Domestic Goddess in Training

I am not domestic. I’ve said it a hundred times on this blog. I hate cleaning. I can cook, but I don’t really enjoy it and I’m not good with just making up recipes. I would love to decorate, but since I knew we were leaving in a year, I didn’t put much on the walls here. So apparently nesting isn’t my thing either. I’m a little messy. Not dirty messy, but clothes and such messy. I don’t go on cleaning binges. Cleaning doesn’t help me relieve stress. I’ve always loved to bake, but I have to be in the mood and sometimes get flustered when I don’t know what a recipe wants me to do.

But, I’m working on it.

Last semester (and yes, because of law school, and soon to be grad school, I still count our lives in semesters. Can’t wait for THAT to end), while I was unemployed, I tried my hand at meal planning and cooking new recipes. I had the free time and thought I should do it since Mr. A was in school.

I liked it sometimes, but meal planning was hard for me and such a pain in the butt. I wasn’t good at creating a meal plan that contained similar items, so I would end up spending a small fortune on ingredients that i would use for one meal and then it would go bad. And we were on a limited budget, so spending $150 a week just on groceries wasn’t going to work.

But I enjoyed cooking some meals. The beer braised beef recipe was delicious. Melissa’s bruschetta recipe is still a staple in our house. (Add some goat cheese for a different twist. But her directions are flawless!) Life of a Doctor’s Wife guacamole is fantastic. Spicy turkey sloppy joes are one of my favorite.

But then I got a job. Worked weird hours. And so meal planning and extravagant meals ended. Lots of frozen things were cooked.

But now, that I’m home alone most days, I have this weird desire to cook again. My husband is a really fantastic cook. He created an amazing curried chicken penne dish from scratch and without a recipe. I think I might want to try new recipes again when I’m home alone so that I don’t feel the pressure to make something wonderful for him. If it’s bad and it’s just me, then I can make some mac and cheese and move on.

Also, I’m trying to eat healthier. I know I can’t cut out carbs, at least not entirely. When I tried the first two weeks of South Beach, my husband said I was the meanest person ever and very quickly wanted to shove a loaf of bread down my throat so I would calm down.

But I’m making small changes.

Like tonight’s dinner. It’s whole wheat hamburger helper stroganoff with ground turkey. It’s really good and cutting out a lot of the fat and other things. I still shouldn’t eat the whole thing, but it’s a start.

And a small tip from me: As soon as you scoop out as much food on your plate that you should eat, immediately put the leftovers in a container, even before sitting down to eat. This way, you can’t easily get seconds when you don’t need them and you won’t be tempted to snack, or pick, at the remaining food. It’s helped us a lot with portion control.

Tomorrow’s breakfast will include Greek yogurt, fresh blackberries, and granola. Might even add some protein powder to make sure it fills me up for work.

I’m also feeling more of a need to clean around here since I’m alone. You would think I would be more tempted to clean when Mr. A was home, but I’ve been neater since he’s been away.

It’s all very strange. But maybe it just shows that I’m finally coming into this whole being married thing. We’ve had the relationship part down. I just needed to work on realizing that I no longer live in a dorm room. Basically, I needed to grow up some.

But don’t worry. I would still eat popcorn for dinner if I wasn’t so aggravated with my pant size.

Also, what are your favorite recipes? Tips? Ideas? Were you always a domestic goddess, or did you have to work at it like me?

Food is my Favorite

Things have been hectic recently. Over Christmas break, Mr. A was home and I was working a lot, so we had a lot of pizzas and frozen things.

Then, I was working and trying to apply to grad school, which meant lots of library time to work on a paper and such, so lots of fast food.

And then last week happened. Which involved a lot of eating  out and junk food. We hadn’t gone to the grocery store in nearly two weeks, and with Mr. A’s limited diet last week, eating out was kind of our best option.

And when we got married, I was trying to cook more and work on my less than desirable skills in the kitchen.

So this week, I’m trying to get back to cooking more, eating more at home, and trying to be more domestic.

Sunday: I didn’t cook. BUT, my favorite brand of store bought garlic bread (Cole’s), has an entire meal in a box. Different pastas, sauce, and garlic bread. Was out of a box, but actually really delicious. You can’t really go wrong with cheese tortellini. 

