Just when I was starting to build up some confidence...

I managed to RUIN no-bake cookies. For anyone that has never made no bake cookies, it is about as elementary as baking brownies from a box. All it requires is mixing and measuring. Most people probably had these perfected in fourth grade. Not me. Since I've had some time off, I've been trying to perfect my cooking. So today it was no-bake cookie day. Not only did I somehow manage to burn these (even though they are NO bake), I also ended up with a big hard glob of what looked like rocky mud.

I used to be a lot better cook than I am now...it's a really weird phenomenon. I really am trying to be a good cook and it's not that I don't want to cook (like my mom always thinks). I really do try and I am good at some things, on a CONSISTENT basis...consistency really is the key. I have made some really good way healthy recipes but Tim tends to gravitate towards the meat and cheese type of person. I don't mess with meat...lord knows what I would do to ruin that if I tried. He grills all meat we eat...the only thing I can do is brown ground turkey and bake chicken. And I can never make any of the healthy recipes again because they are so complicated that the second time around could prove to be somewhat worse than the first. Again, the consistency issue. [Also, it should be noted that I made no bake cookies two weeks ago and they were GREAT. Which is why I decided to make them again...because I KNEW I couldn't ruin them, right?] These are things that I can always make well:

1) Spinach artichoke dip
2) Spaghetti goulash stuff
3) Tacos
4) Oatmeal
5) Kraft macaroni and cheese (although I don't think this counts).

And by the way, I am don't even do well making cans of soup. I have a little bit of a microwave issue. As in, I always blow stuff up or catch it on fire...seriously, ask Tim. I caught a microwave on fire when I lived in the dorms at college because I was trying to heat up a cookie...who doesn't like WARM COOKIES?

So, someday I am going to be a good cook. But not today. Dinner tonight? Kraft macaroni and cheese with burnt rocky cookies. Yummy.

Update: I am not even joking about this, although I do find it slightly hilarious and I don't think Tim has stopped laughing at me since he's been home. I have never managed to do this before, but I somehow managed to make the macaroni and cheese extremely soggy...I really think I might be cooking cursed today. It's like macaroni soup-edible but kind of has a baby food texture. Chipolte, here we come!

Where are we now?

Here are some pictures of our new area...

I had no idea that pretty flowers grew in the desert. There are some even cooler orange and red ones...I need to go on a walk to get a picture of those.

This is our neighborhood. We have really nice neighbors. Last friday, we had a neighborhood barbeque... I made potato salad FROM SCRATCH. That really isn't the most relevant thing because I try to make a lot of things from scratch. But this is really pivotal because people actually ate it and said it was good. THAT, my friends, is progress in the cooking qwest.

I love driving around our area...it is so nicely landscaped and there are tons of palm trees, flowers, and yes, even grass! And anywhere you go, you can see the mountains all around you. Perfect.

We can see these mountains from our kitchen window. It's kind of hazy in this picture because there is a 124,000 acre fire up north right now (quickly becoming the largest in Arizona history).

Holy hell and other choice words

Exciting news (with a little bit of Jenn being an idiot on the end). I just got offered a job...at an awesome firm here in the Valley...it sounds like it is a lot like Denman which is exactly what I have been looking for. The firm is on the opposite side of the valley than what we are on which isn't that big of a deal it just means a lengthy commute everyday.The point is, one of the partners that I interviewed with just called to extend me an offer and I feel like I sounded like the biggest idiot in the world. I got all flustered and basically WAS an idiot. Arg.

My other point is that I DO CUSS, CURSE, or SWEAR. Whatever you want to call it. Not all of the time but I have to say that when I get mad, sometimes excited, flustered, or pissed off I do manage to spew off a few choice words. I am only admiting this publically (probably much to my husband's dismay-he hates it) because I am sick of not posting something I am pissed off about because I am afraid of the JUDGEMENT AND WRATH that will come from all of these people who try to believe that I am perfect and convince themselves as such. So there, it's out there...one of my flaws, among many. I am not perfect and I feel like using a certain word starting with "SH" to describe how I just acted on the phone. But since admiting that I cuss is a new development for some people I will save everyone from actually writing the word. Just know that I am not perfect and as soon as I finish writing this I am going to go scream a few choice words. And yes, I am not always calm for those of you who think I am always calm and composed. Sometimes a good scream and cry really makes you feel better. Thank you for your understanding of my character flaws.

