I’m not divulging all the details other than what I’ve already posted to Facebook, but I do need all your happy thoughts, warm fuzzies, and good ju-ju!
I have been bouncing off the walls for about an hour now since receiving the much anticipated email and don’t foresee getting much more work done today. Good thing all I have to do is data entry and it’s not, ya know, brain surgery. 😉
Thanks, friends!
Things have been hopping around here! No, that’s not an Easter reference as, well, I’m Jewish (albeit a bad one) and hubby is exhausted from work and sleeping all day today. No egg hunts for us. I fully plan on implementing them when we have kids. They’re so much fun!
Today I made Challah, well I started yesterday, but it had to rise 2 times. According to the recipe, the first rising shouldn’t only taken 2 hours max. After 4 hours (at 4am) I gave up and went to bed. I added a damp paper towel to the plastic wrap covering and turned the oven light on. At 9am, it filled the bowl and was perfect. I smashed it back down, replaced the plastic wrap and damp towel and went back to bed for a few more hours. When I went back to it, it rose again to fill the bowl. I braided 4 mini loaves and made 9 or 10 little Challah knots.
Wow. They were little bits of heaven.
Challah recipe from the fabulous Annies-Eats.com.
And for dinner tonight, tilapia fish fry! That’ll be posted later. 😀
Add to this the average 36 days for a lovely total of 143 days
I really have no idea why I keep checking on this stuff. All it does is piss me off. I mean, I still do track stuff and use the app, but I wish I could disable this pop up notification.
Yes, I probably can. I just need to dig around in the app options to find it.
***** 4 hours later *****
Apparently it’s Murphy’s Law to post about not getting my period for something to happen. TMI? I can’t help but be kinda excited about it. What can I say, it gives me a flicker of hope..
I wonder if I really did ovulate 2 weeks ago like a normal, regular woman does before her period. In that case, umm mayhaps we just might have news? Nah, most likely not.
This is it! I’m going to drop everything and relocate my entire family for a part time job. But hey, it’s “highly paid” so worth it, yes? The answer is no…
I get stuff like this all the time. Only this time, I decided to Google the company’s name and, big surprise, a ton of other folks out there got the same email. Their actual website does show this job and another one, which is amusing, since it’s clearly a scam.
Anyone else get this gem today?
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Brit Granby <britgranby@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 1:56 PM
Subject: vacancy assistent
To: b……..m@gmail.com
Greeting,
Astelion FSS Co is hiring nowadays for a part time job of Shipping Assistant.
Your main job goals will be processing ingoing dispatch, fill, scan and print extra documents.
If you are interested in this position and wish to be a highly paid worker, reply to this mail: Lisa.astelion@gmx.com.
Thank you,
Peter Thomson
Asteli0n comp
HR Department
It’s so colorful!
We are in the freezer clean out phase seeing as we haven’t been shopping in a while. But this is a good thing. Instead of continually buying more meats and just throwing it into the freezer, we’re eating everything. Like a few days ago, I made him liver and onions. Note I said “him” as I didn’t touch it. Cleaning and cooking it was enough for me!
But anyhow. Last night I thawed out 2.5 pounds of hamburger meat thinking I’d make something with it. Instead we ended up going to our favorite new pizza place, Corrina’s, and picked up a few subs. So tonight, it’s all about that hamburger meat. And without a grill, what better way to utilize it than meatloaf?
As always, I use basic recipes online to make sure I’m cooking at the right temp, etc, but this recipe is totally made up as I go. Cuz that’s how I roll!
mmmmmMeatloaf
1 medium onion, diced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2 eggs
1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
heavy shaking of desired spices – I used chili powder, pepper, and Lawry’s seasoning
2.5lbs hamburger meat
1 cup BBQ sauce
2 slices cheese
1 cup ketchup
Preheat oven to 350*
Mix everything together in a large bowl except for the ketchup and cheese until all ingredients are well distributed throughout the meat.
Still in the bowl, split the mixture into 4 roughly equal sizes.
Place 1/4 of the mixture into each of 2 loaf pans. You can also make these on a large baking pan free form. In that case, mush 1/4 of the mixture into 2 loaf shapes.
Cut the slices of cheese into halves and place 2 halves on top of each loaf.
Place the remaining 1/4 of the mixture atop each of the loaves and pinch together with the bottom so the cheese doesn’t spill out during cooking.
Top each loaf with ketchup. Place in the center of the oven and cook for 75 minutes or until center of each loaf is fully cooked.
Let sit in pan for about 5 minutes. Remove from pan, slice and serve with your favorite side dishes.
Enjoy!
Every year for as long as I can remember I have done my taxes myself on taxact.com and gotten a nice refund back. I even turned my not so tech loving hubby on to taxact a few years ago. This year we had a ton of things for our taxes, not to mention our first year filing jointly.
After spending a few weeks waiting for all our W-2s and his 1099, I plugged in everything as usual and didn’t like the resulting number in red glaring back at me. A number that we owed. Ouch. Stupid 1099, even for 4 months, cost us a fortune.
Gone are the days of getting back $2-3k. Hopefully temporarily.
We held off on filing hoping a solution would appear to reduce that horrible number. Well, yesterday we went to H&R Block which, while helpful, was also EXPENSIVE. We spent a couple of hours working with 3 ladies who knew various things about 1099s and managed to reduce that horrible amount owed by about $300. However, in the end we owed them $350 in fees. Um, what?
