Neal's Cooking

I hate to start sounding trite, but I am so thankful for my husband, especially for how much he likes food. When we first got married, neither of us really knew or wanted to put the effort into making elaborate meals. I once made Neal gnocchi when we were dating, but then life seemed to get too busy to bother with that kind of stuff. We spent much of this year subsisting on cheap and easy fixes (and more eating out than I would like to admit to). But I am proud to display one of Neal's delicious dinners:

That is baked ziti (actually rigatoni, but who's counting?) with mozzarella, ricotta cheese, and ground beef. He got the idea from pining for Sbarro food, and he just decided to do it himself. A big inspiration for me to quit hating cooking and actually make time for it.

We got so many cooking-related things for Christmas and for our anniversary that I'm started to get excited about cooking again. On Neal's sister Amanda's advice, we're going to try Bountiful Baskets starting next semester. Maybe that will convince us to eat a bit healthier, too.

I started using Pinterest (a fact I'm almost ashamed to admit . . .), and I've been doing some browsing for quick and easy recipes to add to the books we have. Next year, I want Neal and I to be eating more healthfully, and I want to cut costs on our grocery bills. I think I'll be drafting a New Year's resolution post pretty soon, and food/cooking will definitely be on that list.

Christmas at Fort Hewitt

The stairway, with lights and gold tinsel.

Neal and I are going to be in Northern California for Christmas proper, so we're going to celebrate Christmas here on the 22nd, with the 21st serving as Christmas Eve. We've gotten presents from our families that are sitting in Amazon boxes and the like until I decide to wrap them. Ha. But in the meantime, check out some of our decorations:

 Neal got so excited about Christmas decorations, which I'm really grateful for. That's not to say my family didn't celebrate Christmas to some degree, but we just had a few standard decorations that we could typically put up in an hour or two. Neal got a good Black Friday deal on Christmas lights and decorations. He took an afternoon or two to get the lights strung up on the stairway and all across the family room. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I really like the lighting. So does Neal. Very nostalgic for him.

He also found this Charlie Brown Christmas decoration, which is pretty cute. He's really happy to be building up a collection of things we can take out every year.

  Our first nativity set! It was about $6.00, but I really like it.

And, finally, our Christmas tree. Neal put up the lights, and I put up the ornaments. It's in the corner of our house, by the couch and right next to that TV we have to sell on KSL or something. In the background are the advent calendars we made. I'd never done those before, but I have no complaints about another excuse to eat candy.

Speaking of, I think both Neal and I have the New Year's resolution of losing weight. Yeah, we'll see about that.

On the bright side, only two more pages of essay and one more final until this semester can be over for me. Oh, my head hurts.

Recovery, Friends, and Strangers

I may not be quite done with my finals yet, but I've had a couple of wonderful days with my friends. Neal took me to Leading Edge yesterday even though I definitely did not want to go. I thought I had way too much work to do and that everyone else could handle it. 

We got there just in time to run into our friend Emily, and we spent an hour exchanging proposal stories, both for ourselves and for people we knew. Emily told us how clueless she was as to the situation, how when her man had started singing her a romantic song while they were taking a beautiful hike, she had just sung along with him. I love our friends.

Highlight of the evening might be when a complete stranger in the editing room spun around and told us his proposal plans for next week. Only at BYU could this be a bonding topic for random people. But I love it. I love remembering what it felt like to be almost engaged, and I love thinking about how much happier I am now, even if the butterflies and giddiness have faded a bit.

Also, my Relief Society president took some family pictures of us yesterday, so we'll be sending those out soon with a Christmas newsletter. I like the picture we chose for family updates, even if I look dorky (totally my own fault. I never really learned how to smile with my eyes open).

Neal and I are putting together Christmas plans. We've exchanged some gift ideas, and I'm going to look around and see what I can get that would be special. Overall, I'm feeling more capable of handling then next few weeks. I'm grateful for family, friends, and supportive strangers and acquaintances. It's been getting me through.

Dealing with Finals Week

I'm not really sure I'm going to hit everything I want to talk about in this post. And that's okay.

This finals week is very hard, is going to be very hard. I have to unexpectedly fly out to California next week because of my dad's health. I still have to take my theory midterm later this week. I've been sick on and off all week. I just want this semester to be over, but it just. Won't. End.

Neal has been great at getting me through this. We've "rescheduled" our Christmas celebration to be on the December 22 so we can still have some time together. Our wonderful brother-in-law has offered to drive us to the airport from his place, where we're going to keep the car parked while we're gone. Our friend Emily has offered to take care of our cat, even if she (the cat) is not always the most pleasant thing to be around.

My professors have been so considerate and understanding. I've gotten extensions on my harder finals, I've gotten emails of consolation and understanding, and anybody I have any obligation to knows what's going on and is going to make sure I don't have too much more to deal with this week.

Why am I blogging when I could be finishing my homework? It's . . . just psychology. It's easier to get lost in the internet right now. Not a great habit, but I'm just trying to cope at this point. Rest assured that I've read about five different feminist theory essays and will be putting together an outline for my final paper for that class . . . probably today. I also skimmed through an entire book on CSS today, and I'm doing a write-up for that right now. I have to go to campus and program because they have an FTP client that lets me edit pages without transferring them to my desktop. I have Filezilla on the home computer, but it's a pain and it barely works right, I swear. But I really don't want to leave the house right now. Not sure what to do.

And now I don't know how to end this blog. Probably just by hitting the Publish button. Will do.