Back by popular demand

So, remember how I begged a bunch of you to start following my blog, and then I quit blogging?

Oh, you do?  Well, a thousand apologies go out to you all. 

This summer has been crazy busy, and I’ve barely had a chance to catch my breath.  But, one of the reasons that I started blogging was so I could document Jesse and I’s first year of marriage.  Sadly, I didn’t document most of it and our one year anniversary came and went, and I never even mentioned it in my blog.

So, let me start with a little summer recap.

I actually took pictures at our 4th of July barbeque.  Yeah I know, Ca-razy!

My crazy awesome parents.  Seriously, my awesome dad just got me 8th row tickets to a Bengals / Colts game, just because he's so proud of me.  Aren't I a lucky girl?

I made cupcakes!

I took my nephew to the State Fair.  (This was the same day the stage collapsed.)

He was scared of the farm animals.  He refused to go near them and if one poked its head out while he was walking through the aisle, he would stop dead in his tracks and whimper until you picked him up. It was adorable!

One of my best friends got married and we traveled all the way to Denver for the ceremony.

She seriously looked like a supermodel and I was so honored to be part of her big day.

We climbed some mountains.  (In flip flops, I might add)

We went to a Colorado Rockies game.

I turned 28.  Blah!  (I look a little disheveled in this pic.  I might have had a couple of adult beverages by this time.)

There were also many of other things that happened this summer.  Like, we celebrated our one year wedding anniversary, I camped out in the field in Georgia for a week, and I made the decision to go back to school.  

Now, I'm ready for fall!  Bring on the cool weather!

Our Florida Vacation

We haven't even been back from Florida for a week, and I already miss it!

It was so great spending time with Jesse's family. 

Jesse and I have been together for about 3 years, but I haven't been able to spend much time with his sister or his nieces because they live so far away.  I really, really wish they lived closer.  Or even better, I wish we lived in Florida!

But, I don't know if I can handle all of the freaking bugs.  The first night I was there, I didn't think it was necessary to use any bug spray.  That was a horrible idea.  The next morning I woke up, and had no less that 50 mosquito bites from my knees down.

It was painful.

And itchy.

And very ugly.

And I only brought shorts.

Moving on...

Here are some pictures of our awesome Florida getaway!

This is Jesse's niece.  We went down to Florida for her graduation.  Isn't she so pretty???

My in-laws.  Such a beautiful family!

Sweet little Lilly!

We randomly stopped at some Putt Putt place in Lido Beach, and wouldn't you know it, it also happened to showcase 1 of the 40 albino alligators in the whole-wide world.  Her name is Pearl.  And I was scared of her.

They let us feed the Alligators, but I was scared of these guys too.

Jesse, the master of self-picture taking with his six foot arms.

The beach was amazing!  I felt like I was in Mexico.

The view from our room.  Gorgeous!

Jesse, his sister Jennifer, and his niece Molly.  Miss you guys!

Summer Blog Swap!

Okay, so I participated in a Summer Blog Swap, and just recieved my package in the mail!

For those of you that don't know what a blog swap is (cuz I sure didn't), it basically went down like this...

One of the blogs that I follow was hosting a blog swap, so I signed up for it even though I had no idea what it was.  I was then partnered up with Savanah over at What Makes Savanah Smile. We were told that we were supposed to get to know our partner a little bit, and then start shopping!  We could spend up to $25 and had to mail out our packages within a certain amount of days.

I had so much fun shopping for her, and I was totally pumped to get my package in the mail!  I mean, who doesn't love to get home and find a package waiting on your front porch?

Here's what I got:

1. A Beachy Tote Bag- Which I'm very excited about since I'm going to Florida next week!

2. A new beach towel - This will also come in super handy next week.

3. Nail polish

4. Nail File

5. Palm Tree hand towels

6. Summer Time To-Do List pad.

Thanks so much Savanah!  I love it all!

Okay, moving on to a different topic...

My slacker ways.