We can't say we weren't warned....

I have three letters that I probably dislike more than anything: DMV. I hate the DMV. Why can't all states be uniform? Here are the reasons that really dislike the Arizona DMV:
1) We went on Monday. Line was out the door and wrapped around. Temperature: 115. We leave.
2) Monday afternoon CALL the DMV to see EXACTLY what we need before we go. (As we learned from Travis and Rachel, sometimes there are many trips required before you have everything the DMV requests).
3) From this phone call we learn that a) Tim can get his AZ license because his current license is in CA b) I cannot get my license because my current license is MO...so I have to have a CERTIFIED birth certificate-NO copies. c) Total cost to register and license the focus: $150. Total cost to register and license the mini cooper: $500 (this is particularily annoying since we just paid $2000. to the state of Iowa in JANUARY for the mini-a mere five months ago). d) We never really figured out if we have to get an emissions test done on the focus...the lady was a little bit whack and the website is like trying to read japanese.
4) Tuesday morning, 9 am: Go to get the Focus emission tested just in case. It passed. Guy acted like we were idiots for even getting it tested.
5) Go to DMV, 9:45 am. See sign that all out of state vehicles MUST BE INSPECTED FIRST. Disregard it and stand in line.
6) Line is shorter than yesterday but still out the door. Takes 10 minutes to get to front. Take a number and wait in HUGE waiting room, with about 100 other people.
7) Tim takes "out of state vehicle" to get inspected while I wait....and wait...and wait...
8) 11:15 am. NUMBER IS CALLED!!! We feel like we've just won the jackpot... After spending 45 minutes with the guy, Tim has his AZ license, the focus is licensed but the mini and I are still only legal in the midwest.
9) 12:03 p.m. After three hours we are finally done... until we realize that we will have to repeat this whole process and waste even more time when I get my license (once I have a document that 'legally proves I am a US citizen'-since my MO driver's license and social security card apparently don't) and when we have to get the mini licensed and registered...

I really hate the DMV. Really. It is even more frustrating to me than the game of golf.

Bubbles and bubbles...

I would consider myself to be pretty health conscious. In fact, I was so extremely health conscious about three years ago that it actually ended up being unhealthy (as in I only weighed 89 pounds unhealthy...yeah it WAS that bad). That is a different story entirely but the point is that I feel that I am now a pretty balanced person in terms of health. I try not to eat much junk food, I'm not a huge meat eater, and I really try to stay away from processed foods. I am not saying that these things define the 'perfect' healthy person...they are just things that I TRY to do. Of course, I am not perfect and I do eat the occasional bag of peanut butter M&M's and pan of brownies. And there are weeks when I am absolutely unmotivated to exercise. I can say, though, that I have never craved a big ole juicy steak...yuck.

My one regular downfall (aside from the occasional cravings)? Well, maybe I have two: Soda (or pop or coke...whatever) and unnatural peanut butter (nothing beats JIF reduced fat crunchy even with its hydrogenated oils). The peanut butter craze is a whole different story. As far as soda goes, I go on spurts where I won't drink it for months at a time to try to be more healthy and eliminate caffeine, sugar, aspartame, carbonation...whatever. But it never works. I always revert because I really love the bubbles I feel in my stomach when I drink soda. To be honest, I really don't love the taste...Dr. Pepper and Diet Coke are the best, in my opinion...but I really just love the bubbles. Tim thinks I'm crazy and for several years now he has tried but has never felt the bubbles. I feel kind of sad that he hasn't because it feels so good.

Am I nuts? Does anyone else feel bubbles when they drink soda? I have talked to several people that agree with me but I am not sure if they are just being nice. So I would like to settle this ongoing debate between Tim and I for once and for all. And with that thought, I am going to go drink a Dr. Pepper.

