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  • Follow up

    I had an appt with my dr. yesterday for my 2 week post op.  Unfortunately he said things weren’t healing as quickly as I had hoped so I have to go back in a week.  I am hopeful that next week things will look good and I will be cleared to resume normal activities again.  Between the holiday craziness and this surgery, someone needs to get her ass back on the elliptical.

    Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed by the news and when Matt and I got to the parking lot I started to cry.  I know things need to heal but come on!  I’m just ready for all of this to be over already.  Matt was super sweet and brought home flowers for me.  (I told him these did not count for next week!) 😉

    I did finish up one of the projects I’ve been working.  I’m hoping to going to get the other one finished this weekend.   Matt’s been in the process of cleaning up and cleaning out our bonus room.  Now that we have another TV, he wants a man cave but in the process I’ve lost my sewing table.  To be honest, I hate being downstairs anyway.  It’s cold and dreary, and cold!  I also hate being down there by myself hence the reason I normally craft on the counter in the kitchen.

    ~k

     

  • Bye bye food

    Last night I went to the garage to get some supplies for a craft and I realized the outlet the freeze was plugged into wasn’t working. Matt went out back and flipped the switch. When I opened the freezer I noticed it was warm inside. Most of the top food, including all our frozen pizzas were defrosted. Thankfully most of our meat at the bottom was still frozen but the Popsicles at the bottom were melted and had dripped all over the bottom. Ugh. We spent the next 20 mins throwing food out and cleaning up the freezer. Not really how I wanted to spend my evening.

    We’ve known this outlet would trip but normally it happens after a heavy rain. We haven’t had any rain so I’m not sure how long it had been off. I’m thinking only a day or so. I guess that’s one way to clean the freezer but man I wouldn’t mind a frozen pizza for dinner tonight.

    ~k

  • Peanut Butter Pie – Pinterest fail!

    Yesterday Matt and I went to a friend’s house to watch the Super Bowl. The hostess was providing chili so I said I would make cornbread. I love cornbread and I like to make it. Last week I while I was “pinning” stuff I came across a recipe for a peanut butter pie. It only required a few ingredients and not much time. Immediately I decided I would also make that for the Super Bowl party.

    We ran to the grocery to pick up some food items so I grabbed what I needed for peanut butter pie. When we got home I put the cornbread muffins in the oven and started to work on the pie. Fail #1 came when I decided I would take the graham cracker crust out the pie tin and put it in my ceramic pie dish. The crush started to crumble because the pie dish was a little bigger than the pie crust so I decided to just push the sides down. That would have been good had the filling not been so thick I couldn’t spread it easily. As it was, I just ended up moving the bottom of the crust. After I decided this wouldn’t work I just threw all of it back in the mixer and stirred it together. This seemed to work fine and it also helped to thin out the filling a little more.

    Next came the chocolate syrup. This was to be spread over the top of the pie. Well I may have not completely realized that hot fudge topping was different than chocolate syrup. Ooopsy. Anyhoo, the chocolate syrup tasted fine but after a half hour or so in the fridge is started to run. Matt looked at it and asked if I was going to do anything else to the top because it looked like a mess. I looked at it and decided he was right. Thankfully I still had some cool whip left so I covered the top with cool whip and added some peanut butter piping. All in all it looked okay and it tasted fine but it was definitely a fail.

    Here is the link to the original recipe but I’m going to post the recipe with my tweaks as well.

    Ingredients

    For the pie:

    1 chocolate graham cracker crust
    1 cup peanut butter
    1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
    1 tub (12 ounces) Cool Whip, divided
    1 jar (11.75 ounces) hot fudge topping, divided – or you can use chocolate syrup
    ½ cup sugar

    For the topping:
    2 tablespoons hot fudge – or you can use chocolate syrup
    2 tablespoons peanut butter

    Method

    • In large bowl, beat peanut butter, cream cheese, and sugar until creamy. Fold in 3 cups Cool Whip. Spoon mixture into crust and smooth to edges. This says to fold in the Cool Whip. Maybe I didn’t beat my peanut butter mix long enough but folding didn’t really work for me. I think a slow whirl in the mixer would be fine.

    • Remove 2 tablespoons hot fudge from jar and reserve in zip-loc plastic baggie for later. Heat remaining hot fudge according to package directions. Spread on top of peanut butter layer. Refrigerate pie until serving time. – Or just put chocolate syrup on top. 😉 If you go this route be prepared to put an additional layer of Cool Whip over the chocolate syrup.

    • At serving time, carefully spread remaining Cool Whip on top of pie.

    • Knead hot fudge in baggie with hands; cut tiny hole in corner of baggie and pipe over pie. Repeat with 2 tablespoons peanut butter and pipe on pie in opposite direction.

    As you can see this is super simple and very yummy and just for comparison, here is what mine looked like.

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    ~k

  • New bookcase

    For the past few weeks I’ve been looking for bookcase to go beside the tv in the living room. I found one I liked but it was a little pricey and I wasn’t sure it would be quite big enough. The wall the tv is on is really long.

    This morning I got an email from overstock that said they were having a secret sale. I loooveee secret sales! And wouldn’t you know the first item on the page was a bookcase. I fell in love and sent the link to Matt. He agreed it was nice so I put it in my cart. I was surprised to see I got an additional 10% off so with that and free shipping I got a great deal! It should arrive next week. Yay!

