Randomness

• This guy rocks my socks off!! I'll admit that often times when I do something "good," I selfishly want to make sure other people know about it. I suppose it's possible that this guys motive was also selfish, if for no other reason than to make himself feel good. The whole thing reminds me of the Friends episode where Phoebe and Joey are arguing about whether or not you can ever committ a truly selfless act, because often times the person that's doing the supposed selfless act is getting the reward of feeling good about themselves, so in part at least, they're doing it for themselves. At one point, Phoebe says that she finally found a selfless good deed: she let a bee sting her. She figures the bee is happy and she is not, until Joey tells her that the bee most likely died after it stung her.
  
• The weather has been very confusing to me lately. I don't ever remember dealing with fog in the winter before. (That's not to say it hasn't happened, just that I don't remember it...) But I know I have driven to work in the fog at least 3 times in the last couple weeks and driven home in it at least 2 times. And it seems like we usually don't get this much ice over the course of an entire winter, let alone before winter has ever started. I suppose this weekend's storm will fall into the winter category, since today is the official start of winter though.
  
• Have you baked your Christmas goodies yet?? Aaron and I started last night. We made the dough for Pepperming Spiral Cookies. We've never made them before, but I think they'll be pretty good. The dough has to be refrigerated overnight, so we'll be baking them off tonight. We also attempted to make homemade caramel, but we knew as we were going that they wouldn't turn out. We must have had the stove too hot, because they heated up way too fast and didn't set up much overnight. So we'll have to try those again tonight. We have our plan of attack figured out for the rest of the weekend. Hopefully we can find some time to hit the gym too, because we aren't making anything "light."
  
• Today is my last day at Almaco. It just wasn't the right fit for me and a full-time position opened up at Gateway that I know I'll enjoy (it's my old job, only full-time!!) I'm very excited to go back to Gateway and also very excited that my first day there isn't until January 2nd. That means after today I have 11 days off in a row!! I'm very thankful that it worked out this way, so that I'll be able to spend lots of time with friends and family over the holiday week!!

Trying to Understand the World...Part II

I'm always amazed by product packaging. Sometimes the jaw-dropping occurs because of the warning label attached to it. I bought a curling iron that had a picture of a curling iron going straight into the eye (think perpendicular to they eye) with a line through it - essentially saying "Don't stick the curling iron in your eye!" Well thank you very much for such an informative warning. I was just about to jab my eye with something hot and pokey!! But then it hits me that someone must have done that at some point or they wouldn't include such a crazy warning!! Go here for other wacky warnings.


Then there are other products that just have strange packaging. The hot sauce packets at Taco Bell have little sayings on them like "My brother was killed by a bike tire." I can guarantee you that the saying on the hot sauce packet will not influence my decision on whether to go there or elsewhere. I bought a bag of chocolate covered pretzels this morning that seem to be trying to sell me on the goodness of the pretzels - not the taste, but the behavior of the pretzels. "Rold Gold pretzels must have been bery good this year, because their wish came true - they got dipped in chocolatey fudge. Enjoy the sweet and salty flavor of Rold Gold Dipped Twists Fudge Coated Pretzels. Proof that if you're good, your wishes come true." I already bought the pretzels. Don't lie to me about how if you're good all your wishes will come true. And how do you measure whether a pretzel behaved or not?!? They are tasty though, so that's a plus!!

1+2 vs. 2+1

I generally check www.kcci.com a few times a day for the latest news. I think their website - of the local news channels sites - is the easiest to navigate. However, sometimes I just want to write them a letter and ask if they'd like to hire me on as a proofreader. Sometimes there are sentences that don't even make sense with the combination of words they use or other times a spelling error. Today, it says this in one of their stories:

"Tonight, there is a chance of freezing rain, snow and sleet in the evening, then snow, sleet and freezing rain mainly after midnight."

Is there a difference between "freezing rain, snow and sleet" versus "snow, sleet and freezing rain" that I"m just missing??

I'm back!!

And our kitchen is finished!! There are a few before-and-after pictures below. We did sooo much work on our kitchen, which took a long time, so it's fun to look at the pictures to really see the difference.

