weekend update

Lee had a long drill weekend. I say long because he left on Thursday instead of Friday. Nothing new and exciting to report on that front.

Meanwhile back at the ranch:

1. Organized my closet. Again.
2. I gave Cooper a bath.
3. Had Chinese takey outey.
4. I did 2 loads of laundry.
5. Painted my own nails and toes!
6. Ran and emptied the dishwasher.
7. Baked a cherry pie.
8. Watched the game at Kimberly and Rusty's house.
9. Napped.
10. Had dinner with Nick and Kristie. MMMM fajitas...
11. Watched Contagion at the theater with Nick, Kristie, Taylor and Jacob.
12. Got groceries.
13. Emptied all the trash in the house.
14. Vacuumed my car.
15. Baked 4 loaves of pumpkin bread.
16. Made chicken fettuccini for us to eat when Lee got home.
17. Packed Lee's lunch for today.

I kept busy while he was gone and I liked it. Time flies so much more when I'm busy or asleep. I also thought of a couple things I'd like to accomplish while he's deployed:

1. Learn to sew. (I took a costume course in college so I know the basics but I'd like to become more "fluent" so that I can sew my own curtains, pillows, table cloths, etc.)
2. Discover Photoshop. Lee bought me the software but I have no idea how to use it. I need to spend some time watching some tutorials, etc. I'd really like to be able to photograph our kids/family members myself one day and make them look professional worthy, ya know?

By the way, turns out my from scratch cherry pie was a success even if it did look like it had a disease. Kimberly confirmed that someone even had 2 slices at the watch party! I can never get the crust just right. I think it varies by oven bc my temp and time never seems to be right. I need to watch it bake closely or more so obviously.

What I CAN do is make some pumpkin bread. The house smelt a-mazing and my office devoured the bread this morning! Here's my recipe:

(This made 2 larger type pans and 2 smaller type pans. I'm so descriptive. )

INGREDIENTS

• 1 stick butter, softened

• 2 cups sugar, 1 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1  teaspoons ground cloves
• 1  teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 16 ounce can solid pack pumpkin (They only had a large can of pumpkin pie kit at the store so I just measured out 16oz of that.)

DIRECTIONS
In a mixing bowl, mix butter and sugar. Add eggs; mix well. Combine dry ingredients; stir into creamed mixture just until moistened. Stir in pumpkin. Pour into greased loaf pans. Bake @ 350. My recipe calls for bake time of 1 hr but I removed it all at 45 mins so watch it! I waited for the bread to be completely cool before dumping them out of the pans and into plastic wrap.


Contagion. This movie was OK. It was good but not great. It had GREAT actors but it seemed to reiterate the same scene over and over which made the movie seem longer than it was. I wanted to scream, "I get it. People die after getting infected by the disease!" On the way home, we discussed story lines that were left unfinished in bad taste. Bottom line. I think the movie poster looks more exciting than the movie actually was.