Green Beans & Cake

29 and holding, ma'am

"Cash or credit, ma'am." said the grocery store cashier.

"Credit." I said.

"Excuse me, ma'am." asked the man in line next to me.

"Yes."

"Where did you get that hat?"

I was wearing my husband's MBA baseball-style hat. Apparently it's great at attracting the attention of strange men who insist on talking to me in the grocery store line.

"Uh, my husband." I replied.

But I was thinking...damn. Why did I just get ma'am-ed TWICE in the last two minutes? Have these ma-am-a-holics stolen my ID and know that I'm about to turn thirty?

That was two weeks ago. And the "ma'am-ing" has not seemed to decrease.

Would I prefer "miss"? No. Who wants to feel like a little girl? How about "sugar"? Nope. Not any better. But still better than getting "ma-am-ed" every five seconds. Don't you think?

What's a gal to do on her 30th birthday eve? 

I turn the big 3-0 in a matter of hours, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. I had envisioned feeling "grown-up" (whatever that truly means...) or really focused...or...something. Anything? Maybe this birthday isn't such a momentous occasion, after all.

Anyway, let's forget about my ma'am paranoia and my ambivalent birthday girl attitude.

Champagne, anyone?

Is there a pattern here?

Hmmmm....methinks me haveth a pattern here. What am I talking about, you ask? Why the archaic words?

Two answers.

First, my absences from blogging tend to happen when I get really busy with school (or for the first few weeks of August, I seemed to develop a perpetual case of "The Mondays." I blame it on the weather. I cannot handle the Oklahoma summer heat). And, the fall semester started this week and I'm ALREADY running on about 3 hours of sleep.

Second, what's up with the archaic word choice? No reason. It was just the first thing that came to me in my sleep deprived state.

So, what's next?

Well, I do have plenty to share about my trip to Lyon, France. I promise to post something soon!

And then?

Who knows...something delicious, I hope.

Write to you soon.

God save the quiche!

Saturday started off as a great day. I made a successful (well, almost) chocolate souffle, got a little exercise, and had a chance to clean up the house. Life was good. I even ate my vegetables.

And then?

A 40-50 foot tall tree landed on the side of our house. Somehow, we didn't notice this until about 8.30 last night. Matt called the city and before we knew it there was a crew of city workers in our yard standing around the tree. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal. 

I was wrong.

The weight of the tree pulled the power cord down and it was exposed at our house's meter. The exposed hot wires posed a major fire hazard. The utility company needed to shut the power off immediately because there was a strong possibility that our house would burn down at any moment. 

So, at about 9.30 pm the city workers turned off our power. The temperature outside? A very humid 87 degrees.

What happened next?

We shipped the dogs off to my MIL's house (sorry about Gravy, MIL...), and then we went back into a steamy house and grabbed our things.

Our "things" included:

• Gravy's kennel (which is large enough for a German Shepard...he's only 38 pounds). Moving his kennel took some major elbow grease. I wasn't a fan of that.
• Biscuit's stinky pillow (arrggg...I was about to wash the thing too...)
• Clothes (but forgot my toothbrush and toothpaste...ewww)

Last but not least we stuffed half of the contents of our refrigerator in ice-packed suitcases (for some reason we don't own a cooler). What went into these ice cold suitcases?

• The chocolate souffle I had made that afternoon
• Frozen steaks (probably 100s of dollars worth of steaks...Matt won a bunch of steaks for a work promo not too long ago)
• Butter
• A bunch of other stuff
• My chocolate transfer sheets (which are really expensive and have to be refrigerated or they will melt.)
• My chocolate (and I'm not a normal person when it comes to chocolate. I have POUNDS and POUNDS of very expensive chocolate in my pantry. I use it to make chocolates in the fall and winter to sell at a local coffee shop)
• A bunch of other stuff (but not the ratatouille)
• And, of course, the quiche

Then the real fun began. I had to figure out a way to tame my crazy puppy. He howled. He wined. He cried. He howled some more. He was muzzled. He finally fell asleep. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit here, but you get my point.

I had planned to make an apple tart today. Those plans are on hold. Is it kind of insane to be worrying about apple tarts when exiled from my house? (And exiled with my naughty dog?)

Maybe.

What a life.

God save the quiche!

Christmas 2009 pics!

See, I told you I had a lot of updating to do.

Here are some pics from Christmas 2009.

Our tree. (old tree, new tree skirt)

Tree skirt close up.

And, of course, we can't forget the Christmas chocolates! I made this for my mom. I had just enough room to put two of my Spicy Mocha truffles in the "tiffany blue" pillow box. I had the sticker custom made - finished it w/ a black satin ribbon. Fun design, huh?

 
 Clear box, Christmas ribbon, gold sticker. Truffles -- Gingerbread (milk chocolate ganache w/ white chocolate shell, finished w/ toasted, crushed rice crispies...tasty!), Plain 70% dark chocolate ganache w/ crushed, toasted almonds w/ hint of sea salt.

Ethan Allen couch and pillows. Love it!

Ethan Allen recliner. Pier 1 sequin pillow (I'm keeping this out year round!). Handmade reindeer pelt from Iceland (my dad got this for Matt several years ago when he (and my mom) were in Iceland. glad we have a use for it now...)

 Christmas table setting. 

