First Evers

We have owned our present vehicle 1.5 years. Yesteryday, it got a car-wash for the first time since we have owned it. Today, it rained.

Jonathan is sick. Like, stay home in bed, take tons of cold medicine sick. It is the first time since we have been married (3 years).

Lists

Things I wish I were good at:

• drawing
• instruments
• writing
• words
• speaking
• dressing
• thinking
• plants
• dancing
• hair

Things I want to be when I grow up (in no particular order):

• hotel/restaraunt owner
• pastry chef
• writer
• interpreter
• artist
• teacher
• secretary (i don't know why but it sounds fun)
• rich

Things to do tomorrow (my day off):

• clean the house
• balance checkbook/pay bills
• take books back to library
• clean car- inside and out
• get jonathan's hair cut
• get mom birthday present
• get sunday school photos printed out
• read a book
• play piano
• tune guitar
• go on date with jonathan

thawing out

the weather is finally warming up! it has been so miserably cold outside for the past few weeks. it feels a lot colder than it did last year, and it has snowed a lot more. this week it's been in the 40's. my heart is beginning to be a little happy from the warmth.


when school started last september jonathan and i were jogging three times a week here at Lafayette Park (these pics are after an icestorm):

our best friend the sad toad

After Christmas though, i lost all motivation for jogging so we stopped going. now that it is warming up i think i better start going again. especially since i work in a bakery where nibbling all day is getting me fat.

speaking of work... sometimes (okay a lot of times) i get tired of brandon (fellow pastry chef) always checking up on me and watching me and making sure i do everything right or his way. this list is to humble me:

things i have screwed up

• 24 tartlet bases
• two batches of lemon bars (it was the recipe, not me)
• vanilla sponge cake (did that one yesterday)
• lots of things i can't cut straight- cheesecake, pecan bars, tiramisu etc...
• made three sheets of brownies when i should have made four (used wrong recipe)

my memory fails me at the moment. check this list often as it will definitely grow.
now to make myself feel better, a list of things i have made succesfully by myself w/out help or constant supervision-

• chocolate chunk cookies
• white chocolate almond cookies
• peanut butter cookies
• oatmeal raisin cookies
• oat bars (blueberry and cranberry)
• brownies (the first time i made them)
• pound cake
• pecan bars (w/some help)
• ganache
• assemblage of nadoz desserts daily
• orange bavarian
• numerous recipes scaled out to a tee
• bread pudding

Hopefully this list will also grow.

Old School

for my "teaching children to read" class each of us were assigned a student at an after-school program. this publishing company gave us all kits to make a book. so we went to the school and had our students write and illustrate a story, and then we will send it in and it will be made into a real book.
anyway... today i went to work with my student, who is a seven-year-old girl. she is really cute and smart and i have had a lot of fun with her. everything she says cracks me up.
today, as she was drawing a picture of one of the characters in her book, she said
"i am going to give him an afro. *moving her arms around in a circle dance/cabbage patch* Old School."
i laughed out loud. you would probably have to see it for yourself though to fully appreciate it.

Help I am trapped in MySpace

So now i know why everyone at the school's computers are not doing homework and are just looking at myspace. that place is mind numbing. i probably spent two hours looking up people i know. ugh. fortunately i think i am cured for awhile and i won't have to go back. ever.
why does everyone insist on using those hideous overstimulated backgrounds?
that's all i will say for now on this topic.

Fifty Years Old

Today is my mom's fiftieth birthday. And I am not there to celebrate with her. I missed my great-grandma's 100th now my mom's 50th. Oh well. Anyway I just want to say- Happy Birthday mom I love you and I miss you.

My Beautiful Mother (and father)

P.S. you don't look a day older than 39.

Happy Debauchery Day

Today and yesterday were opposites. Friday was a good day. Saturday- bad day. Friday I had the day off of work, so I got to sleep in a little then read for a couple hours. Then I spent the rest of the day cleaning house and grocery shopping in preparation for company. We had a few friends from church over for dinner. I know it's sad, but this was only the second time we had people over for dinner since we've been here (it's been a year and a half) so it was a big deal to us. I was quite proud of my beautiful spread on the table. I should have taken a picture. Oh well.
Anyway, Lindsey and Jason brought a scrumptious salad, which I named candy salad because it had spinach, candied pecans, craisins, feta cheese, and raspberry dressing. It's the best way to eat spinach because you can't even taste it! So for the main course I made some creamy herbed pasta with chicken, with some bread to go along, and then for dessert, key-lime pie. Thankfully the key-lime pie turned out and was delicious. You would think I would know by now from making the same mistake numerous times and from working in a kitchen to read the entire recipe through before you decide to make it. Alas, I had made it before so I just remembered it being very simple. So I get home from the store at 5 o'clock (dinner is at 6:30) and I see that the pie has to cool for 1 hour, and then chill for 3-6 hours! Oh no what was I going to do- make them stay until 11 o'clock to eat dessert? Well I had already completed the filling by the time I read this so there was no turning back. I just let it cool in the fridge and chill in the freezer for a couple hours and it turned out fine. Whew! Maybe I'll learn my lesson now.. but probably not. Most of the time I am more careful at work because I have screwed up enough times to know not to be stupid about stuff.
So the dinner was good, everyone liked it, and we had a good time. After everyone left I stayed up and read for awhile and finished the book I had started that day. I stayed up late because I knew I could sleep in since I didn't have to work until noon on Saturday.

