Silly puppy

I meant to post this last night, but didn't save it, so this really happened yesterday.

This morning I had the following conversation with my dogs: (yes, I talk outloud to my dogs, probably more than I realize I do.)

"Please die of old age. I want you to be healthy but old when you die. Please feel free to pass away in your sleep when you are old and grey. Please do not get sick."

Bacardi, only a minute after I said this, proceeded to dry heave. I leapt out of bed, carried her to the sliding door, and threw her out. She then vomited 3 times. It was very small, yellow colored slime.

I'm just proud of her for missing the carpet.

I think someone is trying to prepare me for children.

"Jordan, please don't touch that."
"Allison, please don't hit your sister."
"Carmen, please don't wake up yet."

And then Jordan touches it.
And Allison hits her.
And Carmen wakes up.

And Bacardi gets sick.

He said "No"

Well last night was a roller coaster of emotion for me.

I was busy preparing dinner and thinking to myself about my husband's and my future. And I realized I'd been talking to him about getting pregnant, but he hadn't given a ton of input back. Since I knew I would probably miss him (I had water aerobics to get to, and was leaving early to check out the book I've been waiting for, and all before he got home from work) I decided to text him.

Me: "Would you be excited if I got pregnant?"
He replied almost immediately with: "No"

And I had nothing to say to that. I want him to be excited with me when it happens. I want to make it a little secret between the two of us for a while. I want us to be bursting to tell our family and friends.

There is an element of fear for me. I'm terrified I'll be an awful mom. I'm nervous about sleep after baby, and work eventually. There are things that seem so uncertain right now, like how we will fit a baby into our self absorbed lives. After a baby there's no turning back. We'll be different. We'll change as a family. Our social life will be different. Our mentality will change.

But I'm ready to venture on that path. And I thought that he was too.

I finished preparing the macaroni and cheese for dinner, leaving it on the preheated oven. I sent him a text telling him to put it in the oven for 20minutes before eating. And rushed to get out of the house before he got home.

I didn't want to see him right then. I was in tears as I packed up my things for water aerobics. I felt selfish. I realized that it was mostly my decision to begin trying for a baby. I had talked to him about it. I had explained that I didn't want a baby right away, that I would be monitoring my body and when I ovulated. And we would wait for a few months before trying for a baby. But also that if we got pregnant before we started to try, that we would be okay with that.

He never objected to my talk. But he never got giddy about it either. But as I've found, he isn't someone that really gets all that giddy anyway. I can tell when he is excited about something, but he definitely doesn't show it as much as I do.

I was hurt. Why didn't he tell me sooner?

I couldn't force him to be excited. And above all things I wanted him to share in my excitement if/when the peed on stick said "your pregnant."

If he saw me this upset, I knew he might lie to me to make me feel better. But as I went out to my van, he was pulling in to the neighborhood. I sat in the drivers seat, scared to look at him. (I didn't want to be mad at him, but if you know me I wear my emotions on my sleeves. I was hoping I could work out my anger, and come home to calmly and rationally discuss my pain with him.) He mouthed to me: "where are you going?" and I motioned like I was swimming, to indicate water aerobics. I pulled out of the neighborhood, tears streaming, and received the following text:

"You know I was joking right?"

I went around the block and back to the house, parked my van, left it running and walked up to him. He was still in his car in the driveway.

Me: "You were seriously joking?"
DH: "You know I would be excited if you got pregnant. I thought you would respond with something else."
Me: "I didn't want to force you to be excited. I didn't want to pressure you into this."

We hugged in the driveway as I cried it out.

DH: Looked around as he said "Quiet, I don't want the neighbors to think I hit you."

He hates when I cry, and always attempts to make me laugh to get me to stop.

I felt so much relief. After all of this I've realize how much I want for us to be parents. At least I know now how we both truly feel.

As I shared the story with my mom, I started crying again. Even telling the story makes me upset.

When I came home from aerobics the mac and cheese looked the same as when I left, only had a chunk missing. As I spooned myself a serving, I realized it didn't look like it had been in the oven at all. "Did you cook this?"

No, he didn't. Poor guy tried to eat it basically cold.