Last week I had a plan.  I was going to quit slacking on my blog, and even planned out a whole "Weekend in Photos" blog post that I was going to do on Monday morning.

But then, I forgot to take any pictures over the weekend. So, that didn't really work out for me.

So, I will leave you with one picture that I took.  A picture of my neice and nephew.  I got to babysit them over the weekend, and of course they were absolute angels.  Aren't they just too cute for words?

It's time for some baby talk

I'm sure you're all wondering how the babysitting gig went, right?

Well, lets just say it went a little differently than expected.

It kind of made me realize how selfish Jesse and I are. I mean, we do what we want, when we want and however we want.  Not this weekend though.  This weekend, little tiny Allison called the shots in our house.  And it became very apparent that she was definitely not on the same schedule we were.

Poor little thing.  She's a little six month old baby who was teething and missing her mommy.  Let me tell you, most of the time she was not a happy camper. There was a lot of crying going on in the Deem household this weekend, and I don't think all of it was from the baby.

But we survived all the dirty diapers, crying, and disgusting noises that even the cutest of babies can make.

And I think she even had just a little bit of fun.

Although I'm happy to get back  to my own sleep schedule, I really miss the little squirt!
  

Our weekend plans

Okay, so I'm sure all of you have really missed me, and I'm sure you were like stalking my blog everyday to see if I had posted anything new, so to you I apologize.  Sometimes I'm just a slacker.

I blame this on the fact that I sit in front of a computer ALL day at work.  So naturally when I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of my computer at home. But, I'm going to try harder. I mean, have you seen my list of followers recently? I'm at six.

Holla!

Yep, my fan club is steadily growing.  At this rate, I should have about 12 followers by December.  I don't want to brag or anything, but I'm kind of turning into a big deal. :)  Okay, I'm just kidding...

Please, I beg of you.  Follow my blog.  I've started joining a lot of other blogs and have even started to research some online writing gigs, but no one is going to hire someone that only has six followers. So if you are a member of my family, or my BFF (ahem... Amber) then I'm talking to you.

Moving on...

I am really looking forward to this weekend.  Why you ask?  Because we get to spend the whole entire weekend babysitting this adorably, precious bundle of joy.

This is our niece Allison.  Actually it's Jesse's niece, but she's so freakin adorable that I like to claim her as my niece too.  I don't think my sister-in-law will mind!   Anyway, I'm super pumped about having Miss Allison over for the weekend!  Do babies make everyone happy or is that just me?

Well, I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Don't forget to follow my blog!

The world's best husband

For real.

I need to get a coffee mug for him that says, "World's Best Husband" or maybe a magnet.  Remember those magnets that we used to buy for our parents for Christmas?  It looked like "World's Greatest Mom" was written in crayon? I remember my mom used to give me like $10.00 to go to school and buy Christmas presents, and I'm pretty sure I bought her the same dang magnet every year.

Anyway, back to my husband.  He needs one of those magnets.

He's done some pretty awesome things for me lately. 

First and foremost, he bought me a dishwasher.  A dishwasher!  Can you believe it?  I swear it was one of the happiest days of my life!  We've had it for about a week now, and I can't even think of the words to describe how truly amazing it is. Not only do I have a machine that washes all of my dishes, I also have somewhere to hide all of my dirty dishes!

Then, the other night he came home with another surprise.  I was sitting on the couch watching TV, and he told me to close my eyes and hold out my hand.  He had an awesome surprise for me.  So, I did what I was told, and immediately opened my eyes when I felt the box in my hands.

You'll never guess what it was.

Okay, Okay...I'll tell you.

The Clapper!  Yes, you read that right.  Like, "Clap On, Clap Off ... The Clapper!"

The first words out of my mouth were, "You didn't actually spend money on this did you?"  Thankfully he said, "No".  And then I got really excited.  "Let's put it in our bedroom."  I immediately said.

