Saturday

Saturday was also excellent-- I went shopping with Sophia and got a ton of cute stuff! OK, maybe not a TON, but a handful or two :)

The GAP outlet in Tunica is probably the best outlet I've been to-- I always manage to find something I really like at a great price. You would think the great price part would be guaranteed at an outlet, but not so mon frere! The GAP and The Children's Place were the only ones having sales, so I picked up some stuff for me and some stuff for Violet, then a couple of kitchen items we needed for back home.

Sophia and I had a blast at the shoe store where not only did we find jellies, but Sophia decided she wanted to try on the most ridiculous shoes she could find!

CLEARLY we were having a good day! I went to Target afterwards and found some shorts for Jeremy, then got my toe ran over with a shopping cart-- people are so rude! After getting it to stop bleeding, someone spit gum on it on my way to Office Max! Unbelievable.

We got home, got ready, and raced over to see Charles and Krystal-- the older kids weren't there, but we had some amazing lasagna, got to hang out with little Felix and hear about Charles's newfound place at the police academy. We ended the night by watching some Top Gear; how awesome is that?

Felix!

Jeremy teaches Felix how to play Angry Birds

Felix tries to help Jack with his sound mixing

Me and Krystal-- so glad she's back stateside!

Krystal and Charles were stationed in Japan for a while, but I'm so excited they're back in the states and I get to see Krystal now and again. It's funny, we were never entirely close at Rhodes, but I guess we just always got along really well and bonded more than either of us ever knew!

Day of Killing (and eating) Turkeys

This Thanksgiving is out of the norm. Which is saying something since last Thanksgiving we had Taco Mac with Emily, the year before turkey with Suzy, and the year before that (the first year Jeremy and I knew each other) I served slightly overcooked chicken breast in a semi-debacled Amy and Meg hosted Thanksgiving. I guess I'm used to Thanksgiving with Family (in caps) being a little more formal. We bust out the good china and put on our best-- if you don't use your good stuff for holidays, when will you ever use it?!

Right now I'm in Indiana with Jeremy's family, and it tugs at my heartstrings because I was so looking forward to finally spending a Thanksgiving with my mom, but Jeremy hadn't been up here in over a year so I told him we'd come. Plus, we're kind of hoping that one of us will land something that will prohibit travel in the days after the wedding. You know, like a job!

It's been nice seeing Josh and Sarah, though, they're so sweet, and they're in the middle of renovating this house they just moved in to. They're renting it, but it was Sarah's grandmother's house and needs a LOT of work! After failed attempts at peeling layer after layer after layer (and possibly more) of wallpaper off the walls (of which I had no part because I was in the middle of wedding details and I was scarred by the process when we lived on Westchester), we all decided it would be best to do some creative renovating and skip the pain and suffering of having to use dark magic to remove this wall paper. That cuts out a lot of the work for tomorrow, which means we will get to see Swiggett since she's just over in Bloomington!!!

I'm so very very close to finishing these bridesmaids bags, and now I just have to find a few things to put in them. Emily's helping me out, and I'm going to get a couple of other travel-sized things, plus I've been looking at all these awesome vintage brooches on eBay that are going for like $1 each! If the price stays under $1.50, I'm going to get each of them a brooch and they can keep it, pin it on their bag, or put it in their hair (which is what I'm doing with mine). I found this bracelet which matches an old necklace of my Granny's that mom has now, so that's going to be mom's present, and then this pin which might be an interesting addition to the fascinator I'm conning Meg in to helping me with, and these earrings which are very similar to the 1928 earrings I wanted! It would be really great if I could get them at or under my max bid of $7, because that would mean I'd saved something like $60 for very similar earrings! I'm bidding on a couple of other things right now (not that I super need to spend the money, but it's all told under $25) that will either go for the wedding or to the brooch collection that I am TOTALLY starting-- thank you for the inspiration Madeleine Albright! (side note: I'm totally hoping that I can talk Jeremy in to Moto GP tickets next fall for when the exhibit is in Indianapolis since apparently we don't get it in Atlanta-- que ridiculo!)

