It's Been a While...

I suck at updating. But, I'm sure you all know that by now since there hasn't been a new post on here for over a month.  Anyway, I'll try to be a little better about it.
Right now is a crazy time around the apartment, and around Athens in general. It's the dreaded finals week. Since I decided not to take any classes this semester, I am not a part of this frenzy that's going on, but everyone around me is. Jonathan, although he technically only has one final and a final project, is still going through his usual "finals mood". They're pretty much like any pregnant woman's mood swings. He's hot then he's cold, he's sad then he's excited, he's sleepy then he's hyped up on caffeine, but most of all, he's been whining like a 2 year-old. "Kelly, I just can't study when the apartment is dirty, can you straighten up?." "Kel, don't fuss at me, I'm really stressed right now." "Babe, I am so sleepy I just need 5 more minutessssssss." Haha, okay okay, enough making fun of him. I totally understand the stress he's going through, and I don't mind all the stuff that comes with that. I am so proud of him for working so hard in school! He's worked his butt off for the past three years to get the grades he's gotten and I think that takes mad skills. It's so crazy to think that in just one short year, he'll be going to law school and depending on where he gets in/decides to go, we'll possibly be moving to another state. It's makes me a little nervous and a little excited all at the same time. But that's a post for another day :) So for the past month I've been working as a people greeter at Sam's Club here in Athens. It's a fairly easy job, somewhat boring sometimes, but that's to be expected when you stand at a door all day. I'm not really liking the always changing days and hours, but I guess that's why they hired me, because I'm available whenever. Other than paying the bills, this job has also done something else. It's really motivated me to start taking classes again. I didn't take any this semester because I was just feeling really burnt out and I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere near my goal. Which is another problem: I wasn't entirely sure what my goal was. I was just taking classes just because I felt like I should. As of right now, I still don't know exactly what I want to do, but that's okay. I still have a little time to figure it out. But I've decided that I'm going to start taking classes again this fall, and possibly a summer session in July. We've really enjoyed the money that this job at Sam's has been bringing in, but I feel that finishing school and getting a degree is so worth being a little broke right now. We are super blessed that as a part of Jonathan's job we don't have to pay for rent or most utilities. And luckily, he'll be keeping that job throughout this next year, so as long as I can find some tiny part-time job, I'll be able to quit Sam's at the end of this summer to go back to school. I'm in the beginnings of the interview process for a nanny job two days a week starting in July, so cross your fingers for me! Something else that will be happening this summer is that we will be moving! Across the street :) One of Jonathan's co-workers is graduating this weekend, so Jonathan will be taking over as Resident Manager for his area. The apartment is a little nicer than ours. The kitchen is bigger and open to the living room, no cinder block walls, and central heating/air. It's just a little more homey than our jail-cell. :) But all kidding aside, this apartment has been great. I can't believe we've lived here for almost a year. Actually, I can't believe that we've been married for almost a year. Although we've had some crazy times during this past year ((mental breakdowns, being homesick, married arguments, sharing issues)) we've had some really great times and met some really great people. I'm so glad I finally got to move here and actually stuck around even though back in the first couple of months I used to tell Jonathan daily that I wanted to go back home to my mommy :) I was so nervous when I first moved here that I wouldn't make any friends. I was so worried about it, I was close to sneaking to Ellaville in the middle of the night and kidnapping Callie to bring her back here. :) Although I miss my family and friends back home a lot, I've made really good friends here. Mainly one named Shannon, a.k.a. Shanna. :) Although there's been some rough patches, she has been a really good friend to both Jonathan and I this past year.  ((Breaking down in South Georgia, late night McDonald's runs, wal-mart shopping at midnight, going 70 in a 45 zone, playing Harry Potter while Jonathan drew up the papers, Tanger outlet shopping not once but twice, Montreat, St. Simons, meeting little brother Jesse who taught us how not to kill our fish when we leave wal-mart, New Moon premier, couch sleepovers, babysitting our "Godchild", smuggling our "Godchild" across the parking lot, blue toilet water, Jonathan running after her screaming "Don't leave Shanna the party's not over yet!, Little Caesar's, blanket stealing, Botanical garden pictures, awkward FGH events, finding old McDonalds wrappers in Craiglist chairs))  I am sure going to miss her when she moves in June :( But I am super proud of her for moving to Southern Alabama to do Teach For America! And I am t-totally looking forward to my November trip there to watch the Harry Potter premier with her :) I've met some other awesome people this past year: Whitney, Natalie, Molly, Kathryn, Dylan, Renee, little Eliza,  Donna, Damien, Claudia, and many more. I can't wait to see what (or who!) this next year has in store for us! If you're still reading, thanks for listening to my rambling :)