We took out the weird scalloped wood above the sink and put in a new light fixture and new window treatments. All of the cabinets were painted and got new hardware. The countertops and floor was tiled and we put in a new sink. The floors in our mudroom were also re-tiled with the same stuff we used in the kitchen. We used appliance paint to make our stove white instead of bisque, so it matches the fridge. I think that's everthing...




Staying true to before-and-after pictures, our kitchen is a mess in the before pictures and fairly clean in the afters, but it really does look amazingly better, not just cleaner!!

Are turn signals dead??

Today was my last day at Gateway.

It was just like any other day...or maybe not.

:-(

A lack of blogging in the past few weeks doesn't necessarily mean I don't have anything to blog about, just a lack of effort. So, I'll review...

• We celebrated MandyMack's birthday last weekend and Aaron learned how to play beer pong and flippy cup.And yes, his eyes are burning red. I think that's what pure determination looks like when captured digitally.

• The following Saturday, we went to the Iowa State vs. Texas game. They lost 56-3. Normally this would be fairly upsetting, but my genius husband predicted to score of the game down to the last point, so it was pretty exciting!!
  
• Aaron sent me flowers for our "3 year dating, 2 years since he proposed, almost 1 year we've been married" anniversary. They were sooooo pretty!!

• I was offered and accepted a new job. I will now be working for Almaco, a research agriculture equipment manufacturing company in Nevada. I think my official title is "Administrative Coordinator," but basically I'm the secretary. I had my orientation this morning and I'll be training part-time until my last day at Gateway, which is October 31st.
• The dogs broke another key on the laptop with one of their toys. We are now completely missing the "W" key, so I have to touch the area just right to get a "W" to come out. That adds to the broken "L" key and the missing "Page Down" key.
• We got a lot of outside work done this past weekend and the kitchen is about 1 night away from being completely finished. I'll post before and after pictures of that later this week.

A self heating French Vanilla Latte!! It's amazing!! There's also Mocha, Hazelnut, Double Espresso, Chai Tea, Green Tea, Hot Chocolate, Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows and even Chicken Noodle and Tomato Vegetable soup. There are two chambers in the container. You release water into the bottom chamber, which mixes with quicklime, creating heat, warming the deliciousness in the top chamber. There's a color changing dot on the outside, and when it turns white, your drink has been sufficiently heated and you, "Shake, open and enjoy!" The top pops open like a soda, but has a twistable top as well, so you can keep the drink warm. It's great. Tailgating on Saturday morning in 40 degree weather will be so much more enjoyable after this discovery!!

Job Search : 6 Months and Counting

For Roarke's birthday, I wanted to make him a "cool cake." I was inspired by my good friend Dana, and the amazing cakes she makes for her kids. So here's Spongebob.

If I could do it again, I'd make his mouth a little bigger. But Aaron tells me that it's a wonderful cake and I shouldn't be focusing on the imperfections... Hopefully Roarke likes it. We'll find out tomorrow!!

I've been Russel-ed!!

Since Saturday, I have ridden 25 miles on a bike. That's more than we've ridden the rest of the summer combined. My tailbone is a little sore, but other than that I feel great!!

The first 15 miles were around the lake when we were camping. The last mile or so was a slight uphill and it was pretty killer, but the part in the middle when we stopped for ice cream in Ventura (where Aaron got to see the house that I lived in until I was 4) made it all worth it :-D

The other 10 miles were tonight at a Spin Class. It was the first class that Aaron and I have been to, and it may not have been the greatest idea since we'd just ridden 15 miles on Saturday, but I was very happy to have sweated through it. I honestly am not sure when or if I've ever sweat that much and I definitely felt like quitting a couple times, but luckily I have a very supportive husband who wouldn't let me quit and was very encouraging for the whole 51:36 of cycling and the ab workout that followed. If you need Aaron and I between 5:30 and 6:30 on a Monday night, chances are we're "Spinning!"

Proofreader

Aaron and I joined Ames Racquet and Fitness Club earlier this week. We went for our first workout last night. It was a little overwhelming, because we haven't had our "orientation" to the facilities yet, but we had a nice workout and learned some things for next time.

