Happy New Year!

Welcome 2014. Have I got plans for you!

New year, new look. The last time I did a big change was New Year of 2012 and I felt that it was time again. I’m also hoping to change up and add more things to the blog. I will try to be better at pictures. I will try to remember conversations better. I will try to capture pieces of our daily lives a bit better. The blog has been this living diary of what’s been going on in my and now Matt’s life. It’s settled arguments and also reminded us of details both big and small. It’s been one of the few places that continues to allow me to work on my writing skills that I may be able to use when I write that great American novel. Who knows how it will continue to change but it really is a labor of love.

So on to the happenings in our house.

I’ve determined that I can’t be a doctor. A year or so ago, one of my best friends called. She said she had a huge pain in her side and didn’t know what to do. My advice, she just needed to go to the bathroom and take a nap. She called the next day and told me that she had an appendicitis and had emergency surgery the night before. Ooops. Example two, TonyDanza got into a scrap with one of the girls, who knows which one especially considering how he rough houses with Lola and how he slap fights with Nike, it really could have been either. Anyway, they give us eye drops as his eye got scratched. Well after 2 months of no change, I sat down with him one day and told him to toughen up. Enough of this. Matt took him into the Vet and he has rhinotricinois, which is a herpes that affects his sinuses and is caused by stress in their lives. Great! Concern number three, Matt has a bump on his neck right on the edge of his shaving line, two weeks ago I told him that it was an ingrown hair, it’s fine. Now, I’m doubting myself.

But back to TonyDanza, he was given a shot and we’ve had to add a supplement to the cats diet. It seems to be helping. I hope it’s calming him down a bit, I don’t know if the move is a stress, Nike, or what. You’d think with all the moving that he’s gone through, things would be a bit easier for him. We’ve had to give this supplement to them in wet food. Great. Now we have little monsters at 5 -5:30, sitting, begging, and screaming.

We didn’t do anything on New Year’s Eve. Matt ended up going in at 4am that morning to move snow and I knew that our plans suddenly changed. He was concerned he’d be going in again on the 1st at 4am, so there was no partying or drinking then either. That’s okay, we had pizza, we like pizza. 

 

New Year’s Day was a bit more exciting. We, and I mean I, took down all the holiday things, took the tree down, packed it all up, and stored it downstairs. I had a bit of help for awhile. At first I assumed it was because she wanted to spend time with me. Turns out I was in the way of the sunlight spot on the carpet. That night we started the year off right. We made our own gyros. Michele had picked us up lamb meat from the commissary on base and Matt seasoned it and made it into lamb meatloaf you could say.

I made the tzatziki sauce.

All ingredients went into a blender and then I chilled for a couple hours. Matt thought I should have cheese clothed the yogurt and cucumbers, but in the end I didn’t think it turned out too bad.

It was an amazing meal. I made sweet potato chips and peach cobbler. The chips turned out pretty good but the cobbler came out really dark, I’m wondering if I used too much cinnamon, which would explain the coloring, but you’ll notice a picture is missing.

Best meal of 2014 so far: Gyros!

MJR (using my 1980’s food processor and adding his gyro ingredients in)
ALR: I don’t know if that’s going to work.
MJR: I was thinking the same thing.
ALR: Is the motor actually slowing down?
MJR: yeah.
ALR: Is it smelling burnt?
MJR: I think so.
ALR: It didn’t do that with the pumpkin.

MJR: Too bad we didn’t have this happen before Christmas. Maybe I would have suggested this to be on your list.

Because we have such beautiful pictures, I've decided that until my first anniversary, I'm going to post one with each blog entry. This maybe my attempt to prolong the day a bit more, but it's also the best way to share the images.