NOVEMBER 16TH – 22ND

Breakfast:
Monday – Arepas, black beans, and fried eggs.
*Tuesday – Yogurt and prunes.
*Wednesday – Yogurt and grapefruit.
*Thursday – Yogurt and prunes.
*Friday – Yogurt and grapefruit.
Saturday – Ham, broccoli, and cheese frittata.
Sunday – Oatmeal and fruit.

Lunch:
~Monday – Duck, asparagus, and roasted potatoes.
*Tuesday – .Cottage cheese and veggies with baked chips.
*Wednesday – Tomato soup.
*Thursday – Oatmeal with craisins.
*Friday – .Cottage cheese with fruit and iced tea.
Saturday – Sesame noodles.
Sunday – Shepherds Pie.

Dinner: All dinners are served after a greens & spinach salad.
~Monday – Leftover bbqd chicken, grapefruit, yogurt, and coffee.
*Tuesday – Baked tilapia, risotto and peas.
*Wednesday – Beef stew and ice cream.
*Thursday – +Lemon & rosemary chicken w/green beans & potatoes.
*Friday – Salmon, stir fried carrots and cabbage.
Saturday – Pork chops, macaroni and cheese, and lima beans.
Sunday – Brown sugar and vodka chicken, fried baked potatoes, corn.

Baking Projects:
Brownies
Banana Bread

Shopping List:
Chicken breasts
Carrots
Cabbage
Broccoli
Vodka
Green onions

Addictive and fun.

I vow to acknolwedge that you are, by far, a better shopper than I.

That wasn’t in my vows.

Or was it?

The man who did our ceremony was Boring. Remember?

All I can recall is something about a can of coffee coming with instructions, while marriage doesn’t.

Onward and upward, we’ve muddled through the past 19 months instructionless. Learning something about each other every day.

And one thing I’ve learned about you…

Is you can shop.

I don’t have the heart, or the brain power…

Not to say you always find the best deals.

Those blankets I got last Christmas… how did we ever live life without them?

And those Lock & Lock containers? Oh, scratch that… my Mother bought those.

Whatever! I must concede, you have a flair for finding sales. Better yet, you can zero in on my size in mere moments, and somehow everything you find is always on clearance.

You suck.

Thank you, because I’m not sure I could have lived without this…

Just like the few other things we’ve purchased recently, this one has changed my life.

Screw taking the time to make a cup of joe in the mornings (or god forbid, make a 6:15am drive through the DOUBLE drive-thru at McDonald’s for a medium hazelnut iced coffee and 4 hashbrowns)… I set this jar you found me at the Salvation Army on the desk passing for an entertainment center right outside our bedroom door.

Now I can grab a handful on my way to the shower and satisfy two good groups in one day.

Chocolate, and coffee.

You, my dear, wonderful husband who I will yell at later for putting a hole in the kitchen wall… rock.

And I love you.

IE:

I am tired, with a BIG T!

Or, like today…

soooooo freaking bored, with a big big big B!

And that my friends, is the truth.

So bored, my brain aches and the only thing there is to is sleep… at least then I will dream.

(Update: I fell asleep at 6:00pm, and woke up the next day at 6:05am after sleeping through Three alarms. Perhaps in my case, at least on this night… Bored=Exhausted.)

When people say to me, you haven’t blogged in forever I glow. They checked! They care enough about me that moseyed on over to my niche in the world wide web and poked their head in to see what I was up to. And then the weight of expectation comes crashing down on my shoulders. The more you blog, the more people expect you to blog.

Kansas City, Missouri… early 2006. I was sitting in the break room at work, glad to be away from the sink of jello and chicken… most likely picking at a small container of fried okra. Mmm, I miss fried okra… I loved that part of my job at the deli, taking home little containers of okra, fried chicken livers, and gizzards. My Grandma and I would feast on it as we sat by side at our respective computers. Ahhh, back to the actual story!

So I was sitting down, fried okra in one hand, a shiny black corded phone in the other talking to my Dad. He’d recently commented on my blog, and during the course of my phone call he told me “I miss you, and while I don’t always understand what you’re trying to say with that online journal, it makes me feel closer to you. So why didn’t you blog today?”…

Obviously I’m paraphrasing, because unless we were arguing or discussing the insane loss of the Seahawks to the Steelers during Superbowl XL, it wasn’t often our conversations lasted long, especially on the phone.

