Breath-Taking

I received an award today from my good friend Amber over at Life on a Stick.  She lives in Minnesota and she’s expecting not 1 but 2 babies, yes folks you read that right, she’s going to have twin boys.  Go show her some love!!!

Now on to the rules for accepting the award, answer the questions, pass it on.  I think I can manage that 🙂

1. Who/what inspires you? 
A lot of people inspire me, it’s to what degree you want to know my inspiration… 🙂 But I’m going to go with just the normal every day… that would be my family.  Both my husband and my parents and my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles, my in-laws, and my new family.  They give me so much inspiration to accomplish, achieve, and give it my all.  Without them, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. 

 Our combined families


2. What is your favorite season & why?
Most people think I’m nuts, but I’m so going to go with Summer!  Bring on the warm weather and the clear blue skies!


3. What are you looking forward to most this year?
Spending my 1 year anniversary with the man of my dreams… to mushy for you?

 haha I spared you a “wedding photo” with a rehearsal one


4. If you could write a book about anything, what would it be about?
Oh the possibilities are limitless but right now I want our love story down so if we ever go senile we’ll know how it happened 🙂

5. What is your greatest passion?
My love for helping people and being an advocate for Agriculture.

 
6. If you could change one thing about your life or yourself, what would it be?
I would change some of the complications in my life… but if I did… would I really be me?

7. Lastly, what is your favorite novel?
I love Stephanie Plum, so all the novels in the series are my favorites.  They are by Janet Evanovich.

(This is the first of the series)

And now, time to share the love and tag some blogs! A few of my faves….

Lindsay at A Small Town Kind of Life – She lives in Canada, She’s fun, She has great ideas for craft nights.  Go check her out!!



Dancy at Dancy Days – She lives in NYC, she got married the day after I did, Again, Go check her out!!


Hannah at Gator Tales –  She’s from Florida, she has a cute dog, and some GREAT tips!  Go check her out!! (btw my font and color changed and I don’t know why)

The Goodwife at Thickin and Thinin at Goodwife Farm – She lives in Illinois, She had a cute daughter, She has fun animals, Go check her out!

And I just tried to share some love all over 🙂

It's a Quiz, Learn about me/us :)

I found this poll over at Modern Day Wife’s Journey and decided to post it since I thought it was cute! Feel free to play along, it’s 25 random questions about you and your significant other!

How long have you been together?

Married, it’ll be 5 months next Friday (March 4th), since dating 19 months, 20 months if you add in the “talk time” before our first date, but we’ve been friends since high school (maybe even junior high…)….

How long did you know each other before you started dating?

Since junior high days

How old are each of you?

Me- 27 Him-28, we are actually the same age for 4 months

Whose siblings do/ did you see the most?

I’m an only child so that would be his sister.

Do you have any children together?

Nope.  He has a daughter who is my step-daughter, but so far, that’s it.

What about pets?

We got Audrey, our Cocker Spaniel together.  Plus I brought my 23ish head of sheep with me and he brought his couple horses with him, plus I have a dog at my parents house (he likes it better there) plus I have some cows, please don’t ask me how many… now would you qualify those livestock as pets… the horses yes, part of the sheep, sure… the rest… oh probably not but still we have them 🙂

♥ Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?

That’s a hard question to answer.  We try to overcome all obstacles together as a team.

Did you go to the same school?

 We went to the same grade school for Kindergarten and first grade… Now that being said, I was am K and he was pm K so we didn’t know each other.  Then for 1st grade we had different teachers.  Then I switched schools for 2nd through 6th and as 7th graders all (at the time) 6 of the grade schools came together for Junior high and high school… so yes 🙂 to hometown schooling…

♥ Are you from the same home town?

Nope, we just went to the same school via satellite… j/k, yes we are. 🙂

Who is the most sensitive?

Oh probably me.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?

Lately, Gusanno’s (sp?)…. it’s a pizza place.

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?

From where we live, is Chicago or Ft. Worth or Fort Campbell, KY/Nashville, TN further??  But before we were a couple, Sophomore year of high school we went to Florida together with band.  We spent the whole trip together too pretty much.

Who has the worst temper?

Oh… dunno….

Who does the cooking?

We love to cook, but even more we love to cook together so usually we are right there cooking side by side.

Who is more social?

That would be him.

Who is the neat-freak?

Um… I would say I get that… but I’m not really….

Who is the more stubborn?

Well… that I guess depends on the topic.

Who hogs the bed?

Um…. do I have to be honest here?

Who wakes up earlier?

Unfortunately it’s most generally me… I blame it on my bladder… LOL

Where was your first date?

Dinner club with my friends at a place called Touche’

Who has the bigger family?

oh it depends on how far you want to go out… but probably him….

Do you get flowers often?

My husband is quite the romantic!

How do you spend the holidays?

