#19

#19
I have a particular way that I eat my food. I always try to save one bite of everything for the very last. And I will carefully consider which bite to save for the end and which food item should be my last bite. I guess I always want the very last bite of my meal to be the best. And I'm a little protective of my food.

Mark constantly will try to steal my last bite, just cause he likes to mess with me. If only I could understand the thoughts of a man, intentionally pissing off his wife. Makes as much sense as him buying me a huge cast iron skillet for our anniversary. Seems a little counterintuitive to me.

This small idiosyncrasy of mine is an example of the small issues of OCD that I have. In fact, one time, when Mark was comfortable risking his life, he ate my last bite of sausage link while I was quietly making my way down to the final bite of my pancake. This sacrilege so bothered me that I felt the tears welling my eyes. All was fine though in the end, as it was an all you can eat breakfast, and I was able to get another sausage.

Mark's Opa (grandpa) also once made this same mistake as he reached over and took from my plate (from my own plate!) the last deviled egg that I had put to the side. Did he think I didn't want it? I just take these additional foods to make my plate look fuller? But after some steady breaths, I knew I would be ok, and though it may have bothered me some that I didn't have that last bite of egg, I didn't have a meltdown. It made me feel that perhaps I wasn't so crazy.

#20

#20- I love to cook. Hate to bake. I can't make a cookie to save my life. It's because I don't like to follow recipes. I just toss and go. I've always got to Miranda-ize the recipes. I even add stuff to blue box mac and cheese. And for the most part, I really think it turns out better in the end. But when I do miss the mark, man I really miss it. I really think I have a disease, something that requires rehabilitation for this compulsion.

#21

#21 I love to read. A lot. You can typically judge the length and activities of my weekend by the number of books I take with me. And I've always been this way. When I was little I would get in trouble for reading my book instead of doing my chores. My mom would even go so far as to ground me from reading. I would take my book down to my room and use a flashlight under my blanket so that I could read. Yes, I am that big of a dork. And I still am.

#22

I know I didn't get this done last night, but I have a good excuse!

You know how excuses are like feet, don'tcha? Everybody's got them and they all stink!

Anyways, last night my sister and I took one of our younger sisters out for supper in celebration of her reaching her Teen years. Lots of talking about womanly subjects, and lots of strawberry lemonade.

So, my #22 is in honor of this momentous occasion. And no, it's not about any sort of womanly subject.

#22 - I am the oldest of 10 total children, as of last count. This includes full, half, step, whole, claimed and unclaimed siblings. This does not include ex-step-siblings (that would bump the number up to 13 and I would then be second oldest.)
This is a list of my siblings, w/ age and how they are related.

-Morgan, 19 We share the same mother and father. My only full sibling. She got the hair, the looks, the boobs, and I was supposed to have got the brains-but she was the valedictorian of her class, and I was definitely not-so I just pretend like I got the better humor and call it good! She does tell me I'm funny.

-Kylie, 13 We share the same mom. She and I are kindred spirits, we are so similar it's kind of freaky.

-Ethan, 8 He'll be 9 in about one week. My little red-headed brother. We have the same mom. He's the cutest thing ever, and a very sweet soul. He use to wrap up his own toys just so he could give gifts to others at Christmas.

-Lexi, 12 We have the same dad. She is going to be a wonderful mom, she is a natural with children, and absolutely loves helping out.

-Sidney, 9 We have the same dad. She's one of my twin sisters. She has beautiful blue eyes and is also very caring and quiet. She seems very introspective and I can't wait to watch her grow up.

-Taylor, 9 We have the same dad. She the other twin. She looks more like me, while Sidney more resembles Morgan. Taylor is very mischevious and quick to action.

-Tana, 22 Step-sister through my dad

-Spring, 20 Step-sister through my dad

-Tyler, 17 Step-brother through my dad

My dad just got married this past August. He has a wonderful new wife that makes him very happy, and I look forward to getting to know my step-siblings in the future. So far, we've had lots of fun at the few family get-togethers we've had. So, it's looking pretty positive!

So that's about it. I love the craziness, the constant things going on, and I love being the oldest, helping out my younger siblings, watching them grow up and all the other good stuff!

PS-Just in case you're wondering, Mark has one sister. One. That's it.

Let the comments begin...

Last night I changed my settings, now anonymous people (or people w/o a blog and w/o signing in) can comment on my posts. So, now I expect to be just bombarded with tons of comments - this means you husband!

