M.I.A.

That's what I've been. This week I had a big event on Wednesday and Thursday night, so work has been crazy, and we were out of town last weekend (if you consider Huntington out of town, which I certainly do).

I have no pictures to share today, but I do want to eventually post a few from recent work events, so you can see a little what I've been up to.

Sadly, I also have no pictures from Easter, though the MASSIVE egg hunt that took over my parents back yard certainly warranted one. Maybe some year when we have our own kid in the hunt we'll actually take our camera to the event. Maybe. It was a wonderful celebration though, of family and what Christ has done in bringing us life and life abundant.

So that's all for now, my friends. I'll try to do better soon!

My First Prom

This past Saturday, I went to the prom. And yes, it was my first prom. 13 years ago, when it was my senior prom, my sister got married, so that sort of took priority. =) On Saturday, Ian's school had their prom and since it's pretty much required for all teachers to go, I happily went as his date. And while I just admitted that I don't have a comparison, I have to believe that going to the prom with your husband has to be better than going with a pimple-faced, nervous, immature high school boy.

The prom was at the Reef, a restaurant in Downtown Long Beach, on the south waterfront side. Mary actually had her wedding reception there. We had dinner and then dancing and while Ian and I tried to dance a bit, let me just tell you that not only did I feel VERY 31, I also felt VERY white. His students are predominantly African America and man, can they dance! I mostly just shuffled and watched them bust a move. =) It was like my own, up close and personal So You Think You Can Dance episode.

We left before Prom Queen and King were crowned, but all in all it was a fun night and I think his students enjoyed themselves.

For next year's prom, I have already decided to buy a new dress! The one-shoulder look was very in with the teenage girls this year...

Friday Afternoons

It's supposed to be warm all weekend long. And I mean, nice and warm. I can't wait. I'm sitting in my over air-conditioned office right now, cold and so tired (big work event last night, didn't sleep well when I finally did get home) and just longing for the clock to say 5:30 so I can head home and begin the weekend. I both love and hate Friday afternoons. Here's why. On the one hand, they draaaaaag because I am so excited about the coming weekend. But on the other hand, they are marvelous, because I am just on the cusp of freedom - lots of time with Ian, time outside, time to pursue my hobbies, time with family. What a see-saw of emotions Friday afternoons stir up in me. =) Happy Friday and happy weekend friends. Enjoy!

Making Lunches

For some reason, I've been blog "uninspired." Things are going just fine, I just feel quiet, in my soul. You know? But because I really do like blogging, I thought I would do a post anyway, uninspired as it is. So, I bring you: Making Lunches. This is what I do Sunday night. I chop Ian's veggies for the week, and usually three days worth for me too, and then I assemble Monday's lunch. Here's what it looks like when I'm doing it. Packing our lunches is not only healthy, it's cheap. Ian doesn't have a long enough lunch (or a nice enough surrounding area) to eat out, so his choices are to pack or to eat the school lunch. The school lunch is fine (surprisingly healthy) but it does mean hanging around where the kids are. So he chooses to take a packed lunch (and miraculously, doesn't care at all about what goes in it, so I pack it 100% of the time). I pack a lunch for myself because in spite of the MANY delicious options, I would gain way too much weight and spend way too much money eating out. So here we are, happy lunch packers. Isn't my lunch bag cute? (Ian takes his in a plastic bag because he can shove it more easily into the backpack he wears to work, since he walks to the metro station). There. You're all caught up on mundane activities of our life. =)

Making My Own Salsa

I have several ideas in my head about how to save money and be frugal, especially if we go down to one income some day. I already make quite of bit of bread from scratch (dinner rolls, breakfast loafs, rosemary bread, corn bread, garlic bread sticks, etc.) but this weekend, I tried my hand at homemade salsa. We had just finished a bottle of green salsa (the La Victoria brand, which is really good) and I was in the store, ready to replace it, when I thought of making my own. I had looked on the ingredient label of the salsa before and saw that it wasn't hard and then remembered that I had actually made green salsa before (one time in college, that actually resulted in me throwing away the whole batch because I was using a blender and couldn't get the food to mix so I pushed it down with a wooden spoon...and ended up with thousands of tiny splinters in my salsa). Anyway, I did much better this time. I go 6 tomatillos for about $1.30 and a jalapeno for $.14. I had some left over cilantro in my fridge already, plus a half an onion that was just waiting to be used up. Of course, I always have garlic on hand. I mixed everything up and ended up with tons of salsa! Enough to fill one full jar (I just put it right back into the newly washed salsa jar we had saved) and another half jar, which I've put in the freezer. So, for $1.44, I got 1 1/2 times the salsa that I would have gotten for $3.59 at the store! True, it won't save us millions, but over the years, think of how much money we could save if I made all our own salsa?

Up next? Making my own jam this summer!

Veranda!

It's up! We are now the proud owners of a veranda (or trellis, if you prefer that terminology)! As soon as we bought the house (almost a year now), we knew we wanted to put up a veranda. We've been saving and with our recent tax return, we were finally in a position to pay for it. We LOVE how it turned out and can't wait for many dinners, parties, life groups, and get togethers with all of you under it. I thought I would take us all on a trip down memory lane. Here is the enclosed patio when we bought the house (former owner's belongings are still in there). Here we are (and some of you too) tearing it down. What a project but so worth it! That enclosed patio was a disaster - leaks, mold, electric wiring all crazy. Definitely need to come down.

And it is, with it all torn down and our grass put in. This was probably in July of last year.

And here it is today! Doesn't the veranda look great? And haven't Ian's plants grown so much!? They are so tiny in the photo above you can hardly see them!

We hope you come over soon to enjoy our new veranda!

Weekend Baking and Christmas Gifts

That's right, a post about Christmas gifts in March. But I'll get to that in a minute. We were supposed to go camping with our friends Keith and Chanda this weekend but the rain and threats of cold weather deterred us. So we ended up with a much needed weekend in, after several out of town trips, in-laws visits and what not. On Saturday, we did chores for several hours, which was great (seriously! we love puttering around our home). Our house is so clean now! And, I did some baking. I LOVE baking. It's creative and relaxing and almost always produces a good end result. Ian has been talking about Key Lime Pie for a while, so I thought I would give it a try. I used a recipe from Fanny Farmer's Cookbook, which my sisters gave me for Christmas a few years ago (funny, I didn't mean to make that second mention of Christmas gifts, but there you go!). Ian declares it is the best pie he's ever had. I'm sure that totally unbiased report has you all convinced I should open a bakery. Needless to say, we are thoroughly enjoying it. I also made a "Mac n Cheese for Grown-Ups" from my Cooking Light magazine. Ian LOVES mac n cheese (really, he prefers the fake stuff from Kraft) but I thought I would humor him and make this dish for him, since I never make that fake stuff. It turned out okay. The Panko on top was delicious, but the spinach was a little strange and the cheese too strong. But that from the girl who doesn't like cheese, so take that with a grain of salt. This is not at all connected to the baking, but I don't think I ever showed on this blog one of the gifts that Ian gave me for Christmas that I love. It's four jars from Crate and Barrel. And being the romantic that he is, he filled one of the jars with jelly beans. (That's one of his nicknames for me - isn't it cute? I love it!). He filled the jars with a box of all their flavors and people have been eating them regularly since coming over to our house, but I'm really only a fan of a few flavors of jelly beans. With some extra time this weekend, we made a visit to a local candy store and I now have a jar of JUST cotton candy and cherry. Ahh, sugary bliss. Aren't the jars so cute!?