Monday: Valentine’s Day!! I said it on Twitter, but our dinner was fantastic. We has baked asparagus, salmon pinwheels (one with lobster stuffing (AMAZING), the other with spinach and feta (VERY GOOD)), and then we had a French baguette with dipping oil. For dessert, Mr. A’s favorite, blackberry pie. We opened up our favorite bottle of wine from a local winery and it was a perfect dinner at home. The pinwheels may have been made from the seafood counter and all I had to do was bake it, but I cooked it and it was delicious.

Tuesday: Tonight we are having beer-braised beef, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. I found the recipe here and it looks pretty delicious. Also, we had some steak that needed to get used, so this was the way to do it.

Wednesday: I work until 6, so we’re just going to have spaghetti with spicy marinara sauce. Mr. A makes a fantastic sauce, so he gets to make that.

Thursday: We are having DuolyNoted’s bruschetta because it is absolutely wonderful. Favorite recipe we’ve found. We’re also having these stuffed crab shells from our grocery store. They are super cheap and delicious. They coem frozen, so we buy them and then just keep them in the freezer for an easy dinner. Yummmmmm.

Friday: Mr. A’s stepmom gave us her chicken and rice recipe. I’ll have to type it up for you all. So delicious. Basically chicken, rice (we use brown), cream of mushroom soup, broth, and some vegetables and you bake it. So delicious.

Saturday we will probably go grab dinner just because one of our favorite things to do is to go out to eat, we just need to do it WAY less often than we have been.

What are some of your favorite dishes? Any new one’s I should try?

Blah Blah Blah

Welp, I was planning on giving you a post about finally going for the job and e-mailing the principal and her telling me she would love to schedule an interview and all of that jazz. And then she decided to skip the interview and just hire me over the phone. (If only…)

Instead, today I wake up, get on the website to get her e-mail address and the job is no longer posted. Mind you, it was JUST posted on Thursday. I didn’t find out about it until about 9pm Friday night. Either they found someone already or decided not to move that teacher to the new position.

So, I’m a little miffed. Especially after all the stress and thinking and finally getting a little excited about the job and then it’s just gone.

Then you think that I shouldn’t be too upset since I have the other job. True, except they still haven’t called to tell me my schedule. I know my manager had a family emergency come up last Thursday, but come on. Just freaking tell me when to come in. And I will be sooo pissed if they don’t have me start till next week during the big sale they’re having. Don’t make my first day be when a super crazy sale is going on and no one will really be able to help me. Yes, I know how to use the register, but I have yet to be on the floor and I don’t even know where everything is. Gahhhh.

So I’m just doing random crap that comes to mind since there is nothing to really talk about since this job stuff seems to be stalling and it’s pissing me off.

–I was all excited about these Christmas cards, but now I’m not so sure why. I mean, just a few months ago we were slaving over writing addresses for wedding invitations. And then I had to write a billion thank you cards and send all those out. I barely got them finished in a timely and proper manner. And now I have 65 to do. Yes, I bought 15 to send out to a few people, then I got the free 50 and now I don’t know who all to send them to. So, anyone want a Christmas card? haha

— I went for a run outside today since the weather was better. Well, I figured going to run at 4:30 would be just fine. Umm…the sun was already setting, and when I got back 30 minutes later, it was nearly dark. Now, at 5:30? Pitch black. Also, the temperature was dropping the entire time I was out, which just hurt the lungs with all the cold air. It looks like I’ll be gym bound. Boo.

— Also, I know I know wayyyy less about politics than most of you, but my husband brought something to my attention, but all i can find are examples to the contrary. My husband told me that most the time, Republicans wear red ties and Democrats wear blue/light blue ties. But all I’ve seen is the contrary. Watching the news discussing Obama’s trip to India, I’ve only seen one scene where he’s in a blue tie. Thes rest of the time he’s in a red one. There have been times he’s in silver and black and such, but very few blue. And at the Social Security Office, in the picture, Joe Biden is wearing a red tie. So, is Mr. A wrong? Or am I just only noticing the opposite??

