One Year in Texas

So, Georgia and I have officially been in Texas for a full year. Wow, time went by fast and slow. A lot has happened, starting with of course the obvious the move and then shortly after the wedding. We have moved into a new apartment that finally feels like a home to all of us, Georgia has been progressing at the rate that a child her age is supposed to, which includes starting a few days of preschool next month. She keeps us busy and "on our feet". Many lessons have been learned by all and while we have all gone through our ups and downs that come with the first year we have managed through it all. I have still not obtained full time work which is a sore point with me, but Robert on the other hand has done a lot of progress in his interests! And he has gotten a lot of interest in what he has been doing. I have made a couple of new friends, which has helped me recently. Georgia has a best friend and is always wanting to play with her. I imagine that soon after she starts preschool she will have more and more friends. But it is looking like our time in Texas might come to an end. Robert and I are starting to look into moving back to Arizona, mainly Mesa. This move is to be closer to family and friends that we have there. Now onto the more interesting points (to me anyway), I am taking more classes towards my bachelor's degree and have started on working on a cookbook. I am working on creating some original recipes and all that, but realize that if it ever gets printed it will be because I have paid to print it myself. I am always open to other peoples recipes, but only use them when with others after they are family approved. So that is it for now.

Phew

Wow, can not remember the last time I blogged.mits been awhile. I believe since then we have moved into our bigger and nicer apartment and georgia has started regular activities with other kids her age. She and I have both made good friends since moving and we are only looking forward from this point on. My culinary regime has been more fruitful in our new place and I have a more positive outlook on the future. So the move has been good to me. Robert has been more productive in his endevours and hopes to start earning money with it within the next year he has told me. I shall try to blog more for those who care to follow, since soon I will be going back to school full time, Georgia will be in preschool three mornings a week and Robert will be doing his work. Pray that I find a job and that all goes well. I look forward to blogging more.

Food, yum

Everyone's favorite topic no matter how fat or skinny you are, or your dietary preferences. Food is the Universal language no matter who you are. In high school I dabbled in vegetarianism, and was brought down by a juicy medium rare steak, and more recently I tried a vegan diet, while the vegan diet was nice and friendly on my digestive system, I have fallen back to the "American" diet.

Since I have moved and married the love of my life, I have had more of a chance to discover my love of cooking. Last night I attempted something I never even had the inclination to try before, meatballs. Not just any meatballs, I scoured the internet for recipes and the sort, and did what I normally do, I put together the ingredients that I had and created something original. I made my version of Swedish meatballs. I had ground turkey that I added some of the usual suspects, bread crumbs, egg, cheese, onion and garlic. I fried the first batch and decided that it would more than likely be easier and healthier to bake them. I made a gravy with some chicken stock I had on hand, and cooked up some rice. Not going to lie, it was good, granted it needed a little more spice in the meatball, but for my first attempt I was quite good. My husband approved it, which for me was a no brainer since I had rice with dinner and that is his weakness.

Tonight I am going to make something that I love to have, brauts. I am German after all, I mean come on, maiden name Ostendorf, totally German. In case any of you were wondering, in German the name means small town. Wow, and I live in a big city but love small towns, is this a sign? But I am most excited about one of the side, twice baked potatoes. The potatoes were my hubby's idea, I wanted to just do baked potato, he requested they be twice baked. Have I mentioned I love my hubby and the fact that he loves to eat as much as I do?????? We are a match made in heaven. All goes to show, that food really is a universal language.

"what the heck?"

My baby is 3!!! Where did time go? One minute I am holding her in my arms, snuggling her as she wraps that little hand around my finger, and the next she is running all around the house with a mind of her own. Sometimes it feels as if she is older than 3 and we are getting a glimpse of what she will be when she is a teenager, and let me tell you, I am scared. But there are moments when I can't help but smile at her new discoveries and adventures, especially when she is trying to figure out something new. She will often hold it up, put her hand up and ask "what the heck?" and I swear she knows exactly what it is but is trying to be cute, and believe it or not it normally works. Then there are the times when she makes me want to go running out of the house screaming in frustration. Her imagination has become so much more vivid lately as well. She purchased a play phone for her birthday (well, picked it out and had Robert buy it) and has been walking around with it in her purse for days now and picks it up, talks into it, and is dead set that Grandma is on the other end of the phone. She also loves to play the characters from her favorite movies, which can be dangerous sometimes depending on who she wants to be.