• Bring headphones. They had these great little TV's on every treadmill, eliptical and bike, but there's no sound unless you have headphones. Surely watching "King of the Hill" or "Reba" will be more interesting than watching my heartrate change and the seconds slowly passing by...
• Don't leave the water bottle in the car all day. Then you end up with luke-warm water, which isn't very satisfying during a workout.
• Take a padlock. It's not that I think anyone will steal my stuff out of the locker (I mean, my theory is that if a person has money to pay for a membership, they probably don't want or need to steal my free cell phone or my pants from Target...), but it's hard to remember where you put your stuff without some sort of identification. And a little security isn't bad either...

Next week we're going to a spinning class at the West location. It should be fun!!

Pink Bismuth

I met another Blakely the other night. Technically, she's a "Blakelee," but still...

We went to Old Chicago for dinner and our server walked up to the table and said, "Hi. My name is Blakelee and I'll be your server." Aaron and I were speechless, as we quickly looked for her nametag to make sure we'd heard her correctly. The next couple minutes were spent with Blakelee and Blakely just staring at eachother, trying to really soak in the fact that there was another one out there!! Then Aaron said, "We've been together 3 years and I've never met another Blakely." I responded with, "Well I've been Blakely for 22 years and I've never met another Blakely." Blakelee responded with, "I've never met another Blakelee in my 18 years."

When she walked away, I called my mom to tell her, because I thought it was that crazy. She pointed out that since this Blakelee was younger, that I'm still the original :-D

Aaron decided that he needed a way to keep all the Blakely's in the world straight now, so he decided that I should be "Smokin' Hot Blakely," since I'm his smokin' hot wife. For short though, he calls me "SHBlakely" (pronounced Sha-Blake-Lee).

1 Chocolate Pepper

Need gas?? It's probably worth a trip to Slater, depending on where you live. Gas in Slater is way cheaper than in Ames ($2.63 in Slater and $2.89 in Ames, last I saw). So for a round trip of less then 20 miles, you can save $.26 per gallon. Our car gets about 33 miles to the gallon, so a round trip from Slater to Ames take around 2/3 of a tank or $1.75 worth of gas. If your car gets similar gas mileage, then you'd be saving money if you got over 7 gallons of gas*.

The Huxley Casey's is currently selling gas for $2.74 a gallon, an $.11 difference per gallon. It's about a 10 mile round trip, which would use about 1/3 of a gallon of gas or $.88 worth of gas. In this scenario, 8 gallons or more of gas would have to be purchased to create a savings*.

*These calculations are only taking into account the actual monetary value of coming to Slater to get gas. The joy you might experience if you stopped by to see Aaron and the dogs and I is just an added bonus.

Belly Flops

We got our water bill the other day and WOW!! Slater recently increased their rates and it must have taken effect this last month. Our bill was at least 150% of what our bills used to be. That's a pretty big increase for one month and it got me thinking. I'd like to take this opportunity to issue a formal apology to my parents...

• I'm sorry for all those times I took a 30 minute shower, just because I was feeling lazy. Or even those times that left the water running the entire time I was brushing my teeth. What a waste!!
• I apologize for all those times I complained about how cold the house was, instead of just cuddling up in a blanket or just joining you in the basement in front of the warm fire. And for all the times I whined about how hot it was, I should have just turned on my fan. Turns out, electricity is expensive!!
• For all the nights that I grumbled about having the same old thing for dinner, I'm sorry. Actually mustering up the ambition to make dinner after being at work all day is hard itself, but as it turns out, you have to come up with an idea first!!
• I couldn't believe that you made me sort my laundry instead of just leaving it all in one big pile. Now I'd like to say, thanks for letting me get by so easy!! The washing, drying, folding and putting away are tough work.
• When I thought you were the "worst parents ever," because you wouldn't buy me a $100 pair of jeans, I was so wrong!! You can buy 4 pairs for that price, and no one can even tell the difference unless they're looking at the tag. Turns out, you were great parents!!
• I rolled my eyes when you asked me to turn down the music in my car when you were riding with me. But now I understand. It's hard to hear over the music if you want to have a real conversation with someone without screaming.

I may have been a pain in the butt a few years back, but don't you think it was all worth it?? I mean, look at who I've turned out to be and all the things I've learned.