#23

#23 - I've had lots of different jobs in the past 23 years. I thought it would be interesting to go through my list of former jobs.

1. Kitchen Aide at county hospital

2. Mowed the local cemetery

3. Worked at a local zinc plating shop as a secretary/janitor/painter

4. Scale girl during wheat harvest (at least I had air conditioning and cute farmer boys.

5. Factory worker at Manville-we made fiberglass insulation and I worked 12 hour days 6-6, switched between boths days and nights. It was a hot, itchy, interesting, and fun job.

6. Target - check out chick, for about one month. Worst job I've ever had

7. Lunch Lady at the Derb-the central dining room for the dorms at K-State- I mainly worked as a sub sandwich lady and then at the stir fry station

8. College Pro - I was a job site manager for a house painting company. Most difficult job I've ever had, but I ended up w/ some great friends

9. Disney - I went to local retailers and made sure their Disney displays looked good and I was pretty good myself at putting those cardboard things together

10. Quiznos - Shift Manager for the restaurant with the yummiest fast food sandwiches

11. K-State Athletic Dept - Marketing Gofer/Intern - whatever they could make me do

12. I spent one day selling DARE t-shirts at a truckstop in Oklahoma. But only one day and that's another blog post.

13. Yea for bank jobs! I've worked at a bank in Oklahoma as a teller and a personal banker, and of course, currently work as a teller here in Kansas

14. Mary Kay - I don't really consider it a job, just a lot of fun and a lot of makeup.

And I think that's it, at least all that I can or want to remember. You will notice that I don't have listed exotic dancer or stripper. There is reason for that. That is one job that I did not do. I mainly note this fact in the rare case that my ex-boyfriend's mother runs across my blog. I just wanted to straighten up some things you know. Get it all out in the clear. Though I am sure if I had, instead of making sandwiches, I would have ended up with a lot fewer student loans.

#24

I'm a slow eater. And yes, I know part of the problem is that I just talk too much. But I also like to enjoy my food. I can't say the same for my husband, or some of our friends, or even our family. And they point it out too. Just because they eat faster than I do, that does not make them better people, right? Why can't they just leave me alone? I don't really need the snide comments about how well, we've just got to wait on Miranda now. I'm kind of sensitive about it, if you hadn't noticed. So, when you see me eating, just understand I'm appreciating the cook's fine work. Don't complain if I'm still eating my fries two at a time, making sure they're of equal length and dipping each bite into my ranch dressing. Because I'll get all huffy and quit eating and no one wants a huffy, unfed Miranda. So #24 is valuable information for you, to make your life safer and my food more enjoyed.

Pasta alla Miranda

So one night this last week I wanted to make a recipe that I got from Pioneer Woman. As I started cooking though, I realized I was missing a few key ingredients, of which I do typically have somewhere in my pantry-but realized it just a little too late, and I didn't want to make a run to the store. So, instead I made some substitutions up....and, it was awesome. So, here's my recipe for Pasta alla Miranda.

First, I boiled some water and added in some macaroni. I'm cheap, so it was the only kind of pasta I had in the house!

In a big skillet I melted some butter and added half a chopped onion and one minced garlic clove and let that cook for a couple minutes. I then added about half a cup of vodka! and let that cook for 3 min. I then added in a can of cream of mushroom soup. Of course, I also added some yummy cheese-parmesan and a little bit of sharp cheddar.

I let that all simmer for a little bit, added some red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and added some milk. Mark and I only drink skim milk, so I also added some sour cream to help thicken it up a little bit and make it a little silkier and smoother.

I then drained the pasta that was cooked to al dente. Make sure to reserve a cup of the pasta water in case your sauce is a little too thick. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce and maybe some of the water. Make sure to taste the sauce along the way, I added a little more salt and pepper as I went, because it did need some more. I then added some chopped parsley and a little more parmesan and oh my goodness! I just about died from all the yumminess. So much tastiness all wrapped up in an oops kind of recipe.

Try this recipe, and try it this week. And do not skip on the vodka ( I mean in the recipe, you at least have to save some to actually go in the recipe.) SO worth the taste. And the alcohol will cook out, you can feed this to your kids without any fear of being turned into social services. It's just deliciousness!

#25

I was tagged on facebook to write 25 little know facts about myself. What I've decided to do is to take those 25 things and put them here. I will try to be faitful with it, and every day give you something weird and fun about myself.