A week later...Part II

We are finally up and running in Phoenix... we got our Internet and cable hooked up on Monday so we are starting to feel like we are back up with what's happening in the world. We arrived in Phoenix at around 10 a.m. on Friday. Our area is really pretty nice... I like it a lot. We got here just in time... right now we are in the middle of a MAJOR heat wave (and I do mean major-even by Phoenix standards). It has been 115-120 degrees for the past three days. Granted the humidity is at 5-8% but I DON'T CARE. 115 degrees is 115 degrees even if the low humidity makes it FEEL like a COOL 112 (this is what the weatherman tells us). I actually don't mind the heat though. It really isn't unbearable. It does feel hot, but not worse than it feels some days in the midwest. Plus, I'd so much rather have heat than snow. Tim and I were thinking that we were in for a long summer but we heard on the news that it is the hottest its been here since August of 2003! I will write more and post more pictures about Phoenix and our new place later. But for now I will back track to our journey to get here:

Saturday, June 11. My parents drove up from Kansas City to help us load the truck. It then sat in the front of my parents house in Blue Springs, Mo. for three days before we left on Wednesday. This picture is of my dad and Tim beginining to load the big stuff...packing the truck took a total of three and a half hours. Good thing I had people helping me... nothing ended up being broken but if I had loaded myself, I would have just thrown stuff in and it would have taken me about an hour. True, less time but not everything would have fit and EVERYTHING would have been broken. My dad lived up to his name of the 'master packer.'

Our garage was pretty big... big enough to have fit both cars in this past year. We had boxes, suitcases, furniture, and a whole lot of other crap that completely packed this garage. We really didn't think we'd be able to fit everything into what seemed like a TINY 15 foot truck, but in the end, everything fit.

Tim hooked the Focus up all by himself... he was pretty proud. Of course, he was under direction of the Penske guy but STILL. This car towing thing proved to be a problem...especially at our first night stop in Dalhart, Texas. You can't back up with the car in tow...it is impossible and we knew this before leaving on the trip. However, we didn't realize how small the hotel parking lot was and how impossible it was to turn around in until it was too late. So after 10 hours of driving and an hour of attempting (and succeeding thanks to Tim and Mark) to get the truck and car turned around we were pretty tired. But we did beat a MASSIVE thunderstorm by 5 minutes. If that wasn't good timing, I don't know what is.

An empty house in Iowa. The cats (Emerson is the gray kitten on the right and Berkley is the black and white cat on the left) were confused.

June 15, our first day. This was about an hour after we started our trip. We were out of Kansas City, cruise was on, gas tank was full and we were rolling!

Texas! Notice the dark blue clouds on the very right of the picture. We were trying to beat these storms all the way from southern Kansas to our stop in Texas (and we did-by five minutes!) We heard on the radio that right after we went through Kansas, they got inch wide hail! We were pretty lucky to have not hit these!

Thursday, June 16. Entering new Mexico. Driving across New Mexico was the majority of our second day.

New Mexico landscape...Notice the nice glass crack in the upper right. This was the FIRST crack we got in our windshield. The second is a nice two foot long Z shaped crack that runs from the bottom left of the windsheild the the middle right and the third is like the first but a bit smaller. Oh, and insurance doesn't cover the replacement of the windsheild. We have a $500 deductible. Oh well, at least no accidents happened along the way. I can deal with a windsheild replacement.

Our first mountain driving experience and the scariest part of our WHOLE trip, hands down (when I say scary I am referring more to the truck driver, Tim. It wasn't all that scary for me aside from the fact that I was scared FOR him. By the way, did I mention that he drove the truck THE WHOLE WAY OUT HERE? I was way impressed). This picture was taken after we had just come down from the mountains just outside of Albequerque, New Mexico. The problem was that they were doing construction...so there was one lane going each direction. We had a cement divider on our left and a cement wall on our right...plus, we had an incline and quite a bit of traffic. I felt kind of close and cramped in the mini and I was trying to stay far enough ahead of Tim in the case that traffic came to a stop-since it's a little bit hard for those trucks to stop-but since there was traffic the idea of staying ahead of him didn't work too well. I know Tim was dying back there!