Soft Puppies!!

What a great weekend!! This is the type of trip I'd love to take all the time. We didn't just do all of the normal touristy things and had a wonderful time. On Saturday morning, we went to a great farmer's market with fresh, HOT donuts!! Then we took the "El" downtown and walked around Millenium Park, Michigan Avenue and Navy Pier (okay, so that's a little touristy). That night, we went out for "Here Style Pizza" as we called it while we were there and had some amazing Chicago Deep Dish Pizza!!


Sunday , we went to IKEA, which was worth the trip alone :-D I'm thankful that we haven't moved into a bigger house yet, or I don't know that I would have been able to contain myself. Then we went up to Wisconsin (about 3 miles into it) and went to Jelly Belly Lane. We got a great tour of a Jelly Belly distribution center and got tons of "Belly Flops" or Jelly Belly's that just weren't quite the right shape, but still taste great!! Forest Park was having their Centennial Fest, so we went and listened to a Dave Matthews Cover Band and watched some great fireworks.



I can't wait to go back...

Almost # 200...

Have you ever seen the VH1 show, "Best Week Ever!"? It talks about different celebrities and those that have had especially good or bad weeks. Aaron and I thought we were in the running last week (it was a great week), but they didn't include us on the show. Weird!!

This week, however, seems like it's just dragging on and on!! Maybe it's because everyone is just anxiously anticipating the three-day weekend, making the days leading up to it seem never ending. I'm not sure.

I do know that the weekend needs to be here soon, because people are starting to get very irritable...myself included.

Roarke's first day of Kindergarten was "AWESOME!!"

We have watermelons!!

There were 4 watermelons last time we checked (on Sunday). There are two the size of the one in the picture (with a tennis ball next to it for comparison) and two that are about the size of the tennis ball. As long as we can keep the boys from trampling the vine, which has way outgrown the garden, then we should have tons of watermelon soon!!

Pepto Bismol Pink Patio

Iowa State Fair...the pictures say it all!!

We started off the day with a Pork Chop on a Stick and immediately headed for the shade, because we were there on the hottest day of the year.

I love babies!! We saw newborn (some only 1 day old!!) pigs, cows, sheep, goats and chickens. They had staff members holding some of the babies, but they even let me hold the chick!!

My husband the farmer, my mother the corndog and me as a cardinal. Who thought up this cutout?!?

Elated to be riding "Ye Olde Mill." My parents were right behind us, so we behaved on this romantic boatride!!

We're upside down. We were also sideways and backwards and every other which way.

Yummy!! We got a large bucket of hot cookies right before we sat down to listen to the Bee-Gees cover band. It was a great day!!

Dust Bunnies

Even as few as 4 years ago, I never would have thought that my mom and I would become friends. I was that teenager who thought she had no need for parents... But we are friends now and it's wonderful!!

This is us at Prairie Meadows on Friday night. We watched the horse races all night long.

On Tuesday we went to the fair together. We had a great time despite the heat!!

State Fair Tomorrow!!

Have I mentioned how much I love our garden?? For the last 5 weeks or so, we've been able to harvest at least a gallon size Ziploc bag full, which we've frozen, plus a meal or two. All that, from a $0.59 bag of seeds!!

We've also been able to get about a meals worth of broccoli every week. This week, we've had over a dozen tomatoes ready to pick. And the good news is, we have about another two dozen tomatoes still to come - all from one plant!!

Anyone who has known me for more than a couple years knows that I didn't used to eat any vegetables, so it's a huge change for me to be this excited about veggies!!

In Aaron's words, "I can't believe the dogs got a vacation home before we did!!"
This is the kennel we put up for the boys out at Aaron's parents house. It's 7.5'x13' and 6' tall. This was step one of tiling- because 2 dogs running around would not be very helpful.

My name is Blakely, and I'm addicted to Chocolate Covered Peanuts.

Slowly, but surely, we're getting the house done. In recent weeks we've painted the exterior, put a coat on the trim and started painting the basement. But that's nothing compared to what the next couple days hold!! I'm excited to report that starting tomorrow we'll be tiling our kitchen and mudroom floors and kitchen countertops. Aaron took a couple vacation days, that paired with his days off for the week, give him 4 days to work on the house.

