Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

I hope everyone else gets to enjoy a three day weekend like I do!  We have company coming up so I'm pretty excited about that.  I made pasta salad for a work cook-out tomorrow and I'm making shredded beef tomorrow night for when the guys get here.  Both recipes are from Katie and they're awesome!  This will be my first time making the shredded beef so I hope it goes okay!

Work has been better since Judy got here, but we had a minor setback this week.  They scheduled the official switch to move new business in MI from me to her (we've both been working on it before now) and unfortunately her husband had a mild stroke that very day!  Thankfully he is okay and will just need some physical and speech therapy.  His daughter called 911 right away when he started slurring his speech and calling her Judy, so she definitely handled it well.  She was out Wednesday and today but she might be back in tomorrow.  We'll see how it goes for her.  We definitely would understand if she wanted to take the day off to be with him.

I hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy some great (not too hot, I hope!) weather!!  :o)

Cinco De Mayo!

Happy Cinco De Mayo!  I kind of wish I'd posted yesterday so I could say "May the 4th be with you" but that's okay.  Stacy and Tara are coming over later tonight and we're planning to have a few margaritas at a local Mexican restaurant (the DF's our DD!) and then come back here and eat guacamole and queso.  It should be a good time.  I have an absolute favorite guac recipe, taken from Dos Caminos in New York City.  They used to give it out on magnets, but apparently they don't anymore.  Good thing I got mine when the DF and I went there in 2009!!  Stacy and I make this almost every time we get together now.  I put the recipe below.  :o)

Picture from www.doscaminos.com

2 tbsp cilantro leaves, finely chopped
2 tsp yellow onion, finely chopped
2 tsp jalapeno or serrano chiles, minced
2 large ripe avocados, peeled and seeded
2 tbsp plum tomatoes, cored and finely chopped
2 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice
Kosher or coarse salt

Place the cilantro, onion, chiles, and salt in a medium-sized bowl and mash it with the back of a kitchen spoon.  Add avocado, tomato, and lime juice and mash all ingredients together.  Adjust seasoning as necessary.

Free Weekend!

This weekend I am officially free from working from home!  Both programs that I use on a daily basis are undergoing maintenance this weekend and one actually required that my laptop be at the office, so I don't have any compunction to do work.  It's very exciting!  So I'm footloose and fancy free to eat wings tonight and read and watch tv all weekend!  Okay, I do have chores and errands to run, but that's better than doing work!  Have a great weekend, everyone!

(The pic's for Jolene since she mentioned Bel Ami in her comment.  He looks better in this photo than the actual previews of the movie - I think because his hair isn't in his face - but I'm not complaining!)

I'm still alive

I know, I know I haven't been around much.  I actually logged in today to decide if I wanted to keep up the blog.  I just haven't had the motivation lately to post, and I don't think I have many interesting things to post about right now.

When I logged in I noticed that Blogger has a new layout (for users) so I was checking it out.  There are some weird statistics out there - like my page coming up today in a Google search from my Toxie Head Challenge post from years ago.  It's kind of amusing.

Anyway, I haven't made a decision on keeping the page or not.  I think even if I stopped, I'd keep everything archived so if I decide to post again I won't lose anything.  Maybe I'll just hold myself to posting at least once a month - not too exciting for you, but maybe starting slow again will help.  I like to think that I'll have exciting news on the baby front at some point, but that's not going so well right now.  Work is still really busy since Michigan is really too much for just one person, so it's not like I have great news on that front either.  Overall, life is good, though, so don't think I'm not posting because I'm depressed or anything.  I'm married to a doctor - I'd be on happy pills already if that was the case!  ;o)

This is what I'm like when I'm thinking deep thoughts.  ;o)

Excited

Don't you just love when you're so excited about getting a gift for someone that you can't wait to give it to them? Tommy is coming up for his big 3-0 birthday to hang out, and I just bought his gift. I'm so excited about it because I know he'll love it. I think I love Christmas more for the giving than the getting, and years when I have a tough time picking gifts aren't as good for me. And sometimes little surprise gifts are good too. Like last week I picked up one of those double cookies with icing in the middle for the DF as a surprise while I was at the mall. His mom often did that for him and his brother (and me too when we started dating!) so I knew he'd be happy. He didn't disappoint; he was pretty happy (he's so easy to please!). :o)

Today I'm doing laundry and I've just booted up my work laptop to get some stuff done. The new underwriter is great, but she hasn't quite gotten up to speed on moving through risks. We'll need to get her to move quicker this week because I haven't gotten too much relief yet. The end is drawing closer every day, though, so it makes it easier to put in time on the weekends.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

Hi, everyone. A short update on me: The new underwriter is starting next week, and the previous MI underwriter will be here to train her. This will mean some relief, since Val will most likely use work in my queue to train the new person, but it will probably still be a couple of weeks before things get more back to normal. I'm definitely ready for that since I'm tired of working nights and weekends (and despite the extra time, I'm at least two weeks behind).

In other news, the DF and I went down to the Super Bowl Village last week. It was really neat. Indy has done such a good job attracting both locals and tourists from surrounding cities. The weather has been so good too. Steven thinks that maybe it will trick people into thinking that the next time they have the Super Bowl here the weather will be the same - ha! This past week last year we were buried in 4 inches of ice! I do think that Indy has done a good enough job that the NFL will consider us again in the future. I put some pictures below! :o)

Hi!

Happy new year, everyone! My new year has begun pretty much in the same way that 2011 ended. I'm super busy at work - working many evenings and every weekend, but I'm doing okay overall. We're interviewing two very qualified people on Wednesday, so hopefully whoever they hire can come really quickly. My new boss has been great and really appreciates the work I'm putting in. Having a good boss is a huge part of being happy at a job, and I know I'm really lucky.

There's really not much else going on. The DF is working his 3 jobs (residency, moonlighting, and dictations for another doctor) and we're enjoying the nice weather. We're really looking forward to having the Super Bowl here this year, and we plan to go downtown to check out the Super Bowl Village. Check out the Super Bowl website here. If anybody wants to join us, let us know and we'll pick a date together. :o)