Peppers From the Garden

Last weekend I picked a bunch of peppers from the garden. Even I can't consume this many peppers in a reasonable amount of time so I took some to mom #2 and Jake's grandparents. I've tried making salsa a couple times, but it hasn't turned out very good. The man that mows our lawn makes the absolute BEST salsa in the world and I couldn't figure out why mine didn't taste anything like his. Then Jake reminded me that he grills his peppers before he makes the salsa. I'm going to try this in the near future. Hopefully I get better results.

Flat Rate Boxes from the USPS

My mom is the master of the flat rate box. She sends me treats all the time and the boxes are always packed FULL of wonderful things. The other day I asked her to check the local Targets to see if they had any of the drapes I was looking for. She found one panel at one store and then they called another store to get the second one. Well since the flat rate box costs about the same as the drapes, you better believe she packed as much as she could in that thing. She admittedly goes through drawers and cabinets around the house looking for anything and everything. And this is the result:

Drapes, nail files, hooks to hang up my aprons in the kitchen, pictures of a hawk that was in the backyard, 2 types of pasta, rice pilaf, Bulgar wheat, fajita seasoning, candles, toothpaste, bath product samples, and a package of note cards. I laughed the hardest at the toothpaste. 1. because it's toothpaste and 2. because I'm almost out! I bet you wish she was your mom!!

And here are the drapes. They look so much better than the green ones I had. I moved the green ones to the bedroom and they look fabulous, but I forgot to take a picture.



And as a "thank you" to my mom, I will provide her (and you) with pictures of her granddaughter:

We're Kind Of Ridiculous

source

Yesterday I was talking to one of my friends on the phone and I'm not sure which incident started the list off, but I kept thinking of ways that Jake and I are pretty ridiculous. I swore her to secrecy on most of these things, but then realized they're too funny not to share.

1. There's a rifle next to our bed. It's for "protection" when Jake is gone. It's not loaded and I can't even pick the thing up because it's so heavy, but it looks scary (and ridiculous)!

2. I filled Jake's truck up with trash bags and boxes full of things I want to donate. It's been sitting in the driveway for several days now.

3. Speaking of trash....When we first moved to town we had a major problem remembering to put the trash cans out on Sunday night. This resulted in a patio FULL of trash for at least couple of months. My head is hanging in shame as I type this.

4. Our water bill has been late the past two times (we have to pay it every two months). It hasn't been late due to financial reasons, but because somebody tends to lose it and then completely forgets about it. I found the one from a few months ago inside a copy of National Geographic in the laundry room. The one from the past billing cycle remains a mystery. I had to call and get the amount.

That's all I can think of right now. I'm sure I'll have more to add later after I take some time to think about it.

Take Your Wife to Work Day

Several weeks ago Jake needed to take a drive to look at a job he planned on bidding. It was a Sunday afternoon and I didn't have any other plans so I went along for the ride. The building was at Lake Mendocino and I think it's some type of place were they teach things to kids. Jacob looks so cute when he's working! I love when "work" doesn't involve him getting filthy and dirtying up the bathtub :)

Target Drapes

I purchased these when we were in Reno last weekend. They were only $8 a piece!

I actually liked these more than the ones that were $16 or $25 a piece. I love Target so much. Almost as much as a craft store.

I've decided that I want to get two more to replace the green ones I got at Walmart a while back. They're just so much prettier, but they're not on Target.com so I guess I'll cross my fingers that they'll be in the store the next time I make it to Target!

Please disregard the curtain rods that are way too low. They were like that when we moved in.

I have a hope that one day our landlord will come over and see how cute the house is inside and think to herself "wow, they've really made this a cute home, I should sell it to them for a very reasonable price!" I'll be crossing my fingers for that one.

Summer Projects

I was a craft machine this summer. I actually didn't get as many things done as I had hoped, but I love everything that I did complete.

I made these for two of my friends. I actually started them in February and then lost the urge to craft or something. I made sure to finish them before I went to Texas though so I could hand deliver them. P.S. I didn't actually build the birdhouses, they were purchased at Michael's.

I made this painting for my grandma for her b-day. It's a picture of my wedding bouquet.

I made these for my parents for their b-days. They're pictures of some of the wedding cupcakes. I'm trying to convince my mom to open a bakery. She could hang these in there as decoration ;)

I also started a painting that I was going to enter in the fair, but it's not even close to being done and I think the deadline is any day now. I'm just going to wait until next year. I'll post a picture of that once it is complete.

Reno Weekend

Jake had a golf tournament thing in Reno this weekend that was sponsored by Cal Steam. Cal Steam is awesome. They paid for like 300 people to attend this event. They paid for all the rooms, golf and a nice dinner. I didn't actually partake in any golfing because I don't think it's a good idea for me to be swinging a golf club around, but I did have an excellent time. We went out to Virginia City while we were there and had so much fun. It's only about 30 minutes from Reno, but it's like it's own little world.

























We also managed to fit in two Triple D places. The first was the Gold N Silver Inn. The food was really good, but it's kind of in a sketchy area so I would recommend going during the day. Jake had a tri tip sandwich that was featured on the show and I had a sandwich called "heartburn". The name says enough. It was delicious. It was kind of like a Philly cheese steak, but it also had green chilies and horseradish sauce and was on parmesan garlic toast.

On our way home we stopped in Truckee, CA and went to Jax at the Tracks. This place was really good too, but try to stay away on a Sunday morning. It was so busy! Definitely worth the wait though. We both had sandwiches that were featured on the show. One was a bbq tri tip and the other was a crab cake sandwich with mango relish.

Texas Trip: Part 4

Jacob arrived on Thursday! We picked him up at the airport in the most embarrassing way we knew how:


Jake isn't actually the president of the Toby Keith fan club, but we make fun of him a lot and we thought he'd get a kick out of it.

On Thursday night my grandparents and two of my great aunts came to dinner. It was nice to visit and catch up, no pictures from that though :(

I also don't have any pictures from Friday because we mostly ran errands and got ready for a get together we were planning for Saturday.

I had a bunch of high school friends over and it was a lot of fun. We had hot dogs, chips and dips and lot of cupcakes. Wedding cupcakes to be exact. Well they weren't from the wedding, but they were the same flavors and were decorated in the same colors.


I really wish I lived closer to these people. We had fun reminiscing and catching up.


My sister had her own little party, but they must have thought we were weird, because they confined themselves to her bedroom for the day.


I also got to meet one of my second cousins for the first time. And she is the cutest thing in the whole world. She's only 2 and a half, but she's so tall and so smart! I want her to live with me.


Well that pretty much wraps up my time in Texas. I'll definitely be back for Christmas, but I wish it could be sooner!

Texas Trip: Part 3

Part 3 of my Texas trip actually doesn't include Texas at all, because we spent the day in Oklahoma! I forced my sister to sit in the car with me 4 hours each way so that we could spend 2 hours in Stillwater and so I could relive my college days.

We arrived in Stillwater at around lunch times and met up with one of my friends that lives in Tulsa. We ate at Eskimo Joe's because you really can't go to Stillwater for one meal and not get the cheese fries from Joe's. We actually regretted only getting one order of them.




After lunch we did a little OSU shopping and then walked around campus for a bit. It was 105 degrees though so the walking only lasted long enough for me to get a few pictures.






It was a fun day and I really wished I could have stayed longer. I'm going to talk Jake into going to homecoming one of these years...

On our way back I made my sister take a picture of this:


It will make more sense after you see the post for tomorrow.