Sweet nothings.

One thing that James does really well is compliment me. A bad hair day wont go by without him telling me how beautiful I look. No matter how bloated and gross I may feel, he always finds some way to get me smiling self-consciously at his random little snippets of affection. But sometimes, he says things that are truly just sweet, and so out of the blue that I felt I should highlight the most recent one. (Those of you at my ring ceremony should remember that one although I can't for the life of me remember what he said).

Last night James and I were on the phone because he had duty, which just means that he has to stay the night on the boat. I was explaining a conversation I had been having with one of my friends here in Washington. In her situation, I felt that her husband needs to experience life without her for a few days, so that he can learn to appreciate the small things that she does for him. Like cook dinner, do laundry, clean the house etc. So, thinking that I ought to see if that logic was accurate I asked James:

"Well.. I just think that she should go visit her sister for a weekend or something. Just to let him experience life without her. I mean, if she isn't going to talk to him about it. What do you think honey? Does it make you appreciate me when we are apart?"

His answer came really quickly, no thought, just speaking.

"Well, sweetheart, you can't compare me to normal guys... I'm whipped."

It may have been his smooth talker just waltzing in to sweep me off my feet. But it just came out so easily, not rehearsed, and so honest! I couldn't even talk for a few minutes! I can only hope that those sort of answers don't wear out anytime soon!

The ramblings of a half-asleep sailor...

Last night, James and I were in bed when quite suddenly I realize that he is awake and scrounging in pitch blackness along his side of the bed.

"Honey.. What are you doing?" I inquire.

"I'm looking for the... uhhmm... the... ya know.. the.."

I try to be helpful.

"The remote? Your phone? Your phone is over here honey."

"No. the light..."

"What light?"

"You know... the light that goes outside."

So now I'm seriously confused and he is just as determined as ever to find it. The shuffling continues as I try to work my mind around his request, before finally just giving up.

"Sweetheart, I have no idea what you are talking about... Do you want my phone so you can see with it's light?"

"Yeah. Let me see it."

I hand over my phone. He holds it for a grand total of half a second and then hands it back.

"That's not it. I need the lights that are like christmas lights.. but not quite."

Ok. He -has- to be asleep right? Because, how does that make sense?

"Baby... You do realize that you are making absolutely no sense right?"

Oh.. he didn't like that. His reply comes out very defensively.

"I -am- making sense. I guess they just don't use them this time of year."

*muffledgiggles*

"Oh.." --snickersnicker-- "so, they don't have them this time of year huh? that's too bad..."

*sigh of defeat from his side of the bed*

"Yeah... it is..." silence follows.

"Honey? Honey? James?" No use. He is totally asleep.

I had to wait until this morning to get the -real- answer. What was he looking for? A flashlight. Yes folks, they don't use them this time of year, so be careful going out late at night. You may have to take the Christmas lights instead.

YUM!

Just some recipes from tonight. In case anyone was wondering!

BBQ Sauce (covers four servings of ribs)

1 cup Ketchup
1/4 water
1/4 Apple cider vinegar
1/2 brown sugar
1/4 honey
1 1/2 tablespoons Yellow Mustard
1/2 tablespoon onion salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

Combine all ingredients and cook on low heat. Stir occasionally and simmer for 20 minutes.


Cheesy Garlic Mashed Potatoes (for two)

4 peeled and diced red skinned potatoes
Garlic salt to taste
1/2 cup cheese (any kind)
1/4 Milk
3 tablespoons butter

It's really easy. Dice and boil the potatoes until they are soft of course. But instead of just adding regular salt to the boiling water, add garlic salt! This makes the potatoes absorb the flavors of the garlic AND the salt. When potatoes are soft, strain them and then add more garlic salt (and regular salt if you have achieved your desired amount of garlic). Mash in butter and milk until all is combined and then add in the cheese. Be careful not to add the cheese in too early or else it is hard to mash because it's so sticky! I just use whatever I have on hand. In my last batch I threw in mexican three cheese blend and then added a bit of mozzarella.

A housewife's guide to making disaster--- I mean, dinner.

(Sorry this is long. It should be entertaining)

James pulled into port last monday, and I've been trying relatively hard to make sure that we are having regular healthy meals with sides and main dishes and the whole shebang. Well, today was no exception, except for instead of another experiment with spaghetti squash, broccoli and cauliflower, I went back to good ol' meat and potatoes. Our menu consisted of:

BBQ Pork ribs with homemade BBQ sauce
Cheesy garlic mashed potatoes
Green beans
Crescent rolls

And for dessert:
Blackberry turnovers with whipped cream.

