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.