Welcome to Sam's Club :)

I got the job!
I am now a people greeter at Sam's Club. 
I go to an orientation session on Thursday.
Woo-hoo!
:-)

A Wedding, Job Interviews, and A Trip Home

No recipe this time, just life updates. Jonathan and I were planning to go home this weekend for one of my close friends' wedding and a family reunion. However, as I was packing up our stuff to leave on Friday, I got a call from Sam's Club!! They wanted to know if there was any way I could come in on Sunday for interview! So, we went home anyway, but had to skip the family reunion today to make it back to Athens in time for the interview. It went really well and I am going back tomorrow morning for a second interview. Hopefully, I will know tomorrow whether or not I have the job! So please keep your fingers crossed for me!
The visit home this weekend was great; we got to see our family and friends, and eat LaHa! Can't wait to see the family again :)
The wedding we went to this weekend was the wedding of my good friend Chelsey and her fiance John. It was a great wedding and everyone looked so beautiful and handsome. Congratulations Chelsey, love you! Jonathan took their wedding pictures, as a favor to Chelsey, so he may edit a few of those and post them on here, they turned out pretty good.
We also got to spend a good bit of time with Callie and Andrew this weekend, so that was very fun! I enjoyed staying up until 3:30 playing the wii with Callie while Jonathan and Andrew chatted like girls and eventually fell asleep. :)
Hopefully I'll have some good news to share tomorrow!! :)

A Post for Your Sweet Tooth...(Part Two)

 Jonathan LOVES pecan pie (so much that between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he probably ate two whole pies by himself), so after making that cherry pie that he "didn't like" I decided I would be a nice little wife and make him a pie he likes.

Pecan Pie 

2 eggs (lightly beaten)
1 cup light corn syrup (I only had about 3/4 of a cup so I added a little Maple syrup to balance it out--too sweet, don't do that :)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/4 cups broken pecans (I used 2 cups because we love lots of pecans)

Preheat oven to 375. Prepare your crust. I used a GV refrigerated pie crust, (but you can use the frozen pre-made crust). Mix all of the ingredients (except for pecans) really well. Then gently stir the pecans in. Pour into the pie shell. Bake for 40-50 minutes until filling is set. To keep the crust from burning, cover the edges of the pie crust with aluminum foil until about halfway through baking.

I got a thumbs up! Woo-hoo! Now you know you want to know how good that tasted. Go ahead, make one! :)

A couple of weeks ago, we had dinner with some great people, Claudia and Damian. We took a blackberry cobbler for dessert and it was very good, but not as good as the homemade pizza and salad Claudia made! Since I have no idea how Claudia made the pizza and salad, I'll stick to the blackberry cobbler. We have had this cobbler a few times, and each time it is more delicious than before. (We got the recipe from Jonathan's aunt but we've altered it just a tad to fit our taste.)

Blackberry Cobbler

3/4cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick butter (melted)
1 bag frozen blackberries
1 refrigerated pie crusts
3 teaspoons of water for bottom of pan/dish

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix flour, sugar and butter. Then, mix in the still frozen blackberries. The mixture will not coat the blackberries, the berries just "sit within" the mixture. Place the water in the bottom of the baking dish, then pour in mixture. Now you can either create a lattice top, or just place the whole crust on top, trim the edges and cut slits in the middle for venting. Jonathan insisted on doing a lattice top. (It was easier and quicker than we thought!) (We learned how here.) Bake for 40 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream.

Ok ok, so I know that there's no finished picture. (We literally had to run out the door as soon as the timer went off!) But I assure you, it was beautiful and delicious! (Right before we ate this masterpiece, Damian took a picture, so if he emails it to us soon, I'll post the after pic.) Go ahead, make one! :)

I know I haven't uploaded any Makenzzie photos as promised, so here is a sneak preview of a coming post :)

That other little cutie is Holland Cobb, another precious child you'll hear a lot about :)

A Post for Your Sweet Tooth...(Part One)

**Edit--I previously had the cake cookie recipe as having 1 box of yellow cake mix, but it is 1 box of LEMON cake mix. Thanks Betsy :)

Alert the authorities: Kelly is updating! :) In this post there will be (in no particular order) a cherry pie, a pecan pie, a blackberry cobbler, and lemon cake cookies. Each one is simply delicious! Tonight I tried to make a yellow cake w/ chocolate icing, both from scratch. Didn't turn out so well. It's so awful, I'm not even going to post a picture. I mean, it tastes pretty good, but it looks horrible. Anyway.....All of the things I make are simple and easy, you won't find any super fancy stuff here...yet. I hope to upgrade my cooking/baking skills over time, but right now, we'll stick to the easy classics. Here we go!
I made these lemon cake cookies one night when I was feeling really snacky for something sweet, and I wanted to get rid of the lemon cake mix I had. Not only did Jonathan and I love them, Makenzzie enjoyed a few too!