— I love my husband. He’s wonderful. Most of the time. Today at lunch? I wanted to strangle him. First of all, I’m trying to cut out a lot of my processed carbs and bleached white flour. He comes home and puts in a frozen pizza. One of my weaknesses. And this isn’t the only time. He is constantly eating things right in front of me that I love that I’m trying to avoid. And this wouldn’t be such a big deal if he hadn’t said he was going to try to cut out the same things and eat better with me. The he makes baked potatoes, spaghetti, and pizza.

Then, while the pizza was baking, it started to smell really bad. It hadn’t been in long, but I told him to check to see if it was burning. He said it wasn’t. But the smell continued to get worse. I joked that he would never be allowed to make pizza again if it was going to smell like that. Finally, I got up to look because it was making me sick. When I looked, he had set the pizza on a dirty cupcake tin from where I made cupcakes for the championship soccer game Sunday. So he was burning the leftover reside onto the pan, making it even harder for me to clean it because I know he won’t clean it. And I also found out that he started by cooking it straight on the shelf in the stove. No foil. No cookie sheet. Nothing. No wonder it smelled like burning and gross. And this is the man who almost went to culinary school and can make some yummy food. No common sense sometimes.

— Conan premieres tonight and I’m so bummed because we don’t get TBS. We aren’t paying for cable but we get a few channels and I won’t be able to see it. Sad day. I guess I’ll watch it on Hulu tomorrow. I hope it’s good. Anyone know who his guests are tonight??

— We’ve been looking at apartments since we have to tell our landlord in January whether we are staying or not. It’s been frustrating. The super apartment with the awesome company that we wanted in the complex feet from where we are now, doesn’t allow dogs at that complex. Most of their other compounds, yes, but not this one. And the one we wanted was a one bedroom, but it was a loft so it had more room. THe others that allow dogs? One bedroom flats or two bedrooms that are crazy super expensive. Annoyed to no end. And why do they need to know now?? I have no idea what might happen in 8 months. Shit. I could get pregnant and have a baby in that amount of time. (Man I hope not!!) I need someone to decide to move, have lots of money, so they will let us rent their house for free. I wish.

 

I don’t have much else. I’m just crabby, so I should stop before I start picking at everything. What’s going on with you?? Tell me something funny.

Bedtime

Humans are creatures of habit. We like having some semblance of a routine so that we can know that all in right in the world and that world peace is not far behind. Wait, am I the only one like that? I hope not because then I’m even more weird than I’m willing to admit.

And even during my recent funemployment life-killer boredom-fest free time at home, I have found a way to have some sort of routine. I wake up later than any self-respecting adult should admit sleep in a little, have a little breakfast that usually consists of a protein drink. I will then get on Twitter and see what everyone was chatting about as they were getting ready for work, check the blog and e-mails, and commence watching an exorbitant amount of Law & Order: SVU on Netflix.

This goes on for a while, then I find some lunch and do any picking up around the house I feel needed for my husband not to move out. After lunch settles, I’ve been doing my 30-Day Shred work out. Less and less cursing has been happening, so that’s a plus. I then get showered, put some clothes on so my husband doesn’t know that I’ve been in pajamas most of the day, and continue with the Netflix and internet routine. Some days I have to go do laundry, others I have go grocery shopping or run errands, but this is my day for the most part. Sad? Yes. But I start work on the 4th and then I’ll be one happy girl to be getting out of the house and into real clothes on a regular occasion.

So bedtime in the A Family Household is the same. There’s a routine.

Usually starts about 30 minutes before Mr. A actually plans on going to bed. He’ll start making comments about sleeping or needing to go to bed and then look at me expectantly. It’s almost like he’s prepping me because it seems about 30 minutes before he’s ready for bed, I’ve started typing my blog post for the next day or have gotten involved in some muti-strain Twitter comment or I’m in the middle of a television show or something.

***It’s 9:56pm on Sunday. I’m writing a blog post for tomorrow and my husband just said, “You aren’t writing a blog post are you? We need to get going to bed.” It never fails people."****

Eventually, his yawns become more frequent and loud and he decides to go to bed. I usually go as well because I just like when we go to sleep at the same time and I remember when I was student teaching and went to bed at 9 every night and that was too early for him, so I went to sleep alone. Talk about lonely. So conversations get wrapped up and we get ready for bed.

