Sausage Gravy

We were starving by the time church was over but I had the issue of my first fantasy football draft that was supposed to start as soon as we got home. I guess if you know me, you know that I'm not a big sports follower. So I decided to make sausage gravy during the draft. Which consisted of me cooking in the kitchen and Casey yelling in the other room that my draft time was about to run out and I would run back to my laptop in the living room. This has nothing to do with sausage gravy, so I'll go ahead and post the recipe.


Servings: 4-5

1/4 cup flour
2 1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
12 oz. of sausage

Cook sausage on medium heat and drain. Sprinkle flour over sausage and stir to blend. Very gradually add milik and stir until thick. Add salt and pepper. Serve over biscuits.

Pico de Gallo

I was looking for a way to fix my craving of Mexican that happens on a daily basis. I blame this on the fact that I can smell a Mexican restaurant on the way to and from work. Well ok, I can't really smell it, but I can see it which is close enough. I decided to settle for pico de gallo, because I'm feeling lazy and hungry today and that usually doesn't get me far on days like this. I decided to try Pioneer Woman's recipe and it was a really good mix. I left out most of the membrane and seed in my jalapeno peppers because I'm a big ol baby and it still had just the right amount of kick to it.

(Source: Pioneer Woman)

Servings: A bunch

5 roma tomatoes

1/2 large onion or 1 small onion

3 jalapeno peppers

cilantro

lime juice

salt

Dice jalapenos, tomatoes, and onion and mix together. Chop cilantro and add to mix based on taste. Squeeze half of a lime into mixture and add salt. Serve with tortilla chips.

Some Observations..

Observation #1:

On the way home from work there are 2 signs that say:

"LOST: Lil Black Palm"

I'm very tempted to draw this on the ad.


...but it might confuse the masses and the poor dog would have even worse luck of being returned to his interesting owners.


Observation #2:

Rihanna's new song is titled "Disturbia", not "Scurvy Love". Hypothetically, if I was the one that had been roaming around the house singing Scurvy Love all week, it would be a good thing that I had a husband who only let it go on for a week before he told me the right words.

Hypothetically.

Meet Tuck

I think people underestimate (or don't talk about) how much a puppy really does change your routine. We've read tons of books and we've tried to be as prepared for getting a puppy as we possibly could be but I guess just like having a baby, you don't really know until you take the leap. We love him though. He's been so much fun to watch and to get to know. I just didn't want to write this post and talk about how cute he was and how cuddly he was without being honest that it is a huge change in routine and it was rough at first getting used to it.

The biggest change we've noticed is not sleeping in on the weekends. Poor Casey has taken the morning shift. He said he has an easier time going back to bed than I do (which is true) so he decided he wouldn't mind getting up and then going back to bed until we realized that there's no going back to bed once Tuck is up. We're going to try putting him in our room tomorrow morning after we take him to the bathroom and seeing if he'll go back to sleep. This should calm him since not being able to see us is what upsets him when we try to put him back in. He's crated in the living room where we can hear him if he barks but not hear every snuffle and drink of the water bottle. He's never crated when we're here and does a good job, so we'll see how he does uncrated while we're sleeping. I'll let you know how that goes...

Let me also say that he's an awesome puppy, we are really really lucky. He picked up on going to the bathroom outside really quick. Luckily for us, shih tzus aren't much on being outside so getting to go back in is a reward because he hates just standing outside. He won't use the bathroom in his crate and he's in it for 8 hours at night and then 9 hours during the day while we're at work (I come let him out at lunch). He won't bark in his crate at night and he also won't really get into anything or chew on too many things. He chews a little, but he's teething so it's expected. All these things added up, equal a really good puppy so we've lucked out on him and we're so happy to have a new addition to our family. It's teaching us responsibility and having to put something before our own needs which is a really good thing to learn as a couple.

I suppose I'll post some pictures of the little guy today =) We had Kara there to capture the moment Casey got to the apartment with him so it's kind of cool that we have those pictures to look at.