With each other 🙂

♥ How long did it take to get serious?

I think it was pretty much serious from the git-go… we have a long history… but, we didn’t claim to be officially dating until October of 09, our first date was the end of July 09… he proposed to me 2/12/10 and we were married on 9/4/10…

Who does/ did the laundry?

Predominantly me, but we both put it away.That’s one of my downfalls 🙁  I hate hanging up/folding up clothes!

A List

First off… I take it you’ve all noticed the name change… Yes it’s the same ole Nicole you’ve grown to love… I just thought I’d try this name out.  It’s the way my husband answers the phone to friends and family a lot of times.  He has even answered our home phone that way, although sometimes it would be better to answer INS because… we keep getting this same Hispanic lady calling and every time we tell her she has the wrong number, who she’s looking for no longer has this number, she’ll hang up and call back 5 times.  And it doesn’t matter what time of the day or night it is, we’ve gotten phone calls at 9am, we’ve gotten calls at 4pm, we get them at 11pm or 2am… she doesn’t care.  And it sounds like the same lady every time.

Ok anyway I digress… secondly, you notice that with the name change came a background change.  Ok 2 so far.  I’m still not digging them… I don’t know what to do… maybe I should go back to That’s Life and leave it like I had it… I don’t know :(…. Ideas, suggestions?

Thirdly, Sorry for the out of character posts I’ve had lately… I think yesterday’s really threw everyone with the name change and the random topic… I just like to spice things up sometimes 🙂

Fourthly… is that a word… apparently, blogger isn’t telling me I spelled it wrong.  It’s so dark and dreary out this morning.  Thunder, Lightning, rain, the works.  And it’s chilling off.

Fifthly, I have to confess… I’ve had 3 chocolate bars this week.  I know right… so bad!  But they were so good.  And I follow the rule of thumb… Whatever is still left in the pan, box, wrapper, whatever, is what contains all the fat & calories… so it’s all good… LOL

Sixthly, I did this yesterday playing around:

The quote says A Pony is a childhood dream, a horse is an adulthood treasure ~Rebecca Carroll

Seventhly, Ah, finally blogger doesn’t like this one… oh well I’m using it!!

Eighthly, (it doesn’t like this one either), Gas prices went up overnight… 20 cents.  The national average is 3.24/gal, ours is at 3.19/gal.  Let’s hurt an already hurting economy, sure why not.  As long as all the major oil refinery companies get their fat wallets, who cares about the rest of us.  And you can agree with me or not… but back when they got so outrageous in 2008… Hello, gas prices went down and our economy started to elevate back up… not nearly as fast as it plummeted but it immediately started to recover!

Ninthly, Where I sit at work (they ran out of offices in our dept), I sit where a secretary used to sit… my phone was set up for her, she had to answer other people’s phones.  So my phone rings for 19 people… OH MY GOSH, when half the lines are ringing… It’s flippin annoying!  I’ve learned to tune them out to the point, I don’t answer it when it’s actually my line ringing… woops!

Tenthly, So I was listening to the news update on the radio just now and they said that kids who were raised up on a farm are less likely to have allergies due to the exposure of barn yard germs!  Yey!  Go me!  I was raised on a farm… cool!

Eleventhly,   My husband believes in me.  Enough said!

Twelthly, Wow this is getting tough… haha!

Thirteenthly, What on earth could I possibly be doing with this:

Not my hand, it’s my lovely assistant’s hand… Thanks Hubby!!

To cause my nails to look like this?

Fourteenthly, My snowman tree is still up here at work… maybe I should take it down now….

Fifteenthly, I’ve been having CRAZY dreams this week!

Sunday: Getting my hair cut

Monday: I was on the Empire State building with my sister in law, nephew, mother in law and people I don’t know… We were on the antennae that sticks out of the top.  Let’s just say it didn’t end well for all of us 🙁

Tuesday: it was about painting my bedroom

Last night: was about Zumba/Ballet (I’ve done/do both), and my second was about being a teacher…… 

I can hardly wait to see what tonight has in store for me!

Sixteenthly, I’ll leave you with these words of wisdom:

My co-workers gave me this my first day on the job… it just follows me. 🙂

Let's talk about Sex, Baby…

Let’s talk about you and me…

Hahaha… sorry this song has been playing through my head all day… and this post is actually based on Sunday…

Have you ever been to a Slumber Party?

No… not one of these…

also known as a sleep over with all your girl friends where you share secrets and put make-up on the girl’s face who falls asleep first.  {yeah I was the make-up applier usually}

I’m talking about the Adult Slumber Parties…

If you haven’t… WOW… I hadn’t been to one until Sunday.  Boy… it’s awfully… um…. informative… for lack of better word…

It is a home party where they sell sexual type of things: lubricants, outfits, oils, tasting stuff, toys… WOW… It’s rather intimidating if you ask me.