Plus, if I have some luck getting $1 brooches off of eBay, I can use them to decorate little bags, which I can totally sew with ease and put up on my etsy store (in spite of the fact that it's not doing a whole lot for me at the moment...) for sale. I need to start looking in to sewing laptop cases like I've seen in boutiques-- they sell them for like $50 and they would totally only take like $10 to make!

I've gotten a lot of my food budgeting done for the wedding, and thankfully Vicki is saving me big time by donating three trays (!) of Chick Fil A nuggets! I'm going to do the sushi still, it's the one thing I'm dying to have and I won't cut it out, I even cut the beer out of the budget just so I could have it.

We did get bad news, though. Valerie and Matt's court date got changed, so they won't even be bringing Ana over and going to Ethiopia without her. Jeremy's very sad about it, he misses her so much, and I'm sad because we'd made it in December so they could be there. :\ Such is life, I suppose. Pictures will be a little more difficult with Violet as flower girl, but they do have the absolute perfect dress, and with Julian as our ring bearer, Michael as a groomsman, and Meg an honorary bridesmaid... it's really quite fitting that Violet should join the party!

PS, our wedding has gotten quite out of hand! Apparently we have too much family!

I'll close this super long post now with my little Thanksgiving peace:

I am thankful for my friends and my family. This year has been extremely hard and there's no way I could have made it without them! Let me introduce you:

My mom, my brother Casey, and (of course) Jeremy

Vivi! Violet (9mos) Kavanaugh, our flower girl!

Michael, Violet and Julian's dad, and a groomsman

Meg, Nan, Violet, Della, and Iggy-- they're actually related, but have taken us in anyway!

Meg is an honorary bridesmaid of sorts

Meg, we are both goofy. She is also Julian and Violet's mother.

Sarah and Caq

Julian, our ring bearer, at his 3rd birthday last spring

These people are our family, though we may not all be related, and I am SO thankful for them!

I am also thankful for Jeremy, he is such an amazing friend and fiance, and I'm so thrilled I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him. We push each other and try each other every day, and I'm so glad we're together.

I'm also thankful for what I have. It may not be much, but it is something. I have a roof over my head, I have an awesome family (there are STILL a ton of people I'm missing in that family thing above!), I'm not going hungry, and I have some semblance of employment. Things could definitely be worse.

Here's to the coming year, to more things for which to be thankful, and finishing up this wedding majigger!

ciao for now folks,

M

Re-mem-mem, re-mem-remember, AOII, sisters together

Laughing, singing, doing whatever, we have fun when we're together!

Thursday started rush for us and it was SO much fun! The girls did a really great job, we had fantastic return numbers, and the room looked fantastic-- I'm even borrowing some of the stuff for the wedding! They had cute little red paper lanterns and mini chandeliers that were too pretty. I didn't go last night, but I did go today for Philanthropy and I was really proud of our girls. We apparently always have trouble competing with Breast Cancer Awareness (ZTA's philanthropy, I think), but I feel like they really pulled off a touching and pointed argument for ours-- Arthritis Research! Preference Party is tomorrow, and I'm soooo excited-- I can't wait to see how they do it here! I was also pleasantly surprised to hear one of my favorite AOII songs for the exit number, it's the one in the title line :)

This week was long at work for some reason-- probably because it started with the tan van supposed to have been ready for the afternoon run and then it wasn't so we ran all over the place and had to switch vans around and were late for some schools and Sally had to use her car to go pick up from Avondale and ICS... it was a total mess. Argh! And it's like the kids know when you're having a bad day; they decide to do everything they know they're not supposed to do! Then, Friday, right as I finalized the deposit, one parent walked in with a check for payment! Blargh.