So, #25

Insurance commercials can make me cry. I get all emotional watching that big burly dude giving the kid a stuffed animal, or where the guy grabs the older gentleman's suitcase off the baggage claim conveyor belt thingy. Oh Liberty Mutual, what you do to me. And don't even get me started on the songs! Oh man, "and I don't know is this the part where you let go..." Responsibility, what's your policy? I just can't talk about it anymore. Good golly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw97CfZtyGw

Working my @ss off

So-I have to confess something. I drink a lot of Mt. Dew. Like-a lot. And I also will drink a lot of water, so needless to say, I do have to make a couple or three or four trips to the lady's room during the day. Not to mention the fact that I have the world's smallest bladder. Seriously, ask anyone of my family or friends or Mark even-actually don't ask Mark. You don't want to get Mark started. He'd get all pissy and complain about how he has to forbid me from having caffeine for about two days before a trip that would require me to be in the vehicle for longer than an hour. So just don't ask him, take my word for it.
Anyhow, what I'm trying to say is I spend quite some time in the lady's room and maybe I just have a weird handicap-but I cannot rip off a piece of toilet paper for anything! I try to tear it, pulling it against the edge of the holder and it just keeps unraveling, leaving me with about three feet of paper on the floor. I'm sitting there, trying to roll it all back up, hoping no one walks in and sees my feet with a wad of paper surrounding it. I mean, is this just some kind of industrial strength tp that's mainly working to scrape the skin off my butt? Is anyone else having the same kind of difficulties? I think it's time that all us workers should stand together and demand a higher quality tp-our rear ends depend on it!

Lord knows mine does.

Go State!

So tonight is K-State vs. KU at Lawrence. I'm already nervous. Tonight I'll be kind of pacey and moody and I'm guessing that within the first 10 min. of the game, I'll tell Mark just to turn the channel. I'll come back to it later, when it's more decided and I don't have to fret so much. I don't like fretting, it's bad for my health.

Happy Birthday Honey

Today is my wonderful husband's birthday. Happy Birthday Mark! I love you. I hope that your 24th year is wonderful and that I can help you to reach all of your goals and dreams.

Enjoying

My uncle showed me this clip at Christmas, I don't know if there's a better way to link it, but I'll try.

http://ellen.warnerbros.com/EllenMediaPlayer/#topofpage

Go to Real People, then almost to the very bottom of the page, and click Ellen talks to 88 year-old Gladys Hardy from Austin, TX

Pizza Burgers

So tonight for supper I got out my handy dandy little food processor (on a side note: I need to use that thing more often) and I chopped up some mushrooms, onions, pepperoni, tomato paste, some Italian spices, and a little oil. Then I mixed the puree in with ground beef and some bread crumbs and made hamburger patties. It smelled so great! Then I spread some pizza sauce on a bun, covered the patty with mozarella cheese and put it all together. It was definitely yummy. Kind of a different texture, but I liked it enough-and Mark did say he like it, so I guess that's a positive. Next time, I might just use the pepperoni and onions as toppings instead of changing the texture of the burger, but still getting the same taste. I'll let you know!

Christmas with Cody

What's For Supper?

Tonight we had knip again. Knip is the old German recipe that my husband's family loves to make. The last time that I wrote about knip, I had three different people who googled knip come across my blog. I use a statcounter that shows not only how many people visit my blog a day, how many are first time or returning visitors, but also what the keywords are that people use to search and then come across my blog and click on it to read it. So, after the last blog I wrote about knip, someone in Hutchinson, KS, someone from Illinois and someone from Minnesota all took a look at my little blog. How cool is that? I love knowing that. Too bad they only looked at it the once, I must not be exciting enough.

Floorplan!

So, as we have been talking about building a new house, we've spent hours upon hours reading and re-reading the Wardcraft magazine. We're not limiting ourselves to Wardcraft, it's just that they have an easy to read catalog with lots of different floor plans in it. My favorite, absolute favorite! is the Alexandria 1-as of late. It seemed that each time I'd look at the magazine, I would come up with a different favorite. At first, all that I wanted was some separation between the dining room and living room. Call me old-fashioned, but I like walls and formal dining rooms and hallways and everything. I still think there's ways to make a house open, but I just don't really like the idea of the kitchen with the bar open to the living room open to the dining room. That is very modern right now, just not my style. But there's lots of other stuff that I want. Iwant a beautiful kitchen with an island and a pantry, a master bedroom suite with a nice walk in closet and a separate bathtub, a room close to the master that could serve as a nursery or a Mary Kay office! I'm picky about where I want the utility room, the doors, the bathroom. So, I knew I had to give up something, and when I decided to give up the "planned" separation between the dining room and the living room (realizing that separation can be created) I found this plan:





