into some of those!

Yes, that is my wedding dress. I didn't mind really. I'm not planning on wearing it again, and they might as well have fun with it. I want to make sure its taken care of though. One of my many fond memories of playing at Grandma F's was that she let us play with her wedding dress. It was out of really heavy (for a little girl) cream satin, and I remember feeling sooo elegant as I pranced around the house and down the stairs in it.

New Table!

This is our new dining room table. I am very thankful for it. Hubby and I both really like it. Yes, the pool table light is still there... for now. : )

Reception in NJ

They threw us a reception in NJ on Saturday. It was upstairs in the meeting room. Hubby's mom and Andrea R. put everything together. Cindi made a collage out of pics of hubby and I. It turned out really nice. The food was delicious, potluck style, then we had a brief hymn

sing afterwards. Everyone has been very kind and generous to us. I really appreciate how welcome they have made me feel.

Thanks Mom

I was tired of unpacking, so I tackled a project. I made a table runner! I have a duplicate runner that I'll add that material in the back to, and I intend to make a tablecloth to match for the dining room. Thank you Mom for the sewing machine and sewing kit. I had everything I needed!

Stained glass and other niceties

We put up the stained glass window from Aunt Karen last night. It looks so elegant. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the color of the wall really compliments the colored glass. It's a north facing wall, so it won't get direct sunlight, but it makes a stunning statement as people enter the house. THANK YOU Aunt Karen! Scott really likes it too! I unpacked my espresso machine too. Aaaahhh. I have missed cappuccino in the morning. The kitchen is pretty much all done, and the living room is back in order. Now I have to work on my clothes (yea!), craft closet, hat closet, and everything we temporarily 'dumped' in the spare bedroom.

FUZZ plague

HELP!!?! I have a serious fuzz problem and it's driving me crazy. Have you ever noticed that when you get new towels, they leave fuzzy stuff all over you when you dry off? Very annoying, so I am washing my new towels several times to help with that. When I took the first load out of the washer, I panicked thinking a Kleenex had gotten in the load. Nope, it was fuzz. Mutant, multiplying fuzz. I have washed those towels TWICE in a row so far. And I run the dryer for 20 minutes, clean out the very full lint trap, and run them again. Over and over, the fuzz keeps coming. This is the dryer lint from 2 loads. It's ridiculous. I even tried picking some of it off the towels before I put them in the dryer, but it didn't seem to help.

Does anyone know how to treat towels for fuzz? Or is there anything that can be done other than washing them over and over again?

Moving Day

Today I finally got my things. Wahoo! I have been living out of a suitcase for nearly 4 weeks. I can't believe guys can function with only 3 pairs of shoes, if even that many. I was going nuts, AND my feet were freezing. We got all but one box, which the driver claims he was never given at the warehouse, yet it was on his list... But one missing out of 108 isn't bad. One box split open too apparently and they just dumped the contents into another box. Well, now I am missing a much loved hat box (they gave me just the top to it), and 3! black wool hats, 2 of which were vintage. I am really bummed. Sure, they are sending claim forms to fill out,, but I loved my hats. :( The fact that I have no idea what was in the missing box is very disturbing too. They just describe the boxes or items on their manifests, they don't list what is inside them.

Mark and Andrea came over with their 2 boys and Kate. They were all a tremendous help. It had mercifully stopped raining and snowing, but we still set up a fire brigade line to bring things in and up the stairs, so as to save the carpet. Andrea and Kate helped me unpack and put away all my kitchen stuff. It was bitter cold out today, in the 20's with winds gusting up to 40 mph. Verrrry chilly.

In other news... Sara is having a baby girl. I'm so excited, my best friend is having a baby!