It's a Beautiful Day...

Finally, the sun came out this Monday morning and decided to give us a much-needed break from the cold. Unfortunately, Krem.com states that our sunny days are over for awhile. I intend on fully enjoying the sunshine while it lasts.

This weekend was really quite nice. The weather was decent, my list of things to do was significantly smaller than last week's and Jersey appreciated some much-needed "her" time. Probably my favorite part of the weekend was cooking some new dishes for me and Grant. On the menu were:

• Pesto and Mozzarella Stuffed Chicken
• Beef and Spaghetti Macaroni (we used Penne and it looked much better than this picture)
• Taco Salads (no recipe needed...just naturally delicious)
• Oreo Cookie Cheesecake

The cheesecake has lasted us through the entire weekend and I'm pretty sure it ranks at the top of my dessert list. Thanks AllRecipes!

Jersey very much enjoyed the weekend since she got to go swimming twice! At first, I was worried that the long winter gave her brain damage because it seemed that she forgot how to swim. I threw her ball, thinking she would fetch it like normal, but instead she looked at me like, "why would you do that?" and barked at the ball, eagerly requesting it come back to shore. After a few minutes of watching the ball slowly float further and further away and me deciding whether hypothermia was worth a $2.99 floating ChuckIt! ball or not, she finally grew a pair and went all in...a perfect 10 bellyflop. After that, her body totally went into swim mode, despite the fact that the water was probably about 35 degrees. After about half an hour, her body was shivering uncontrollably and I decided to be a mom and take her home to get warm. On Sunday, we took her back to the lake and tried to get her to jump off a dock, with little success. She finally kind of fell in after going NUTS that we threw her ball in the water and realizing it wasn't coming back on its own. She later found a 7 foot stick/tree that she wanted us to throw and that pretty much pooped her out. She's been sleeping ever since...and I did check to make sure she was still breathing.

We went and saw Smart People on Saturday and I would definitely recommend it. Very enjoyable indeed and the free small popcorn was an added bonus! I was pretty surprised that we were the youngest two in the crowd and our fits of laughter often did not match those of the surrounding company. But I would definitely say that it's a movie I would feel mostly comfortable sitting through with my mom.

I'm seriously considering taking the rest of the day off and sitting in my front yard enjoying the sun....

Thanks, Mom and Dad

In 2007, studies showed that the divorce rate in the United States was the lowest it had been since the 1970's at a rate of 3.6 divorces for every 1,000 people. While that may seem like a good thing, when you put it into perspective, the meaning of marriage seems to be much less than it was 30 years ago. The number of unmarried parents has increased exponentially in the past decade. So when unmarried parents split, the effect is pretty much the same on the child as a divorce, regardless of the fact that there is no ring on the finger. That statistic is often left out of these studies.

Now, I don't mean to go all CNN on you, but the past few months have really proven to me how bad this problem is. In our group of Junior Miss girls, 9 out of the 16 participates came from divorced families. Because of this, we had to completely restructure the auditorium seating because "the divorced" couldn't handle sitting a few seats apart. We even had one dad say that he wouldn't attend if he had to sit in the same section as his ex. I felt like screaming, "grow the hell up!" For God's sake, it's a time that they should be so exceptionally proud of their daughter, and they can't get over the fact that things didn't work out. Granted, I don't know the whole story, but adults should be mature enough to last a few hours - 3 at most - in a dark auditorium where speaking is not required. But they still couldn't handle sitting 5 seats away.
A) Sad. B) Pathetic. C) Embarrassing. D) All of the above.

Then, today, I get a call from a mom who is crying over the phone because she wasn't told anything about the Junior Miss program and didn't even know her daughter was participating. Now, she wants me to inform her of anything that her daughter should be involved in from here on out.
A) Inappropriate. B) Awkward. C) Embarrassing. D) All of the above.

Why can't adults see how much their actions affect their kids? Some of the girls even talked about their parents' divorces in their interviews and you could just see how hard it was for them to not want to either stand up and scream or cry their eyes out. I commend them for having the courage to move on and be outstanding young women.

Divorce is becoming such a trend in today's society. I'm not saying that divorce is a horrible thing that no one should consider. I have family members who have divorced, friends from divorced families and I know some people that are in the middle of a divorce right now. Sometimes it's necessary. Sad, but true. I do, however, think that those who choose to take that path should consider who it's affecting and be mature enough to make sure that it doesn't jeopardize what relationships they do still have. Kudos to anyone who has achieved this.

On that note, thanks, Mom and Dad. Thanks for finding each other and making all the right choices to get to where you are right now. I honestly don't know what I would do if one of them came to me and said, "we're splitting up." Thankfully, I don't ever have to worry about that. They put up with each other's bad hair days, lack of fashion, smelly morning breath and horrible taste in movies because they love each other unconditionally. I am a very lucky girl to have them.

That's all for the love and stuff.

Zoom Zoom...

I got a new car. That's right. I made the commitment to be further in debt than I ever intended to be and I purchased myself a fine investment. It's exactly what I wanted and, although I loved my red Jetta, it's a pretty steep upgrade. And, hey, it runs! That is very important in my book! While I wish that this picture was me, driving along the coast somewhere, it at least shows you what my new little friend looks like. You'll notice that there is plenty more room for the Cow Dog. She loves it just as much as I do.

I've had several people ask if I'm doing okay these days and I'm having a hard time figuring out why this is. Sure, I'm still a bit exhausted from the past few weeks of scrambling to get Junior Miss over and done with, but mostly, I'm great. I'm sure as heck not a morning person and these 7:00 a.m. days wear on me a bit, but it's nothing a little shot of coffee can't heal. I hope I'm not putting off a vibe that's giving the wrong impression.

The weather forecast says it's supposed to snow tonight and/or tomorrow. If this is true, I'm seriously thinking of relocating. It's just not funny and horribly unfair. My sad little garden is frozen and it doesn't look like there's any sunshine in the forecast to fix it. So much for my first domestic project!

Down...

All you Carpenters fans out there will understand when I say, "rainy days and mondays always get me down". Well, today is Monday and it's most definitely a rainy one which has put me in a funk. There are probably several reasons for my bum mood, my car on the verge of dying, knowing that this week is going to be nuts-o, the fact that my house is an utter disaster and I have no time to clean it, or that I stayed up way too late last night and now I'm having a hard time staying awake at my desk. But, honestly, none of that seems to be bothering me right now. I'm just down and that's all there is to it.

Yesterday, however, was extremely productive. My mom and I drove to Spokane to get flowers for Junior Miss this weekend and got a screamin' deal. The guy there loved us and we walked out of there with 25 free roses. Afterwards, we ate lunch at Schlotzsky's and got free cookies! Man, we make a good team. We are convinced that it must be our radiating beauty.

Grant and I finally planted our garden yesterday afternoon. Hopefully, this fall, we should have some strawberries, basil, green onions, and enough garlic to make the entire state of Idaho un-dateable. I also planted some very colorful flowers so as to convince Mother Nature to keep the sun out but apparently she did not get that message. She always hated me.

I went in a cleaning frenzy last night right around the time that I really, really should have crawled up in bed and fell fast asleep. So I stayed up entirely too late cleaning but still feel like the house is in desperate need of a makeover. But it is at least a little bit better, enough that I don't want to pull my hair out when I open the door.

This week is guaranteed to be stressful, crazy, and full of caffeine and I can't wait. Saturday night is Junior Miss and for anyone who knows me, knows that I love doing this. Over four months of hard work will wrap up on Saturday and I can't wait to see the result. Plus, I get to wear my cute red dress that I bought forever ago and haven't had an occasion to wear. Man, I love being a girl.