    – so I couldn’t get the pic to copy so I’m including a screenshot from my phone 😉

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    ~ k

  • What’s up Wednesday

    Two days ago local schools were delayed for 3 hours due to the threat of freezing rain in the early morning hours. Of course there was no freezing rain but hey, we live in North Carolina. 🙂  Today however, it is in the mid 60’s and rainy.  Last night the weather so nice and mild we slept with the windows open, in January!

    What is going on with the weather lately?  One day you can practically wear shorts and the next you need full on winter gear.  It’s no wonder everyone is and has been sick.

    Oh another, happier note.  I have moved positions at work and I finally signed the PAN form today.  My new manger was nice enough to bump up my pay. 😀  It was only a little.  Basically he rounded my salary up but it amounted to almost a thousand dollars!  I am one happy girl!  In all my years here and through all my manager changes and position changes I’ve never actually received any sort of pay increase.  I’ve gotten raises each year but never an actual salary change.  I’m sure this won’t result in my change on my pay check but the gesture was very nice and much appreciated.

    Happy Wednesday!

    ~k

  • My new spring bag

    Oh I’ve done it again…

    I’ve always been a purse lover but it seems like my love has gotten a little worse. I think this comes from the fact that I now have the funds to spend on things like bags. 🙂

    A few months ago I signed up for a site called shoedazzle.com. They roped me in with the promise of boots for $39.95. I mean for 40 bucks who could pass up super cute boots? Obviously not this girl since I bought my first pair a few months ago, on sale! The boots were great and I found another pair I added to my Christmas list. Seeing as I have a great husband, he bought the next pair of boots I’d been eyeing and just as before, I love them!

    This brings me to the new bag I bought. Last week I happened to look through the latest shoedazzle.com email when I stumbled upon the cutest light teal bag. It was $39.99 and that would also get me free shipping. After sending a pic to a friend, I knew I had to have it. A few days later my new bag was headed to Raleigh.

    My new bag was delivered on Saturday and I have to say I LOVE it! It matches the pics online and is nice quality. If it holds up through summer I will be more than pleased with my purchase. I’m now understanding how girls can afford to change their style so quickly and easily. (It’s probably good shopping sites like this weren’t around when I was younger.)

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    If you would like a shoedazzle invite please leave a comment with your email.

    ~k

  • It’s sleeting it’s snowing, it’s a slushy disaster

    Last week I went to the doctor and he discovered I had a minor issue caused by my first surgery. Since we wanted to get this taken care of as soon as possible, they were able to squeeze me in yesterday. We were told this procedure would take about 10 mins and they would use a milder sedation.

    Matt and I arrived at the surgery center around 9am. By 9:30 I was back in pre-op going over the necessary information, getting an IV, and waiting until the doctor arrived. I asked the nurse if he was running on schedule and she said I was his first appt so who knew. Around 11:00 she said he was running late, shocker, and it would be about 11:30 before we got started. Matt and I chuckled a little knowing he is always late. We were pretty surprised when he popped his head in a few minutes later. The OR nurses came to get me and by 11:15 I was headed to the OR.

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    I was much less groggy when I woke up this time. The nurse asked me a few questions and then sent someone to get Matt. I finally asked him what time it was and he told me 1:30. What should have been a 10 min procedure took about an hour and a half. There were other issues from the last surgery he found which caused the procedure to run longer. I felt relatively well considering and the nurse said once I got dressed we could leave.

    We got home around 2:00 and Matt got me settled on the couch. Then he ran to get my meds. I spent most of the night lying on the couch. Unfortunately I felt more nauseous this time which kind of sucked. I went to bed early knowing I would probably just work from home today. The weather report was calling a wintry mix. Plus the nurses said I couldn’t shower for 24 hours. No way I was going to work unshowered. Nor was I going to risk driving on ice on pain killers.

    This morning Matt and I got up and set up shop downstairs. He decided to work from home as well because our new TV was being delivered. Thankfully the delivery guy got here about 9 because around 10:30 it started sleeting and then it turned to snow for a while. About noon it stopped snowing and starting with the freezing rain. Matt ran out to grab some lunch before the roads got too bad and then salted the driveway. Now our pretty snow-covered street is a slush filled disaster. I was really looking forward to snow but per doctor’s orders there would be no sledding for me even if we got snow. 🙁

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    Oh, I forgot mention I got a sled last weekend? I got a sled last weekend at Target for $5.00. Woo hoo!

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    Also Mr. Julio has been a great, yet needy, coworker today.

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    ~k

  • Where have I been?

    I woke up the other day and realized the month of January was almost over.  Whew, what a crazy few weeks!

    We held a private funeral for Patrick on January 4th in Ocean Isle.  It was nice to say our good byes without a crowd of people around us.  The next day several of Jill and Steve’s neighbors organized an open house for their neighborhood.  The ladies did an amazing job of coordinating food and people over the course of the afternoon.

    The next weekend, January 13th, we headed to ATL to celebrate Pat’s life with his Atlanta friends.  Several people pulled together and secured a venue, two bands, and food for the night.  We didn’t know many of his ATL friends but everyone was super sweet.  I think we were all a little blown away with the fact that this was an “event” and not just a gathering of people.  It was wonderful to meet everyone and hear stories of Patrick.

    This past Saturday, the 19th, several of Patrick’s Raleigh friends (this was more high school and college friends) hosted a gathering at their house.  This consisted of many people the family had known for years.  While very different from ATL, to me, this was his memorial.  Several people give speeches.  We laughed, we cried and we drank a lot.  All in all it was a very good night.

    I am so thankful there have been so many wonderful people who have come together and worked to organize, host, and coordinate all of the events of the past few weeks!  Patrick touched so many people’s lives and I hope he knew just how special and loved he was!

    ~k