Random Pictures

This one is from last weekend when we went camping. The pups were lounging while I was making soup. Please excuse the mess on the bed, the camper is not that big.

Princess's birthday present came via UPS yesterday. I always love coming home to a package on the porch, even if it is for one of the dogs. We got her her own camping chair. She likes it.

I also found this in the mail box yesterday. I almost crapped my pants.

Thankfully, it's just junk mail for some kind of phone activation, not Army activation. I had flashbacks for a second of sleeping with my phone next to me and the instant messenger on. I'd prefer not to have any "activation notices" sent to our address.

Hope you all have a great weekend and a Happy Halloween!

Happy Hump Day!

I once read somewhere to never apologize for a lack of blogging. So, I won't. I've been busy. And my life has been pretty boring, which could be a good thing.

We had a great time camping this weekend. The weather was beautiful except that it was really windy. Friday night we remained pretty calm. Matt had to work for a couple hours Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon him and his buddy went four-wheeler riding. I stayed at the camper made some soup, roadtripped with my parents and the dogs for a while, and took a nap.

However, Saturday night it might have been on. I may have drank way to much. I may have fallen. I may have went to the chiropractor Monday and found out that I sprained my elbow. It may hurt like a bitch. I may have a few mysterious bruises. Or I may not.

Sunday morning we loaded up and went home. And then slept all day. It felt great to be a bum.

Yesterday was Miss Princess's birthday. I ordered her a camping chair online. It's like a bag chair but with out the back or beer can holder. My mom has one for her dog and Princess pretty much took it over while we were camping.

Besides that things have been pretty mellow. I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to take next semester. I think I have it figured out now though. If I take the right elective for my Associates in Accounting, I will also have a Certificate in Office Technology. And then if I take one more class I'll also have a Certificate in Management. I believe I have 13 classes left and then I'll have all this done. But at this point, I'm 28 29 years old and still considered a freshman. Which is a little depressing in itself.

Anywho, next semester I'm going to try to take three classes, be a wife, work, and sling beers on the side. I'm going to take Managerial Accounting, Legal Environments of Business (blah), and Advanced Formatting. Should be interesting. The good thing is one is online and the other two are at the extension building of the college which is very close to where I work. So no driving 30 minutes to class.

Oh and something else, someone keeps emailing me telling me that they think I'm a talented writer and they want me to write for some blog something or other. I don't buy it. I purposely make grammatical errors and use, commas in the wrong place because it's my blog and I can. And I'm a shitty proofreader. So don't lie to me. :)

Happy Hump Day! Hope you all are having a great week!

Just because....

I've been down in the dumps the last two days.

He's sweet sometimes. When no one else understands, he does. And when he doesn't, he does things to make me happy. I wouldn't trade him for the world.

Have a good weekend!

Random Stuff

Things have been pretty crazy around our house lately. Most of the weekend we spent working on putting up a chain link fence in the backyard. Dad came over Friday evening and he and Matt finished digging and putting up the poles. Mom and Dad came over Saturday morning and we got it finished (pictures to come). I worked Saturday night. Sunday we stayed home and did home work.

It tough sometimes to find a balance between pissing people off because we have our own things to do and finding time to mingle. Matt's first class is almost over and he has had a ton of homework to get done and tests so we skipped my Reester's birthday party and stayed home and studied and did homework.

The spring semester schedule came out the other day. Now when I try to figure out what I'm going to take, I also have to keep in mind when Matt will be in school, if I'll ever see him, and who will take care of the pups if we are both at class all evening. So mainly, I've been trying to clear my head lately and not stress out.

Last night, I went to a visitation. A very good friend of mine that died when he were in high school's dad died. I met up with some of my old school buddies and went with them. After the visitation, we all went and grabbed a beer together. It's always great to see my old buddies. They are the kind of people that no matter how long we go without seeing each other, it's like we haven't skipped a beat.

I woke up in a good mood today probably because I got to hang with my buddies last night. I got to work and logged into Facebook and saw the creep that I hate more than anyone in the whole world is now on Facebook. It's a sore subject and I'm really not in the mood to talk about it today. Some of you already know and if you don't and want to go here. Facebook is also recommending I become his friend. Umm, F you Facebook and F you creep.

It's weird how the littlest things can trip my trigger sometimes. But, I'm not going to let this ruin my day. Moving on......

We are going to go camping this weekend. This will most likely be our last camping excursion this year and I'm super pumped. We are going with mom and dad. Mom and I are each going to make a big ole pot of soup. The pups are all going to go with us. This will be Miss Princess's first camping trip but I'm positive she will love it. The place where we are camping is pretty close to home which is always nice in case we need to run home for something.

Hope you all have a great week!

My husband's new love

About six months before Matt finished his time doing Active Duty, we started house hunting. One of the things Matt wanted in a house was a big garage or room to build a big garage. We bought our house last June. It had a junk shed in back yard that I don't have a picture of. This past April we made out like bandits on our taxes since we are first time home owners buyers. So we decided to invest our money into building a garage. After a little debating, confusion, drama we decided to have the garage built for us.

This is a picture of where the junk shed was.

Matt dug up all the cinder block from around the concrete, loaded them up, and got rid of them. It was only like 110 out when he was doing that.

Here is a picture of when the concrete was poured.

Here is Matt splicing together the internet line he dug through. Notice the Aerosmith 1998-1999 t-shirt. Classic.

Here is the garage after everything is done. The siding and shingles match our house perfectly.

View from the deck.

My daddy and brother did all the electrical work. It has about 14 plug ins in it. Matt says that you never know what you'll need to plug in. It has plumbing ran for a small bathroom to be put in it. That will have to wait until next summer though along with the insulation. The only thing left to do this year is to expand our fenced in area of the yard. Dad and Matt are going to start that tonight and finish it on Saturday.

