Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2005 January

I was fine about January coming until I got to work today. Ackkkkkk! I have first-of-the-month stuff and first-of-the-year stuff, plus things I've been putting off because I thought I would have more time in January than in December.

The good news is, Kandis is back a day early.

Not surprisingly enough, I am now bored. I brought a ton of work to do up front while I am babysitting the switchboard, but I managed to finish it in just 45 minutes. I am now going to cut out snowflakes to decorate my ugly calendar board. The good news is, this isn't my job anymore. How did I do this for five hours a day, every day??

I am enjoying my new CD (Dar Williams) from Sumana. It makes me laugh. My favorite line is "Now when Christians sit with Pagans only pumpkin pies are burning."

The good thing about snow is that Utah is less ugly with it. I also think it's cool that you can see the same in the daytime and at night. The bad thing is just about everything else. I hate driving in it. I hate getting all slushy trying to get to my car. But it's pretty. We've had probably 8 inches here at work and it's still coming down.

Yesterday was, like, the best mail day ever (in married life at least, since we don't *live* for mail. We got a letter from Aunt Anne, a paycheck, our first Newsweek (Mom, I think it's so cute that you put it in John's name!), a pair of slippers and our cruise info. John bought me a pair of slippers at Nordstrom. They didn't have my size, but it was only $3 to ship them to us. Oddly enough, they came from the Mission Viejo store, which is where Jamie and Davie live. Don't worry, Sumana, he is saving the gift card for himself.

We are very excited about our cruise. I think we got a good deal, and that we are going at a great time, price and weather and schedule wise. Speaking of fancy vacations to Mexico, Brook and Erin are going to Cancun next week, and we get to watch the kids for the weekend. Erin's parents are taking over after that. Speaking of the fam, we are going up for Nathan's birthday tomorrow.

Last night I made Spinach Pesto a la Aunt Jeuney (although her recipe calls for basil). I'm not sure if this is the recipe I used last time. But for all of Leonard's obsession with pesto, he doesn't have an actual recipe posted anywhere. Here is mine: Some nuts. Some garlic. Some salt. Some lemon juice. Some green stuff. Mix in blender, pouring oil in. This is very hard to make in the blender. I'm not sure I would use a food processor for anything else, though, so I'm not going to buy one. But I might accept a hand-me-down. Anyway, it was quite yummy, John loved it, and there is a ton of it left. I filled three of our little tiny tupperware, and made seven ice cubes. I used MacNut Oil, and Gilroy Garlic. It was very garlicky.

I also made an Eclair Cake. I was on a roll. I love Eclair Cake.

Snow is all gone. It had been raining. The weather is lovely- just a sprinkling of rain, and it's nearly 50° outside. Today will busy day, but I forgot about that and slept in. I mostly slept in cause John kept not getting up, so I thought it was ok if I didn't. But he doesn't have class until 11.

I've been cooking since I got home! I can't believe lasagne takes this long, but it's just as well because John isn't home from class yet. I made Aunt Jeuney's recipe in my box, and some garlic bread and more spinach salad. I also used leftover pasta and made some pasta salad.

We had leftover pasta (little shells) from the stroganoff. I also had an extra piece of lasagne, and for some reason, didn't think I would have enough and made half a box of big shells to stuff just in case. I cut all of it into tiny pieces for the pasta salad. It's not the yummiest thing I've ever made, but I'm sure I'll eat all of it.

Last night, when I was trying to cut up spinach for the lasagne, I tried to cut my thumb off. Luckily, I have abnormally short thumbs, and even shorter fingernails. I just got a big scratch in my fingernail, which I have apparently already chewed off. I really need to quit biting my nails.

For having so much to do I am doing so little. I suspect this is because I am waiting on my boss, but I won't blame it on her. I finally changed the January calendar though. I changed the actual calendar on the 3rd, but I still had red and green crepe paper up.

It's payday! John gets paid every week, which is nice, but it's especially nice when I also get paid.

An old Turkish proverb says "All good things begin with... Cheesecake!" When I got to work, I went around unlocking everyone's office, and the door to our lobby. There comes Tina down the hall with her cart, cleaning up from a meeting yesterday, and offers me two pieces of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. (I don't know what kind, chocolate with chocolate pieces and syrup on the top.) She also gave me two "Carb-Friendly" yogurts.

By the way, she says she got the cheesecake at Sam's. I fully excepted the company had it shipped just for whatever meeting.

I am eating my Christmas goldfish, which I've been saving in my desk for an emergency. This can hardly be classified as an emergency, seeing as I'm being taken out for Sushi (or stir-fry in my case) in 18 minutes, but I'm starving!! Fishies!