Did you get my text? He did, but didn't read it all the way. Well at least now he knows to pay attention to what I have to say. :)

Not so sweet dreams

Last night I dreamt that a dear friend of mine, Sarah, had breast cancer. She caught it very early, and immediately had a double mastectomy. She told me like it was no big thing. I was shocked, and couldn't handle her lack of emotion.

Someone commented about my breasts looking bigger, and I made some comment that implied that I was pregnant. I went home and found a huge lump in my breast, and freaked out.

That's pretty much all I remember.

I don't like dreams like that. I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that way.

Off the pill

I asked my husband today if it would be okay if I stopped taking birth control. (Yes, I asked him via text message.) Kayleen found that pretty funny, I don't always use text messages as my communication with him. This felt appropriate, because he was at work, and I didn't want him to have to answer me out loud. His response:

"Only if you stop being mean once a month."

From the mouth of babes...

Haha. He has a point though. I realize that I get a little bit of an attitude problem when Auntie Flo comes to visit. I blame the birth control. We'll see who truly is to blame...

I don't really want to get pregnant right away. I'm going to monitor my ovulation (or not) via these test strips:

I don't recall that I've shared on here that way back when I had a problem with my lady parts. I would go without a period for 3 months or more. It was lovely most of the time, but once I became sexually active, it became way too scary. It also was not very convenient to have Aunt Flo visit without calling first. She could literally drop by at anytime, and I might not be prepared for her.

My MD recommended birth control (prior to being sexually active) to help regulate my cycle. But he told me at that time (we had some blood work done) that I might have to have a little help to become pregnant when I was ready. This has been plaguing me ever since. So now, we will see from here where this goes. Perhaps I've been regulated enough for my body to kick in and work on its own. But perhaps not. It will be difficult, but I won't be going in to the MD for help for a year. I'm going to try it on my own first. I'll let you know how it goes. :D

At this point, however, I'm not actively trying to get pregnant. But if I do, I will not be upset either. I really don't want to have a child around Thanksgiving or Christmas, as I feel like their birthday will be overshadowed by other events and make the child feel less special. A baby in February through September or October is okay though. (Late January on the 29th would be fine too, as that is Jamaal's birthday.) So that means May or later for conception.

I'm going to track my cycle for a while, and read this book:

Don't judge me, but I want a daughter. I don't want to have 3 children, so I'm going to try and follow this book, and also the Ancient Chinese Gender Chart to attempt getting a girl. That means conception in May, July or September this year. If it fails, we have another shot to try for a girl, and if that fails we'll adopt one.

I'm prepared to be disappointed, but I know that I will cry if my first child is a boy. (And since I have these feelings I'm sure that I will have a boy out of spite!) I'll love him too I swear!!

Just an FYI, I probably won't be announcing that I'm pregnant until I'm well into the 2nd trimester, unless I'm sooo nauseated I can't help but share. We'll see what happens, but don't be surprised if I'm secretive about things, as I'm nervous to be able to conceive at all.

Good gadgets

Last post, I shared a favorite of mine, the Garlic Grater Plate. I forgot to mention that I got mine at the Puyallup fair a couple years ago. At that time I don't think you could buy them in stores, but now I've seen them in Bed, Bath and Beyond, as well as on Amazon.com.


Another favorite of mine is helping me to eat more apples. I've never been very good with a knife, I make my mom nervous when chopping food. I don't like eating apples whole especially at work. So I bought a slicer and corer last week, and every night at work I ate an apple. :D

What a fulfilling goal!

Now I should go to bed...

Favorite gadget

Thus far this week I've made 3 of the planned meals and all three of them have been good. Jamaal finished his meal all 3 nights. He would eat all three of them again (as would I), but for last nights meal we both agree it was missing a little something.

I'll share yesterday and today's recipes at another time. I'm very exhausted right now, and would rather ramble on about something else. ;)

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I would like to share one of my favorite kitchen gadgets with you all: The Garlic Grater Plate. It is essential for my kitchen. If I ever drop it, I will immediately need to buy a new one.

If you haven't heard of it before, you can check it out in the video shown below. It is so amazing for garlic, much easier than chopping it, no risk of cutting yourself, and it is much easier for your body to digest.