Red rocks of New Mexico

Stop for a quick lunch at taco bell after the scary mountain drive. We had to eat outside after the previous day's experience had taught us that a) cats do not want out of their cages when they don't know where they are and b) they get very hot in the car when it is 90 degrees out. So we ate outside and opened all of the doors and windows in the car so they wouldn't fry. Definitely a first time experience.

Entering our new home state!

Cactus on the side on the mountains as we drove down from Flagstaff and got closer to Phoenix. This was another scary mountain drive... a lot more incline than the New Mexico mountains but no construction.

Unpacking! As of today, I think we are almost finished with the unpacking process... I was even able to clean out the garage today and organize all of our empty boxes so that we could pull the mini in out of the sun. So now I think all we have is just a few things to hang up and that will be easy since Tim just discovered how much he is in love with his new laser leveler. It really works much better than my method of trial and error. Everything seems to be coming together!

Moving Chronicles Part I

So we are out of Des Moines. Everything we own is in a big yellow truck and three cars. It was kind of sad to leave... I even got a little bit teary, which is a bit atypical. It WAS our first home together. And it really was tough to walk away from everyone I've spent 40+ hours a week with for the past year and a half. Unlike at Tim's job, though, no one cried when I left... thankfully. Although, I do have to say the person that cried at Tim's job is basically like our third grandmother. She is the nicest person I think I have ever met in my life... we will definately be back to see her.

Tomorrow we start what I guess could be called the second leg of our adventure. Tim is driving the truck which is towing the Focus, Tim's dad is flying out today to drive the Mazda 3 (Tim's brother's car-that is still here from the Jiffy Lube fiasco), and I will drive the Mini (with the two unhappy cats in tow). We are driving two 10 hour days- to Dalhart, Texas tomorrow and then to Flagstaff, AZ on Thursday. Then Friday will be a short 2 hour day to Phoenix.

I actually really like driving across the country... so I'm pretty excited for the trip. It has kind of been a long, difficult weekend of lasts (not really to us, but to my mom). Our last time to ever go to church with my parents, last lunch, last dinner, last time she will ever cook for us, last time to ever play cards, etc. You get the idea. I keep thinking that maybe I am just losing it and that I perhaps told her I have some sort of terminal illness or that I am moving to Japan... because I had always planned on seeing them again and soon at that.

Anyway, I know everything will work out and everyone will be ok once it is all said and done...I understand that change is a whole lot more difficult for some people than it is for me. I am so excited to move... it will be so much fun! I love exploring new cities- even Des Moines was fun to explore... So more updates in a few days once we are up and running in Phoenix... and of course, many pictures to follow.

Rescue of the camera!

The founders and spokesmen of CDS.

A reunion of closson guys at Jeff and Karyn's wedding.

I should have posted this three days ago...

because now we can't seem to find our camera. I'm sure it is buried somewhere... but for now it is MIA. I have been delaying the post about what an awesome weekend we had last weekend because we took some cool pictures that I wanted to post. But packing took precedence over getting the pictures onto the computer and now the camera is missing from the whirlwind of packing. So, if you want to see pictures go to Rachel's site...and once I find my camera I will post mine. It could be a few weeks...we couldn't even find a huge bowl. The tiny camera has no hope of recovery.

Anyway, we had such a fun weekend! We were in Kansas City all weekend...we spent some time with my family and had a couple of card nights with them... my mom and I whopped my dad and tim in spades both nights. Don't believe them if they tell you otherwise. Saturday we bought mattresses (ugh...what a boring grown up thing to do...) and then we met Travis and Rachel for lunch. We ate at Lulu's and then walked around a cool architectural salvage store...we always love hanging out with them! They are moving to Eugene, Oregon later this summer... Rachel is starting her Master's in arts administration at the University of Oregon this fall... I know they will love it there!

Sunday was Jeff and Karyn's wedding...everything and everyone was so beautiful. We got home to Des Moines at around 1 am monday morning so we were pretty tired but it was well worth it... we saw so many friends we haven't seen since college.