I love my hardworking, handsome husband!!

Magnum P.I.

What a great weekend!! Aaron and I went on a date on Friday night. We didn't do anything too horribly exciting, (dinner and a movie), but it was definitely a much needed date!! The only thing that would have made it better is if I hadn't worked 11 hours and Aaron 13 hours before the start of our date...

But, we got to sleep in on Saturday morning, which was nice. We woke up around 9:30, threw on some "going out in public"clothes, brushed our teeth, and headed up to Cold Stone to wait in line**. After an hour, we got our free ice cream for a year and were on our way back home. After we got home, we ate lunch and then took a nap. Yup. A nap. It was great. Aaron had to close that night, but it gave me an opportunity to get some cleaning done. When he got home, we watched a movie, ate popcorn (with parmesan cheese...yum!!), and snuggled.

Sunday morning we started prepping our house to be painted. The back of our house has the most windows, pipes, meters, etc... that needed to be covered and taped before we could start, so we did that together. Then Aaron started painting. We were able to borrow an airless sprayer from his dad, but unfortunately the last person to borrow it had left the tip on, which had caused it to rust, so we had to go up to Ames to buy a new tip at Lowe's. We made the best out of our trip though and stopped at Panchero's to grab some lunch. Once we got home with the new tip, it only took us 3 hours to paint the entire house!! We had a great little system down - while Aaron painted the west side, I covered the windows and scraped on the north side; as he painted the north side, I prepped the east side... We were soooo happy to be done with our project for the day by 3:30. It left us with our entire evening to just relax and spend some time together.

We harvested a bunch of broccoli and beans from our garden. We've already frozen a couple gallon sized Ziploc bags worth of beans and had 5 or 6 meals, but our plants just keep producing, so we gave about half of what we picked last night to a neighbor, whose bean plants aren't doing so well this year. While we were over there, my job search came up and our neighbor said she would give my name to a friend of hers who has tons of contacts in the area and has gotten several people their jobs, including both of our neighbor's daughters. Hopefully that will open up some new doors for me!! In other garden news, we have over 2 dozen tomatoes on our one tomato plant right now. Only 1 is turning red so far, but we should have plenty of tomatoes in the near future!! We also have a few peppers growing, lots of carrots-although none are anywhere near ready to pick- and our watermelon vine is getting huge!! We bought some insect spray yesterday, so hopefully the bugs won't get to the tomatoes and other plants before we do!!

** As a side story- Aaron and I learned quite a lesson while waiting in line at Cold Stone. There was a girl directly in front of us in line who was waiting all by herself. To pass the time, she decided to make a bunch of phone calls to catch up with some people. After listening to her talk for 1/2 hour, I know more about this girl than I do some of my friends. For instance, she was telling someone in her family all about how her little sister had lost her virginity. I'm guessing that is something that was not meant to be shared with the family. Aaron and I were very uncomfortable, to say the least, to overhear her conversations. The lesson learned: Do not have private conversations in public!!

Shrek the Third

How did you spend your Saturday morning?? Aaron and I spent our morning sitting in a line in front of Cold Stone Creamery in Ames. The result: We got free ice cream for a year!! In celebration of the 1 year anniversary in Ames, the first 50 people there this morning drew for free Love It sized ice creams, Smoothies or Shakes or Grab 'N Go Quarts for a year. We got there an hour before they opened and we were about # 30 and # 31 in line. Aaron got the Love It sized ice cream and I chose the Smoothies and Shakes. We're very excited that we can make a monthly trip to Cold Stone at no expense to us!!

Chewy Sweet Tarts

We are horrible dog parents. We have neglected to brush Steve so much lately that tonight it was just sad when we did brush him.* Aaron and I "dual brushed" for 20 minutes and got a serious amount of hair off of Steve. However, there's probably at least that much left on him in random tufts of hair. He started to get antsy towards the end, so we'll just have to brush again tomorrow night. Here are a couple (one slightly disgusting) pictures of the ordeal.

Steve seems to enjoy getting brushed, until we hit the 15 minute mark that is...

