Happenings at home

For some reason we have become fairly delinquent on our regular posting.  That reason is spring.  During the winter life is somewhat less exciting and blogging is a great indoor activity.  But now that it is spring I just haven't found the time to sit down and write about the general happenings around our home.

- So I am sitting on the couch tonight which is out of the ordinary because I'm too sore to get up and do anything.  I got off work a little bit early and decided on my drive home to run 10 miles tonight.  It was a glorious run but now it is too much effort to walk 10 feet into the kitchen.  I have been training for a half marathon the past few weeks.  I'm going to run the Bill Snyder Highway Half Marathon the weekend of Memorial Day with a good friend and my cousin.  I have ran 2 half marathons previously with this friend.  We live in opposite corners of the state so we meet up for a weekend once a year to do an athletic event so we can see each other.  You can do a lot of catching up in 13 miles.  I have really enjoyed having something to train for again and I'm falling in love with running all over again.  The past year or two I have done some running but have ventured into other endeavors like hiking, swimming, and biking with Arthur since he would prefer not to run.  But I can never truly leave my first (athletic) love so I found myself running all over town.  After dinner my first (romantic) love looked across the table and asked if I wanted to go on a walk-- sure, what's another 2 or 3 miles-- therefore the only thing I can easily move is my fingers for typing a blog.

 We have also been fairly busy socializing around here:
- We hosted part of Arthur's family for Easter dinner.  Let's just say I had some anxiety after I volunteered to cook a meal for Easter.  As those faithful readers know my culinary skills are still kind of in training wheel mode.  The last time I hosted anyone for dinner at our house it didn't go so well.  I had the meal basically prepared and was putting a heating pad in the microwave to keep the rolls warm.  Something caused the heating pad to melt and clouds of gray smoke and toxic fumes filled the kitchen.  While the food was all prepared there was no way we could eat inside the house so we had to take our guests out for dinner anyway.  So maybe you could understand why I'm a little gun-shy about entertaining.  I have learned over the years that you can compensate for your shortcomings and get away with it most of the time.  So I called on my two strengths- being prepared and presentation.  I phoned my local expert with a degree in home economics- my mother- for the 411 on preparing an easy holiday dinner.  We decided on the menu of ham in the crockpot, hash brown potato casserole, a spring spinach salad, and a fruit salad.  Arthur's mom was pitching in by bringing rolls and an apple pie.  All week my patients assured me that it was impossible to mess up a crockpot ham, especially if you put enough brown sugar on it.  The next step was the presentation.  I pulled out my skills from 4-H Foods where I learned how to do a table setting.  All together I think the meal went fairly well.  There have been no reported cases of food poisoning, the smoke alarm never went off, and we had leftovers which I was excited about.

-For Easter Sunday I also performed in the hand bell choir at church which I really enjoyed.  For the bell choir I only had to know 2 notes on the music to ring my D and E bell.  However even just two notes kept me busy most of the time.  Bell choir is the best part of being a Methodist.

- Sometime I will write an ode to my crockpot. I'm not sure why I don't use it for 3 or 4 meals a week because it is so easy and I have had great results.  After the Easter ham I made a pot of ham and bean soup in the crockpot.  As far as recycling goes in the kitchen this is a great example- leftover ham bone + leftover onions from casserole and salad + dry beans + seasoning = a brand-new meal.  I think Arthur was not super-impressed since it was kind of bland (after all he is a sensory seeker) but I have happily packed it for lunch all week.

- Our other social outing was to celebrate birthdays in our Bible study group.  Arthur and another gal have their birthdays on back to back days.  We all loaded up and drove through the scenic rural areas of our county to a restaurant in a town with a population of 79.  After a home-style meal of country fried steaks and hot roast beef sandwiches we came back to our house for a game night.  We played Arthur's favorite, Settlers of Catan.  It involves a beautiful mix of politics, economics, bargaining, and strategy (which he loves).  We then had s'more for dessert (which I love).  For Christmas we got a s'more bar from my parents and this was our first opportunity to use it.  Once again we were hosting people and things were fire in our kitchen-- there must be some type of trend.

It looks like this post should be about long enough to catch everyone up on our latest adventures.  Omnia Vincit Amor.