When we got home, we almost died out of love and happiness for Berkeley. Our dryer was broken and the repair guy came on Friday an hour after we left. We keep Berkeley's litter in the laundry room. The repair guy shut the laundry room door after he left so when we got home that's the first thing we saw...and we envisioned what hell the next hour of our life would be...cleaning up cat crap all over the house. Well, our cat is the BEST CAT IN THE WHOLE WORLD. We keep about a 6" by 8" (read: really, really small) litter box in a closet for Emerson... much to our astonishment and complete dismay, Berkeley used it all weekend. There was nothing on the floor... most cats despise using dirty litter boxes. We had to throw it away because it was so disgusting but thank the LORD there was nothing on the floor. It is absolutely amazing how much I loved her at that moment. So, the entire weekend was awesome...beginning to end.

Name change

After a year of working on one of my clients here at Denman, the company that sends me their payroll information still does not know my name although I have told them countless times. Apparently, they do not believe me when I tell them I am a FEMALE and then proceed to spell out my name: J-E-N-N, or if it makes more sense, J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R. They must think that I have a manly voice (which I hope to god is not true), that I am a man with an unusually high voice, or they must just think that the name they have given me is more fitting. So, I guess that from now on (at least for my last two work days here!) when I talk to them I will just concede and say "This is JIMMY Richards."

The reason we are leaving Iowa

I meant to post this last week...

Tim: "I think that some people in Iowa are seriously idiots."
Jenn: (Laughing) "Why?"
Tim: "On the news [which is terrible, by the way-someday I will make a really funny post about the 'top' news stories we have heard here] they just said that to stop the 'brain drain' [which is young people like us leaving Iowa after they get their degrees. It seems to be a serious problem in this state-it has been a top news story multiple times] they are going to rebuild and revamp an old park."
Jenn: "That is interesting..."
Tim: "They TOTALLY know why we are leaving here. That park is THE reason. We were just so mad that we didn't have a park before now, especially considering that its useful life in a year here is about four months. But, yeah, they really hit the nail on the head. We are definitely leaving because we don't have a nice park."

And so it has begun...

Boxes and boxes...with an Emerson kitten on the top! This actually is much better than earlier...we moved about two times this to the garage before we packed all of these. Plus, I am only showing the most organized part of our mess. Imagine the other parts of our house with all of these boxes but the stuff that is supposed to be IN them is all around them. Maybe I'm hoping that everything will just magically pack itself. Moving is SO MUCH FUN...the cats especially love the jungle gym that our house has become!

Skin sense

I am a hypochondriac in the sense that if I read an article or see a news story on something affecting someone my age, I freak out. Case in point: I read an article a couple of weeks ago about this 22 yr. old girl (younger than me!) that had skin cancer... she spent a lot of time at tanning beds and didn't wear sunscreen when she was a teenager. I thought this reporter could possibly have been stalking me when I was a teenager and that this story was actually written about me... my idea of fun and leisure in high school? Going to tanning beds or laying out. Sunscreen? Never. Destined for massive wrinkles in about 2 years? Probably. Skin now two shades darker than it should be without abnormal sun exposure? You got it.

Choosing to ignore all of the warnings, I never really thought I could get skin cancer...until I recently realized how naive that thought was. After reading this article and becoming somewhat panicked, I looked at and analyzed my moles and of course every single last one of them (out of the zillions I now have) scared me to kind of an irrational state. I'm sure Tim got sick of saying "No, honey, you are not dying," after I made him observe and investigate each mole as if he were a surgeon performing brain surgery.

Yesterday was THE appointment. The doctor said that there was a really dark mole that should probably be taken off... next thing I know I have a FIVE INCH DAGGER and an intense jolt of stinging pain in my right shoulder blade... and the mole was gone. SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE WARNED ME ABOUT THAT NEEDLE! After getting over the shock of having something so foreign jabbed into my body, all I have now is a huge hole in my back. But, thankfully I do not have skin cancer...although I am now down one in the count of my multiples of moles or of what remains of my tanning days.