This is the slightly disgusting picture. This is a big pile of hair that we brushed off of Steve. Notice the tennis ball as a reference. And the pile was probably twice as tall as the ball.

It'll be interesting to see what tomorrow night brings. Hopefully Nick will play outside, alone, peacefully again. If he's inside, he thinks he should be brushed too, because it "seems a lot like petting!!" At least, that's what we imagine him saying if he could talk...

*Brushing did occur after the cookie baking.

Dehumidifier

I stumbled on this recipe today and it sounded intriguing, so we gave it a try tonight. These cookies are amazing!! They are soft and delicious. You should give it a try...

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 (3.4 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown.

Yield: 72 servings (we actually got more than that and we made pretty decent size cookies!!)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix + Babies = Happy Blakely

We finally have one room in our house completely done!! Most everything else is in a mid-way stage, but it's nice to see a room finished. So, here are the pictures of our bathroom before and after...

It may not look like there've been a lot of changes, but we did do some major work!! We repainted the cabinets with a special bathroom paint. We also tore out the medicine cabinet, put in a new electrical outlet, a new light fixture over the miror, drywalled, painted the walls and put up the new mirror. In addition, there's a new faucet on our sink and a new light fixture on the freshly painted ceiling.

Hopefully we'll have many more before and after pictures to post in the near future!!

Peanut Butter Cookies

Do you need new printer cartridges?? Why not just buy a whole new printer then?? That's what we did!!

We were at Target last night, purchasing an obscene amount of stuff, because we had a coupon to get 10% off our entire purchase, so we'd been making out list for quite some time. When we went to buy new cartridges for our printer, we realized that it would actually cost significantly less to buy a whole new printer than to buy cartridges for our two printers.

We have a photo printer and a printer/copier/scanner at home. The software that goes with our photo printer hasn't been working, so we haven't been able to print very many pictures with it lately. I've actually ended up taking pictures to Target to be printed there instead of trying to deal with the photo printer at home. In addition, the scanner/copier function on our other printer only works when it feels like it, which is less than 50% of the time.

The new printer we bought combines the features of the two printers we had, which saves us desk space. The color cartridges on the new printer are three individual cartridges, so that if you run out of blue, you just buy a replacement for the blue and can still use the rest of the red and yellow. In theory, it seems like that should save us some money.

Although we probably won't buy a whole new printer every time we run out of ink, it seemed like a good investment this time around!!

Yummy Scotcharoos!!

I love these girls!! This first picture was taken at my bachelorette party last September. It was the first time my cousin Bethany had met Missy and Amanda...
But they were definitely excited to see eachother a few weeks later at the wedding!!
I was so happy when we were all able to get together again last week for the Slater Fourth of July celebration. Maybe next time we'll all have to roadtrip to see Bethany in Chicago...

Get It Together

We did a lot of work outside today, so the boys also spent a lot of time outside. It was pretty hot for a dog today though, so we were trying to make sure that we were keeping them plenty cool. The technique that made our dogs look dorkiest was taking bandanas, soaking them in water and then freezing them before we tied them on. (I think I heard this idea on Regis and Kelly a few weeks ago...) They weren't so keen to the idea of the bandanas at first, but once they realized that they were cool and refreshing, they LOVED their bandanas. See below:

It was definitely an exciting day for the boys though, because Nick decided that it was bedtime at about 9:30 and just let himself into his kennel. As you can see, the door to his kennel is wide open, but he's been laying in there sleeping for almost an hour now. He did manage to lift his head up and look around when we took this picture though, but not for long, because he's fast asleep and snoring again already.

Don't Sweat It

I've noticed that many people who used to blog on a daily, or at least weekly basis, have now decreased the frequency of their blogging. However, I am guilty of the same, so I can't say much.

Here's one of the many things we've been doing to keep busy though:

This is what our kitchen used to look like.

This is what all of our cabinet doors and drawers look like stacked up. They have since been sanded and primed and are awaiting a fresh coat of paint. Stay tuned for an updated picture of our kitchen...