We also got a chance to go to the children's consignment sale and pick up some stuff for Valerie and the now two boys that they're adopting from Africa in a couple of months. We got two car seats for $25, and tons of clothes and toys, enough to last them a month or so in cold weather in Indiana and a couple of things that will work under coats and that they'll hopefully fit well enough to take back to Singapore with them as well as some nice clothes for church and whatnot.

Hope everyone's weekends have gone well, and I'll post more when I know more :)

Oh Happy Day?

This weekend was a lot of fun even though I was a little under the weather-- Sophia came to visit! I miss her soooo much! Friday night we went to El Tesoro and then hung out with Meg and Michael for a while. Saturday we got up early and helped mom set up for her yard sale, which went pretty well, then Jonathan (who was back to pick his mother up) came over for breakfast, and Michael brought Julian and Violet and I made bacon, veggie sausage, biscuits, and waffles. I was going to make eggs, but mom boiled them all and I didn't realize until everyone was about to walk in the door! Anyway, breakfast was nice and it was very family-like to hang out and shoot the breeze and play with the baby and watch Julian be a goofball.

After everyone left, we thought about going to see an IMAX at Fernbank since it's cheaper with our membership, but then we started talking about other movies and I remembered that Northlake Movie Tavern does $5 Saturday movies before 6p, so we decided to go see The Hangover after going to Fernbank. We went up and walked around the rose garden, and then went in to see the dinosaurs. Afterwards, we came back and helped mom pack up and found out which stuff from the yard sale I get to keep for the apartment. Then we went to the Movie Tavern and had a blast. The food was yummy, they had Blue Moon on draft, and it was the best $14 we ever spent at a movie! Oh, and the movie was pretty darn funny, too. :) After the movie, we did something I don't remember and hung out with the K's for a while.

Sunday we went to Target, where Sophia found a waffle maker for $7 and I got a bunch of clearance groceries! Then we went to Lenox and wandered around for a while, and stopped by a Pier One that was going out of business-- talk about a smart move! I'm hoping that by the time Friday rolls around, the dining room table I want will still be there and down to $100! If it's down to $75, and the side table I want is down to $15 then I'll just have to get both of them ;) It's my impetus to clean out my car. The table is really nice, dark wood with red legs, and it's a drop leaf to fit six-- it was originally $300!

After a while, we came home (exhausted and hungry) and then ate some more at Palate, and went over to Iggy and Wade's to watch True Blood and Hung. We all remarked on the fact that Sookie is way more annoying this season than last.

Last night things took a turn for the worse... I woke up with a fever around 2a and have had one ever since :( My ears feel like someone's shoved a Q-Tip in too far (to which Jeremy remarks that he knows how that feels... Valerie!), and I coughed so much at work this morning I almost threw up! Thankfully, VBS doesn't require as much of my attention and so I was able to slip away and do most of that in private without getting it all over someone else.

VBS wasn't too bad, though the head lady is a little bit prickly and doesn't care much for the camp kids or the counselors, even though she doesn't want to seem to help us figure out what we're supposed to be doing! They also had some really boring music for a church that's known for having one of the best music programs in the area-- Jeremy said the second song we did this morning is a really really old one. The first one I don't even remember, which is a change from VBS when I was little-- all those songs would get stuck in my head for weeks! I always liked, "Oh Happy Day" since it was so upbeat and easy to sing. The package they have for this year is Paul and the Underground Church, which I was vaguely intrigued by, but so far it's been either half-hearted or historically (and apparently also biblically) incorrect. The Olympics started in Greece, not Rome, and Saul of Tarsus was from (get this) Tarsus, not Jerusalem. The guy who played Paul in the sketch was reading off a piece of paper, and the script for the visit to the Underground Church had high church Latin, not the traditional Latin that was spoken until post Constantine. Fran let me correct the Latin, though, so I had my happy little dork moment ;) All in all it was OK, and I think some of the church members weren't thrilled with the package either, so we'll see what the rest of the week brings. Maybe Paul will have learned his lines!

