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Monday, February 27, 2012

Winter Weekend.

Coming to the end of February and it actually looks like winter isn’t going to miss us this year. Last week at this time, I was enjoying the brown grass, the clean roads, the lighter MDU bill…all of this has gone by the wayside. I had to SHOVEL this past weekend, three times. Are you kidding me!

Came off a great weekend into a long busy week. I did get to kinda start the weekend early though as Matt picked me up on Thursday night and we went off to Minot. He had fire school and I worked from the Minot office. My day was pretty great…started it off with amazing bagels (lox, cream cheese, capers), had Japanese for lunch and a special drop-in visit from my favorite fire fighter on break. We double dated with a co-worker of mine to the Minotauros hockey game! Not too bad, they lost but it was fun to see the community support!

The storm started to blow in Saturday night dumping 8 inches on Minot. I was glad that I was not driving or digging out the car. When we got back to Bismarck, there was only 3 inches, so I’ll consider myself lucky!

I also had to buy a vacuum. Upon much reading, thinking, and talking around, I got a Dyson Animal. It was fine, until we went through the first pass on the floor. EWWWWW!!! I could have made a sandbox or another cat with all the yuck that was in the canister!

Overall a good weekend, despite the snow and cold…and now I can cross “staying at the world’s biggest Sleep Inn” off my list!

Best Meal of the Week: It was definitely a bagel week. The Lox bagels were amazing but so was the bagels from Big Apple Bagel, which we had before we left Minot. Don’t make me choose!

"And finally Winter, with its bitin', whinin' wind, and all the land will be mantled with snow."-Roy Bean

Sunday, February 19, 2012

February Fun

Have a bit to catch up on…

We’ll start at the beginning of February, Matt and I went down to my grandparents, which is 25 miles south of Elgin. I showed him where I spent a week each summer I was growing up. It’s nice to show him a little bit more of me and my past. We had an amazing lunch and snack with them. We even played a round of scrabble and a game of marbles. Grandma did reorganize his scrabble words a bit but didn’t make him pay to play marbles, so all in all, he had a nice first visit. Best

Meal of that week: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, scalloped corn, fruit salad, homemade bread (which Matt decided was way better fresh! Ha!), with apple bars and homemade fudge for dessert.

Second week of February was a blur at work was nice to slow down on the weekend. We ended up having a board game marathon of monopoly and battleship. I almost beat him in battleship but I did beat him once in monopoly until we played again and I ended up with a ton of mortgages and having to sell everything off, oh well, you can’t win them all. It is interesting to watch the two of us being both competitive people play each other. A little dangerous even.

Best Meal of that week: grinders. Matt made them with left over taco meat, ham, turkey, cheese, and special sauce, they were a bit messy, but I’ll let him make it again!

This past week, State Fair announced, which is what we’ve been gearing up for. They have a nice line-up and will be a blur as we prep for it in July. Other big news has been DSU, my previous employer, making the news for unaccomplished diplomas being awarded, a suicide, and playing the blame game in how to recover from the terrible press. I feel awful for what’s happening there and those that will continue to pick up the pieces and rebuild the reputation have my thoughts. That position gave me a ton of learning experience and I did meet and work with amazing people. I’ll continue to watch the papers and the news to see what continues to grow and change there. Hopefully they are starting to come out of the weeds.

This week I had some time with my parents, Mom and Dad were my Valentine’s Day dates. It was nice to go out, have a little pizza, and talk. They were so cute as they, and my sister, each got me a little gift for Valentine’s Day. I also spent a little time with Matt’s parents. They took me out for lunch on Friday.

Matt came to Bismarck this past weekend. We went out for “fancy” brunch with my parents. My cinnamon rolls tanked, like concrete! Ugh, so much for new recipes. We also went and looked at the baby calves and Dad’s new fancy four-wheeler. It was a great relaxing morning. I’m looking forward to when the calves start getting a little older and will start bucking! That’s some of my favorite things to see in the spring. I even have a little heifer calf on the ground. Only red calve on the place right now!

Saturday afternoon we did some running around town, while at the mall, we went into a Going-Out-Of-Business sale. We instantly fell for this dry bar and loved the piece and the price. We had to buy. It will be more of a pain getting it out to Dickinson but it fit Matt’s needs to the tee! Too hard to pass up. I love vintage motif. Can’t wait to see it in use. Matt’s working on its back story, I just like it’s part of our story!

Saturday night was our Valentine’s Day. We decided not to get gifts for each other and cook a fancy meal instead, and we didn’t hold back. We had king crab, sirloin steak, steamed vegetables…..ohhh I was so full but it was all so amazing. We didn’t even have dessert, there wasn’t room. I think we can make this our tradition!

We stuffed ourselves this morning too. We went to Peacock Alley for their Sunday brunch. Wow, 3 courses, which we came back for more. We could have had a nice walk afterward to burn off calories, but he had to get back for dive training. I hate that leaving part, it’s my least favorite part of the weekend, especially when we had such a great weekend.

Best Meal of the week/month: If I have to restate it, reread this post.

"Without Valentine's Day, February would be... well, January."- Jim Gaffigan