Now, I have no clue if our routines are “normal” or not. We’re not very normal, so I wouldn’t expect our bedtime to be.

I will check that the front door is locked because I have irrational fears of people breaking into our apartment in the middle of the night and killing us. (This is why I can no longer watch scary movies because then I become a nut job who things that every time the A/C kicks on or the upstairs neighbor moves that Michael Myers is breaking down our front door. My dad should never have let me watch the shit that he did when I was little. I’m forever messed up. Now, my husband has some OCD tendencies, so after I check it, he usually checks it. I’m okay with it because I don’t need John Wayne Gacy coming to hide me under his house.

By this time, we have brushed our teeth and such. As I’m farting around, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, delaying going to sleep (usually because of my “little” sleeping in habit, I’m not all that tired at 10:30), my husband is being a lunatic and STRAIGHTENING THE BED.

Yes. You read that right.

The exact same bed we are about to get into and mess up anyways. My husband insists that the sheets be straight and all of that jazz. But this is also the man who thinks the bed should be made perfectly everyday even though no one will see it except for us and I could care less about a made bed. (I must have skipped over all the domestic wife genes at conception and went straight for the love of sleep and things sweet and salty ones. My zygote self has no clue how much it has screwed me.) I make fun of him about this every night. Keeps him in check.

Finally, the time has come for us to curl up in bed and drift off to sleep. Except my brain is crazy and decides that the first 10-15 minutes of being in bed is equal to 12 cups of coffee and I get super hyper. Like 13 year old girl at a slumber party prank calling boys hyper. We usually joke around. I’ll neck jab him, he’ll start tickling me behind the knee caps, most sensitive next to the feet, and so on. It usually ends after he’s holding my arms to keep from tickling him and I get mad because I can’t break free. Mr. A is very strong and this makes for games of wrestling or play-fighting very one-sided.

I finally calm down and settle in to sleep. I silently curse the neighbor behind us who leaves their porch light on all night long that shines directly into our bedroom window and put a blanket over my eyes. And while I don’t let my feet hang over the side of the bed because I saw I Know What You Did Last Summer and the killer grabs the girls feet because he’s under the bed and I just know that IT is hiding under there, but my feet cannot be under the blankets while sleeping. This also applies to socks. The idea of having my feet covered while sleeping is repulsive. I like cool feet.

And every night, at some point, Mr. A will get up to use the restroom, and if I don’t wake up when he first gets up, and instead wake up while he’s gone, I panic for a minute because I can’t find him. As soon as I see the bathroom light on, I can calm down, but I won’t fall back asleep until he’s safely in bed next to me.

Also, both Mr. A and I sleep talk at times. We have woken up in the morning on numerous occasions to tell the other about the ridiculous things the other said during the night. I tend to talk about Kool-Aid or shopping and being lost and bugs, and he talks about school, war, and dogs. I would love to be able to see his dreams.

Even though our routine is spastic and hilarious, at least in my mind, I love our routine. The husband and I are very silly and playful, so it makes sense that the playfulness carries over into our nighttime routines. I get to crawl into bed every night next to the man that I love more than anyone else and know he’s there with me. If I’m having a nightmare, I will reach over and he will hold my hand until I can relax and fall back asleep. He’s my best friend and I can’t wait for many more nights of our little routines.

 

****It’s now 10:25. My husband is taking glasses to the kitchen and giving me the eye about going to bed. Time to check the door…***

Grocery Snob

       VS     

 

This has become a new dilemma for Mr. A and I. Where to buy our groceries?

The town we went to school in only had a Walmart, a Kroger, and a small hometown grocery store. The hometown grocery store wouldn’t have everything we needed or wanted and Kroger wasn’t convenient and cost more than Walmart. I mean, I was in college. My budget was more focused on getting an outfit for the island party and cash to buy beer.

Yeah, I sure had my priorities in line.

So we shopped at Walmart. Also, it was the only place that was truly one stop shopping. Need shampoo? Walmart. Need batteries and ice cream? Walmart? Need windshield wiper blades? Walmart. You get my point.

I remember my first Sunday in this new town my freshman year. My parents had given me money to buy any little things I needed that we didn’t bring down and some food. I thought I would head to Walmart on my own and feel like a grownup.