Fast-forward to this morning- I am warm and comfy in bed and am in happy place called sage's sleep land, it is 6:30 and the phone rings. It's Louis, my old mannager from Nadoz- one of the shift leaders couldn't come in and he can't cover for him, so he desperately needs me to come and work until noon. Of course that is the last thing in the world I want to do, especially because it is Saturday, and Nadoz cafe on Saturday morning is well.. hell. We have one breakfast cook, two skillets and twenty omelet orders all at the same time. Ugh! But of course I can't say no because otherwise I'll feel bad if I do. I am a people-pleaser push-over.

So I crawl out my happy place and go, preparing to work a twelve hour shift, since as soon as I am done at Nadoz I have to go in the kitchen and work in Pastry. It's a typical saturday morning, except the rush starts right at 8 am instead of 10, even though it is snowing pretty hard outside (which I thought would slow people down). But that's because it is Mardi Gras today. Almost everyone in St. Louis is catholic, so Mardi Gras is a huge deal. There is a big parade (we get to see one of the floats because our neighbor has his "crew" over to his house to put together a float and party after the parade) and everything, and people start partying as soon as they wake up. Nadoz is right across from SLU and is in an apartment building filled with students, so all day college kids were coming in drunk. It's a pretty sad sight. Our house is only a mile from Soulard, which is where the big parade is, so Jonathan got to watch all the wasted people walking up and down our street. Even the owner of my work came in with his stupid mardi gras hat on and i am pretty sure he had been drinking.. it was only like 11 am. So that's why my title is Happy Debauchery day because that's all Mardi Gras really is. You probably already knew that, but last year was the first time I even really knew what Mardi Gras was all about, since it's not really a big thing in Idaho.

Anyway so by the time I got through frantically cooking breakfast at Nadoz and prepping for lunch, I was already worn out and had to work another eight hours. Thankfully it went fast and we got done early. So now I am home and am grumpy and tired, and poor Jonathan has to put up with me. He's had a hard day too though, because he is helping his professor edit a book, which has been a huge nightmare, since he has to make all these papers with different formats into one format. Jonathan isn't a computer expert to say the least, so it is slow going and his professor is getting impatient.

Well.. i am off.. i have no pictures to post.. so maybe i'll draw you one..

Yay! I love Internet

I finally convinced Jonathan to let us get DSL internet! It is only 14.99 a month and is way faster than I expected (okay so the last thing we had was dial-up so yeah it's going to be a lot faster) I have yet to find out how much taxes are though.

So anyway now I am super excited because I can finally keep in touch with all of you in Idaho. I started this blog so that you can read about my boring life and stay updated on what's going on with Jonathan and me. But you have to be faithful readers and leave comments or it won't be any fun. And I will try to post often and put lots of pictures up.
You can blame Alicia Daniel for giving me the idea. I had so much fun reading hers that I decided I wanted to start my own. Let's just hope it's not horibbly dull and that I can think of things to write about.

I hope you all had a good Valentine's Day. I spoiled Jonathan by making him a yummy dinner and a cookie pizza for dessert. I also gave him a couple little presents, and left him sweet notes around the house. He spoiled me and got me the Internet.
Here is the cookie pizza- delicious

We had crazy weather this week. Monday it rained all day. Tuesday morning it almost felt like a spring rain, but then at about 11 am I look outside and it's snowing like crazy! When it snows here everything shuts down and there a ton of wrecks.

And a few updates for those of you I haven't talked to in awhile........

• In September I went back to school to Harris Stowe State University. It has been an interesting experience. It is a very small HBU (historical black university) close to my house and to work. Click here to see pictures of it. (Click the main picture to see more)
  
• Also in September I also started being a volunteer "tutor" at Firm Foundation Program (click here if you'd like to read about it). I have tutored the same girl all the way through and have really enjoyed it. Here is a picutre of Ariel and me-




• I started a new job in November. I am now a pastry cook for Lazy Susan Catering company which is part of the same restaraunt I worked at. My dream job. Still at the same location (Nadoz) I am just in the kitchen now... where it's quiet and relaxed (most of the time) and there are no customers or stupid people (at least not as many)! Yeah! Click here to see the mini pastries we often make and here to see the desert case in Nadoz we fill up every day.
• I started teaching a Sunday school class for the almost two's and two year olds. Which has been fun and... a bit tiring. Trying to get them to sit still can be a challenge! But what can you expect they're only 2 years old!
• We went home for two weeks at Christmas and had a great time. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

The Family Picture

Brooke and me

I like this picture of David

Snuggling on Christmas

David and me (I look David's age in this picture)

Well.. I think that about wraps it up. I have spent way too long on this so I better just quit. Thanks for stopping by!