Lemon Cake Cookies

1 box lemon cake mix
1 package cream cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup butter

Preheat oven to 375Mix butter (melted), cream cheese (softened at room temp.), and egg until well blended. Stir in the cake mix 1/3 at a time. (Seriously, doing this makes them so moist!) Cover batter and chill for 30 minutes in the fridge. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Scoop up a spoonful of the batter (which should be slightly firm and stick, not liquidy) and roll into a ball with your hands then place on the cookie sheet. Do this with the entire batch. (It took me two pans full to cook the entire batch).  Bake for 10 minutes or so until the cookies are slightly browned on the bottom. I didn't do it, but I suggest sprinkling a little powdered sugar on top. Enjoy!

These cookies are so yummy! And they stayed pretty fresh for about a week. Go ahead, make some :)

Ok so, I LOVE cherry pie. I don't know why, I just do. And Jonathan doesn't like it! So as we were grocery shopping a couple weeks ago, I got Jiffy pie mix and cherry filling! It was so very delicious.

Cherry Pie

1 Box Jiffy Pie Crust mix
1 can cherry pie filling (whichever brand you want, we got great value :)

Make pie crust according to the box. Spray pie pan with cooking spray then place dough in pan, cutting off excess around the edge. Pour can of filling into crust, then top with top layer of crust. Trim the excess dough and pinch edges together to create a seal. Using a sharp knife, create a few slits in the middle of the pie for vent holes. Bake according to crust mix box. Let it cool slightly then enjoy! (Ok ok, so this is the easy pie way out, but hey, I technically made that crust by hand! :)

Nom nom! This cherry pie was so delicious. Jonathan actually had a few pieces so it must have been good! Go ahead, make one! :)

I still have a pecan pie and blackberry cobbler to post (along with a delicious pork chop dinner) but it's getting late, so I'll post some more tomorrow! Hope you enjoyed the post!

The Life of a Slacker...

I am such a slacker. I really need to update this blog. I have about oh, 5 posts worth of food pictures on our camera. Just wanted to let you all know that I haven't quit yet, and I will definitely have a couple of posts up by the end of the weekend. Look forward to some delicious looking cookies, pork chops, pecan pie, etc. Plus tons of cute pictures of Makenzzie from her visit here a couple weeks ago! If you're reading, please comment, I'd love to know who's reading  :) Check back with us later!

Makenzzie is here!

She's here! Makenzzie has only been here for a little over 24 hours and we're already tired! She is so energetic and playful! She talks a mile a minute and if we don't follow along very closely, she loses us. We were ding-dongs today and tried to clean the apartment while she was here. That was crazy of us. Every mess I cleaned up, she "accidentally" messed it up again. Thankfully, our next door neighbor's daughter Sidney wanted her to come play. So we took that opportunity to get the apartment clean. So now, no more major cleaning all week! Just following behind Makenzzie and cleaning her little messes. We'd forgotten how tiring it is to have Makenzzie around, but apparently, she was tired too, she was asleep by 9:00!
Tonight for supper we had some quick and easy "Chinese" food. We had spicy sweet and sour and general tso's chicken Tyson Any'tizer. You just bake the chicken in the oven, then add the sauce pack to it while its still hot. So tasty! Jonathan also made some really good Egg Drop Soup. We've tried to make some before, but it was not very good. This is the best recipe that we have found so far.

Egg Drop Soup

• 4 cups chicken broth or stock
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 -2 green onions, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• Salt to taste
  (Jonathan also added a little bit of shredded chicken that we had left over from our fajitas.)

In a wok or saucepan, bring the 4 cups of chicken broth to a boil. Add the pepper and salt. Cook for about another minute.
Very slowly pour in the eggs in a steady stream. To make shreds, stir the egg rapidly in a clockwise direction for one minute. To make thin streams or ribbons, gently stir the eggs in a clockwise direction until they form.
  Garnish with green onion and serve.