This week, with Beef Bulgogi, it was the first time I worked with fresh ginger. I used the grater plate, and it worked so perfectly!! It takes very little effort to do, and creates a sort of mush, so it adds very little texture to the dish. Last night, for the pasta sauce, it calls for a grated carrot (my grater must be packed still, because I can't find it anywhere) so I decided to use the grater plate, and again it worked really well. It was perfect, because carrot isn't something I particularly desire in my Italian pasta sauce.

I have yet to use it for dry ingredients like chocolate, but I'm sure it works just as wonderfully. :D

Key points:
-When grating a "moist" ingredient like garlic, ginger, or carrot, first run the plate under cold water, so that the plate is wet. Shake off excess water so that the plate is moist but not dripping wet. 
-When grating a "dry" ingredient like chocolate, or Parmesan cheese the plate must be dry.
-It comes with a brush to move the ingredients to the center for easy removal from the plate, but it is just as easy for me to use my fingers to bring it into the center of the plate.
-After use with garlic, immediately rinse the plate with cold water to prevent it from smelling like garlic later.

I LOVE it. What gadgets can't you live without??

Beef Bulgogi

As I've previously written, I'm focusing on cooking meals again. I scoured through my cookbooks to find recipes that sounded like something Jamaal and I would like. Today I used the cookbook show here.

There are definitely some good recipes in this book. However, like most cookbooks I look through, there are definitely some recipes that do not fit our tastes. BUT one thing I do enjoy about this cookbook is that it separates the recipes by time of year. So when I looked through this book this week, I stuck to the fall and winter chapters. Another plus about this book is there is a picture for EVERY recipe. For me that is a huge help in deciding whether I will try a new recipe or not.

Today's dinner is a Korean dish, and according to the book "is usually eaten wrapped in lettuce leaves." I think I would have enjoyed it that way, but I don't know that Jamaal would have gone there. I personally love the lettuce wraps at P.F Changs, but I digress.

Beef Bulgogi
Serves 4
Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs rib-eye steak, trimmed of excess fat
• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1 Tbs hot chili sesame oil (if you can't find this add a dash of red pepper flakes to 1 Tbs toasted sesame oil)
• 2 Tbs dark brown sugar
• 6 garlic cloves, minced (I use 3 large cloves)
• 1 Tbs finely grated peeled fresh ginger
• 2 medium red onions, halved and cut lengthwise into 1-inch wedges (I used one large red onion)
• 1 green bell pepper, seeds and ribs removed, sliced into 1/2-inch strips
• 4 tsps vegetable oil, divided
• 1 small head Boston lettuce, separated into leaves (optional)

1. Freeze the beef for 20 minutes; transfer to a clean work surface. Slice diagonally (across the grain) into 1/8-inch-thick strips. In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, garlic, and ginger. Place the onions and peppers in a small bowl; toss with half the soy marinade. Toss the steak in the remaining marinade; let stand for 15 minutes.

2. Heat 2 tsps of the vegetable oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and peppers; cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate. [I don't like dishes, and returned them to the bowl they were originally in] Wipe the skillet clean with a paper towel.

3. Heat the remaining 2 tsps of vegetable oil over high heat. Cook half the meat, turning often, until browned, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a plate. [Again, I don't like dishes, so I added the cooked meat to the bowl of veggies. The meat is cooked so there is no risk of contamination at this point.] Cook the remaining meat. Return the first batch and any accumulated juices to the pan; add the onion mixture. Cook, tossing, until heated through, about 1 minute. To serve, roll up the beef mixture in lettuce leaves. [Or serve over rice, as we did.]

The reviews:
We both really enjoyed this meal, and would have it again. One negative was that it took me a while to get everything chopped and prepared. However, this might be due to my messy kitchen when I started. I can't think straight when I have a messy environment. I overcooked the onions and peppers so they were more caramelized, because I don't really care for either of them. This way I was able to eat some of them.

The hot chili oil made the dish only slightly warm. It was not "spicy" for us. But I could taste the mild heat. I asked Jamaal if it tasted spicy and he said "no." However, if a young child, or someone sensitive to spice were to try it I'm sure they would think it was so.

