Day Old Taco Pie

What a funny title right? Well I suppose I'll explain. Kyle comes home for lunch every day at 8pm. Usually I have dinner ready for him when he gets here because he only has about 40 minutes before he has to be back to work. The plan for today was goulash. Well Kyle had to go on lunch an hour early, so guess what? No goulash! Instead he got... Day Old Taco Pie! I made it yesterday for the first time ever and I guess it was pretty good. I woke up this morning to a dirty bowl in the sink. I guess Kyle got hungry last night after work and broke into it again. A girl from work gave me the recipe. She talked about it all the time so I finally had to ask her how to make it. Basically it's a layer of ground beef with taco sauce, a layer of refried beans and for the top layer, mix 8oz of sour cream, 1 jar of salsa and a few handfuls of shredded cheese. Throw it in a 400 degree oven until it's all bubbly. We just eat it like a dip with tortilla chips. It's pretty good. I guess it's good a day old too because Kyle didn't seem to mind eating it again today. Anyway... I still can't make up my mind about school. I'm signed up and ready to go, just need to pick my classes. However, another opportunity just jumped out in front of me on Tuesday. One of the girls I work with, Krista, found a CNA program starting Sept. 22 in Warrensburg. It's only a total of 20 days and it's night classes, so 6-10pm three nights a week. So I don't know what to do. But about the pictures... the first is just a view of the flower bed from the living room window. The second is of Stealth ready to INHALE her dinner. Every once in a great while they'll get a can of wet food to split and this was one of those days. The bowl is almost bigger than she is. Then you can see Bomber in the background with his glowing eyes. Well I'm heading to bed. So until my next post... have a great morning, afternoon and evening Michigan! -Jess

Oh Harry Potter...

So I finally got to see The Half-Blood Prince last night. It was good, but I was expecting more from the 6th movie. Of course the movie is never as good as the book, I wasn't as impressed as I had planned to be. I know I'm not a movie critic or anything but the last one was better than this one. Oh well. Anyway, I have more pictures! So on we go with the "virtual" tour. First is a picture of our walk-in closet. Nothing special there. Next is a picture of part of the master bathroom. Off to the left, on the other side of the door is our bathroom sinks. After that is another picture of our double sinks. Off to the left is the door to our closet, and to the right is the door to our master bathroom. The next picture is of our bedroom. This was shortly after I finished cleaning, so you can see the cats out cold on the bed. Like I've said before, my cleaning tires them out. Next is a picture of our main bathroom. After that is a picture of my laundry room. Next is our living room. I'm so proud of our curtains. You can't really tell, but they are brown and blue. Sounds like those two colors may clash, but they actually go very good together. You can kinda see the front door off to the left. There is also a shoe/coat closet on the left wall that you can't see. And last, but not least is our kitchen and dining room. The door off to the right leads into the laundry room, and then there is a door off the laundry room that goes into the garage. So that's the end of my mini tour. It looks like today is going to be pretty warm again. Hopefully not too warm to enjoy though. Anyway, it's 11:30 here right now and Kyle is still in bed...it's time for an intervention. So until next time, have a great morning, afternoon and evening Michigan! -Jess

Happy Saturday Sweep!