I hope everyone has a great Monday tomorrow! Look out for some pictures of our fun week with Makenzzie! <3

Fajita Quesadillas and Makenzzie

So, I decided that we would tell you who is posting, because third person is pretty annoying. This post is by Kelly...which most of them will be since Jonathan has twelve million more things to do than I do. :)
Wednesday we had a good friend, Betsy, over for some delicious fajita quesadillas. Sadly, we didn't take any pictures of the food because our camera was MIA. But we can assure you that dinner was awesome and you should definitely try these quesadillas. Not only was dinner delicious, there was an entirely gluten free option for our awesome friend Betsy :) At the end of this post, I'll post the recipe for the quesadillas, the bean/corn dip, salsa, and chips.
This Saturday, my sister Nikki is bringing up our niece Makenzzie (yes, with two z's and no c) to stay with us for a week. We are very excited about this! Having Makenzzie here is really special to us because we don't get to see her very often since we live 3 1/2 hours away. We don't get to talk to her on the phone too much either because she will not talk to us! In her 2 year old mind, she is mad at us for leaving and so she thinks that as a result of her refusing to talk to us on the phone, we come home to see her. Which is entirely true! So we get to spend an entire week with her, not just on the phone! We're both excited, but since Jonathan was in Boston the last time I went home, he hasn't seen Makenzzie in over a month, so he is most definitely ready to see her! We're going to try to take her to Chuck-E-Cheese, to the park, and some other things. We'll probably try to  post some pictures from this fun week.
 Alright, I think that's about all I've got to say for today. So enjoy the recipes! (Btw, the corn/bean salsa and the regular salsa, are both recipes that we got from Jonathan's aunt.)



Corn and Bean Salsa
2 cans black beans (drained)
2 cans corn (drained)
1 bunch green onions (chopped)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 bunch of cilantro (just the leafy part)
1 jalapeno (with seeds scooped out)

Mix beans,corn, and onion in a bow. Put other ingredients in a blender and blend. Pour over bean mixture. Garnish with a bit of chopped cilantro. Chill before serving. (If you don't like the taste of cilantro as much as we do or the heat of the jalapeno, you can reduce how much of those you put in there to differ the taste.) (Also, this recipe originally says add 8 diced Roma tomatoes, but we think it's better without them, especially if you have regular salsa with this.)


Salsa
1 large can whole tomatoes
5 slices jalapenos (Kind in a jar works best since you need the juice too)
1 tablespoon jalapeno juice
1 small onion
1/2 cap (not cup! :) lime juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 bunch cilantro (Or less depending on how well you like it.)


Mix all in food processor until it's the consistency that you like best. (We like it just a little bit chunky.)


Chips
1 pack corn tortillas
2 cups oil

Depending on how many people are eating the meal, cut enough corn tortillas into quarters.
Heat up at least 2 cups oil in a saucepan. Once the oil is hot enough, drop a few tortillas in for a few seconds. After no more than 15 seconds on each side. Since they're really greasy, place them on a pile of paper towels or napkins. Sprinkle with salt. Continue with all of this until you have the number of chips you want. (Why not just buy a bag of tortilla chips you say? Because these are so so much better, and so much cheaper! A bottle of oil is a bout $3 and a pack of 70-ish corn tortillas is less than $2. And all of this is enough for a couple of meals!) You can also sprinkle the still hot chips with cinnamon and sugar  for a sweet snack.


Fajitas
(So I can't really tell you how many people this will feed because three people ate off of this, and we still have quite a bit left over. So your best bet would be to just alter the numbers according to how many people you are feeding.) 

2 diced Bell Peppers ( We like the colored ones, they add prettiness to the meal :)
1 diced onion
1 small container of fresh mushrooms 
1 peeled and sliced avacado
4 cubed/shredded boneless skinless chicken breasts (cooked however you like)
1 pack of shredded cheese (we used mozzarella)
Tortillas (corn or flour)

Sauté the onions, mushrooms, and bell peppers just a little so that they aren't hard and crunchy in the quesadilla (unless you just like them raw). Spray a hot frying pan with a little bit of cooking spray then place a tortilla in the pan. Put on cheese, then pile on the rest of the veggies and meat that you want. Add another tortilla on top of the veggies. (Make sure there is at least a little cheese touching each tortilla, so that it sticks together.) Check the bottom tortilla and when slightly brown, flip over with a spatula, using your hand to make sure the contents don't fall out mid-flip. Cook until the other tortilla is brown on the bottom. Dip in some salsa or eat by itself, and enjoy!

Once all of the ingredients are chopped and prepped, it's quick and easy from there. Since it only took a few minutes per quesadilla, and since we each like (or were allergic to :) different things, each of us made our own quesadilla.

All of this stuff together makes for a really great meal!  

I think I'm going to go have some of these leftovers for lunch......