Groovy.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I hope those flowers that H. sent you lasted until today. : ]

Before I get to the rest of this post, H. just showed me something that I think you will all enjoy. Especially if you've played Portal. (Someone show this to Dad!)

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming. 

I would like to point out that on the right-hand side of my blog there is now a section called "Labels", with a sub-heading of "Recipes". If you click on the word "Recipes", it will bring up any post I have written that contains a recipe. So have at it!

H. and I are getting into a groove with planning out what we'll eat for the week, then buying groceries to support those ideas. On the menu this week we have lasagna, pizza, and soup. Each of those should last for two days, excluding the pizza. We're gonna gobble that up.

I learned how easy it is to make french toast yesterday. Eggs + milk + vanilla + cinnamon = french toast. I thought it was loads harder than that! Turns out H. has a fondness for french toast that I didn't know about, but will now exploit. Recipe found here: French Toast Corners.

GO MAVS GO! I willingly accept that I might be a bandwagoner. I never really cheered for the Mavs before, although I never cheered for any basketball team before, either. Heck, I haven't even watched a full basketball game in my life. This is still true - I usually miss a couple minutes here and there of these play-off games. It's just not in my Em-Oh to watch an entire sports game unless it's the Rangers (swoon!). Or the Stars. Hockey makes for great entertainment. And I suppose I did watch an entire football game at some point. ... okay okay, so maybe I just don't want to watch a whole basketball game. It's the constant back-and-forth that gets me.

As I look at my Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox, I see links to sites that I will probably never visit again. Looking at wedding websites just isn't fun anymore, now that I've experienced the best wedding evar, mine. I realize that I'm extremely biased, but so is everyone. Whenever I look at posts picturing other couples, I just don't get as excited as I used to. I suppose that's a good thing, but now I don't have a lot to occupy my time with in the apartment. Yes, I could clean for the eight or so hours that H. is at work, but who realistically wants to do that? If it weren't so hot outside, I might go for a walk or something. I will admit that I'm a little nervous being in the city alone, though. There isn't much crime around where we are, but you never know.

When I'm not looking for a job, or figuring out how to become a US Citizen (more on that story when I talk to the Social Security people), I would like to paint. I started sketching out those mountains, and I bet it's time to put brush to canvas. I need one picture of the mountains with the light that I sketched them in, and then I can be on my merry way. H. keeps asking when I'll finish that, too.

I cannot wait until I get some of those wedding favor wildflowers! My gladiolas are definitely dead, and while I'm a little sad that we couldn't make it work, I'm going to blame them for growing so tall. Would it have helped if I had staked them? Maybe a little, but I would have had to really take care of them to ensure that they never toppled over. This time, I'm picking non-fussy wildflower seeds. Those couldn't possibly grow to be as tall as gladiolas, right?

Oh that reminds me! Now that it's full-on springtime and the earth has moved slightly on its axis, we get the slightest bit of sun on our balcony. Not a huge achievement, but if I wanted to, I could plant something outside that loves shade and a little bit of sun. I hear direct sunlight is good for things that grow. Previous to this, the only sunlight we got was the early morning sun coming through the office window. We'd have sunlight for about three hours, and then nothing. And don't'cha'know, that little bit of sun heats up that room like a sauna? Even with the blinds drawn closed? It would be marvelous if I could put plants outside on our balcony and seal off that nasty, temperature-increasing sunlight. I'm thinking fitted sheet with an elastic outside seam to cover up that window. All of the heat would stay inside the sheet, wouldn't it? And I'm sure Walmart has a cheap sheet.

And if gardening on the balcony doesn't work, I could always do this:

"Kokedama" String Garden | Design*Sponge

Yeah, I don't really get how that works, either. How does the dirt not end up on your floor? Well, at least it looks fancy. Probably smells like earth, too.

Have a great Mother's Day!

Hi-ya!

Hey guess what? I'm dual-wielding dinner and dessert!

Hamburger Helper, yo!

Bananas dipped in chocolate and walnuts (pre-dip).

Misuse of the term "dual-wielding", check.

A to Z.

Hello there! My name is Anna, and I would like to educate all of you on the benefits of living in Arizona.

1. Hot towels. We haven't started running the air conditioning yet (ie: crazy), so the air temperature is somewhere around 80 degrees, or at least it feels like it. The great part about this is after a shower, you have a hot towel to dry off with. It's like a luxurious spa day, every day!

2. Super-dry dishes. Due to the incredibly dry air, water evaporates at an accelerated rate at any point during the day. To save on our electricity bill, I skip the dishwasher's drying cycle and just leave the door open to let the dishes dry. Incredibly effective, and very little energy usage.

3. TV schedule. Since Arizona has its own time zone, television shows have to be pushed back in order to match up with what time it is here. This not only applies to evening television (which starts at seven instead of five to sync up with the east coast), but also applies to daytime television. There is always something on every hour of the day that I could watch, which is a blessing and a curse.