So, he hooked it up to his lamp, and I spent the rest of the evening hanging out in our bedroom and just randomly clapping.  That night, I went to bed with the biggest smile on my face because as soon as I got all snuggled in and found a good, comfortable spot on the bed, I clapped twice and everything went dark.

You little rascal.

My friend Hatcher: blah, blah, blah “My mom and her mobile scooter.”


Me: “Hey. You need a mobile scooter? I got one for sale.” (When I think back to the actual conversation, I picture myself saying this in a New Jersey accent, chomping on bubble gum while twirling my fingers in my hair. It may or may not have happened this way)

The other ten people in the room: "What? Why do you have a mobile scooter? That’s weird."


Okay, so we are selling a mobile scooter for one of our friends, and right now it’s just hanging out in our basement until we can find a suitable owner.


I kind of don’t want to sell it.

I like it.

I used to drive it around in our basement when Jesse wasn’t home.


Then…


I wrecked it.

I was trying to parallel park the mobile scooter. Which is a terrible idea, considering I can’t even parallel park a car. But I thought, “It’s just a scooter”. Surely it’s easier than parallel parking a car. Boy was I wrong.

I crashed into our desk.

And my husband took away the keys.

Hopefully I never need one of those scooters! Can you get insurance on those things?

random facts about me

I love accents. For real. Jesse gets super annoyed because anytime we talk with someone who has an accent, I will spend the next half hour trying to mimic it. This never seems to pan out though. I normally end up sounding like a Leprechaun or Forrest Gump. And sometimes a mixture of both.

I cannot wink. When I was younger, I would stand in front of the mirror and practice for hours.

I LOVE Dateline. I record it every Friday and Sunday and it's one of my favorite TV shows. For some reason, I'm really drawn to watching True Crime stuff even though it scares the crap out of me. Plus, I usually end up watching it by myself because Jesse kind of hates Dateline because the guy who narrates the Friday night show, Keith Morrison, has a super creepy and annoying voice. Therefore, I usually spend the night triple checking the door locks and sleeping with the nightlight on.

I will not leave my house without putting on mascara. I have blonde eyelashes that I'm not very fond of.

Jesse and I had no plans for Easter and no family dinners to attend, so we spent the day de-cluttering our basement and ate our Easter dinner at Red Lobster. After we got done feeling sorry for ourselves, it ended up being a pretty good day!

I think I'm definitely going to cry during this week's episode of The Office.

I am a horrible backer-upper. And I hate backing into parking spots. My dad, my brother, and Jesse are all backer-uppers and it drives me crazy! Just pull into the parking spot like everyone else does!

I'm really nervous that the show Parenthood is going to get canceled next season, so I signed an online petition to keep it going. I have no idea whether this is legit, but you can click here to sign it too!

Well, I guess that's all for now!  Have a great Wednesday!

Work. Cook. Sleep. Repeat. + puppy love

I am such a horrible blogger!  Sometimes I just think my life is so boring that there is absolutely no chance anyone could possibly want to read about it. 

And I've been stuck in a funk lately.  My life revolves around working, sleeping, cooking and cleaning. 

When I'm not at work, I'm worried about making lunches, or what we're going to have for dinner, or what I'm going to bring to our work pitch-in, or whether we have clean clothes or dishes...and on and on and on...
It's exhausting.  Work is rough enough for me.  I have lot of responsibility and a lot of stress.  And when I come home, I really just want to relax, but that never seems to happen.  There are always meals to cook and dishes to do.


Ugh.  There has to be more to life than this, right?


Anyway, I actually had a great weekend and thought I would share it with you!

Jesse and I spent the weekend back in good 'ole Knox County.  We normally have an okay time when we go down to visit, but we never really get to enjoy ourselves.  There are always about 20 different people who need our attention.  But not this time...

This time, we stayed at my aunt Michelle's house (who also happens to be one of my best friends), and we just got to relax.  We didn't really even tell anyone else we were in town.  It was glorious!

So my cousin Jaden, who is ten years old, said the sweetest thing to me this weekend.  I seriously think it might have been the most flattering thing anyone's ever said to me, and something I will never forget.