I love the little den close to the master bedroom, of course I would move the doors. And the utility room and the bathroom would need to be switched so that the garage could be on the side of the house, not the front. The master bathroom could be a little larger. And of course, the kitchen, oh Lordy, the kitchen! If all I had was the kitchen I would be happy. The last thing I would maybe do is not do the Cathedral ceiling. I know that sounds weird, but my mom's house has the Cathedral ceiling and it always sucks to try and dust up there, around the open wall that is separating the kitchen from the other rooms, and of course, where do you decide to stop painting. You'd have to paint the kitchen, living room, all of that the same color.

It's almost a record

I'm home for lunch from work right now-and all I want to do is lay down, curl up, and take a nap. It's just been one of those days. Since I can't do that, I think there's a pretty good chance I'm going to stop and pick up a pop before I head back. I feel like I deserve it. Plus I didn't have a pop at all yesterday and I just won't get one tomorrow. That's cutting back, right? I haven't broken my New Year's resolution, cause I just said I'd drink less Mt. Dew, I think I'm ok. Right, I'm still good.

Ok, it's decided. Mountain Dew, here I come!

Birthday-palooza

My husband's birthday is next Saturday. So, this means that today is the beginning of Markapalooza. It's a whole week in celebration of Mark. My younger sister's birthday was today, and we had chili and opened some presents, and just kind of hung out. It has to suck having your birthday so close to Christmas, it all kind of gets lumped together. I'm still exhausted from all of the family stuff from the last couple of week, let alone trying to do more stuff this week with both our families and have some fun with friends. The presents are always an after thought, and then you don't get to open any presents for another year. My birthday is at the end of June, which means I've typically had to celebrate it in the wheat field. I never got to take treats to school. It was pretty rough growing up with a summer birthday. It's strange how important the time of your birthday is. And I don't mean by ways of astrology, but how it affects the kind of presents and parties you get! I suppose when it comes time for Mark and I to start having babies, we'll really have to do some careful planning!

Rockin' it out!

Tonight we're heading to Wichita for a CCR concert. No, not that CCR. I'm talking about Cross Canadian Ragweed, a Red Dirt country style band. There is no better way to experience a concert than smashed towards the front, barely able to understand anything over the blaring rythyms, screaming the words at the top of your lungs along with the girl next to you , who for the next two hours will become your best friend.

The Red Dirt music is basically a rock and roll rythym, with amazing guitars and country lyrics, with heart and soul and quite a few drinking songs. It's Texas country, Red Dirt music, alternative country, outlaw music, or whatever you want to call it. So, I leave you with this link as a small taste of what you can enjoy from these guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psodrlWM8VM

I'm a Toys 'R Us kid

Mark and I have been living in this tiny house since April of 08 (that's last year now!) We both hate paying rent and are so ready to be in a house that is our own. We know want to be in a house, and for it to be soon. But that's about all that we have decided right now. We had previously made an offer on a house with 80 acres that was close to Mark's family's farm, but we were outbid. At that point, Mark was really disappointed and when we then started looking in town, nothing could quite compare to what we both wanted for our future-a home with land, out in the country, where we could raise our children close to friends and family.



Today, our dilemna is figuring out our next step. We have two ways we can go. One: Buy a home, here in town, something that will be more easily affordable, something that we could sell in a few years, but that we could stand and maybe even do small projects and work on, so that we could make a good profit. We also may be able to start buying some land if we have a smaller mortgage payment. OR Two: Build the house we want on the land we want, and do it now. Interest rates are not going to get much cheaper, if at all, and we would be where we want to be. We're young and will not be in a position where we're 80 and just paying off our house.



So what to do, what to do. I think the major problem is that Mark wants to be near the farm and that trumps all. I am unbelievably scared of making such a huge investment all at once. I'd rather buy something a little smaller now, work on our equity, and then make the move later. But later is always scary too. Who knows what will happen-maybe we wouldn't be able to sell a house, maybe we'd get so caught up in life at that time, we wouldn't follow through with our dreams, maybe interest rates will have skyrocketed, maybe maybe maybe....

Sometimes, it just sucks being a big kid now, and having to actually step up and follow through with all those lofty goals and plans you made while going to school, getting engaged, and dreaming. All of this "exciting, fun, new stuff" is totally overrated. I have a hard enough time deciding what's for supper, how am I supposed to do more than that!?