Thursday, February 27, 2014

fish soup and Krav Maga

I may be just about done with one of my blog girl's recipes. The pictures are always amazing and so convincing, but then the product, meh. I saw this apparently irresistable bowl of soup and wanted to make it so bad that I bought these:
I have a hate relationship with fish in a can (well, besides tuna) after I bought a can of salmon and inside I saw an entire vertebrae. And when I went to pick it out, it went ppfftt between my fingers and disintegrated. SOOO disgusting. I could see the anchovies in the jar and it looked like they were de-spined, so I bought a can. Anyway, when I opened it up, I could see something that looked like little white hairs, and they were teeny rib bones. Added calcium apparently.
Finest quality, really?
By then the other stuff was already cooking in the pan so I forged ahead. But it was not a good experience, they smelled like cat food, and there were bits of scales and grey skin. Ew.
Anyway, my soup didn't ever get as thick as hers, and I was afraid to try it, so trusty guinea pigs Doug and Jill tried it. It pretty much tasted just like bean soup, but a bit of a fishy taste every other bite. Will not be making again. I just don't know if I should give up on this blog girl or not, this is like the 6th time of trying something that always asks for exotic ingredients of some sort, and then to have it not be mind-blowing, is frustrating. And of course when I went on there again today to get the soup link, I see something else that reels me in. So maybe one more try!
After dinner Doug and I went to our first Krav Maga class. I got him a groupon for Christmas, and then bought one for myself too thinking it'd be something fun we could do together. We get there and next thing I know I'm doing a "warm up" of minute after minute of high knees and burpees. I was really wishing I hadn't already exercised for the day! I guess it's not really going to be something we do together though, Doug said he doesn't really want to be punching and attacking me, haha. So next we paired off and got into some grappling. Which is apparently a person you just met 5 minutes ago pretends they're going to rape and choke you, and is straddled over you while you lay helplessly on your back. Then you wrap your legs around their body and thrust up your hips to get them off your neck, and bar their arms, twist your legs around till their head is like right by your butt, and then you break their elbow joint. "It was nice to meet you!" Very awkward, but pretty cool too, it actually works. Another very awkward part is when your back makes a fart noise on the ground and you have to explain it to your partner- not like I would know or anything- like it wasn't already uncomfortable enough with all the straddling!
So Doug was off practicing with some guy and he told me on the way home that the guy was asking him who he came with, and he says 'my girlfriend' and points me out, and he said the guy was like 'good job'. So we were joking around about that response, and then he made some joke about pointing me out to the guy, 'my girlfriend's the one over there... farting with her back'. Lol, he's so funny. But it was pretty cool and I'm excited for our next class!

Monday, February 24, 2014

Weekend Update

It was a busy weekend. After school thursday I mixed up these burgers my sister recommended and took them over to Doug's house for dinner and to spend some time with him
I didn't try them with the sauce they recommended, and they were pretty tasty, but I still love my favorite veggie burgers most of all.
Friday Jill and I had friends over for our friend Josh's welcome back to the USA/birthday/and you're leaving again soon party. Jill made tacos with all the delicious fixings, I made chocolate cupcakes with pb frosting.
We ate, talked, and played Catchphrase. The girls won 2 in a row. I got 2 tricky words, mosey and flotsam. The girls guessed mosey from me saying "I'm just gonna ___ on down the street", but no one remembered that Flotsam was the other little eel pet of Ursula the Sea Witch. So for anyone's future reference, should you find yourself staring at it in a game of Catchphrase, the real definitions are:
mosey - verb - to wander or shuffle about leisurely; stroll; saunter.
flotsam - noun - 1. the part of the wreckage of a ship and its cargo found floating on the water. 2. material or refuse floating on water. 3. useless or unimportant items; odds and ends. 4. a vagrant, penniless population: the flotsam of the city slums in medieval Europe. (I like that definition) and 5. Ursula the Sea Witch's pet eel. Just kidding.
Saturday I worked. But the good part of working on Saturday is one nice doctor always brings the nurses cookies and grapes. Mmmmm. I was crying at work because this old woman fell on the ice, she had been living completely independently a few days ago and one fall and she broke her knee and shoulder, is confused, and now she'll probably die of sepsis. It's terrible. Her daughter was with her and she was crying and singing to her and I just could not take it! I hope my parents live a long time!!!
Saturday evening Doug and I went to his friend's baby shower. We had a good time and the food was tasty. His friend had bought too much extra stuff but she didn't want to return it so Doug was filling bags with stuff to take home. What he needs 5lbs of croutons for I do not know! I made him share some of the boxes of Ritz crackers with other people, he was trying to take 3 boxes, haha.
Sunday I took my parents to the airport. Then came back to their house, did laundry, studied and raided their fridge. I found Dad's leftover waffles in the freezer, mmmm
My grandpa posted this pic of them on facebook, they went to Florida for a month but are coming home soon and I hope to visit them soon. I used to live with them, and I miss seeing them!
She fell last Christmas and broke her hip, and has lost a lot of memory over the past few years, but otherwise they are doing good. Pretty dang good actually for 92. I love seeing my grandpa take care of her, in several of the pictures of them, they were holding hands.
awwwwww!
Today I had class and made these for meals this week.
My other favorite, black bean butternut squash burritos. So good every time.
I was sent a new credit card in the mail today because of that Target hack thing. Good thing they are protecting me, but I had to waste 40 minutes updating the automatic things and trying to remember all these different rarely used log ins and passwords. So now, a little time to study and then off to bookclub!
This month we read Gone Girl, it was an intense read and I'm very interested to hear what my girl's have to say about it!