Now, to bed-- I still have a fever and I'm super exhausted!

PS- we put in our applications for the apartment this weekend and I'm really excited! If you want to see pictures, go check the place out. It's not our furniture, but I'm looking to do a similar style.

Driving Rain

As in, "Brings new meaning to the term..."

A LOT has happened in the last few days, I'm so exhausted I'm falling asleep, so I'll just post about the drive up on Thursday which was way less eventful than the last two!

I left at about 11a on Thursday, which was an hour later than I had intended since I wanted to get here early afternoon, but there had been a totally wicked storm on Wednesday night/early Thursday morning so I decided it would be better to sleep a little late and therefore miss the rain since it was supposed to blow through-- the radar looked totally clear when I left... SURPRISE! I got to Irondale (about 20mi outside Birmingham) and there was a mini monsoon! I could see about five to ten feet in front of me so I kept on going, but I didn't get out of it until I hit the city limits. Thank goodness I didn't have to go 20 through B'ham in that-- it's crazy enough on a clear day, and even worse on a rainy one!! Once I got through Birmingham, it was pretty clear sailing

...

Until I got to Tupelo where the rain was even WORSE! It got so bad, I pulled off and sat at a gas station for a few minutes to let it pass (and it just so happened I had to use the restroom and re-start my iTunes), it was so strong when I parked my car in front of the door that I couldn't even see the door from where I was sitting. Absolute insanity. Oh, and that was about 350mi of straight driving without stopping. I am a god.dess.

I got back on the road and filled up again past Pontotoc, and was totally stoked to see that I got at least 37mpg on the trip up! Yeah 12 year old beat up station wagon! I probably could have gotten 40mpg (I have once or twice before), but since the exits are a little inconsistent between Tupelo and Olive Branch on 78 I decided it was better safe than sorry.

Got to Southaven about 430p, which was just over 6 hours including the stop in Tupelo-- totally awesome time. I talked to Jan for a little while and got my stuff out of the car, then went to pick Sophia up to have dinner with Caro and Valisa. I got on the interstate and talked to Jeremy for a few, and then some nasty lightning started up over Olive Branch and then the rain came. More torrential rain up to midtown and all the way to Buffalo Wild Wings, but I did get to catch up with my babies which was really exciting! Also, BWW was totally yummy. I miss it. Though I have to say the service at the one in Southaven is WAY better. Mine and Fia's Blue Moons weren't served with an orange, and then when I asked for orange slices, the waitress thought we wanted them to snack on before our food got there or something. I told the manager on the way out; I don't care how snobby it sounds-- if you're going to serve premium beer, you need to serve it properly. Plus, it takes forever to get food there, the servers are almost unintelligible, and the last time Sophia was there, the waitress didn't bring them forks and when they did get someone to bring them silverware... she brought them one fork! For three of them!

Went window shopping with Sophia at Shoenami and Old Navy, then we went up to the brand new Target by Emily (the one I went to brunch with last weekend) which is big and shiny and RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME. I mean, we all know I love me some Target, but this one is probably the best of all Targets put together. Even if it doesn't have a cart escalator. (I was going to put up these pictures of Dill as exemplary photos, but the internet is being slow so I shall just link them one by one) I picked up Oceans 13 for Jeremy (which we saw like three times in theatres right before we started dating), The Essential Journey for myself (because if you don't love Journey, or at the very least "Don't Stop Believin'", you're just not human), and I found serving platters for the wedding on sale for $4 off!! There were only two, so I went ahead and grabbed them, though I should have picked up a couple of rain checks to make sure I could pick up two more if I wanted them... maybe I'll see if they're on sale at the Southaven Target tomorrow.