In fact, most often then went like this…

Me: Hi Daddy.
Him: Hi Rachie, let me find your Mom.
Me: Hi Mom, tell Dad I love him.

I always find myself wondering what our last words to each other were. It bugs the hell out of me that I can’t remember. The thought that it could very possibly Hi Daddy and nothing more eats away at my soul. Yesterday as we were coming home from our favorite swimming hole a song came on the radio that made my throat choke up. Becky and Liam were with us in the backseat, and I have to give props to Chris who didn’t say a thing about the tears both of us suddenly started to have running down our cheeks.

It was like synchronized crying. My chest swelled every time I hear Becky sob, my own tears rained down harder. Her hand was on my shoulder, fingers so small and warm compared to my freezing ones… we turned the radio off after Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton stopped warbling together, and we laughed. It was one of those moments… we had so many of them right after Dad died.

I resolved then and there, for what must be the millionth time in the past 3 years that my last words to the people I loved were going to be something I could remember. Words of love, power, and meaning. Or at least minor importance. Don’t get me wrong, there will still be meaningless conversation and trivial arguments… but I’ll work harder to make them something I can remember.

Blogging is simply a one sided conversation, isn’t it? At least to start. It’s my way of saying hello, I’m alive and well. You may not get it, or even care… but at least you’re here. Witnessing what could be my last ramble. It’s important to me, and I’ve got to give that more credence. No more whining about how I don’t have time or inspiration… it’s all excuses.

So here’s Day 1 of Forever.

Will lunch taste better when packed in a cuter bag? Not that my lunch ever tastes bad, actually. I was just bored with my overflow of baby blankets and scarfs, so when the pattern for this lunch bag popped up in my e-mail this morning I was all over it like my husband of the subject of fishing. Enough said.

This is the first time I’ve made anything round. Or with handles. Or yeah, it was a big first… I started it at 11am this morning, and worked on it on and off until about 6pm. I have a few loose ends to weave in, but it’s already in the fridge with my lunch packed for work tomorrow morning. Bright and early, 6:30am… so breakfast is in there too.

This last picture does not showcase the color well at all, but I had to take a picture of what it looked like full.

This photo was taken 5 days before my 25th birthday.

We went to a zoo and a lighthouse to celebrate my big 25, and my sister turning 22. Her birthday is 3 days before mine. Even in our twenties we still share parties.

Excuse the whole no chin thing, I took it myself and always over aim. It does give you a good look at the grays though.

I got my first gray hair at 17. Hopefully fate will be kind, and hold off on wrinkles until I’m 60+. At least that would be fair.

and hold babies… the best medicine. Grandpa Louie loves Liam with a passion, and rarely puts him down if he can get away with it.

Daddy, originally uploaded by Shiny (aka Rachel).

Words can never say enough… Thanks for being you, for never backing down or giving up. For teaching me to believe and not be ashamed. I love you, and I can say without a doubt you were the best Dad ever.

Garden Deer, originally uploaded by Shiny (aka Rachel).

One of the best parts of summer is the garden. We were hoping to put in raised beds this year and go the distance, but instead we had to settle for carving up a few feet of dirt around the front porch. It was a short project, all we did was dig it up, lay down weed paper… brick it in, and then fill it with dirt. Oh, and we planted the vegetables of course. All in all I think it took us 8 hours from picking out the plants to picking the dirt out from under our nails.

And then it rained for two weeks and we didn’t have to water. Hooray! I’ve already eaten strawberries off the plants, and my tomatoes are flowering. There’s 2 Early Girls, 2 Better Boys, and 1 Sweet 100. Plus 2 red bell pepper plants, and 3 strawberry plants that are already multiplying.

My in-laws are moving to North Dakota in a few weeks, so they gave us another tomato plant, a green pepper plant, and a potted rhododendron (to go with the huge bushes and trees already in the yard). Luckily Chris -loves- yard work. Our “little” garden and huge yard is his job. He’s been whining to me for weeks about the deer signs he’s seen in the yard, I didn’t believe him.

Until now! We saw this beautiful creature in the back yard a while back and luckily had the camera on hand. So Chris has put Liam on “deer duty”… and he loves it. I swear, my nephew is addicted to the back of our couch. he lays like this for hours just looking outside, although half the time he falls asleep.