I had every intention of finishing this post at work, as I was expecting an easy, laid-back night. However, I was busy from the very start, and barely had time to sit and chart let alone finish a blog. So technically this was last nights meal. On the menu tonight: Pasta and Easy Italian Meat Sauce from the same cookbook. :D I can't wait!

Awake

Night shift ruins my sleep cycle. I slept in yesterday until 1pm. Not really on purpose, I was only awake until 3:30 am. That is 9.5 hours of sleep. So last night I felt tired around 11pm, went to bed, slept for a bit, and now I'm here at 1am wide awake. I'm sure I could fall asleep if I tried a little harder, but as I was laying there my mind kept racing. I have a lot of things I want to do today. I want to get up at 9am, get dressed, eat some yogurt and by 10 meet up with my buddy Kayleen. Then after that I want to go shopping, first for some home supplies, and second for some groceries. I've been scanning cook books for some good recipes to try, and have some good ones picked out ready to be made. But I'm still not quite done with my meal planning for the week. So I still need to finalize my grocery list.

I also have been thinking about this:
Jamaal and I like coffee, but we never finish an entire pot of coffee between the two of us. We have some gift cards still to Target and to Macy's and so I've been contemplating whether or not we have enough to justify the purchase since it is pretty expensive.

I honestly believe we would drink more coffee if we had the ability to make just one cup. Not like we necessarily need it.

Most of the reviews are wonderful. There is an extra thing you can buy so that instead of using the pre-filled pods, you can put your own coffee or tea in it and it brews it for you.

The more I read about it, the more I want one....

In other news...

I went to my first water aerobics class last night. It was fun, and HARD WORK. My face was burning up midway through. The instructor was on my case a lot, correcting my movements. She made me go hard. But I liked that. I'm going again tonight.

What stinks about water aerobics is that I can't really eat right before, and it is at 7pm. Jamaal usually gets home at 6pm, and even that is a little close for me to be eating a dinner type meal. What I can do, is make food for him, and eat when I get home. I just have to plan it that way so it's ready when he gets home.

Another thing I'm loving is that the King County Library System has Ebooks. All you need to do is download Adobe Digital Editions, and the books are there for you to read. They do expire, you only get to check them out for 21 days, but I think it is amazing that you can check out books and read them, from home. Without ever going to the library. This might be a useful thing for someone with children, or for someone who has limited access to vehicles. Of course, not all books are available as an Ebook, but as it becomes more popular I'm sure there will be more offered.

My mom isn't a fan. She says: "but I like having a book in front of me, I don't want to have to look at a computer screen to read." And I definitely see her point. But it doesn't bother me.

I have checked out the following books:
-PS, I Love You By Cecelia Ahern.

This is a fiction book that was recently made into a movie. I haven't seen the movie, and don't really even know what the book is about. I just figured the movie was good (or so I hear) so the book is probably better.

-All you Need is Love, and Other Lies about Marriage By John W. Jacobs.

This is a non-fiction from a marriage counselor. I was curious about it since the title was so interesting. I thought it might be a good book to read to help prevent problems with my marriage. We'll see how it goes. I read a few pages and so far it is relatively easy to read.

And finally
-The New Moms Survival Guide: How to Reclaim your Body, Your Health, Your Sanity, and Your Sex Life After Having a Baby By Jennifer Wider, MD.

This book I realize is not necessarily for me at this moment, but it is nice to know before pregnancy, what happens afterwards. Also, hopefully I can avoid certain things like varicose veins, by wearing compression stockings while pregnant for example. (I guess I better not have a September baby, shorts and compression stockings would not be very attractive. :D) It has been an easy read thus far. I've read the most on this one.

Hopefully I can finish all three of the books before my 21-days is up! ;)

Well, now I better read a bit, and hope that I can fall asleep when I get back into bed!!