I dropped Fia off after that and headed home. About a mile from the house, my battery light and brake light all of the sudden came on and my steering got really tight, I pulled in to the driveway and turned the car off, and turned it back on to make sure it was still working and it was-- the solution to that will come with Friday's story. I also realized that I was supposed to go over my resume with Amy on Friday but had forgotten my jump drive with the whole kit and caboodle on it at home, but I had it somewhere in Gmail (love the search feature! and the saving of sent mail!) so I tried to get on the wireless... only to realize that even had my computer not crashed and wiped all the wireless settings, I had actually never USED this computer here. I left Jan a note to see if she had the wireless key and Marc a note about the strange lights in my car and headed to bed.

Coming Up: I cancel an appointment, shell out $140, and apparently manage to dodge death and stymie the JiffyLube boys!

Wonderful night

Went to the wine tasting at Palate tonight which was an absolute blast. It was a dueling distributors kind of setup-- Leslie, Craig, and Jeff were there so entertainment was endless. Emily came and joined me, and we met a couple of nice older gentlemen (Bill and Steve) who joined us and taught us a little about wine and provided good conversation. Bill works for the Nat'l Park Service, which was interesting since he seemed to be OK with parks land being exploited for oil exploration, but he was very nice and there seemed to be a mutual move past the point and on to something more interesting so off we went. Craig ended up with the best wine, a Spanish varietal which was almost extinct. It had the nose of a sweeter wine, like a muscat, but an interesting, tangy, tart kind of finish to it. I can't recall the exact name at the moment, but it was really great.

Not much else going on. I took the battery to get checked and charged and that's not the problem, so it means the starter is gone. Thankfully, my tax refund should be in tomorrow or Monday, so I can get the starter taken care of this weekend. It'll be about $140, which isn't too bad in the big picture, and it's only the second original part that's been replaced that didn't have anything to do with the accident-- the other of which was the alternator two years ago. I went by Target today and picked up some new socks, though I was really sad about the clearance St. Patty's day knee socks-- they didn't fit at all! They were soooo soft, I was excited, but sadly it was not meant to be. There were some other little ankle socks like the kind I wear that were on clearance, so their softness will suffice for now. I'm considering getting some of the little knitted slippers they had on clearance, too-- I just want something to wear around the house/in bed. I still have the monkeys Jeremy got me, but they're not really bed-worthy slippers.

That's about all for now, off to watch some Angel and fall asleep. Ciao!

Deep Breaths

I wish I could fly off to Phuket with Valerie this weekend, I could use a step back from everything! I'm really stressed because I haven't been making much at work and I have this whole paying for the wedding thing, not to mention the lots of tiny things that are stressing me out about the wedding thing, and trying to pay the rest of my bills... it's really stressful. I try to take deep breaths, but sometimes it gets overwhelming. I'm also a little bit irritated that since the economy is down, nobody's stocking the inventory they usually do which means that my brilliant plan to get lots of fun decorations from Valentine's Day clearance was severely thwarted!

To escape, I'm turning to making cards and thinking about going back on the citalopram to help me manage and be able to take a step back and look objectively at things. I'm going to start a new budget as of Monday that's a little different than the one I've been working on (which assumes a certain amount of income every month) and instead put away money for the things I know I'm going to have to pay-- $100 for prescriptions, $70 for the phone, $30 for gas (since I don't really go much of anywhere), $30 towards the wedding (I'm trying to put in at least $10 a week), and then at the end of the month I'll split the rest amongst my bills and send off checks. I'm hoping that will help me relax a little bit, and maybe end up with a few extra bucks here and there for all these babies that are popping up! In the next three or four months, Krystal, Meg, Kimberly, and someone else (gah, why can't I remember!) are all having babies!

Baby shopping will be totally therapeutic, the clothes are so adorable and two of the babies are boys and one's (Cy) father does ATC for the Marines and the other's (Peanut for now) mom used to be a First Officer at XJT and this afternoon at Target I found some little cammo socks and onesies and bibs with airplanes and jets on them. I also found the perfect blanket for Vera (Meg's baby girl), it's totally 60's and Meg will love it. I had to keep myself from buying all the totally adorable little print dresses on clearance for Analia-- they'd be perfect for Singapore and would look SO cute on her! And they had them in toddler sizes since we won't see them until Christmas and shipping anything over an ounce (aka, a letter) is just insane! If they go down under $5 each, I may still pick up a couple to keep around-- being kid's clothes, they don't take up much space, and Valerie's said that trying to buy kid's clothing over there is expensive and not very cute. There were even some little oshkosh twill capris which would be good since it rains a lot and wet hems are no fun!

