Spring Cleaning

Personally, I hate cleaning. I love the sense of peace and calm that a clean house gives me, but I don't like the effort put into it. Nevertheless I'm going to be using time on my days off to clear out some of the clutter that is in my house and do some of the deep cleaning that only gets done every so often. One of the ways I'm clearing out clutter is using an online service called PaperBackSwap.com. It's a free service where you list books by their ISBN numbers, then when someone wants your book you pay the postage and mail it to them. Also, when you want a book you just request it, and they send it to you. Erik and I have a lot of books lying around that we either don't plan on reading or have read and don't want to read again.

I have about 2 or 3 old cell phones lying around, and there are two services that I found online, Flipswap.com and Cellforcash.com where you mail them in your cell phone and they pay you. I got almost $18 for my old Motorola SLVR (which by the way was a piece of crap).

Woman's Day magazine is mailed to me free and I also get Southern Living. I have several old issues lying around, so I'm going to take those to work and put them in our nursery. When there's a baby in the nursery the poor nurse rarely gets to come out, so a little reading material is appreciated.

I if think of other useful spring cleaning tips I'll post them here. Happy Cleaning! (yeah right)

I'm Still Here.. and then some

Erik and I are still alive down here in sunny Waco. The past 2 weeks have been a blur. We came back from Hot Springs while Erik was on Spring Break and then I had a crazy work schedule. This is what I worked. We came back on a Tuesday, and then I worked Thursday-Friday-Saturday, had Sunday off, went to ACLS class Monday and Tuesday, worked on the floor Wednesday, volunteered to work an extra day Thursday, then worked on the floor Friday. Friday was pretty horrible, because I had a patient who came in to deliver her 22 week baby. Babies at that gestation don't live outside the uterus. Needless to say it was a tearful, solemn day.

Currently Erik is battling sinus issues and I haven't talked to any of my family or friends in over a week! However, I think we've decompressed some this weekend and next week will be better. At least I hope so!

An Amendment

Just in case any of my two readers out there think I was boasting in my last post, let me enlighten you. Tonight I heated up some garlic bread to go with our spaghetti pie. After cutting the bread I placed it in the oven. Easy, right? Upon taking the bread out of the oven I realized the knife I cut it with was in there too. So I've ruined one of my good Wolfgang Puck knives. I guess that's the price you pay for "having it all together!"

Can I get an Amen! for productivity?

Every now and then I get an itching to be domestic and productive. Today was one of those days. Let me list what I've accomplished today:

1. Got up at 8:30 to walk and exercise Roxy for 30 minutes around the neighborhood.
2. Went to HEB for groceries, dropped off items at Goodwill, went to the bank.
3. Cleaned our guest bathroom including toilet and tub.
4. Did one load of laundry.
5. Put together ingredients for chili in the crockpot so I can turn it on when I leave for work tomorrow morning. I think my chili recipe is on this blog. If not, look up Jaime's Chili under Paula Deen recipes at Foodnetwork.com
6. Made Mongolian Beef Stirfry for my lunches for the next two days. See picture in below post.
7. Made a two layer vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. See post below.

All I have left to do is heat up last night's Spaghetti Pie and enjoy the evening with Erik. Trust me, it's not that often that I get this much done in one day. Especially on my first day off after working 3-12 hour shifts, I usually don't get up til 9:30 and then do practically nothing all day.

P.S. I wanted a cheap centerpiece for our table now that spring is in the air, so I bought some limes (5/$1), put them in a bowl, added some leaves from my Peace Lily, and an unused candle from this past fall. Not Martha Stewart caliber, but I'm working on a budget!

In the category of "Because I like to bake"

My Southern Living magazine had a recipe in it this month for a "Basic Vanilla Cake" with accompanying recipes for "Ultimate Buttercream Frosting" and variations with flavors. I wanted to try it out and they actually have cake flour at HEB! It costs less than $2 for a box so I splurged and bought it. I followed the instructions for the basic layer cake recipe with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. Here are my results.

The two cake layers are cooling. Next to it are my two days worth of lunches for work. Mongolian Beef Stirfry is so good!


The frosting. It really didn't make as much I thought it would.


The finished product with my meager attempt at piping. I don't have a set of piping tools so a plastic baggie worked just fine.

I have to say that I've tried several homemade frosting recipes and I still like the canned frosting better. For one, it's smoother and easier to spread, and two it tastes better to me.

San Antonio with lots of pictures

My brother Austin graduated from Air Force basic training this past Friday, so we had to make a family trip down to San Antonio to see him. These men and women spent a demanding and challenging eight weeks getting whipped into shape away from their families and most of life's conveniences. Erik had to stay behind for school, so my dad, grandmother, and Ethan and I drove down. My stepdad Greg was also there. We got into town on Thursday evening and had to get up at the crack of dawn on Friday for a briefing at the base. The graduation parade started at 9:00 am. The day started out a little cold and gloomy, but like most Texas days, it warmed up considerably in the afternoon.

This is Austin's flight walking past us. Even though I snapped this picture I could not tell where he was. They shaved his head and he put on 20 pounds of muscle while he was there, so it wasn't easy to recognize him. He is in the second row from the left, next to the black guy.


There he is! All graduated and smiling! It was seriously a mad rush to get to your Airman once the parade was over. Families had very little contact with the trainees over 8 weeks.


My dad's three kiddos. Look how much taller Austin is than me!


Austin and Greg.


The fam. Austin asked my dad to wear his uniform to the parade, and so everybody kept saluting him. It was a bonus though because we would have gotten bad seats if he hadn't been wearing his Lt. Colonel insignia!


Everyone who graduated got a coin. Plus Austin got another coin for being an Honor graduate-number 63 out of 800!


Austin's bed and living space.


Every material possession the Air Force let him have was kept in this small locker!


Ethan chilling out on Austin's bed.


The Airmen got a town pass from 2 pm til 7:30 pm for good behavior. So, after lunch we headed back to our hotel to change and then see some of the major attractions in San Antonio. Here we are at the Alamo. You could only take pictures from outside, but the atttraction is free. They even had a storyteller who gave a speech on the events at the Alamo. It was really cool. Also, by this point it was 90 degrees outside. Another great thing about San Antonio is it's very military friendly. They get a discount on just about everything. There is an Airmen graduation every Friday and they all hit the town for the first time since arriving at the base.


Interesting fact: the historical society of San Antonio ruled that no building would cast a shadow over the Alamo as a means of respect. So even though sometimes in pictures the Alamo looks like it out in the middle of nowhere, it is actually in the heart of downtown. There was a Fuqua who fought at the Alamo, but it's TBD if Erik's family is related to him.


You can't go to San Antonio without going to the Riverwalk. It was so much fun! We stayed right downtown so everything was in walking distance.


This was actually taken on Saturday before we left. Before this we had been to Ripley's Believe it or Not and the Wax Museum. Both of which freaked Ethan out so he didn't go in.


We took a boatride on the riverwalk on Friday before it got too hot. So much fun!

I have to say the Air Force has really changed my brother for the better. He went in a rowdy boy with all the smarts in the world and no motivation and came out a man with a purpose. I'm so proud of him and what he's accomplished in just eight weeks. He's headed out tonight to Mississippi for technical training and it will be at least another month and a half before I see him again. I can feel a trip to Buloxi in the works!