Drying on the Clothesline

• In our quest to eat healthier, I've discovered how great the Recipezaar website is. For every recipe, it gives you the Nutrition Facts, which was my initial draw to it. However, upon further inspection, I discovered that it has a great search engine. You can search by ingredient, and then filter by how many calories it has, other ingredients in it, or several other factors. It's pretty great!!
• Speaking of eating healthier, have I mentioned how much I dislike the word "diet"? I'm not on a diet. I'm trying to make some lifelong changes to my eating habits. In my head, diets are crazy and impossible to follow long term.
• You may remember a while back when Nick hurt his paw. He has now split a toenail on his back paw, so he's running around on 3 paws again. (You can sort of see it in the picture below...) The picture just doesn't do it justice though, because it's HILARIOUS when he runs around like that. It wouldn't be so funny if it seemed to stop him at all, but he still chases squirrels and runs laps around the yard like this.

• I'm feeling much better now about my job situation than I was a few weeks ago. I've had several interviews in the last week or so and I'm feeling hopeful that one of them will work out. So I'm happy to report that the job search seems to be moving along at least.
• Tuesday night, we were going to turn on our air conditioning. Our hope was that we'd be able to sleep in on Wednesday morning (I had the morning off and Aaron had the day off). With the air on, we wouldn't be hot and miserable in the morning AND we could have our windows closed, meaning we wouldn't have to listen to all of the neighborhood dogs bark all morning long. (We love dogs, but one thing we will not put up with is our boys barking for extended periods of time outside!!) Sooo.... we turned the air conditioning on. After a few minutes, I heard a sort of whining sound. I asked Aaron about it, and he said it was probably just the compressor since there was so much moisture in the air. But then the noise started getting louder and I asked Aaron to go check it out, because "it sounded like it was about to explode." Sure enough, the fan wasn't working, so the air conditioner was overheating. It looks like we'll be without air conditioning for a while. It's been in the upper 70's to mid 80's in our house for the last few days. Luckily, there's a slight cool down in the forecast for early next week.

Knotty Pine

I got my first flat tire on Friday. The road we take to Ames is closed for construction, so we take gravel that takes us almost directly to work instead of detouring out of the way. On Thursday, they put new rock down. On Friday, I got a flat tire. Do you think there might be a connection?? Since I was driving on gravel when it happened, I was getting thrown around a lot anyways and had no idea that I was driving on a flat tire. I noticed something odd when I got back on a paved road, but I was a couple blocks from work, so I just drove the rest of the way, even though I was pretty sure it was flat. Turns out, I'd already been driving on a flat for so long, it didn't really matter.

This picture illustrates how long I'd been driving on a flat tire. Half of the word on the side is worn off (actually over a 1/4 inch of rubber had worn off) from driving on the side wall. Oops!! Thankfully, there was minimal damage otherwise, so it was fixed pretty easily!!

Lazy Dogs

I don't understand this!!

If anyone could shed some light on why such an employment policy might exist, please tell me!!

Lamp Shades

Thanks to my wonderful husband, we went from this:

to this:

What started out as a pile of dirt in the street in front of our house, became this great raised garden in the backyard. We have broccoli, tomatoes, chocolate peppers, grean beans, carrots and even watermelon growing!! I don't think that our garden has brought quite as much excitement as my friend Dana's, but we're definitely looking forward to enjoying the fruits (and veggies!!) of our labor in a few weeks.

It won't be soon before long.

Aaron and I had the pleasure of visiting Adam, Dena and Emma over the last couple days. Although we got very little sleep, we had tons of fun with everyone, especially our crazy niece. We hadn't seen them since Easter, and it's amazing how much Emma has changed since then. (Adam and Dena are pretty much the same!!)

No one prompted her to do this and we're not really sure why she did this. I just happened to catch it on camera...
Aaron's drawing of Emma on the MagnaDoodle. You can't really tell from the picture, but she thought it was pretty great.

Curly Grass

Attention Bock grandchildren!! Do you remember this??

Aaron and I bought some of this at Menard's the other day when we were buying exterior house paint. Once we got it home and used some of it, the smell immediately reminded me of playing in Grammie and Papa's basement. My grandpa had some soap just like this at the basement bathroom sink. We always liked using it as kids, because it has pumice in it, so it was totally cool and different.

It's amazing how strongly scent can be tied to memories.

Solar Lights

This week has been very challenging for me...