Terrible, terrible idea. You NEVER go to Walmart on Sunday, if you can help it, and especially not on move in weekend. Talk about a mad house.

Also, the farm workers get dropped off at this particular Walmart on Sundays so they can do their shopping. But the boss doesn’t come back to get them for like 5 hours, so they hang out and it just adds to the chaos.

Most college students there hate Walmart, but at the same time, we don’t have many other options. The closet Target was 2 hours away and sometimes you had to buy food and toothpaste.

So when we moved to our new and current city, I was so freaking excited that we had a Schnuck’s about a mile from our apartment.

I grew up using Schnucks grocery stores, and I guess I’m just attached because I’m used to them.

But also? It’s not a Walmart. I feel more like a grown up when I do my grocery shopping there, list in hand, perusing the aisles and I pick up delicious food to make for our little family. I love the fancier selections of certain items, such as sauces and seafood and meats. I mean, I could get a live lobster if I wanted. Not that I want to hear it scream like a person as I drop it in boiling water and then have to cut its head off, but I could if I wanted to.

The problem? It costs more.

The husband and I try to keep our grocery bill to around $100 a week. We’ve been close most weeks. But shopping at Schnuck’s makes it more difficult. Their prices are higher on nearly everything and our $100/week budget doesn’t end up stretching as far.

So I’ve gone back to Walmart and it just breaks my heart. There’s something about that store that I absolutely hate an I want nothing more than to have a budget that I can shop at my pricier store and walk around with my head held high as I drink my Starbucks and shop. (Yes, sometimes I take a coffee with me. Grocery shopping is hard people! HA)

So where do you all shop? Do you choose the cheaper store to save money? Or do you go for the more expensive one just because you prefer it?

“I wanna be a billionaire, so freaking bad…”

I sure do love food

(Source)

I wish I could be a food critic, but there are certain foods and types of food that I just won’t eat, so there goes that job.

Last week or so I cut back on new recipes. I was getting a little burnt out and things were hectic and I didn’t feel like spending hours on new recipes or anything.

Basically, I was being lazy. Oh well.

This week isn’t all new stuff, but I have a TON of baking to do for my little family trip this weekend and I didn’t feel like baking all day Wednesday and Thursday and then still having to try a new recipe.

Cooking is hard.

But, here’s a little rundown of what’s to come.

Tonight (Sunday) we had our FAVORITE spicy turkey sloppy joes. If you have not tried them, you must. I know sloppy joes sounds like crap food, but these are spicy and smoky and pure awesomeness. Go make them. Now. You won’t regret it.

I also made this cannoli dip. Umm….delicious. A friend had made something like this for our Superbowl party and it was so yummy. We dipped teddy grahams and pecan halves in it. Yum yum yum.

Monday, we are having slow cooker cheese steaks. They sound delicious and super easy. But since they take 4 hours, I hope I remember to put it in around 4 so we’re not eating at midnight.

Tuesday we’ll probably have little smokies wrapped in crescent rolls and soup of some kind. Mr. A LOVES the little smokies this way, and since I’m leaving him all weekend, I’m trying to make up for it.

Wednesday we’ll probably have leftovers or a hodgepodge of stuff. Wednesday I will be making chocolate chip pumpkin cupcakes and peaches and cream cupcakes for the weekend. The pumpkin ones I won’t be using their frosting or making them look like witches, but they reviews rave about them, so I hope they turn out well.

For this weekend, everyone gets assigned food to bring and somehow I got put on the list for cupcakes and either cinnamon rolls or cinnamon bread. I have the greatest homemade cinnamon roll recipe, but they’re kind of tedious and it’s easier for me to transport homemade cinnamon swirl bread, so that’s what I’m going to make Thursday.

Thursday night we will probably go out to eat since I’ll be leaving Friday.

Looking at this, I make a lot of sweets and not a lot of real food. I promise we don’t only eat cakes. Promise.

Thursday I will also be making Sarah in the City’s super easy chocolate pie for Mr. A since I’m making all these yummy things and he can’t enjoy them.