So it's clean! I had to take a picture of everything I use each Saturday. Now, this isn't all of it, this is just what I used today. Really, no joke! There is actually more stuff hiding behind the stuff in the front. This was the only way I could arrange it all to fit in the frame... and not look completely insane. Did it work? It feels so much better now anyway. I also took a lot of pictures today of our place. So I'll give you a "virtual" tour. The second picture is of my room. We have three bedrooms, so we have our bedroom, my room and Kyle's room. If you look close you can see the sign above my door says Jessica Ct., then the door right next to it says Kyle Ave., which is Kyle's room. Of course, my Saturday Sweep does not include cleaning Kyle's room so that is why the door is closed. I basically just keep my sewing machine in here, along with all of my recipe books and other kitchen appliances that won't fit in the kitchen. The next picture is of the hallway and part of the kitchen. You can see some of the lovely pictures we hung last weekend. Next is a picture of Kyle's door and some of the pictures in the hallway again. Don't worry, it's just a sticker on Kyle's door... not paint. Then there is Stealth. I was doing laundry, and walked away for a few seconds and this is where I find her. Of course I can't blame her, it did look very comfortable and I had just turned the dryer off so it was still warm. Well I have more pictures that I will post later. Kyle and I are getting ready to go to the movies. We were actually suppose to go with the neighbors to Kansas City, but we decided not to. Kimberly's mom is here for the weekend so she's watching the kids, so I figured we should let the two of them have a night alone together. I will post more pictures later tonight or tomorrow after church. So until my next post... oh you already know what I'm going to say. Later Michigan!

I can already smell the bleach...

Oh tomorrow is going to be so wonderful. It's starting to look quite scary around here. Now, I'd love to give you a before and after shot, but I'm too ashamed. Okay, it's not super bad, but it just doesn't look as pretty as it does after I'm done with it. This is a picture of one of the walls in our laundry room. I love this little sign, because it's so true, sad, but true. Now usually I'd do a little "pre-game cleaning" on Friday night, but this is the first Friday night that Kyle has had off in a few weeks, so we're grilling tonight. Yummy! I'm in charge of the taters, and he's in charge of the steaks. Kyle can make a mean steak on the grill. I don't like steak, but I'll eat the ones he makes. And no, it's not a newlywed thing, where I eat it just to make him happy. It's actually very good. Well the neighbor, Kimberly, and I decided to go in on a carpet cleaner rental. So that means I have an even bigger job in front of me tomorrow, which translates into an even cleaner house. Oh when does the fun end? No, but really... I think Kyle is going take me to see Harry Potter tomorrow (finally). Warrensburg is the closest big town to us, so that's probably where we will go. I work in Warrensburg, and it's only a 10 min drive. So not too bad. I've been putting off seeing this movie because Warrensburg just put in a new movie theater. And when I say they just put one in, I mean the grand opening was last Friday. So it's going to be packed! Hopefully it won't be quite as bad this weekend though. Well this last picture is of Stealth. She's about 5 months old now. Bomber just turned 1 around the middle of July, so he's already an old man. But anyway I think we're going to get this carpet cleaner going so I don't have so much to do tomorrow. So until my next post, have a great morning, afternoon and evening Michigan! -Jess

Hello Family!

Hi everyone! I see my mom already got the word around. So... "Hi people!" Anyway, here's a picture of Kyle at the Knob Noster State Park. I'm sure you're giggling because I just said Knob Noster... but it's where we live! We actually just say "Yea we live in Knob", and I'm sure that sounds even worse but that's what they say around here. So tomorrow is someone's last day at work. She's "one of us" so I made cupcakes. I guess everyone is bringing in something tomorrow, and I didn't want to be the odd one out. Not for sure if anyone knows, but I'm working for Embarq telephone right now. Actually, I'm not suppose to say Embarq anymore because we are now CenturyLink. CenturyTel bought us out earlier this year and the merger just went through July 1st. Now the reason I said she's one of us is because "technically" I'm not an employee of CenturyLink and neither is she. We're contractors, which means I'm employeed by a temp agency called Aerotek, and my contract ends Sept. 30th. So at the end of my contract I will be offered 1 of 3 options. One, they will offer me a position as a full time CenturyLink employee; Two, they will extend my contract up to 12 more months; Three, I won't get number one or two, they'll just end the contract and Aerotek will most likely offer me another temp job. I'm hoping for a contract extension, even though employees get paid much better and they get benefits. I'd rather not have to commit myself to something right now. Especially because I'm going back to school in the fall. Oh, the second picture is of my kitchen, part of the living room and off to the right starts the hallway. The pictures will probably be quite random for the next week or so, just so I can get all the ones we've taken since we've been here posted. Well, the important ones at least. Anyway... it's late and I have to work in the morning (YAY FOR FRIDAY!) so I will try to post again tomorrow. So until next time, have a great morning, afternoon and evening Michigan! -Jess

Is it Friday yet?