This is right after Casey got home and got him out of the car, we're a big corny family haha

Tucker Ducker himself

We got the chance to take him out today to our dog run. Our apartment complex has this huge fenced in piece of land where you can just set your dogs loose so that they can run around. There aren't usually dogs in there at the same time so it's not a big issue having them unleashed. It's also really shady because there are weeping willows surrounding the outside so Tuck doesn't overheat himself (which happens easily).

So this is our little buddy. He causes us to lose sleep but we guess he's worth it =)

Wedding Video is here!

We weren't expecting it anytime soon but we actually got our copies on Friday. We were fortunate that our videographers were in the area on Friday and we just waited downtown a little bit after work and met them instead of having to wait for them to arrive in the mail. We are very pleased with our video! I was telling Casey earlier that the video really brings back the emotion of the day unlike pictures. I love our pictures, but I would recommend any bride get a videographer. There are things that pictures just can't capture. One picture I was upset that I didn't get was Casey's face as I was coming down the aisle, but it got caught on video. We also got a highlight reel that is apart of our video. We actually got this clip earlier in the week and it's awesome because the 3 minutes of the reel really does capture our entire day.



This weekend has been really relaxing so far. Friday night we got Mexican with Kara and Brandon. One of our favorite couples! If you haven't noticed we go out to Mexican a lot. It's what we do. We especially go a lot now that this awesome place has opened up downtown with a salsa bar. After we met them for dinner we came back and rented The Other Boelyn Girl, which I didn't finish until this morning. We haven't been going out a lot since Tuck has came into our lives but that'll be a whole separate blog post =)

One of our friends is actually staying over tonight as well. We met him in college and he was also the DJ at our wedding. The reason he's in the area is to DJ my day of coordinator's daughter's wedding. Apparently she was impressed with him at my wedding and hired him on the spot. We thought he did an awesome job as well so we're glad he got to come over for another wedding. Plus it's nice to seem him every now and then as long as it's not too frequent.... haha just kidding

Tomorrow looks like there's going to be some thank you note writing going on. We really planned on having these out by last week but Tuck kind of turned our week upside down, so hopefully we can finish them tomorrow. We also want to finish sorting through our photos tomorrow so that we can begin to order photo books. Dress still needs to be preserved as well... does this wedding stuff have an end?

Birthday Weekend!

So.. my birthday was this past weekend and I really had a great weekend. It's funny how your birthdays change when you get older, but change is good! Friday we got to go out with some of our close friends for mexican and it was good times. On Saturday we were going to head straight home for the weekend but we decided to go to the Safari Park on the way in. If you've never been, it involves driving through wildlife and feeding animals through your window. I know it may not sound exciting, but it's actually pretty fun especially for an animal lover such as I. We ended up meeting my sister, her husband, and my niece after we drove through and we walked around with them to see some of the animals that were in cages.

The animals literally just hang out in the road while you're driving through. They know cars mean buckets, and buckets mean food.

This would be a watusi in the road. A rather large horned animal that makes it difficult to get by.

Us feeding some animals...

I eat yo buckets fo' breakfast

Me and my niece hanging out in the atrium.

Lillian and uncle Case checking out a bird.

After that we went in to stay with my parents Saturday night and went to visit Casey's parents for awhile. We ended up coming back our way on Sunday for dinner and just hanging out the rest of the day on my actual birthday. Overall it was a pretty good weekend. Casey and my sister must've been listening to me when I was telling them about the bath and body store Lush that I visited in Hawaii, b/c they both ordered me some Lush stuff which I love. Casey's mom got me a Joy of Cooking book which I can't wait to sit down and look at =) These people must know me well or something. My parents, Casey's parents, and Casey also contributed towards getting my puppy. Mr. Tuck comes home tomorrow with Casey. I'm so excited! Casey is taking half a day tomorrow to go to NC to get him. I hope we're prepared for a puppy. Guess I'll find out this time tomorrow night. Here's a picture of Tuck, he's 12 weeks old and looks adorable. Can't wait to meet him tomorrow.