Yes, we have concluded that I just need to have my own little girl so I can dress her up and not have to worry about spoiling other people's children...

Anyway, I need to go move my car so that dad can park in the morning and then hit the hay! He didn't realize he was going to have to have his eyes dialated (hello, they have to look at a busted vein in your retina-- what about that makes you think you'll be able to drive afterwards?) so I'm taking him in the morning and he's taking me for breakfast afterwards.

Ciao!

Yeah, I know

So, here's my attempt at some better news since the last post was kind of depressing...

Yesterday, I went to go to Em's, but my car's doing something new so I came back home and took mom to David's to help him get his scooter over here, and went from there. We went to Macy's and looked at some china patterns and narrowed it down to about seven patterns (which I have now put down to 4).

Mikasa Cameo Platinum
Mikasa Parchment (I wish I wanted gold on my table, I love this version)
Lenox Opal Innocence
Lenox Lace Cotoure

I haven't gone through and done my pros/cons on all of them yet-- I like simple and clean and classic, something my daughter will like, or that my daughter-in-law won't hold with two fingers when I pass it on! I didn't used to think I wanted formal china, but I remember having nice dishes for holidays and special occasions and I really liked that. Plus, Macy's keeps putting this stuff on major clearance!

After the china hunt (and the turning up of our noses at "designer" china-- I love Kate Spade, but stick to purses, not china) we headed over to the American Girl store which was totally exciting. I'd never been in the store before! I found out a couple months ago that my Samantha is being discontinued, but I found out last night that Pleasant Company apparently hasn't owned AG in quite some time, so my dolls really are collectibles. Addy also is, and would be moreso if they put serial numbers on them as she was in the first batch ever made. I pulled out my stuff and found that there were a few things missing, but overall everything's in good condition and the dolls still look fantastic. I'm putting in for some of Sam's accessories (they're on backorder and being discontinued, so there's no guarantee I'll get them) and I'm going to start building up my Addy collection since she's my other one. I'm dying to get Analia the Josefina doll (since her genetic father was, correct me if I'm wrong, Hispanic) but obviously I'll have to wait a few years for that. We'll put something aside in the special "spoil the niece fund" since Aunt Meg is likely to be worse than most... I'm also eyeing some cute little rompers for Krystal since Cy's due in March and even though they won't need them for a while, they don't have many neutral colored things past about 8 months (they already have a little girl, Gwennie) and could use some. Good news? They're on a military base and Target should ship them, and if not, then I'll just ship it from here since I won't have to pay "real" Japan postage!

After AG, we ran through Target where I got a pepper mix and a pot in which to plant said pepper mix-- I'm extremely excited, I've wanted to do a garden for a while, and though I can't plant anything in the ground here, there's a porch with a railing wide enough to place small pots on, so I can at least have a potted garden. I won't know until they've sprouted, but it's a mixture of Big Red Cayenne Hybrid, Anaheim Chili, Ancho, BIker Billy Hybrid and Hungarian Wax seeds. The rest of the night was watching Bones season 3, so tonight I'm starting from the beginning and I'm about halfway through the second disc of season 1.

Anyway, that's about all. Hopefully, my peppers will sprout and I can put up some pictures of them. Jeremy's hopefully on the way to feeling better and will be on his way up this weekend! Yay! More soon, I'm sure!

Hooray!!!

I found my wedding dress and bought it today!

The afternoon was a bit of a bust, but it was nice to spend time with mom, Laura, and Emily, and... I GOT MY DRESS!