Yes, I realize I could be eating cheesecake... I'm saving it!

I can't believe it's been nearly a week since I've updated. So I guess I'd better.

I've been very busy at work. I thought the tide of HR work was supposed to ebb in January, but it hasn't happened yet; I just feel busier than ever. Luckily being busy is very motivating to me.

Last night we got to watch Lily for a little while. She is so adorable! John is already a better parent than I'll ever be. Maybe I'll catch up when he is working late during busy season, or studying for the CPA exam.

Drinking Umcka. Can't get sick.

Even though I've been very tired lately, just about falling asleep at my desk every afternoon, I came home with lots of energy today. I made John dinner (chicken pockets with rice and brown-sugar glazed carrots), went grocery shopping, did the dishes and tidied up. Now my feet are catching up with the rest of me.

At the grocery store, I was looking to see if the potsticker wrappers were on sale (are they ever?) and I noticed two things: First, Macey's has decided to carry Yakisoba noodles- hurray! Second, there was an entire line of juices (in the produce section, right next to the wontons) put out by Bolthouse farms. Fancy, expensive juices. Who knew.

I bought some kiwis. Maybe the vitamin C will help my throat. We have been married nearly 18 months and just opened our second regular-sized box of dishwasher detergent.

Last night I finished reading The Work and the Glory. I was so proud of myself I counted up all the pages- 5,261 pages in 9 books. John is already encouraging me to read other serieses, I think partly to discourage me from reading Harry Potter for what he claims is the 7th time, but I think I am going to take a break from reading for a while. I think I will get ahead on my crocheting and card-making and scrapbooking for now.

When I get into reading, all I do is read. When we were first married John thought I didn't like reading because I never did, but I've gotten into it since then and proved him wrong. I think it's been about a year. I've read seven Chronicles of Narnia, five Harry Potter, eleven Series of Unfortunate Events, The Lord of the Rings, about ten novels about the Amish, two movie-ized books after seeing the movie, The Book of Mormon and nine The Work and the Glory. And about 50 magazines.

If there are 5,261 pages to read in a series, I don't do much else in my spare time until I've read 5,261 pages. I need a break.

Last week at Logan's basketball game, John was looking at an I Spy book with Ember. I saw a little wooden horse on wheels (toy Trojan horse!) in one of the pictures and said "that's just like our little hedgehog" I got in my stocking at Christmas. Sure enough, one of the items to look for was a "wooden porcupine", and there it was. I still think it's a hedgehog, though. Little did Leonard know when he stopped at that yard sale he would find a famous hedgehog!

I've been sick this weekend, so it has been good to relax. On Saturday, I slept in, then cleaned the house while John was taking his test. We went out to dinner and then to see Saints and Soilders, which I liked but John wasn't in the mood for. Between dinner, the movie, and a Shopko-purchased treat, we only spent $10- not bad.

We had Matt and Celeste, some neighbors, over for dinner. I made stroganoff and Raspberry Spinach Salad with poppy-seed dressing. I actually followed the recipe for the dressing this time, only I halved it, and it still made 1 1/2 cups. But it turned out a lot better following the recipe. Can you tell we love the stroganoff?

I am already out of Kleen*sneeze*ex. I guess I am going to have to take a walk to the supply closet to get some company-issued tissues. Poor nose.

I've noticed that I tend to do the things that take up space on my desk first, because they sit there and bother me.

Yesterday I was reading some articles on resume-writing, and this is so true! Then I decided to get another email address, although that's not one of the things that bothers me. Unless it's like "Iamthemacdaddy@Imnumber1.com" or something.

Probably the things that bug me most are unqualified candidates (especially those who think they are), long paragraphs, and non-Word formats (I can't open them). Linda is slowly taking over most of recruiting, so my experience in that area is starting to dwindle. Just as well though; I have plenty of other things to do.

Today the long strip of bright greenness on the mountain reached Springville. Actually, it may have been a while ago, but I haven't seen the mountain in several days due to the haze. I also learned that they are putting in a new gas line and the green stuff is seed, to prevent landslides.

Speaking of haze, yuck! It rained today, so hopefully it will clear up a little. The other day I was driving home from work and I looked directly at the sun and at first thought it was the moon. That's how sick the air has been here.

Jodi spent the night with us last night, so we ended up staying up pretty late talking. Franco is out playing with his guy friends, so we are sitting around watching John do homework.

Monday is our 18-month Anniversary. We are going to Red Lobster for lunch, and to see "National Treasure" to celebrate.

Thanks to Joe, I have a new gmail account. Email me!

We are planning to go down to Bakersfield for President's Day. Hope to see some of you there!