For her Birthday we knew the zoo was out of the question, we didn't really have money for it. So we went to her other favorite place, the country out at Aunt Debbie and Uncle Randy's place! She loves going out there and seeing the horses and donkey and the cows. But I think her favorite part of going out there are all the dogs and the trampoline. She doesn't just ask to jump on the trampoline, to her it is 'exercise jump', and boy can she jump. I think another reason she loves going out there is Aunt Debbie and Uncle Randy, she loves them and so do Robert and I. There is just something about being with family, I am sure anyone that actually reads this can confirm, when you feel lost or alone, just being around family makes everything all better.

Now onto the fun stuff. Adventures in cooking. We recently were blessed with food stamps which has opened up a whole new world of cooking for me now that I have money for fresh ingredients. But some things stay in rotation. I have been told by my husband that I cook foreign foods better than American foods, not sure how to take that, but I will just smile and cook what I feel the urge to cook. Recently I have cooked German, Asian, Italian, and Mexican. I admit, I love to eat German food, perhaps because I have a lot of German in me and grew up eating a lot of German food. But I am getting pretty good at Mexican and Asian. Italian seems to be the fall back for me when I have no energy left at the end of the day to cook. Recently I purchased some thin sliced pork chops that were on sale buy one, get two free. Well,t he first batch I baked and they came out incredibly dry, so the next batch I made into sweet and sour pork, minus that pineapples of course, and it turned out not only pretty to look at, but appetizing as well. I was quite proud of it, so much so, I had to take a picture to share.

That is all from me. I am hoping to keep up with the blog at least once every other week. But I have a lot coming onto my plate in the upcoming months. First and fore most is I am starting back to school this semester, granted, I am only taking one course, but it is a tough course for me. And next time I blog, I will more than likely have some big news to share! So stay tuned as the news shows say.

Until next time, if there is anyone reading this, thanks for letting me share.

2011 and beyond!

Here it is, New Year's eve, and yea, I am blogging for the last time in 2011. I am not even sure if more than two people even read my blog, but felt the need to post anyway.this past year has brought about quite a bit of change for me as well as my kiddo. We moved away from Arizona to join Robert in Texas, obviously the biggest change wss getting married to Robert. We are still adjusting, but that comes with the territory, and not quite sure if we will be fully adjusted, just to a level of comfort with the new life, because our way of living in the past is, well, behind us. I look forward to all the new adventures that lie ahead of us as a family. 2012 is going to bring more changed for us, the one most obvious one to me right now is that I am starting back to school in January, it was a nice break while it lasted, but should haven known I can't stay away from learning for too long. One thing I have enjoyed doing since moving is cooking! In my previous marriage, he was way too picky for me to fully explore the culinary world, Robert on the other hand, I feel is my own personal Anthony Bourdain, arm him with some hot sauce and I do believe is will be willing to try anything I cook once. I have been toying with the idea of getting work in the cooking industry (private chef or with a catering company) but I am beginning to feel that perhaps I should just stick to cooking for friends and family and continuing my persist of working in the mental health field.mincood workmwithncrazynpeople all day and get my release in the evening with a nice glass of wine and pounding out some chicken breasts to be rolled up with cheese and veggies and then pan seared to perfection (I am sure there are some technical terms to be learned here, but that will have to wait). Now onto something new for me, resolution. I had managed to make it up last year without ever making any resolutions, last year I resolved to take more pictures of the kiddo, well, started strong ended with a pft, so, renewing that resolution for the upcoming 2012 season, let's see how far I make it this go around. I also would like to blog abut some of my culinary adventures, triumphs, and defeats, is there anyone out there willing to read about them? If so let me start now, tonight I made a special desert to go along with the champagne, to me it is a triumph, to Robert, it was good but too rich for his liking (the perils of having a husband without a sweet tooth to match mine). What is this desert you might ask? Well, they are Oreo truffles! And so stinking easy to make, I always look on the Internet for ideas, today I put in cream cheese and cocoa powder as my ingredients and came up with several ideas, the only one that appealed to me however was Oreo truffles, and like most of the time wheni cook, I use the recipe as a base and add my own twists, so here is how I did mine tonight:

Half a package of Oreo cookies, crumbled in the food processor with the last piece of Christmas fudge ( my twist), add half a package of cream cheese, mix well. Freeze mixture until solid enough to rollinto balls, place balls on a nonstick surface, freeze again for approximately a hour. Sift cocoa powder and powdered sugar (powdered sugar was my twist) together in a small bowl, roll truffles in the cocoa powder mixture, freeze or put in fridge. When served, dust powdered sugar over truffle on plate.