I'm exhausted now, but that's ok. I'm just so happy with my dress :)

Pictures are up on Facebook, if you're on my friends list you'll have to just guess... sometime soon I'll tell you which one I picked, but I'm totally amused at the voting so far.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know it's a few days away, but this week is going to be busy so I'll go ahead and say it.

Tonight was fantastic-- India invited me to the AOII Thanksgiving at EA's house which was a lot of fun. They serve by Alpha order, which means that being old pays off because you get to go first! Oct '03, baby! There was ham, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and Leslie made TWO turkeys that I got to carve with a butcher knife because nobody knew how to carve a turkey. It was great to get to know the girls better, and they were all so very sweet for me-- I'm definitely thankful for my wonderful new group of sisters! There was also a strange strawberry pretzel concoction that was wonderful, and chocolate cake with frosting and red hots on top. Yum!

I'm going to Emily's for Thanksgiving since I won't be able to go down and see Jeremy (sad) and we're doing a mini Thanksgiving and getting up (staying up?) to hit the outlet malls at midnight where Banana Republic and J Crew are having BIG sales on clearance stuff. It probably won't be as bad because nobody really has money, but I'm sure it'll still be crazy since it IS the outlet malls. I'm hoping to make some cash this week so I can get the Eiler's Christmas off to Marc and Jan and get some pants at either J Crew or Banana.

There's not much else otherwise. I'm so jealous Matt, Val, and Ana are off to Hong Kong this week! Talk about exciting. I should have asked Valerie to pick me up a postcard since I'm a major geek and don't have any from outside Japan as far as Asia goes. I'm absolutely exhausted from Casey staying up late all week, so I'm going to drink my bedtime tea and go to bed!

Again, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you can take the time to think of a few wonderful things for which you're thankful no matter how bad things are looking-- it will make you feel a little more calm inside. :)

Farmer's Market Day!

This morning was the weekly trip to Your DeKalb Farmer's Market (YDFM) which always puts me in a better mood-- something about being in such a bustling place with people from all over the world is refreshing, reminds us all that we're not the only people here. That, and fresh produce and meat and seafood pleases me. There was nothing like the YDFM in Memphis or Southaven, so finding fresh, organic food was really difficult and expensive. The spices at YDFM are insanely cheap-- a few ounces of Tikki Masala (or any other Masala, for that matter) is about 79 cents, and a bag of more bay leaves than I'll probably use this winter is also under $1. I left the rest of my spices with Jeremy because spices are just so expensive everywhere else, and the stuff you get here is better and fresher anyway.

I stocked up on leeks, a pumpkin, squash, cornishons (French cornish pickles), Masala Chicken spice, bay leaves, milk, bananas, fresh baked bread, naan, and fresh catfish.

I think I'll make some potato and leek soup, some potato and squash soup, some Ziti alla Zucca (gratzi Mario Batali), and possibly do some sauteed squash with chicken next week. I'm extremely happy to be cooking again, and I wish everyone's schedules had worked out the last month or so that I was in Southaven, I would have loved to cook for Marc and Jan, and I'm sure it would have been nice for them to eat some healthy homemade food than getting tired of cooking and hitting up Texas Roadhouse. I think I could get tired of baked potatoes! It also would have been nice to do since it's looking less and less like I have employment options to send them money for rent...

I'm hoping cooking will take my mind off some of that-- I hate not working or going to school, having something to do with my days, because I feel a little useless and pointless. Not depressed, just... pointless, I think, is the best word. I'm going to re-vamp my CV again and send it out to like everyone I know in the hopes that they can find something. I'm also going to take mom's car tonight and run up to Pier One and try to get an application in for holiday work. I'm sure they have more than they need already, but I'll never know if I don't try!

That's all for today, I'm going to watch a movie and put up some clothes, and start putting things back in the car to go to storage first thing. If you have any more suggestions for the squash or pumpkin, feel free to leave them-- I love learning new recipes!