Tonight my mom and I will be going to the Fife pool to do some water aerobics. My mom and sister-in-law have done a couple weeks-long sessions already and really like it. They both have felt results from it, and I'm hoping for the same. If I like it I'll continue to go twice a week, either on Tuesdays and Thursdays or Mondays and Wednesdays. (And if I need to I'm allowed to mix-and-match if my work schedule doesn't allow me to go on Tuesday or Thursday.) The class is from 1900-2000, so as long as I'm working an 8-hour shift, I'll be able to make it (I start work at 2300 for an 8-hour night shift). The same is true for when I'm on day shift, I'll be able to make it if I work only 8 hours that day, since I get off work at 1930 for a 12-hour shift.

I'm trying to make better choices when it comes to food, but I find myself feeling hungrier than normal now. I'm thinking it has something to do with being more active, which has increased my metabolism a bit, so now I'm burning the food I eat a little faster. Plus, eating less can do that to a person. :) I got salmon for a late lunch at the Olive Garden the other night and I was starving about 2 hours later. I only ate half of it for "lunch" and then about 3 hours later I made some brown rice and had the rest. Later that night (I worked an 8-hour shift) I had an apple when I felt hungry and it filled me up. To be honest, I'm not good about reaching for a fruit or vegetable for a snack. Cookies or chips sound so much more appealing to me. But I felt so much better after eating an apple.

Last night at work my snacks included an avocado and an apple. I was only at work for 4-hours, because we had very few patients and a lot of nurses. So I ate the apple just before leaving to go home, because I didn't want to feel hungry and think about going to some drive-thru for a snack. Instead I air popped some popcorn and drizzled it with melted butter.

I will not starve myself or deprive myself of things I enjoy. A few summers ago I got really into losing weight, and I was so strict on myself that I would feel deprived. I was doing Weight Watchers (without the meetings) and would save up points so that I could have things I wanted like ice cream or popcorn or whatever. To the point where if you looked at what I was eating during the day, I had very little nutrition so that I could have a treat or two at the end of the night. I felt myself starting to develop an eating disorder, and that scared me to death so I stopped watching what I was eating. I never puked, tried to make myself puke, nor thought about making myself puke, but I was binge eating. Not to an extreme, I did not eat my weight in chips. But I felt that if I continued on that path, I might have gone there.

I moved in with Jamaal a little bit after my realization, and he has not really helped me with my eating. He has no problems with eating fast food on a daily basis. He could eat pizza daily. And unfortunately these things are easier than cooking. They make less dishes, and so are more appealing to me. Plus they taste good. We haven't ordered pizza in a while now, I think he might have gotten tired of it finally. I've been tired of it for a long time now, but would go along with it because I either had nothing else available to make, or didn't have a lot of energy to make what I had planned to make.

I'm on a mission to make better choices for us. I'm not going to cut out fast food entirely. It's okay once every couple weeks. But I'm going to make an attempt at cooking more wholesome meals for us. I've gotten into a rut of relying on bagged frozen meals, as they are easy and quick. Some of them aren't awful nutrition wise, but I feel the quality isn't as good.

And so I conclude this post...it kind of took a turn that I wasn't really planning on doing...

From shag

To chic

The bows didn't last very long. I had my dad take a couple pictures of her right after her haircut, my mom and I went to Costco, and by the time we came back she had one bow and the other was hanging off her head. She looks like a completely different dog. And sometimes she acts differently too. She is colder now so she needs to be snuggled a lot more.

My Shape

I was going to post about this after washing the dishes, but I am still getting over my workout and want to rest up first...

My mother-in-law got me "Your Shape" for the Wii for Christmas. At first I was hesitant to try it. But I'm glad I have. It is essentially a workout program that tells you whether or not you are doing the workout correctly or not. The game comes with a camera that you hook up to the Wii, and it projects you onto the TV. It tells you to "watch your arms" or congratulates you for doing a good job.

I'm realizing that I'm super out of shape, but this game is helping me to be motivated to work out. The only problem is, I don't want Jamaal to watch me, so if I don't get my workout in before he gets home, I'm not very motivated to do it. ;)

Today I did a leg routine for 30minutes and even though I was sweaty and tired, I also did the "Bikini Challenge" for 15minutes. Then after that the girls and I went for a 30-minute walk, which successfully tired them out. :D

My first workout was on Tuesday, and I stuck with it and did a workout on Wednesday. Then on Thursday I went to lie down and was shocked to find that my abs were sore. The more I moved, the more I realized I was sore all over. It was amazing to me. I'm hopeful for good results. The great part is that the workouts fluctuate according to your skill level and the area you are focusing on.

