Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2004 March

Today was an interesting day at work. Maybe if there is anything in the news about it, I can say something.

I am glad this week is over. I've worked a ton the past two weeks and I am exhausted. Tomorrow morning I'm going to Salt Lake to hang out with my roommates from Romania. Sunday I can finally sleep in *sigh*. Luckily, John helped me clean the house this evening so I am mostly caught up on my chores for tomorrow. He's such a cutie.

I had fun going to breakfast with all my old friends yesterday. It's been two years since we were in Romania. Four of us are married, one engaged, one baby and, as of April, five degrees. Not to mention Lisa, who will be home from her mission to Romania in two months. We missed her yesterday, everyone else made it.

We are enjoying our lazy Sunday morning and my cute husband is making us a Break-the-Fast brunch.

and I still need to *make* a baby card and mail a birthday card I can't find an address for. So much to put off, so little time.

PS I am doing a group with Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans today.

I had a great day at work today. I went to Shiela's groups with her to spend more time with the kids before her baby comes. We played Catchphrase and the person holding it when the buzzer went off had to eat a Jelly Belly and guess the flavor. It was hilarious. My two ISU groups also went well.

I got my NCTRC certificate in the mail on Saturday. I am now officially Susanna R. Chadwick, CTRS. I will get used to adding the "C" in there soon because I'll have four times the amount of paperwork once I am working Shiela's units.

I gave Shiela a ride home from work today and she was trying to decide if she was in labor or not.

I tried to make Sweet&Sour sauce from scratch tonight. I didn't think it turned out very good but John really liked it. It was a nice day and we went for a stroll. Also, I made a cheesecake yesterday. It is somewhat runny, so I wonder if I didn't bake it long enough?

I read the Magician's Nephew last night, Book 1 of the Chronicles of Narnia. See? I know how to read!

I did a lot of work at work today. I mean work, not my usual running groups and charting and such. I had at least 3 hours of "free" time which I spent typing up ISU modules on different weekly topics, and my Leave No Trace memo for next week. I am proud of my modules project and it makes me sad to think that I might not get to do ISU for too much longer. Oh well, I will pass it on for posterity's use. It has really helped me be organized to have weekly topics, and planning ahead has helped me with my goal to do fewer games and more involved groups.

I am making Hamburger Helper strogannoff and John is sad because mine tastes better. Oh well, once this box is gone from my cupboard... The cheesecake is also almost gone from our fridge.

It is lovely weather and we are considering going for our third walk of the week (one of which was cold). Yay for Spring! It opens up a whole new world of outdoor challenge groups.

Thursday I read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Last night Kristen came over to show me her scrapbook and reminisce over our list of quotes. (That link was harder to find than I though. I think I have had four roommates named Kristen and a Kristi or two.) Tonight we are going to the temple.

Still waiting for Shiela's baby, but in the meantime, Julie has left town and I'm covering for her. We have some elaborate plans in case the baby comes whiles she's gone, esp. today with our Director out of town. I will just have to be two places at once.

Today is Saturday. In my hurry to get to the laundry room before everyone else (which is always either in vain or entirely unnecessary), I threw on some clothes, and dug out some old, worn out flipflops from my closet. An hour and a half later, John says "maybe we could go to Old Navy and see if they have flipflops yet and we could buy you some." I think he just doesn't like any of my sandals.

John has also offered to take me to dinner and to a $1 movie tonight. We didn't get to choose what to see though; there is only one movie playing we would even considering seeing.

For FHE tonight John and I walked to Glazies and had some yummy donuts. I made an attempt at Scalloped Potatoes for dinner. I kinda followed a recipe, other than the baking for 1 hour part; I just simmered it until the potatoes were edible. I keep making things with sausage that have zero flavor otherwise (like my gumbo). What am I doing wrong? Well, I'm out of sausage now anyway, so hopefully I won't try that again!

Shiela just called me and Jackson (the baby) should be here in a few hours. What great timing! Well, first of all, it's the due date. But Shiela got to come to the conference yesterday and get CEUs and Julie is back in town, so I won't be doing double duty. If all goes well, we may get to go see them in the hospital this afternoon!

Heritage hosted a conference yesterday on Youth with Mental Disorders. Most of it was a review for me, but the speaker was entertaining and put some new perspectives on things. It was also to interesting to hear her opinions on the drugs (medications) we use, since I knew nothing about most meds until I started having first hand experiences with them at Heritage; not exactly something a Rec Therapist has to learn in school (although I did take Anatomy, and didn't do so well, as John pointed out last night).

Anyway, today it'll be nice to do actual work, after sitting on my bum for 8 hours yesterday. And now I have my own kids to work with (for a few weeks).

I got to go see Jackson today, although I couldn't go with everyone else because of ISU. I have had a busy day getting into the groove of having my own units with all the additional paperwork and work.

John is taking me to dessert tonight. Yummy! And we are going to see John's parents and Logan tomorrow and go see LOTR again.

He cleaned the whole house for me tonight! I was so tired from being so busy at work and I crashed before I remembered that we will be gone tomorrow. He also took me to Applebee's for blondies and it was yummy. John loves white chocolate. He's my best!

We had a good weekend with the fam. We went shopping in the food storage, watch a Carebear movie, and ate Phillopino food. John made yummy sweet & sour. We came home to a nice clean house and our nice hometeachers and are relaxing for a long week. John has a lot of group meetings and other stuff to do. Well, it's bedtime; I have a lot to do tomorrow.

John requested Yummy Balls for dinner tonight and they were yummy. John has a group meeting late tonight, so I will have time to go to the grocery store. I am exhausted from work and it's only Monday.

Please view Sumana's reasons for wanting fish. Now I want fish! But then I remember John's reasons for not wanting fish. You're both right. I'm torn. But they would have to be John's fish too. Ergo, no fishies.

Yesterday I got a cute new shirt at the Gap and while we were there, the expensive pants we bought John had gone on sale. Jerks! Well, they gave us our $20 back, so we were satisfied in the end. But my shirt is cute!

Tonight we are having John's old roommates and significant others over for hamburgers. I am also going to make chocolate chip cookies while John goes to our boring meeting. Last night we did a really ard puzzle together and watched "A Knight's Tale" on TV. The nice weather has encouraged lots of walks out of us, although the past few days have been rainy.

Next weekend is Conference, and a baby shower, and a birthday party for Dad and Franco (Jodi's fiance). And an Easter Egg Hunt. I am hoping, since we have to bring stuff this year, that we will also get stuff.

See? Take it!

My hair was cute, my outfit was cute, and my groups went well. I made aspargus with hollondaise and Aunt Jeuney's beef stroganoff for dinner, we went for a walk and now we get to have ice cream cake leftover from the party on Sunday. Ahhh, life.

I had so much to do at work today that by the time I left, John already had to go to an E&Y thing before I got home. We have URTA tomorrow and Friday. So no groups! But I do have to drive to Salt Lake and have meetings all day.

That's about all I have to say. I may get to go to Craft Club this week- they're doing recipes!