Well that is all from me in 2011. Happy New year to all and please be safe and watch out for others if you are on the roads tonight.

CHRISTMAS!!!

So, another Christmas has passed and I managed to survive! It started off with me making a traditional Mexican Christmas Eve dinner, except I managed to forget the beans, how? No clue. Then Christmas morning I was enjoying snuggling in my warm bed when a I was a woken to a voice saying, is it time to get up and open presents? And no it wasn't Georgia, it was Robert asking that, Georgia was still sound asleep with visions of sugar plums dancing in her head. So, Robert kindly woke her up, she came running into my arms and then saw the pile of presents sitting under the tree!!!!!

For a little girl who will be three in two weeks, she is not what you expect when it comes to opening presents. Then again she never has been, she loves tearing into presents that are in bags, but when it is in a box and wrapped in paper, she would rather watch someone else open it for her. And unbeknownst to myself, I had mysteriously purchased wrapping paper that tears only when you are trying to cut it with scissors! But when you try to tear it off a box with your fingers? Forget about it.

Georgia made out like a bandit like I figured she would. She got presents from Robert and myself
aka Santa and Mrs. Claus, my parents, her father's parents, Rob's aunt Jen, Great Grandma and Grandpa Green, Great Grandma Houston, Great Aunt Debbie and great Uncle Randy, and now we get to make up what she didn't get with money from Great Grandma Maria and Grandma and Grandpa Green. Whew! And if she wasn't spoiled enough by all of that, her Birthday happens to fall exactly two weeks after Christmas Eve this year!!!!

As for Robert and myself, we didn't do to bad ourselves. We managed some clothes from my parents, and money from his family. With that money we purchased an iPad 2 that will benefit our entire family, will work for school and work, and as entertainment and help us educate Georgia. My gift to Robert has been games for the computer that he has been interested in, and shoes! He buys new shoes about every 6 months, now he has gotten two new pairs in the time span of a month, so hopefully now that he has two pairs at once, we can keep ahead of the purchase of shoes every 6 months. And me? Well, I got great deals on three magazine subscriptions, and a book that was suggested to me by a good friend who shares the same interest in culinary experiences (although I am not as daring as she is). I was also given permission to add games to my Nintendo dsi that are for all of us.

Now on to the buying of Birthday gifts. We have ordered one so far, and are pretty sure of the other two that we will be purchasing for her. And I for one am really looking forward to celebrating her Birthday. We are again going out to Rob's Aunt Debbie's place to celebrate because I figured where better to celebrate than someplace she can go running wildly outside? Since we live in an apartment, it is a little difficult to get her outside to play unless we take a bus trip to someplace where she can play.

But before we can conquer Birthday, we must conquer New Year's Eve!

Pictures will come later, when we have them all loaded onto the computer, again I failed in my mission to take lots of pictures, but I believe I got a couple and Robert got a couple as well. Georgia is now requesting that I play with her with one of her new toys that requires an adult to play with her, so I will bid fare well, and say that I will post again soon, most likely this week.

Whew, where has time gone

So Robert's birthday is 5 days away, Christmas is 9 days away, and Georgia's birthday is right around the corner after New Year's! But blessings are abounding upon us! We get to celebrate Christmas with Rob's aunt and her in-law family on Christmas Day (which means that is one holiday meal I am not making for Christmas) but I have great plan's for a Christmas Eve dinner (mexican per Robert's request) and my favorite breakfast casserole Christmas morning. I am excited though because I am taking two of my fav dips for Christmas day! Phew, I think I am determined to be a better cook which is a good thing because I want to start doing it for a living someday really soon, but can't decide which I like doing better, the main part of a meal or the desert. I have been indulging myself once again with the world of baking and cake decorating I have been secretly having mini Cake Boss marathons while the hubby is sleeping and the munchkin is watching her kiddie movies. And while Buddy gets on my nerves after the first 20 minutes ("that's how we do it, hoboken style baby") I can't help myself, their cakes are amazing!!! And I could just live in their bakery shop with all those other yummy treats they make!!! Getting off course here, don't know why my mind is on food, perhaps because I am always thinking about the next meal I am going to make my family. And tonight, seeing as how it is Friday, it is going to most likely be pizza!!! To wrap up this quick blog entry, let me just say right now I feel blessed, I have an overflowing kitchen of ingredients, a hubby who loves what I cook for him (quite a change from the past if any of you know about that), and a child that no matter what I cook, always says yay!!!!!!! and runs around like its the best thing in her day when mommy makes her something to eat!