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Church and Food

I wish I had more time for blogging, I like it. And now all my posts just turn into randomness instead of a nice theme... oh well.
Last week I went to Doug's church, he's been to mine several times so it was time. He'd warned me that they are a little more 'expressive', but I totally loved it. The singing worship part was almost an hour long, and if you're like me, that's a good thing. It reminded me of InterVarsity days where we would just sing and feel how the Spirit led and not be on a strict time crunch. Songs that I've heard and sung before, but that morning it really struck me and I cried at least two different times. We sang Your Love Never Fails and these words mean so much to me now after the last few years I've been through "There may be pain in the night but joy comes in the morning", "And when the oceans rage, I don't have to be afraid, because I know that You love me, Your love never fails", "You make, all things, work together for my good." I just found myself crying in thankfulness and awe about how good God has been to me, and after a year and more of painful days and nights, I can truly see that He has worked all things together for my good and I feel joy once again.
Next we sang this song that I completely love for like 20 minutes, haha. It has such great words too, and I cried again singing these words "My God is Awesome, He can move mountains, Keep me in the valley, Hide me from the rain. My God is Awesome, Heals me when I'm broken, Strength where I've been weakened, Praise His Holy Name." Once again I just felt so humbled by how good God is, He hid me in the shadow of His wings, and He healed my broken heart. I'm so thankful.
So yeah, it was really good.
After church we went up to my parents for lunch and sledding. I'll spare you the picture of Doug's nosehair-sicles, haha. And even under mom's tutalage, I failed yet again trying to start an IV :(
Monday I watched the Bachelor with my friend Liz and she made me a super good stirfry.
I made my own later in the week, not like Liz's, but the sauce was actually pretty good, I was proud of myself.
So then I've been getting ready for today's exam. I was cursing myself because here I was home alone in a quiet house and instead of studying I kept reading blogs and, of course, baking cookies
I keep making this recipe for vegan chocolate chip cookies, which somehow I'm telling myself are 'healthy', but they still have sugar, white flour and oil. So I don't know what I'm thinking. But they are tasty.
Then I finally got down to studying
It must have been enough because I got 94%, but I just need to be more efficient with my time.
And, a heating update: I called the landlord guy that day, he came and said the valve thing was sticking but he could see it was working. So for 2 days it was back to an appropriate temperature and no creaks! But then the heat started creeping back up. So I called again and he said he was going to get the guy out here to replace the pipe/valve in the basement, and today I see
And now the heat is set at 70 and it is 70 in here! And hopefully the creaks will be a thing of the past.