Next week, because I promised Mr. A I would, I’m also making Sarah’s homemade basil tomato soup and homemade pimento cheese sandwiches. I personally can’t stand pimento cheese, but it’s one of his favorites and he can take the leftovers for lunch, so I’ll go for it.

What are you making this week? Any new recipes I should try?

So I Love Food

I’ve had some free time.

Lots of it. Enough to share.

I’ll give it to you. For free. Just give me something to do.

But since no one seems to be offering time consuming activities, I have taken on the hobby of cooking.

I feel like I’m falling into the stereotype of the new wife presenting her husband with burned food and he eating it just to make her happy. This might be more true than I want to admit.

I’ve dabbled in a couple “real food” recipes, but my favorite thing to look for is desserts. I love desserts. Always have. (Why didn’t I inherit my mother’s super genes and triathlon metabolism? My brother gets all the luck.)

A few weeks ago, I made this beauty:

Blackberry Cheesecake courtesy of The Pioneer Woman. Delicious. And blackberry is Mr. A’s favorite. He’s so spoiled.

I also made her cinnamon roll bread.

Homemade people. Not in a bread maker. Completely from scratch. I know you don’t know me personally, but this is insanely impressive for the girl who used to only make things that came in a box with directions on the side. I added raisins, per Mr. A’s request. Toast is and add a little butter….yummmmmmm. Almost makes all the trouble it took worth it to make this weekend. Almost.

And then……

Root Beer Float Cupcakes.

For starters. I love root beer. Add ice cream to this and it’s just heaven in a frosty glass. Now that I can drink caffeinated sodas, diet root beer is pretty much my only way to get my soda fix.

So I figured these would be amazing.

Not so much. At least not in my opinion.

For one, I think I goofed on the amount of root beer flavoring. The recipe called for root beer extract, and after searching and seeing that Hobby Lobby had root beer candy flavoring, I went and bought it. I didn’t, however, see that it said “4 times stronger than extracts.” So the 2 teaspoons of extract I needed? I did the same amount of flavoring. Which I think was too much. Also, I didn’t make the frosting the recipe calls for because Mr. A and I don’t really care for whip cream frosting.

Mr. A loved them and I sent them with him to school today. He claims the others loved them as well, but he would say that to me anyways. So who knows.

And then the cake pops.

 

These are actually Bakerella’s cake pops, but I followed Beach Bum and Baby’s directions. I have seen other people blog about these and how they only got like 6 to turn out correctly. I was nervous, especially after I didn’t like the cupcakes, so I went into this little project today having realistic expectations. I figured most would crumble or something wouldn’t go as planned, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I only had 2 fall apart. And this made about 30 or so pops. Delicious cake on a stick covered in chocolate. How can you NOT like these?

I do have a couple tips for these.

1. You are supposed to grease the bottom of the cake pan. While letting my cake cool overnight, I left it in the pan I cooked it in. The greasy pan. This made the bottom of the cake moist and when I was crumbling it into the finest pieces possible, some wanted to clump together because of the moisture.

2. Mix the cake and frosting together by hand. Yes, it’s messy. But I couldn’t get it all to mix with a spoon or spatula. My hands, however, did a great job.

3. My cake pops wanted to crack a little. (This was after the stick was in, before dipping in chocolate.) I have no clue if this was due to not enough/too much frosting, temperature, or what. If someone figures this out, let me know.

4. I had to re-melt my chocolate about halfway through. It started to get thick, so I just put over heat again. Also, use Beach Bum’s tip of adding a little vegetable oil to thin it out if necessary. It helped a ton and didn’t change the flavor, at least as far as I could tell.

I’m planning on making these for Mr. A’s family Thanksgiving. Being from KY and all, they seemed to be easily awed. Haha. (Nothing against them. I love them. They just don’t branch out much…)

Another tip, Hobby Lobby has melts in EVERY color. And most are just vanilla flavored. Mr. A doesn’t like the flavor of white chocolate ( I have no idea what is wrong with him) so the vanilla flavor was perfect. Also, with the colors, you can make them more decorative, swirl color, make for any occasion.

Unfortunately, we can’t live off sweets.