In the last few years, I have put on a substantial amount of weight. Now, most people tell me that I'm crazy and that I'm still super skinny. I'll admit that I may have been on the "too skinny" side of the scale before, but my "badonka-donk butt" and "thunder thighs" are really starting to flourish!!

Previously, I had been able to tell myself that I was just too busy with school, work, wedding plans, etc... Since I haven't found a job yet, I'm only working 20 hours a week at Gateway. So this week, I decided that I no longer had any excuse not to get my butt in gear. I have been counting my calories all week and was initially disgusted by how many I was eating in a day. But by the end of the week, I've already whittled my calories down and discovered some very tasty, low calorie snacks. I have also spent quite a bit of time being hungry :-D

I (we've...I love my supportive husband!!) been trying to be more active as well. Taking the dogs on walks and bike rides. Tonight, we went on a five mile bike ride. After how lazy we've been over the last few months, 5 miles was quite a distance. Especially considering that the last half was against the wind. The walk down the stairs to let the dogs out when we got home almost had me falling flat on my face.

Here's hoping that my willpower holds up and the donut around my middle disappears!!

Calorie Counter

"A Few Reasons Why I Love my Husband."
by Blakely Mortvedt

1) When we're going somewhere special together, he tries to coordinate outfits with me.

2) He refers to the tie he's wearing in this pictures as his "polka-square" tie, because he wore it the same day I wore my "polka-dot" dress.

3) Instead of complaining when I want to watch "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" for two hours, he just retreats to the basement and watches his shows while he irons.

4) I miss him when he's gone.

5) He's an awesome TV-watching-cuddler.

6) He makes me smile.

7) He makes the best popcorn ever!!

Rose bushes

We tried to have a "doggie sleepover" last night. Normally, the boys sleep in their kennels overnight. It's as easy as saying, "Bedtime boys!!" and they run downstairs and into their kennels. With it being so easy, you might ask, why would we try anything different?? Well, because 1) Steve was being so cute, just laying on his pillow, begging us with his eyes to let him stay. 2) The dogs have us wrapped around their little paws. 3) We're kind of lazy sometimes, and the basement seemed to far away.

After last night, I can say that it was a one time event. I think they tried to be good, but the mix of dog paws and hardwood floors isn't a good one. Plus, we had the windows open, so they kept reacting to everything they heard outside. And they always have to know what's going on with mom and the guy, so if we moved around on the bed, chances are, they had to come over and see what was going on.

Lesson learned. Doggie sleepovers are not fun.

R.I.P. Mark, a.k.a Mark-o Polo

I passed!! I'm an official College Grad!!

After work tonight, Aaron and I went to Fareway and bought 16 meals worth of meat for only $39!! We got:

• 3 huge flat iron steaks ,which we'll just split, so that's 3 meals
• 4 chicken cordon bleu's, for another 2 meals
• a rack of baby back ribs for 1 meal, and
• a 10 pound tube of 93% lean ground beef, for at least 10 meals

Yay for Fareway, coupons and having a deep freeze!!

Jelly Belly

I can read!! (for fun!!) On Monday, I stopped at the library and checked out a couple books. They're probably not the kind of books that the many speakers at Graduation were recommending that we read, but they're for fun books!! It's not assigned reading and the text isn't trying to teach me anything. It's absolutely wonderful!!

Dying Watermelon Plant

May Day Tulips

Are you serious?!? That's all I can say about this.

We have a third dog...made only of hair.

My husband surprised me with a trip to Omaha this weekend. It was a 6-month wedding anniversary/graduation/just because he loves me trip. It was so much fun to get away together. We spent most of Saturday at the Omaha Zoo. I had never been there before and it was a lot of fun. Plus we had gorgeous weather!! We also went to a 3-D Imax movie at the zoo which was sooooooo cool!! We finished off the night by going to Cheesecake Factory for dinner and then walked around the mall, where we discovered an arcade. We spent just $2 and scored 220 tickets!! We stayed at a beautiful Marriott both nights, where we got the friends and family rate, making it even better!!

I feel so lucky and loved!!

Aaron and I in front of the elephants.

This is what Aaron and I would look like as Gorillas.

With our cool Imax 3-D glasses on.