Monday, February 17, 2014

My Valentine(s)

Valentine's morning I woke up and went out to my car early to go to work, and I saw this:
awww... so I ran back into the house to put them into water and continued on my way to work. But apparently the cold start to their day was too much for them because when I came home:
awww :( but I couldn't stop laughing when I saw them. So I told Doug thank you for the sweet thoughts and the good laugh :)
During my day at work I sent him funny valentines every hour on the hour, some of my favorites were:
I had a fun time finding these Valentines and sending them to him.
For real Valentine's day I had plans with Jill. We made dinner and took it over to her church friend's house and decorated cookies
And watched Despicable Me, I thought there were some funny parts, but not sure what all the fuss is about. I don't think I would even let my kids watch that movie with those minions always hitting each other. Bad examples!
Anyway, Jill gave me a nice card and nailpolish and I got a bag of goodies from my mom.
The next day after work I celebrated Valentine's day with Doug. I had no idea what we were going to do, he likes to surprise me.
Every day all week long he had been mailing me Valentines, so by the end of the week I had a huge pile
He wrote something on everyone, this one made me laugh
He brought me more flowers and candy, mmmm
We got dressed up a bit and he took me to Andiamos and then to the theatre.
actually this was pretty cool, they were showing Casablanca for free!
This guy was playing the organ during intermission, that was cool
Happy first Valentine's day to us!

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Heat Wave

Now is that special time of year where I hate living in this apt. I feel bad even writing about it, because I know Jill feels bad that she can't do anything about it either. But seriously, I am going nuts. This morning I woke up not by my alarm, but because my ears were in such intense pain. The radiator has been creaking again like crazy, around the clock, and its loud too. Since January I have been sleeping with ear plugs. I had to buy a deaf person alarm clock that vibrates under my pillow so I don't sleep thru class or work. Sometimes I can still hear the creaks thru my 32 decibel ear plugs. The most infuriating thing is that it just doesn't make any sense. My room is the only one that does it, even though Jill's room has a radiator under a window too, I just don't get it. And it is roasting hot in here all day long. Even with the thermostat set at 60 or 70, it doesn't even matter, it's always 80+ degrees.
It makes no sense. It was cold in November and December, except it didn't do the creaks. And since January it's been non stop. I asked the landlord guy about the heat since you'd think he'd care about us having windows open and he was like 'oh you have it set at 72, that's why it's 85 in there, turn it to 60'. But again, see picture. Nothing works. And anyway, what kind of a system is that? If you set it at 70 it should be 70. And it's all-day-long, I can't get anything done in my room ever because I just want to throw things in frustration. Ok, sorry Jill, just super frustrated. Moving on.
Yesterday I saw these at the store and texted my friend Liz the picture, and she wrote back:
I did notice the smallest size was a large, hey, mediums get muffin tops too! Haha.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Weekend Update

I have successfully passed Med Surg 2, part 1. With a B. I'll take it! Again I sat in class this morning imagining moving to my parents and re-evaluating my life after I failed out of nursing school. At least 4 or 5 questions I had absolutely no idea on, but I ended up passing. Yay! So on to Med Surg 2, part 2. Some of this weekend was studying, some was desperately trying to study, I felt like this a lot of the weekend:
I set aside the majority of Sunday afternoon to study, but it just took forever to get into it. Finally I did though, and was feeling pretty ready and good until I started the test. Anyway. Done. Moving on!
This weekend while I was working, Doug was doing something way more cool. He'd asked me if I wanted to go, and I said no, but now I'm regretting it, it looked awesome!
I guess Michigan has the only iceclimbing place in the country, how awesome! I definitely want to go. But not as a stepping stone to this:
That's just craziness. Strap yourself to a tree at the top, and down off the cliff you go? No thank you.
I've been cooking a bit more
yay! cheap Brussel sprouts from Kroger, roasted up with olive oil, S & P
(Joel, is that right? 'Brussels Sprouts'??)
made a little sauce of mayo, mustard, and honey (the one my grandma used to make was better)
dinner with a side of mashed potatoes, mmmm
Today made a pot of chili
On Friday night the friend where Doug and I re-met, hosted a Fiesta Friday taco night. I brought these Boca Negra Mini Cakes.
Whisking everything together
Not the prettiest things, but tasty and a kick of spice. The dinner was fun, we feasted, we fiestaed.
And lastly, notice anything wrong with this coupon?
rrrrrrr! Surely you had a non-Greek photo option Meijer. False advertising!