Matt's in love with the garage. I hardly ever see him on the weekend. But it is close enough to the house that I can stand on the deck and yell at him when it's time to come in.

And since no picture post from me would be complete without a few pictures of the dogs.....

Vinnie chilling on the deck

Princess doing a little chilling

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Beer Cheese Soup

***Disclaimer***
I'm no master chef nor am I a photographer.

Here is the recipe for my world famous (well maybe not) Beer Cheese Soup.

1. Peel and slice 10-12 potatoes. I usually just keep peeling until I have had enough of peeling. Sometimes 10-12. Sometimes more.

2. Dice 1 (one) onion.

3. Boil

Taters and onions

Here is what you will need:

2 cans of cheddar cheese soup

1 can of nacho cheese soup (Good luck finding it. I only know of one grocery store that has it here.)

1 small block of Velveeta. I have used generic before and it's just as good.

1 or 2 packages of recipe style bacon pieces. Sometimes I fry my own and add that but this is way easier. It's worth the extra couple bucks.

1 flat beer. Pour into glass and let settle. I prefer to cook with Budweiser but you can probably use whatever is in the fridge. I wouldn't recommend a dark beer or a light beer. You'll want something full flavored.

Cut up Velveeta like this and add to crockpot along with other soups.


Drain most of water off the taters and onions. Leave about 1/4 of water.

Add taters and onions to crockpot.

Add beer.

Add bacon.

Stir.

Put lid on and cook on low for a couple of hours.

If it is really thick add a little water.

It's absolutely delicious! Enjoy!

Concerts, hangovers, and fooseball

This weekend there was a concert at the fairgrounds that is very close to our house. Friday night there was a tractor pull. Matt and one of his buddies went to that. I stayed home with the pups and did some homework. I'm not really a tractor pull kind of gal. They are loud as hell and there are too many rednecks at them for my taste.

Saturday morning I woke up early and made some beer cheese soup. (and meatballs) Lucky for you a took pictures as I was making it and will do a recipe post on that later this week. Then I made Matt and his friend breakfast and also snuck in a nap.

Matt had brought our camper to the fairgrounds Thursday evening so that we could stay there Saturday night. When it comes to going somewhere, Matt always likes to be the first to get there or at least be half an hour early. The concert was supposed to start at 5. We got to the camper around 3.

We set up the awning and the table outside and got crockpots all set up. And then started drinking beer. The concert was pretty good. The first guy was the best. I'd never heard of him before but his name is Logan Mize. Kinda country. Kinda rock.

Gretchen Wilson was the last person to perform. Didn't like her before. Still don't like her. (We got our tickets for free or else I'm not so sure that I would have went to the concert. I might have stayed at the camper.) Basically, we drank a lot of beer and had a good time. And I got to see a lot of friends that I hadn't seen in awhile.

Yesterday, we didn't feel so well and mostly just laid around and ate greasy food.

Something else I need to bitch complain about, football. It's barely even started and already pissing me off. First of all, here in Illinois, most people are Bears fans. The Bears have sucked, I believe (hell I really don't know) as long as the Cubs have. This year apparently, they don't suck as much. Now, everyone and their brother is a Bears fan. Facbeook status all the time about Bears this and Bears that. Who cares?

Also, on Sunday nights on CBS I like to watch the Amazing Race and Undercover Boss. Because the fooseball games are never over on time, my shows never start on time. Hello CBS, can't you just move these shows to a night were fooseball isn't on. Like Tuesdays or something. The fooseball game was on at least an hour late last night. That means I didn't get done watching my shows until 10 p.m. I like to go to bed early on Sundays.

Happy Monday!

Excuse me?

In case you don't know, my husband always has these crazy ideas running around through his head. The other night he thought, it be cool if we got an old school Chevy Beretta to save on miles on the truck. You see, the hubby and I each had a Beretta in high school. That was many moons ago and we were just friends. We even traded Berettas once for a day or so.

So, Matt's on his computer googling away looking for a Beretta. Although, he and I both knew there was absolutely no way we were getting one. Well I knew. He should have known.

He found one in the town he does drill in. To see all the info about the car you have to give them your email address and phone number. He did. He also put that it would be best to be contacted by email.

The next day he starts getting text messages from some asswipe at the dealership. They text back and forth. I guess Matt told him that he would be in this town for drill over the weekend. Matt said he wouldn't pay more than $1000 for it. The guy said there was no way that they could sell it for that price. Matt politely told him sorry we couldn't make a deal.

Then over the weekend while Matt was at drill, the asswipe starts texting him again. From what I gather, Matt was nice at first and again told him sorry that they couldn't make a deal. The guy keeps texting him. Matt told him, "Times must be tough if you are blowing up someone's phone over a $1500 car that's junk." (Apparently Matt drove by and looked at it and it was junk.)

The asswipe texts him back and says, "Times must be tough when you have to be 10% of a soldier."

At first Matt wanted to go find this asswipe and kick his ass. But he always calms down fairly easy. By the time he told me about it, he was over it.

This really pissed me off. Yes, my husband is in the Reserves now. But he is 5 times the soldier of anyone in his new unit. We won't even go there. He was deployed for 15 months and we were apart the first 9 months that we were married. He's made plenty of sacrifices. He's received more awards and ribbons than I can fit on scholarship, auxiliary, ect. applications. He did his thing. Now we are trying to move on. For someone to try to belittle my husband like that really gets under my skin.

I was going to call the dealership and talk to some kind of manager and tell them what went down. Matt told me not to. I call anyway and got the sales managers voice mail. I didn't leave a message and I didn't call back. I bought a car at this dealership before but I will NEVER buy another one there.

What do you think?