And you have to be a special person to sell stuff like this!  SERIOUSLY!!!

So I had 2 friends who threw a joint party and invited me, so I went.

 I really wasn’t sure what to expect.  I was a little nervous about going but since it was 2 friends… I figured what the heck.  I think I’m still in shock!

One thing I learned… apparently you should have 200 Big O’s (woops was that a graphic word?) a year to stay healthy.  That averages 4 times per week…  It keeps your chances of breast cancer down, your chances of prostate cancer (I guess if you’re male… not female) down, it keeps your face clearer (as in cleaner complexion), and it keeps you happier because you release many endorphins.

She said that didn’t require you to have sex 4 times per week… just the other…  She was a little graphic at times…

The gal who tried selling us this stuff was loud and in your face.  At first it was weird, but eh, I guess you got used to it.  Although the cool part was, one of the ladies at the party made the seller blush, twice.

Our left arm was the “taste” arm and our right arm was the “smell” arm.

One of the first things she did was put a fragrance on our smell arm.  Your pheromones work with this smell and it gives off your unique smell.  Some people were more fruity, some were more woodsy, it just depended.  I started out fruity.  The party was at 1, then a group of us and our significant other’s gathered at another house later in the evening for dinner and by then, all of our smells had changed.  One of the guys smelled 3 different arms and said we all smelled different.

Anyway, I really don’t have much of a point to this post, other than, if you ever get invited, it’s oddly entertaining and well… weird, but you shouldn’t discount it… at least go and taste and smell and ………..

I’ll also put in here… I’m getting absolutely nothing for this… I’m just still cracking up so I thought I would share…  Oh and This gal wasn’t trying to “replace” anyone… LOL

Happy Hump Day… hahaha

Engagement Photo Re-do

I kind of got away from multiple posts a day (I did that a lot last summer).  Then I was reading Tiffany’s Blog, The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far and she was doing a post on engagement photos because of a blog link up party at Chasers of Kaysers who is getting close to getting her own engagement photos taken.  She said we could use old posts so I went digging for my engagement photos that were taken last April and I realized I put straight out of the camera photos… but none from after the photographer did some touch-ups.  I liked our engagement photos and had a blast doing them, but at the same time, I’m not 100% sure they were the photos of my dreams, but there were some excellent photos taken non-the-less so… I’m going to share them again.

I’m sure she’d love if you’d like yours up as well if you had an engagement photo session.  And if you link up, please let me know… I’d love to look at them as well 🙂
Hope you enjoy 🙂

(more…)

Chicken Parmesan (and it's Weight Watchers approved!!!)

Ok so first off… sorry about my ranting and raving yesterday.  Sometimes….

“Somedays you eat the bear & somedays the bear eats you” (or you wish he’d eat you faster!!)

That’s how my yesterday was and really my last couple weeks.   I’m really wondering if that has shown through my blog posts lately because I was starting to get a few comments… the most in one post was 23 and I have to admit, I loved it.  I’m sure we all love comments!  Now I don’t get very many… but oh well… I’m sorry if I have offended anyone.  Sometimes the stress of life really stresses you out!… unfortunately!

So, I don’t know anything about Weight Watchers, but I came across a great recipe that had the WW points built in to it!  Woohooo! So I can share it with you.

So without further Ado:

Chicken Parmesan
Ingredients:
For the chicken:
1 large egg
1 Tbsp water
1/3 cup dried bread crumbs
3 Tbsp Parmesan Cheese, freshly grated
1/8 tsp black pepper, freshly ground, or to taste
4 uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breasts (We only made 2)
For the Pasta:
3/4 cup dried whole wheat penne pasta per serving (hahaha I misread this and we shared 3/4 cup between the 2 of us… but we were both full after this)
1 cup spaghetti sauce
Directions:
1.  Cook pasta according to package directions.
2.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Spray a 1-qt shallow baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
3.  Beat the egg with the water in a shallow bowl.  Combine the bread crumbs, parsley, cheese and pepper on a sheet of wax paper.
4.  Dip the chicken breasts first in the egg mixture.

5.  Then coat lightly on both sides with the bread crumb mixture, shaking off the excess.

6.  Place them in the baking dish.  Discard any leftover egg or bread crumb mixture.

7.  Bake until cooked through, golden and crisp-edged, about 25 minutes.

Yields one breast per serving.

8.  Serve with pasta & tomato sauce

So the breakdown on the recipe was The chicken was 5WW points, then add your points for pasta & sauce.  3/4 cup pasta is 5 WW points and the sauce is 2 points.  You are looking at close to 12 WW points.

Don’t ask me anymore, I’m just passing that info along!!! 🙂

And oh my goodness is this YUMM-O!!!

Geez Louise…….