My "prized" plant -- err..uh, weed -- bamboo. It's the only plant I haven't killed... I'm afraid that I'm not much of a gardener. Like the idea of it, but am crap at the work of maintaining plant life...

Nuts, anyone?

Christmas breakfast at my parents' house in Arkansas.

The drive back home after Christmas. Should get a bumper sticker that says, "We survived Oklahoma Winter Blizzard '09."  We left for Arkansas the day before Christmas Eve -- just missed the blizzard. As you can see, (we are somewhere outside of Tulsa) the roads were not clear.

 
 
 
 
 
 

The aftermath...

First of all -- Happy 2010 (a couple days late...haha)!  I have a lot of updating to do... Let's start with the aftermath of my husband's office fire.

We still don't know what officially caused the fire. We speculate that it was something electrical (and definitely not arson). As far as rebuilding goes...we're waiting on the insurance company to give us an estimate. Just to give you an idea of how much damage was caused - to repair the roof alone would cost at least $100,000.

Here's a picture of the roof. And, no, this isn't a new skylight. :) It's a huge hole that the firefighters had to make in the roof in order to fight the fire. The office (which my MIL owns) is about 7000 square feet w/ roughly 3500 square feet in complete disrepair. We don't know how much it will cost to repair, but estimates range any where from $100 - $150 per square foot. You do the math...! The good thing is that no one was injured. I'm also happy that none of the sentimental things that belonged to my husband and his family were not damaged. Well, there was one "casualty" -- My SIL's poor Baby Sue (is that its name, Katie?):

Did you clean her up, K? :)

I don't know if any of you out there have been inside a smoke and water damaged building before, but it's kind of shocking (not to mention smelly) to see. When I went down to the office on the night of the fire, I was greeted with a hallway full of wet ash, soggy carpet, and extensive smoke damage. Let me tell you, the smoky smell lingers on one's skin and clothes for a long time.

The entryway to the office

My husband's office -- doesn't look damaged, does it?

The outside of the office.

 Another view.

And, what now? Well, for the past several weeks my husband and MIL have had to work from their homes. Matt basically has to run all over town to get things done, but at least we can access many work related things remotely through a work computer. My living room is half living space, half financial office, but at least Matt can get work accomplished. We have found a temporary location, which, funny enough used to be a wine store. (Sarah, Dan visited this wine store when you were here for my wedding.) I asked Matt if the owners would let us use their wine racks w/ a fine selection of wine as wall dividers. I'd totally work for him if my cubicle walls were made up of wine and wine racks. hehe  But, alas, that isn't an option.

Despite some temporary setbacks, we're moving forward, and I couldn't be more thankful for that.
 
 

One of those weeks...

...and it's only Tuesday.

GLEE!!!

I can't wait for tonight's episode. It was kind of rough to miss two weeks' worth of my Glee fix (sorry, baseball fans...I really wanted to watch Glee).

The pace of my life is totally insane right now. Hence the lack of blog posts.

Side note - Feel better soon, Sis-in-law! Gallbladders suck. Just one word of advice -- take comfort in the GLEE. :)

Finally!

Our new furniture finally arrived on Wednesday!

It looks beautiful (but now I need to buy accessories that will better complement it. Shhhh...don't tell husband.  hahaha)

Pictures to come...

Decorating coup d'etat

Victory is mine, preppies. Victory is mine.

What victory, you ask? I'll tell you -- the redecoration of our living room. You see, my dear husband is fantastic at saving money (that's why he's a financial advisor...and why we're debt free). I find this to be a great quality. We intentionally live a very frugal life. I'm fine w/ that, but let's face it -- sometimes a preppy needs to feel like she is a grown up -- complete w/ grown up furniture. After three years of convincing dear husband that quality furniture is an investment opportunity -- he has finally seen the light and agreed with me.

Now, the project is all mine. I get to be the decorating dictator and I'm thrilled w/ that. My design company of choice? Ethan Allen.

More details and pictures to come!

  

Such a pain in the....

...back!  Fooled you.

I can't tell you how happy I am that Matt is starting to feel better. You see, we have been dealing with solving his chronic back and shoulder pain for several months now (hence the reason for my blogging hiatus). Our life over the last few months has been but a flurry of stressful doctor's appointments.

If anyone reading this has experienced debilitating, chronic pain -- well, you know what a journey it is to recover. We are not fans of medicating pain, so we have chosen to take a more natural path to healing. One type of treatment that has seemed to work miracles is called Myofascial Release. I first learned about myofascial release in high school (when I worked for a physical therapist), and I can tell you that I have seen people transform their lives and their pain as a result of this type of treatment. Matt has endured his chronic back and shoulder pain for at least 7 years, if not longer. The pain level really escalated in late March. I seriously considered taking him to Sedona to get myofascial release treatment b/c I couldn't find anyone locally who was familiar with this type of therapy. Fortunately, we found a local PT who could help us -- and the results have been nothing short of amazing.

In addition to the physical pain, we also learned that Matt suffers from hypoglycemia.  Thus, I'm doing all I can to learn more about the condition. While we did have a very healthy diet before we learned M. had hypoglycemia, our diets have had to further improve. I'm learning all about different types of diets (e.g., Mediterranean, Lebanese, Indian) so that I can cook things we can both enjoy.

Anyway, I plan to post more about our new diet. I primarily wish to find foods and recipes that are delicious and "foodie" oriented. We'll see what I find...