meal recommendation

This is what we had for supper last night, and it was really, really good. And not very hard to make. It's one of those that smells good the whole time you're making it since you start by sautéing onions and garlic in butter and olive oil (the shrimp we got was already cooked), so the anticipation for eating just builds and builds. This is also a recommendation for The Pioneer Woman Cooks! blog. Not only do so many of her recipes sound amazing (this is the first one I've actually made), but I find it quite entertaining as well.

new!

Yesterday we bought a new loveseat. This is interesting especially since we haven't exactly been thinking about buying new furniture, and we went to the store and just bought it. Quite uncharacteristic. Though, that's not the whole story — the store is going out of business, so it had a really good price on it, and it was the only one, so we sort of figured if we wanted it, we should just get it. We haven't picked it up yet, but I'm anxious for it because it's the reclining kind, and I like to put my feet up.

spontaneous joy

Yesterday I was reading on the couch and saw a car stop in front of our house. We don't often have people drop by, and I didn't recognize the car, so I watched to see what their business was. Because I'm nosy like that. A young (7? 8?...I'm so terrible at estimating ages) girl got out of the backseat and started walking down the sidewalk. I wondered where she would be going since, if she were going to my neighbors', why wouldn't they have parked closer? Because I soon wouldn't be able to see her from my position on the couch, I went to the front door to continue watching unseen. I could see an older brother in the front passenger seat and dad in the driver's seat. The girl continued down the sidewalk away from the car and every now and then would look back sort of nervously, but with a smile. She came running back to the car carrying a pair of glasses. I thought perhaps that was the purpose — she had somehow dropped her glasses out of the moving car and they came back to try to find them. But instead of getting back into the car, she gave her glasses to her brother through the open window. And started back down the walk. Then her brother yelled, "Your jacket!" and she came running back and handed her jacket through the window. And back down the walk she went. More hurriedly this time. Still with the glancing back, nervous and giggling. Then she just went for it — right into my neighbors' sprinkler! It's an in-ground sprinkler system that shoots out a fairly focused, steady stream of water. It was with a laugh of pure joy that she backed up to one and squatted on it while it sprayed her. After that she ran back to the car, hopped in the back, and they drove off. She was fully clothed in jeans and a shirt the whole time. How much does that dad rock?

surprise of the day

So I ate lunch in the cafeteria today because we had an interview to do, and what were they serving but verenike with ham gravy! I was shocked, I can tell you. And it was not too bad.

yum!

It is always with my great anticipation that the MCC Sale comes around. The once-a-year Feeding of the Multitude meal I eat is probably my favorite meal of the year. So I look forward to it, enjoy it, and all of a sudden there's a whole year before my next one! Yes, I feel for those of you out there who love it as much as I but are unable to make it. The meal this year was no disappointment. On Saturday, we went back to try the barbecue chicken meal (that I never before knew existed), partly because Brian's parents were doing the whole thing with two other couples. We made the second trip to Hutch only to discover the chicken meal was totally gone. Good for the sale, bad for us. We heard reports that other food items were sold out as well, and Brian's parents didn't even get to try the chicken, so after they were done cleaning up, the four of us all left the sale and went out to eat in Hutch. Sort of funny how that worked out. Here's a picture of us working the new year's cookies. We got to do the mixing of the dough, which I actually found to be pretty fun.

it's ok, i'm a limo driver!

I've been delinquent about posting. Mostly because I really wanted a picture of something and have been trying to track it down. Alas, it is not to be found, and the object I want a picture of is under lock and key, so I can't snap it myself. I wanted a picture of this custom golf cart that BC has -- a six-seater (backward-facing rear seat), all logo-ed out, and an optional rain enclosure thing. It was a big deal to get and is only used for special guests. And. It's called "the limo." Seriously, the key chain even says "LIMO" on it. Well, the other day when we had a videographer on campus, I got to drive the limo. Translation: big deal. It actually was sort of cool, and I was nervous to drive it because I really didn't want to ruin it. Especially fun was when I needed to do basically a three-point on the sidewalk and didn't want to drive off the sidewalk because it was quite muddy. The plastic cover was on it, which is sort of goofy looking. Oh, and classes were letting out right then so a lot of people got to see me. A high school student from my church laughed at me, I think.

beak 'em, hawks

I'm definitely psyched about KU becoming the national champs last night! During the second half, I'd sort of accepted that Memphis would win, so that three from Chalmers at the end of regulation was amazing. And coming back from a nine point deficit in the last two minutes of reg? Awesome.

Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy the second half/overtime as much as I would have liked because my cat went missing during almost that whole time, so any commercial break had us all deployed throughout the house looking/calling for her and then I would miss parts of the game and then I eventually started to get sort of worried. I didn't really see any of the overtime because I was looking, and then I finally decided to look outside, which was sort of crazy since no one had gone outside all evening. In the very dark backyard, I caught a glimpse of her and started to move toward her, begging her not to run away from me. She did. But not too far. I really didn't want her to go in the bushes or run out of the yard since it was so dark and I wouldn't have been able to see where she was. I was finally able to nab her, run her inside, and secure her in her carrier for the rest of the evening until I went home. When I did get back to the game, there were 56 seconds left in overtime and it looked really good for KU, which was exciting. Even though I was still sort of worked up about the whole Nibbert situation, I was glad she was captured before the end of the game so I could at least enjoy the win a little more! It was a long 20 years since the last one. I remember watching that win (sporadically, since, as a six-year-old, I was also interested in playing with my friends during it), and making little signs on notecards saying "Go KU!" and "OU" inside a circle with a slash through it. I loved Danny Manning. This is a weird end to the post, but I've got nothing else.

big bang

What? Three posts in one day? Can I help it if my life is uber interesting? Haha. But I had to share this story.

You'll probably get more out of this story if you know our bird, but... The other day we were watching a movie and there was a loud explosion of a vehicle. At almost the same time, I hear something from across the room, look, and see our bird fall off his bar perch down to the floor of his cage. There wasn't much noise after that. Brian and I looked at each other. I said, "Did Budgie just die?!" We looked back to the cage. Finally Budgie made his fluttery little way back to his perch. Poor guy must have been sleeping and totally surprised by the loud noise from the speakers and fallen right down. It was both really sad and really funny. As are most things with that bird.

couple's haircut

Some people do a couple's massage, we did a couple's haircut. I mean, it just worked out that way; it's not like we tried to plan a romantic haircut getaway. I just got a trim, so nothing too interesting, but here it is.

wiiing

Friday one of my co-workers had us (and the rest of the office) over for a Wii party. It was sort of a theme party, so what wii (it never gets old) brought for our food contribution were wii little peanut butter blossoms (for size perspective, those are made with milk chocolate chips instead of Hershey's kisses), wii little fruit pizzas (made on regularly sized sugar cookies), and wii little taco salads (not pictured...made inside of Tostitos scoops). P.S. Enough parenthetical remarks in this post?