The only down side is that sometimes it will say "uh oh, watch your arms" when my arms are doing the same thing she is doing. But it helps me to focus on all parts of the exercise.

Gotta get my body in better shape and lose about 10-20 pounds before I ruin my body with baby bumps. Haha. ;)

Sleep all day

I'm back on night shift....which actually isn't all that bad. The past 3 nights at work were a breeze. I had all my charting done by 0700 with the exception of a few little things I had to do at the last minute. But compared to day shift, most of the time my charting isn't all done at 1500. On nights you get to sit down so much more! I love that. ;)

Our unit is so busy during the day that I move move move, and sometimes feel like I'm going nowhere. The past couple nights I've been sitting, trying to find things to do.

Last night I decided to take a look at my benefit time to gauge how long it would take for me to accrue enough time to take a full 4 months of maternity leave...it wasn't pretty. I would have to wait an entire year to even try to get pregnant and even then I wouldn't have enough vacation time saved up to meet the 512 hours I'd need in order to have the same size paychecks I have now. I would have about 220 hours of vacation by this December. If I decreased my pay to 50% while on leave, I still wouldn't have the 320 hours that would require.

The US has their priorities way wrong. A woman should be able to have PAID time off with their babies. Jamaal and I will be moving to Europe for a year now.

Thankfully we have a tax credit coming. But since I won't be making nearly enough I want to set aside $4000 strictly for our mortgage payment while I'm on leave. $3000 of it will go to my parents as a "gift" since they gave us a "gift" last year, and that leaves $1000 of extra.

We really need furniture, we have 2 love seats...and $1000 won't be enough for couches/chairs/bedroom furniture.

Oh woe is me. I'll be looking for 0% interest financing at discount furniture stores, so we can put a $1000 down payment and put the rest on credit. I figure that should only be at most $3000 of credit, so we could swing a $500 monthly payment for 6 months.

Now to convince Jamaal that it's time...

I'm cutting back

I've decided I don't want to keep up three blogs. I'm failing miserably at it anyway. So I uploaded my foodie blog into this one. I'll blog about food here instead.

I'll be deleting my food blog soon.

Sweet Sometimes

A couple weeks before Christmas I came home after working a 12-hour shift, and Jamaal peeked out from the game room in the middle of playing Halo.

"Your dogs got out and tore up the bathroom today."

He calls them my dogs when they are really naughty. He will claim only Bacardi as his own, as long as she's a good girl.

I told him he should shut our bedroom when he leaves.

He pulled a bottle of some of my old body spray out of the garbage and showed that they broke the top off. Something that is next to impossible to do. I was confused, but did as I was told, and went to the bathroom to check out the carnage.

But there was no carnage. No death in the bathroom. The girls did not get out. Instead I found this:

Now the background story:

When Jamaal and I first started dating, I bought this body spray from Bath and Body Works. He really liked it. We were doing the long distance relationship thing at that time and so I spritzed it on letters I sent him, and gifts I got for him. It was his favorite. Unfortunately it was a Summer scent and was retired. Over the course of our relationship my supply dwindled. I had a little under a centimeter left, and limited my use of it for special occasions. I tried finding some more, but was unsuccessful.

He found it somewhere.

It was sweet.

But I think it was more a present for himself than it was for me. :D

Merry Christmas!

and Happy New Year!

I haven't had a lot to blog about as of late. I'm not crafting very much (since my craft room consists of boxes), and haven't really been cooking anything fancy. Although I did make some candies for Christmas, that turned out heavenly, if I do say so myself! I didn't have my camera out though so no pictures of that.