So i also attacked the project of meal planning. Having NO experience in this, it was a little difficult at first. But thanks to some fellow bloggers, I have all the meals planned for next week. I found all sorts of fun and yummy recipes, and mostly (fairly) healthy. Hopefully neither of us get food poisoning next week.

Sunday: Grilled chicken

             Spinach salad with dried cranberries, pecans, and strawberry vinaigrette

             Brie and peach biscuit bites from ARealLifeWIfe

Monday: Turkey sloppy joes (spicy)

             Leftover salad

Tuesday: Stuffed crab

               Baked rice

Wednesday: Frozen lasagna from MIL and garlic bread

Thursday: Turkey Chili

Friday: Left overs or go out to eat

 

I hope it all turns out well. I’ll keep you updated.

Elephants never forget

But this girl here sure does. She sure forgets BIG.

Tonight, fiance and I decided to make some homemade soup. It’s my step-mom’s recipe. Delicious chicken corn chowder. It’s delicious and with tons of vegetables. (If you want the recipe, let me know because it’s awesome!)

I’ve been working on my lack of domestic skills, so we were making it together and just hanging out. It was a little early, but after smelling the soup and it just simmering away in the next room, we thought we might as well eat. And by early, I mean 5pm. Oh well.

We put on some of The Office on Netflix and ate our delicious soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. We figured we would hang out at home. His best man was going to come over later and I was going to make some margaritas.

Sounds like the recipe for a perfect night, right?

That is until his phone goes off.

He gets a text from his mom saying, “We’re on the left side of the restaurant.”

She isn’t always the greatest at texting, so he figured she meant to send it to one of her friends since they frequently have girl’s night dinners. He sends one back saying “Wrong person.”

Then she calls. And we realize how bad we messed up.

His Granny is too sick to make the trip to the wedding, so she and Grandad told my MIL last week that they wanted all of us to go out to dinner to spend some time together before the wedding since they won’t be there. It was planned for tonight. At 6pm. MIL called at 5:59.

All chaos breaks out. See, I had gone tanning and had showered, and since we were just going to be at home, that meant old jeans, t-shirt, no make-up, and nothing done with the hair.

We fly into freak out/panic/teamwork mode. All the while laughing hysterically because we couldn’t believe what was happening.

He turned on my straightener for me and I was flipping out. I had done laundry, and then they were still in a pile and very wrinkled. (see: lack of domestic skills)

NTNW: I have nothing to wear!!

Fiance: You always say that. You have something. We have to hurry.

NTNW: Will you iron my dress while I straighten my hair???

Fiance: I have to get ready too.

NTNW: Which will take you 2 minutes. Please?!?!

So he turned into the greatest fiance ever and ironed my cotton dress because the cami and cardigan that go with it were, miraculously, already ironed. The laundry gods were looking down on me or something. I frantically made my hair at least look like I tried and maybe just the humidity got to it. I shoved clothes on. Grabbed a necklace and earrings. Fiance had my makeup in his hands and I put on my shoes and jewelery while running out the door.

From the time my MIL called, to the time we hit the car, it took us 6 minutes. That’s an insane record for me. Heck, for any girls who still had to straighten hair.

I did make up in the car and we concocted a little story about fiance getting back from cycling late. We hated ourselves that we forgot about the dinner that Granny and Grandad planned especially for us and we did not want them to know we forgot. Lying isn’t good, but I felt in this instance, it was the lesser of the two evils.

Remember how we ate dinner early? I was so full just from our soup and sandwich dinner, but we couldn’t go in there and say we weren’t hungry. So we both had a SECOND dinner. You know that big event in 12 days?? I’m trying to cut down on food…not eat TWO DINNERS.

We were miserable when we left, but I don’t think anyone was the wiser. We had a good time and enjoyed getting some special time with Granny and Grandad. We then came home, put on our stretchy pants and vowed to work out hard tomorrow. There was NO WAY we were going to be able to do any physical activity tonight.

I still feel awful about this, but at least we could spend time with them that they felt was special and I promised that I would take pictures with my camera of rehearsal dinner and I figured someone would take pictures with their own camera, and we will be bringing those over to Granny and Grandad’s to show them everything.

I must now go get in a hot bath and hope that second meal magically dissolves from my midsection. Cross your fingers for me.

New Teacher. New Wife.