She said, "Valerie, I want to show you this journal I have, but I can't find it.  I wrote something about you."
Then she said something like, "Everyday,  it asks a different question. One day, one of the questions was, 'If you could trade places with anyone, who would it be?' Well, I said you because you're in the Air National Guard, you have red hair, you're a good singer, and you're beautiful on the inside and out."

Awww...it makes my heart melt!  I have been battling so many inner struggles lately, but somehow it makes me feel so incredibly good about myself, to know that in the eyes of a ten year old, I'm perfect in every way.

Isn't she adorable?

I just want to throw out there, that we went bowling and I beat Jesse.

We also got to bring our dog with us this time!  This is a huge treat for us because our dog is "the monster" and no one ever lets us bring her over!  But "Abby the Monster" got to hang out with her best friend all weekend and I'm pretty sure she had a great time too.

Here are the two dogs when they were just wee little pups.

And here they are now.

Aww..sweet puppy love!

It's a love / hate relationship

I've had kind of a crummy day.  Nothing bad has happened to me personally, but I've just felt kind of horrible and unfocused and let down.  You see, today turned out to be lay-off day.

 This is round number two.

I made the cut this time, but I don't know if I will always be so lucky.  I have a hard time doing my best and giving 100% for a company that makes it very clear that I am disposable. I mean, I'm very aware of the fact that there is someone in the Phillipines that can do my job for a lot cheaper than I will, but does that mean they should?

One of my co-workers posted something online today about how he felt like we were in some twisted version of a reality TV show.  You just never know who is going to be eliminated from week to week. It's kind of scary... We have absolutely no job security.

So sorry to be such a Debbie Downer!  Let me get on with what I'm loving about today!

1.  I'm loving this new food website that I've stumbled upon.  Like seriously.  I could spend hours and hours on this site!   www.foodgawker.com Click here to check it out! 

 All you have to do is click on one of the mouth-watering pictures and it will take you straight to the recipe.  Not only that, it will take you straight to the cook's blog, which will lead to more awesome recipes!

2.  I heard Eddie Money on my way home from work today.  I have had an incredibly weird thing for Eddie Money ever since I was a child.  I have very vivid memories of begging my mother to play "Walk on Water" just one more time...

Well, a couple of summers ago, Jesse and I went to an Eddie Money concert. To say I was excited would be an understatement. And from what I hear,  I may or may not have had one too many adult beverages.  Anyway, we were pushing and shoving through the crowd so we could get as close as possible. And once we finally made it up to the front, I started screaming, "I love you Eddie!" at the top of my lungs. Apparently, this has not happened at an Eddie Money concert since the 1980s because I was getting some majorly weird looks. 

Jesse swears it was the moment he first knew that I was "the one".  :)

3.  I got to watch the show "Parenthood" tonight.  I swear this show makes me cry every week.  It is my absolute favorite show on TV.  It's so heartfelt and true and real, and every week it leaves me wanting more.  I recently had to wait like 3 whole weeks for a new episode to come on and it was absolute torture.

Well, I think that's all I have for now.  I hope everyone else had a good Wednesday!

The day I super glued my finger to my shoe

This happened to me yesterday.

It started off as a pretty good morning.  I wasn't in a completely horrible mood, and I was just going about my normal I-hate-getting-up-showering-putting-on-makeup-and-actually-having-to-do-something-with-my-hair-morning.  When all of a sudden, I had a genius idea...

I need to superglue my shoe.

I have an adorable little pair of black flats that I wear to work, and they have this ridiculous rubber peice on the bottom of them that is slowly peeling away.  I actually wore them the day before and decided it was probably time to shove them deep into my closet and never wear them again.  I couldn't even sit with my legs crossed in public.  I was too worried about someone staring at the bottom of my shoe.

So, back to my genius idea....