Last week, I was supposed to work Christmas Eve night shift from 7pm to 7am. I was dreading it. I had worked on Tuesday during the day and looked to see when the last time everyone had had time off. I was the next one up for time off of all the people working Christmas Eve night shift. (we keep track of when we are given time off, so that time off is first offered to the person who hasn't had time off most recently). Since it was a holiday and most of our patients have scheduled surgeries, our beds were pretty empty. At one point our census was 9 patients and we have 28 beds available. I got a phone call at 5pm from work on Christmas Eve, and they put me on Standby for the first 4 hours. I had just finished making a cheesecake, and after receiving the phone call, I decided to make some toffee (the recipe link is one I found by reading the blogs that Kayleen reads. Yes, I'm that nosy. And yes, I enjoy reading most of blogs I find on Kayleen's page.) It turned out super. I followed the recipe to the nose, and though it took forever, it came out perfectly. I remember asking myself why I wanted to make it, I kept switching from my left to right hands, and almost enlisted the help of my husband. The only tip I would add is to use something bigger than a spoon. I chose a metal spatula, and it was perfect. I was able to scrape the entire bottom of the pot without difficulty.

After making the toffee I was inspired to attempt a caramel recipe I found in my Taste of Home magazine. They are Pecan Caramels. After running to the store for some last minute items, and to my parents house to borrow their candy thermometer, I was set. It was less work stirring the caramels because once you hit a certain point you are supposed to stop stirring, and just let it boil. Well I used much too small of a pan, though I thought the recipe told me to use the size I had, to the point where it began to boil over. I quickly dipped a small coffee cup in to remove enough of the syrup so that it wouldn't make as big of a mess. (I still have a burnt ring on that particular burner though. I need a razor blade to scrape it off of my glass top stove...) The caramels also turned out perfectly. The recipe called for 2 pounds of chopped pecans, which I cut in half, and they still tasted awesome. I cannot imagine putting 2 pounds of pecans in them.

Starting on Sunday I began to feel miserable. I had a sore throat, headache, malaise, fatigue and some very slight nausea which led to decreased appetite. I also had a temperature I'm pretty sure, but our thermometer is packed still, so I have no fact to base that on. On Monday I set my alarm early to gauge how I was feeling, and thought I felt better. So I got up later to shower. After my shower, however I felt worse, so I called in sick to work. Tuesday I still felt tired, weak and thought it would be best if I didn't go to work. Then on Wednesday I went to work with a slight cough. I wore a mask all day long, and by the end of the day (it was an awful day) I felt worse than I had prior to work.

Jamaal and I had planned to go to Portland for New Year's Eve with a few of his/our friends. We were going to go on The Party Bus, a bus that takes you to several different bars and the whole point is to be pretty drunk the whole time and have fun. Well on Wednesday I was starting to have reservations. I didn't feel like drinking, and I didn't feel 100% well either. You aren't allowed to sleep, or puke on the bus, and if you do either of those things you get kicked off. I didn't know if I'd be able to stay up until the bus was done. I also didn't want Jamaal to have a lousy time because I wasn't up to participating.

Then on Thursday, I woke up to no voice. I didn't feel much better, in fact just a little worse than I had on Wednesday morning. I told Jamaal I wasn't going to go.

Jamaal was able to ask his brother, who didn't have plans, and they all had a really good time. I was glad that they were able to party it up without feeling guilty.

The girls and I went to my parents house and spent the night with them. We watched Twilight and Four Christmases and relaxed. I received sweet texts from my drunk hubby until his phone died. Since Joe, Bret and Lamar are all single he was trying to help "hook them up" and I kept getting updates about their progress. In the end all three of them ended up kissing a girl, but Jamaal didn't know. He sucks at being cupid, and keeping me up to date on the gossip. ;) But he was very good at saying that the girls weren't his type and that they were not me. (I'll post about something sweet he did before Christmas, once I get around to taking pictures...)

Today I still have very little voice, but now my nose is stuffy/runny. I tossed and turned all night long and dreamt of shopping with Stevie, and only fleetingly Jessie, Kayleen, Kristina and Sarah. It had something to do with everyone else didn't want to be around my sickness.

Tomorrow Jamaal and I will be taking my parents to Avatar in 3-D possibly in IMAX as well. Jamaal and I saw it regular, and have heard its even better in 3-D. We owe my parents a movie for Mother's Day and Father's Day 2009, and I think they'll like Avatar.