We also learned from the client at the next booth that adopting a child earns you about up to $10k in a refund. Wow. I had no idea. And we want to adopt siblings. Insane. But also I’m sure there’s people that foster/ adopt just for the money. Sorry, tangent…
It was a very expensive lesson to learn, but from now on you can bet I know how to track all our deductions and expenses from his 1099. And with my new job, I might have a 1099 as well. Ugh.
If you or your spouse/significant other are a 1099 employee, how do you track expenses, etc? I need to implement a system immediately and find receipts from the past 4.5 months. For once I’m thankful for hubby’s pack rat wallet tendencies.
It’s become more and more of a reality that I am infertile. Why did I come to this conclusion? Well, it’s a simple (and heartbreaking) realization that the problems I had as a child are still looming over my head. Huh? When Aunt Flow first visited back in junior high, she was never regular. She’d rear her ugly head 4-5 times a year and stay for about 2 weeks. Oh, c’mon now, don’t be jealous.
Fast forward to the college years when I got sick of never knowing. I took myself to the doctor and left with a wonderful packet of pills guaranteeing that I would know exactly when AF would arrive each month. It was a fabulous run… until I went off them last year as I knew it could take a few months to get out of my system.
As for AF these days? Well, she hasn’t shown up in 4.5 months. Apparently it took my system 5 months to fully be rid of the effects of those pills.
Do you know how heartbreaking that is to a woman that wants to have children?
Yes, I do plan on seeing a doctor. Eventually. I have been uninsured since May and simply can’t afford to go to a doctor. Yes, Planned Parenthood is an option. They’ve been one of the few options I’ve had the majority of my life, thank goodness. When you don’t make a lot of money personally, but have a husband earning considerably more, not even Medicaid is an option.
No, I wouldn’t have a problem accepting assistance when it comes to my health. I will gladly take any assistance on the planet if it meant I could go to a doctor again.
This afternoon I started looking into infertility support groups and fertility clinics in the area. Not that we can afford those clinics. But I did find out that the fact that I’ve been irregular ever since AF reared her ugly head means weight isn’t an issue. Sure, being this large isn’t helping, but it’s not really hurting either. That was pretty amazing to read. One of these days when I do make it to a doctor, chances are it’ll be a hormone imbalance.
Whatever the case may be, it’s still not a fun prospect.
And for this reason (all the hoops to do things naturally), hubby is all about adoption. I am too, don’t get me wrong. I just want to be a mommy. Sure, I would love to experience pregnancy, but a child is a child no matter who’s genes their carrying. I don’t need to share DNA to love a child. It just hurts knowing that something I’ve wanted for so long might not happen.
I have been wanting to make cupcakes since St. Patrick’s Day. Last night, I finally made them. Over the years, I’ve learned that cakes and cupcakes need to be fully cooled before icing so it doesn’t crumble. Anyhow, the cupcakes turned out delicious. The batter was a bit thick – perfect for spooning out without getting everywhere. Also, note to self, make sure to do an ingredients inventory before starting to make anything.
Tonight when I went to mix up a batch of my favorite buttercream icing, I made the horrible discovery of having only 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar instead of 2-3 cups. Um, major oops there. It was time to get creative. I mean really creative as we didn’t even have milk. What can I say, it’s been a while since we did a full grocery shopping trip.
Without further ado, I give you my recipes…
Cupcakes (from Cupcakes by Susanna Tee)
I doubled the recipe from the book as it only called for 12 cupcakes.
+ 1 cup (2 sticks) soft margarine (or butter)
+ 1 cup white sugar
+ 4 eggs
+ 1-1/2 cup white flour
+ Small amount of flavor extracts (lemon, vanilla, orange, etc)
Preheat oven to 350*. Put paper baking cups into cupcake tins. Recipe should yield 24, but it only made 20.
Dump everything except the extract into a bowl and mix until smooth. I was looking for a unique flavor, so I added both vanilla and orange extracts to taste.
The batter will be thick. Spoon it into the tins about half full. They will rise during baking.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until the tops are golden brown – my oven required 25 minutes. Transfer to cooling racks and allow to cool completely.
************ 
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Icing (aka holy crap I have no ingredients!)
+ 8 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
+ 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
+ 3 heaping spoonfuls creamy peanut butter (or to taste)
+ 1/2 cup rolled oats
+ Pinch of salt
Seriously, this was a totally made up, throw everything into the bowl and cross my fingers recipe. I started by mixing the butter and sugar together and it made a glaze.
Nope, didn’t like it.
Next I added 1 spoonful at a time of peanut butter (total 3) until I got to a decent flavor. It was decadently creamy and fluffy, but it was still missing something.
Hmm what else could I add?
iSpy a container of rolled oats; the raw kind that you mix with water and sugar and cook on the stove. Add enough to make the desired consistency. In my case it was 1/2 cup of rolled oats.
The salt was to give it a bit more flavor.
Refrigerate the icing before you ice the cupcakes just for a little bit of extra thickness not fully achieved by the oats. Dollop on the cupcakes and enjoy!
Oh yeah, these babies are totally going into work tomorrow. There are still 16 left and we don’t want them in the house. I know, I’m strange. I love baking, but neither of us really eat sweets.