I asked Jesse if we had any super glue, and he just told me right where it was.  He didn't even ask why I needed it, or give me a "do you really think you and super glue is a good idea" stare.  Nope... nothing.  Which is why I fully blame this on him.  He should have known better than to tell me where he hid the super glue.

Anyway, I got out the shoes and put just a teeny-tiny bit of super glue under the rubber piece, and then pushed down on it for a good 30 seconds to keep everything in place.

Uh-oh...

My thumb was stuck.  Like big time stuck.  Like an embarrassing trip to the ER stuck. Like I might need to call into work stuck.

So I ran over to the stairs and yelled for Jesse, and as soon as he popped around the corner, there I was...  Standing there with a shoe hanging off of my thumb.  We instantly started laughing and both of us were just kind of staring at it like, WTF?

Finally,  Jesse told me to hold it under some hot running water.  I did that for as long as I could handle it, and then I just grabbed onto the shoe and ripped it off!

Yes, it hurt.  And yes, I ripped off some skin.  But it was so ridiculous and hilarious, that it didn't really hurt.  I laughed through the pain.

I now wish that I would have have taken a picture of this incident, just so I could post it on here, but for some reason, that didn't really cross my mind at the time.  I even tried to Google "super glued my finger to my shoe" for images, but still nothing.  Really Google?  This doesn't happen all of the time?

So because I feel like every post needs a picture, here's an image of the super glue I used.  Be careful.  It's sticky.

Our new ugly couch

I'm sorry that it has been so long since I've posted anything, but I just feel like I've been overwhelmingly busy these last couple of weeks.  Plus, I only have two followers (and one of them is my husband), so posting on this blog is usually not my top priority.  

Please feel free to comment on my posts, or even sign up to follow me (it will send you an email every time I post something new). It might make me want to post a little more often! :)

Anyway, here's a little list of what's been going on in my busy life.

1.  I lost 7 lbs in last weeks weigh-in! 

2.  We found out we have termites in our house.  This seriously creeps me out.  Terminix has already been out to spray or whatever the heck it is that they do, but I'm pretty sure the termites don't just disappear right away.  The Terminix guy also asked me if they had started flying yet.  Yuck...  No, they haven't but I really did not need to know that this might happen in the near future.

3. I have been trying out all sorts of new recipes!  I made this amazing Fettucine with Creamy Red Pepper- Feta Sauce the other day.  You should definitely try it out!

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
• 1 (16-ounce) jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
• 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken stock or vegetable stock

• 1 cup crumbled feta cheese or a 6-ounce block
• 1 pound whole-wheat fettuccine
• Salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

recipe tools

DIRECTIONS

Heat the oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Saute onion and garlic until soft, about 10 minutes. Add roasted peppers and saute until heated through. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Place mixture in the bowl of a food processor with stock and all but 2 tablespoons of the feta. Process until combined and smooth, about 30 seconds. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta water. Toss pasta with sauce, adding pasta water by the tablespoon, if needed. Sauce should cling nicely to pasta. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Divide among pasta bowls. Sprinkle with parsley and remaining feta cheese.

4.  We moved around everything in our basement.  We have a walk-out basement, and as soon as you walk down the stairs, there is a big open room with french doors that lead out to our back patio.  This room is our bedroom. There is also a little hallway off to the left.  Off of the hallway is our laundry room, closet and office.  

Anyway, we decided to turn our bedroom into a TV room.  Jesse's dad got us a flat screen TV for Christmas, and we hardly ever use it.  So, we made the office into our bedroom and put all of the office stuff in the other half of the TV room.

Now all we had to do was find us a couch for the TV room, and we knew that it was going to have to be something cheap, and probably horrible to look at.  


And it definitely is...  Here is our new couch!

Okay, so I was embarrassed just having this strapped in to the back of our truck.  We had to stop at Wal-Mart on the way home, but we were fairly certain that no one was going to steal this monstrosity away from us.  So, we bought a slip cover and a couple of new pillows and..... 

Wallah!  It's not so hideous anymore!