I realized the other day that I haven’t posted much about our kitties lately.  Nothing much has changed, really.  Olly is still the real-food beggar, and Cheetoe is still dumb as a brick.  Tumbles never shuts up, and acts as though we starve him every day while screaming for soft food and treats.  I guess when things are same as always, it’s easy to forget to blog about them.

   

For Christmas, my sister sent us a gift certificate to SavingDinner.com.  I never learned how to cook, and until then I never had any interest in trying any new types of foods.  She sent us a book called Saving Dinner Basics along with the DVD on how to cook even if you don’t know how.  After years of pressure, I decided it was about time to give cooking a shot.

So… our New Years’ Resolution for 2007 was to learn how to cook.  Starting on New Year’s Day, we attempted our first dinner.  I didn’t know what garlic looked like.  I’d never once bought an onion.  I barely knew how to bake a potato.  We researched how to steam vegetables.  Seriously!  I’m talking for real, we had to Google methods for how to chop yellow squash.  We watched the instructional DVD that came with the Cuisinart we received as a gift, and learned what type of vegetables should be chopped and which ones should be pureed.  We literally did not know how to mash potatoes.  That’s how sad we were.

I’m not sure I can express how much learning to cook has changed our lives. I’d call us a novice pair in the kitchen, but the impact is extraordinary. I can go to a restaurant now and find MANY things on the menu to order. Never before have I had this option; at best there might be one thing I might like. I’m no longer scared of vegetables. I can handle a lot of sauces and spices. I don’t even need to scoop away marinara off my Chicken Parmesan, nor worry about ordering everything “plain” or “on the side.”

The biggest thing about cooking at home that has benefited me is having control over what I eat. I can add more or less of something that I like. I can feel safe to make a recipe and hate it – then just grab something else. I don’t need to order something off the menu, feel like a jerk for not eating it because I don’t like it, and still pay $19.95 plus tip.Cooking has also helped bring Andrew and I closer together. We usually make dinner together now, instead of apart.

 

We’ve graduated from frozen chicken patties and frozen french fries, through the skillet meal stage, and now onto broiling, sweating, frying in olive oil and baking multiple types of dishes.  We now know how to cook fresh chicken, pork, turkey, steak and several types of fish.  We stopped into Whole Foods on the way home to look for specialty cheeses, and I noticed they have a huge array of meats, fish and poultry to choose from at their deli counters.  I’m actually excited at the idea of trying new recipes with the stuff in the case!

   

I guess what I’d like to say is, thank you Kathleen.  Thank you for pushing me so hard to learn how to cook.  Thank you for all the years of prodding and poking and forcing me to eat stuff I didn’t want to eat.  Thank you for rescuing me so much when I call for advice, and not laughing at me when I don’t know how to steam a carrot.  Thank you, sis!

I know it doesn’t seem like it, but that’s the best part…  I’ve been working on some behind-the-scenes updates recently (thanks to Andrew, of course).  WordPress and Gallery versions have both been updated, and the site has changed to a Dreamhost one-click install of WordPress. 

I’ve removed the Weather section from the sidebar panel to help speed up the load times.  It wasn’t as interesting as I originally thought it might be.  I’m also considering ousting the calendar entries too, because of all the trouble the Google calendar RSS feed has been giving us.

Hopefully I’ll have some time to create new festive header backgrounds pretty soon.  We’re fast approaching my favorite holiday: St. Patrick’s Day! 

It’s not easy being Green, you know…

The time has come to share my good news with the world! It seems that I have been accepted to Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business graduate program for the Master of Science in Information Management. Classes begin May 29th. Now, I just have to come up with about $23k and we’re good to go! =) Thank goodness for unsubsidized federal student loans.

If you thought I didn’t update my blog regularly up to this point… I’ll bet it will be even less come May. The program is exactly one year in length, so I’ll graduate in May 2008. Here’s hoping that the time flies!

I thought of an eye-opening metaphor for my life on the way to work.

I liken myself to one of those random pieces of paper that sneaks out of a messy truck window on US-60. Not one of those papers that gets crumpled up and thrown out like trash, but one that sneaks out to explore the world, even though it might still have been needed by its owner.

Have you ever noticed the way a piece of paper floats around on the freeway? Sometimes you get a reprieve if there aren’t any cars, and you just float in a circle or relax a bit. Otherwise, you’re whipped and whirred and shoved around by all the cars.

Once in a while you even get stuck to Mac Truck grill and get moved by force to some place you totally did not want to go. Then you slide off, hover around for a while. Sometimes you get brushed to the other side of the freeway, and shoved in the wrong direction for a while. Eventually, you’ll make it back to the right side and continue on, thanking Mother Nature for setting you straight again.

Maybe someday my paper self will land in Vegas, or somewhere cool like that. Prescott wouldn’t be so bad, either.

When expressing this to one of my friends at work, she said she might like to land in Hawaii. When asked about getting wet in the giant ocean on the way there, she exclaimed, “Not if we’re laminated.”

Clever, clever girl!