Sounds yummy eh? I thought so too.

I had been planning this menu for the past few days, though there were a few additions that I changed tonight. Mainly I found a package of crescent rolls that I had to get rid of, so the rolls and the turnovers were a last minute thing. And the mashed potatoes were supposed to be normal until James requested cheese and garlic, and honestly, who could argue with that?

It was a good morning, I went to church, and led the music in Sacrament meeting (it's my calling) and then went to classes, only remembering halfway through that I completely forgot to pull the ribs out of the freezer! After fretting through another two hours I finally made it home and went into quick defrost mode with the ribs... which didn't seem to like that idea. It's ok... dinner could be later! Snack first!

10 minutes later and it was myself against the ribs round two. turns out that if you continuously run luke-warm water over a package of shrinkwrapped ribs they thaw really quickly! Score for me! With Dinner back on... though about 2 hours later than I was intending everything was going according to plan. The ribs were boiling contently in their pot and I was cleaning the kitchen, only to find out that my sink is broken!

The elbow bend in the sink without the disposal was completely detached. That would explain that mold I found under my cutting board under the sink hmm? Luckily for me the slice still allowed most of the water to travel into the correct pipe, so I was only getting enough water to make everything under the sink damp. Mold anyone? As if Washington needed any more help producing the stuff. After fully detoxing under my sink, I had James make the call to our housing maintenance staff... where I heard him say the dreaded words: "Oh.. it's not really an emergency, we just wont use that sink until you guys get out here." As I frantically wave and tell him it IS an emergency, he politely ignores me and accepts a work number. Estimated time of fixture? 29 days.

That wont do. I'll call maintenance tomorrow and explain the situation in better detail. For now, if you are keeping score I'm down to one sink and contently boiling ribs. Time for the BBQ sauce!

I found a recipe online for St Louis bbq sauce. I actually had all of the ingredients so I was pretty excited about trying it out. The recipe made a ton, so I halved it and followed the directions to a tee. After simmering 20 minutes I take a swipe with my finger for a little taste (it smelled amazing). Bleh! Awful... WAY too sour? sweet? I don't know what was wrong with it.. but it was horrible! I thought so anyway, but I figured it would get a second opinion and took my failed sauce into James and his friend Sonne. Both confirmed that it was bad, but Sonne (bless his heart and everything about him) came in and added a few things here and there until somehow I ended up with some of the best BBQ sauce I've ever had! (I'll put the recipe at the bottom, it was -really- good. Which... James JUST informed me that Sonne has a bachelors degree in culinary arts. Wow... totally never cooking for him again. Heh heh.)

With the BBQ sauce bubbling beside the ribs I turned attention to the crescents, and though they were really old, they seemed well enough so I rolled them up and popped them into the oven as I got the ribs on the broiler pan to braze.

On to the potatoes! Now, I like to consider myself somewhat of an expert when it comes to potatoes. I have mashed potatoes down to a science and peeling and cutting them are a breeze. only this time I peeled my red potatoes only to find that beneath the skin they had tons of little yellow spots. Chicken pocks? on my potatoes? Looked like it! Shave shave shave... still spots! I smelled them... and they SMELLED fine. But I had never seen tiny yellow spots on my potatoes! Sooo, I chucked those out and moved on to another bunch of potatoes.. still spots, but this time they shaved off. Thank goodness! I had James cut them for me so I could pull out rolls that were (of course) burning on the bottom but still doughy on top. Ugh. Whatever, they tasted fine. The ribs were doing well and the potatoes were boiling and I still had extra crescent dough... Turnover time!

I'm lucky enough to have a bazillion wild blackberry bushes around my housing development. So I had stocked up on bags and bags of frozen blackberries. Yum! They would be perfect for turnovers. A little butter on the dough, some cinnamon, sugar, and blackberries and they were rolled up and slid into the oven. Mmmmm.

It was at this point that dinner was pretty much finished and I breathed a sigh of relief and warmed up the greenbeans in the microwave (they were left overs from the night before).

And the food after all was said and done was wonderful. The ribs fell right off the bone, the Cheesy garlic mashed potatoes were some of my best work, and the rolls... though a little odd looking were very buttery and yummy.

I had thought that all my cooking woes were over. But I had forgotten about the turnovers! I pulled them out of the oven, and thank goodness they were done perfectly! Score! they came right out of the pan and sat on paper plates to cool while I cleaned up most of dinner. Filled up the sink to clean the big pots... and remembered that it was broken. *sigh* Out came a bowl to catch the water (though I was seriously tempted to let it spill all over in my cupboard only so that I could call maintenance and claim that it WAS an emergency).