Well no, it's not Friday yet. It's usually the first thing I ask though when I get to the office Monday morning. So here is our little girl, Stealth. She fell asleep like this one Saturday afternoon. My cleaning tires the two of them out. I'm not sure I have many pictures of them awake. Speaking of pictures, we finally put a bunch up in our hallway. It looks much more homey now. And by the way, Kyle is doing very well. Right now he is testing to become a 5 level. Basically, the higher the level, the more access and security he will obtain on the job. He tests every day, and will continue to do so until he gets 5 consecutive 90% or above on these tests. For the last three days he has scored exactly 89%. Oh well, he will get better. Every day when I come home for lunch that kid is studdying. I'm very impressed, considering he never use to be this way when he was in high school. Plus, hopefully within the next two months he'll be ranking up. He'll no longer be just "Airman", but Airman 1st Class, better known as "A1C". It equals out to two stripes instead of one. He's been ready to rank up for a while, and I'm excited for him too. This picture of Bomber explains him to a perfect "T". He fell asleep right in front of the window. He loves being outside more than any other cat I've ever known. He scratches at the doors and cries when we won't let him out. If we're outside, and he can see us through a window he cries. The first thing he does when we let him out is run to the grass. He would eat it all day if we let him. But anyway, I'm completely out of information for now. Especially because I rambled on for quite some time yesterday. So until my next post... have a good morning, afternoon and evening Michigan! - Jess

The Beginning of the Beginning

Well it only seemed right to start a blog since I have a terrible habbit of not calling home on a regular basis. I'm just sitting here watching Touched by an Angel waiting for Kyle to get home for lunch. Thats one of the things I love about cable TV, they still play the good shows. It rained here yesterday, and it looks like we have a big wet cloud above us but it may just hold out tonight. I made Sloppy Joes for dinner, not Kyle's favorite, but I haven't made them since we moved and he still swears we have them every week. The picture is quite random, but I figured it would be a good one to start out with. It discribes our everyday life in a second. This was actually a picture Kyle took a few weekends ago at the Wings Over Whiteman air show. I didn't go, it was on Saturday, and as you'll soon find out Saturday's are my "happy place" days. Usually my morning starts around 8AM with my weekley "Saturday Sweep". I crank up the music, grab the gloves and start scrubbing. That reminds me, I need to get one of those face masks that cover your nose and mouth. Sometimes I use so much bleach that I gass myself out. Kyle swears that if you open our front door around 10AM on any given Saturday a wall of cleaning fumes will hit you like a ton of bricks. I've become very "OCD" with my cleaning. I get in a zone and it's hard to pull me out until the house sparkles. I'm sure my mom and dad wish my "problem" would have started a good 10 years ago. Oh well, it's in full swing now. Today was just another Tuesday at work, and as usual I can't wait for Friday at 5. This second picture is also from the air show (by the way). It's a very crowded picture of the B-2 Stealth Bomber. This is the one Kyle works on, and also the jet that our cats are named after: Bomber and Stealth. Two of the craziest siamese cats you'll ever meet. I'll be sure to post some pictures of them soon. But if I post pictures I feel I have to have words to surround them and I'm having a hard time doing that with these two pictures, as you may be able to tell. Well Kyle came home for lunch and is already gone again. I told him about the blogging thing and he's actually a little "excited". He actually asked me "Well, where's my blog?", and I had to explain to him that this is "our" blog. So maybe if I get lucky he'll post his own every once in a while, doubtful, but maybe. I'm not going to promise a post every day, or even every other day. I'll try, but my goal will be at least once a week. But until then... have a great morning, afternoon and evening Michigan! -Jess