You know, Poor Louise, she gets her name used a lot when people aren’t happy… LOL

I have been so dadgum frustrated lately I don’t know what to do… I’ll get over it, I always do…

In fact my dad always told me growing up… You’ll get glad in the same pants you got mad in, or you’ll change them…

That’s just what I’m going to do.  I feel a change on the horizon!

You can be a very smart person without a college education.

You can be a very dumb person with a college education.

Well I have the college education… So I’m not the first statement… And you’ll have to take my word for it, but I’m not the second statement either….

I came to work for the company I am employed by 4 years ago October.  In fact I started on my dad’s birthday in 2006.  I worked at that particular job for 2 years.  I took the job because at the time I needed a job and I didn’t want to substitute teach another year.  Was this what my college ed was for… NOPE!  I got mad and frustrated on a daily basis.  My boss was a very nice lady, but extremely wishy washy.  Basically if you asked her a question today and you didn’t like her answer, wait 3-4 days and ask again and you’d get a different answer.  Very seldom did you get the same answer.  Toward the end of working at that job everyday I left work I would crank the radio up so loud I couldn’t think and drive with my windows down trying to blow that terrible day out of my head and out the window.  I’m surprised I’m not deaf!

In fall of 2008 the job I currently have was a newly created position.  I applied for it, was offered the job and in November I accepted it.  This job has been a good fit for me up until recently… Something has happened though and my co-workers treat me like I’m a flipping idiot.  Knowing full and well that I’M NOT I get pissed off.  There are 11 people in my department, I do hold the ranking of the youngest… I also hold the ranking of having a college education… (and no I’m not bragging or belittleing or anything… just stating the fact)… There are 2 in my department that do not… again, smart people who don’t have them: Point in Case… but… that all being said… being the youngest, I am the closest to my college education days…

Yes a lot has changed in the computer world!  When I was in college the 2 main Windows operating systems were ’98 and ME.  Then XP came out toward my later years in college.  Now we are running Vista and the latest was Window’s 7.  They function very much the same but there are still changes to all of them…  Same way with Office… We’re up to Office ’10… which my work computer has… Can I get around in it, you betcha.  Can others… well some are afraid of Office ’07 but yeah they can if they’d sit down and try.

Yes I have a point with all of this… I think….

When someone asks me to do something and I say yes, very seldom do I have to ask them what they asked me.  So far (knock on wood) very seldom do I forget even… So this one person at work will walk up and ask me to do something for them, I say yes and then they proceed to write it down on a piece of paper, the EXACT same way they asked me.  Seriously?  I’m not a flippin idiot!  If I have questions… that note isn’t going to answer them… so you are wasting paper and my time and yours by writing it all out.

Ok moving on….  New example.  This person proceeds to email me this statement the other day…

Hi Nicole, {Insert boss’ name here} has an instructional CD on Excel and he said that we could borrow it anytime to upgrade our expertise.
When you have some down time, you could use it to take advantage of learning more on Excel. 
It will show him you have incentive and motivation.
What do you think?

I seriously thought I was going to SCREAM!  I’ve never had to ask this person how to do anything in Excel.  NEVER!  Of course there was a pre-cursor to all of this but I don’t remember what she did to me before this… but that caused me to start cussing.  Ok so I cuss… I can cuss like a sailor… I can hold a whole conversation with NOTHING but cuss words… but I’ve been working on it.  I’ve tried to get a few words completely out of my vocabulary (well until this person starts in on me lately and they slip out… dang it!!) and cutting way back on others to eventually get them out of my vocab too.  Baby steps!

So part of borrowing his CD, I’m one of 2 people in our department who are running Office ’10.  I’ll bet his program is either geared for the old version or ’07 at the newest… That will be more of a headache to try… because well… they aren’t quite the same.  Same functions, little different set up.

Plus she doesn’t know that my husband had an Office class last semester and I did a lot of his work with him to brush up on my knowledge.  His class was Office ’10 and that’s what’s on my laptop…. it only made sense!  It taught me more about ’10.

Ok so my point of this post was I’m bitching so hopefully I won’t start cussing again…. no wait that’s not quite it… Oh I know what it is… (p.s. I’m finally to the point if you lasted through this whole post… sorry!!!)

You are now reading the blog of a transfer college student.

Transfer you ask??  Don’t you already have a Bachelor’s Degree?

I’m so glad you decided to ask me that… Yes I’m a transfer student because I’m going to a different college than my previous degree, and working on a second Bachelor’s degree so that means I had to send them my previous transcript so they could keep me from taking all that freshman weed out mumbo jumbo.  I have to sometimes wonder what the heck I’m thinking…  10 years out of high school and 5 years out of college… oh no wait… I’m 6 years out of college this spring… where has the time gone?

So I go from this:

To this:

To now this:

Am I an idiot for going back to school?  So far everyone tells me No….