With the water in the sink drained and properly disposed of in the OTHER sink, I loaded my empty dishwasher, since James had just unloaded it (have I mentioned that I love him?). I grabbed all of the pots and pans and loaded them in. Rib pot: Check! Potato pot: Check! Roll pan: Check! Turnover pan: Che---OUCH!!! Still hot. Like... right out of the oven hot. I dropped my glass pan onto the stove, ran to the sink and turned on the cold water so that I could soothe my scalded palm and fingers. Fighting back tears only to notice that I had turned on the water in the broken sink...

Oh well, I have the rest of the night to enjoy with my cute husband. What is a little mishap in the kitchen if not a good story? For the record, my hand is fine, if a bit red around the edges.

Does this shirt make me look fat?

I was scrounging through some old photos on this computer and I found several from when I was in high school, and it really struck me how thin I was! I remember when I was actually -in- high school thinking that I was huge! I needed to lose weight! Everything made me look so fat! It just tells you how very different everyones perspective is. No wonder I had boyfriends coming out of my ears. Besides, what high school girl wouldn't kill for curves like those? Ah... the good ol' days. It seems I'll have to really get to losing weight now since I know how good I CAN look right? Though... what was I thinking wearing a part down the middle? Thank you Talara for breaking me of that habit. I also included a picture from elementary school just because I was adorable. I really was. Enjoy! Oh... and ignore the boy? He's just in the picture because if I cut him out I think it would look horribly silly with his arm over my shoulder.

This was the first day of Junior year.
( don't know why the text is blue..)


This was the Valentines dance my Junior year.I think I was in second grade for this picture

Letters...

It seems as if my husband and my relationship has been based solely on our ability to communicate with eachother over long distances. First we met online. He was located in Groton, Conneticut and I was in Provo, Utah.

When the time came to actually meet in person (no matter how skeptical I was) he promptly moved to Washington! Anyone who can think that a move to Washington is a good step for the relationship is seriously disturbed. Now we weren't a 10 hour flight from eachother, we were a 14 hour drive, or as the case generally was, a $400, 2 hour flight.

The majority of our engagement was spent in silence. Well, on his part anyway. For he left not a month after we got engaged to go do unspeakable things in his submarine. I was left to worry. Communication changed from hours of phone calls to 10 small notes of 30 words or less over a five and a half month period. That was what -he- got anyway. I got a 10 word note passed along by someone who will remain unnamed. I suppose for someone who thrives on verbal communication it is strange to be forced to condense messages into what is most important.

We got married only a month and a half after he returned and our marriage has gone without a hitch. Though in spite of the fact that I now live in Washington, it seems that our conversations continue to take place where we met. Online. He leaves underway and I stalk my e-mail. As much as I might complain, the distance of our relationship truly makes me appreciate those moments that I have with him. The precious amounts of verbal communication are used mostly on what is the most important of all: that we love each other.

A few months ago during a stake conference for church the speaker emphasized the importance of telling the ones that mean most to you that you love them. He related stories of couples who hadn't heard those words for 30 years or more! They challenged us to really work hard to remember to never forget to tell your spouse that you love them. I couldn't help but laugh as James and I got into our car and started discussing the topic and we both got into a match to see if we could count just the number of times that we said I love you before we got to church. I can't remember what we concluded, but it was over 10.

I guess the point of this blog is just to emphasize that it doesn't matter how you talk or communicate with those you love, just make sure that you treasure every moment you have with them. As someone who has to share the love of my life with the rest of the world, I can't stress enough the importance of communication and the little moments, the smiles, the tears and the company of your best friend.

Greetings from the bandwagon

So for the past year it seems that this concept of 'blogging' has really taken off. I figured it would be a phase, but once I realized that everyone, including the neighbors dog, had their own blog, I decided that I may as well join the bandwagon. Not that I have anything against blogging. In fact, everyone's blogs are absolutely adorable. Some are funny, some are just down right amazing, and some are the sorts of things that give such great information or ideas that you find yourself checking them over and over and over just to see if they were updated in the ten minutes that you looked away.

Personally, I'm not going to kid myself, I am horrible at updating these sorts of things. I can never find pictures worthy of comment, that is if I remember the camera at all. And if I -do- find pictures, what fun is there if I can't think of snappy witty remarks about the clothes I was wearing, or the silly smile on James's face? I suppose I'm just going to have to get over my fear of being the worst blogger ever and realize that if people don't like my blog, then they don't have to read it. This is my own little corner, and I can say whatever I want!