4.  What dirt? Because of the lack of water anywhere in the state, there is absolutely no mud. This means it is very nearly impossible to drag dirt into the apartment, into the car, into anywhere. It also means that I never have to worry about stepping in mud. Even if the apartment complex ran sprinklers (which they don't), it would all evaporate before I walked out the door.

5. Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol. I haven't decided if this is a benefit to living here, but I swear there is alcohol everywhere. I'm not just talking wine and beer, I'm talking hardcore liquor bottles in grocery stores all across the state. I've chalked this up to the fact that there isn't much to do here.

6. The whole enchilada. Living here has given me a surge of confidence in attempting to cook Mexican food. This is mainly because there are exactly one thousand kinds of tortillas in every grocery store (I counted), millions of avocados dancing down the aisles (doing the cha-cha), and twenty-three kinds of salsa (I guesstimated). Makes you want to mix 'em all up in a hundred different ways to make something tasty.

Some Honorable Mentions.
- I know what the surface of the sun feels like. Now I don't have to go through with that space mission.
- The sun comes up at five in the morning. It makes you feel like you've slept in too long, which gives you a kick in the pants to hurry up and start the day.
- Flowers mean so much more to me now that there isn't grass for them to naturally grow in.
- I can drink butt-loads of water and never have to use the bathroom. It all evaporates through my skin.

And now for the downsides to living in Ay-Zee.

1. There is no barbecue. There's just a lot of Mexican food.

Oh, and for those of you who were wondering what the population was over here, it's roughly 520,000 people, with a population density of 2,800 people per square mile.

Tallyho, I'm off to make frozen banana bites covered in chocolate and walnuts!

Packages!

As a child, my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it. ~ Buddy Hackett

I realize that most of you are studying for finals, but I figured you all will want to take a five minute break at some point and look at some post-wedding pictures. So follow me!

Cookie to anyone who guesses how many
trips it took me to get this all into the apartment.

 I picked up seven boxes from the front office yesterday morning, and another three arrived in the afternoon. Add that to the one we got before we left, and you have 11 boxes total. H. suggested that we only open three or so a day to maximize our wedding present joy, so here are the first couple presents.

Beautiful flower serving bowl!

Divine glass vase!

Cookie press for making cookies! Guess what I wanted to do after opening this.

That's it for now! Mavs game tonight plus dumplings for dinner!

Wedding Bliss.

Don't marry the person you think you can live with; marry the only individual you can't live without.   ~ James C. Dobson

These past few days have been the best of my life, Saturday being the highpoint for suspiciously obvious reasons. I don't think I could tell you what the best part was - I've got a tie between the rings, the first kiss, and the first dance. And everything else that happened. So here's the question: what was your favorite part? Even though some things didn't go exactly as I planned, I felt little attachment to the mistakes, and sort of felt like I was floating above it all, but still placed firmly in the moment of marriage. Hopefully that makes sense to somebody! I'm just happy that everyone I love could be there to share that day with H. and I.

And now for the plane debacle. Our flight back was scheduled for 5:25pm Sunday night, and we were there around 3:30 to go through security and wait for the plane to arrive. Here's a quick bulleted list of what happened next:

• flight delayed to 5:45 pm
• flight delayed to 7:00 pm - waiting on two pilots
• flight back on track for 5:30 pm - pilots arrived
• flight delayed to 7:15 pm - waiting on a plane to arrive that was diverted to Austin for several reasons (weather, needed a new crew, fuel)
• flight delayed to 8:15 pm - plane is available, waiting on a crew
• 6:15 pm - H. and I grab Dickey's for dinner
• 7:20 pm flight canceled - supposedly for the weather, possibly for the crew
• total time spent at the airport = 4.5 hours

Once the flight was canceled, all of the passengers formed a line at the gate we were to depart from to get rebooked for the next available flight. Someone asked if we knew whether we could book at a different gate. H. turned to me, asked me to check the next gate where two people were in line instead of thirty, and I ran on over there. Turns out you can (if you're ever in the same situation), and the next available flight for me was 5:10pm, and for H. was 7:15pm on Monday (trust me, that's an important detail). We asked to both be on the later flight, and inquired as to where we could pick up our one suitcase that we had checked. The lady helping us said it would be on the next available flight - they would send it on the 9:00am flight Monday morning. H. told them that was ridiculous, asked why they couldn't just get the bag because everyone's luggage from the flight was going to be in the same place, and got a cold response from the other ticketer at the counter. "Well, I haven't been down there myself, but I hear that there are a lot of bags going to a lot of different destinations."  H. told him something clever, and then we left, tickets for the 7:15pm flight in hand.

We spent the night at H.'s parents' house (shoutout to J- and E-sko!), and hoped that the rainstorm would not be hanging around tomorrow evening. Monday morning I checked Facebook for the first time since Saturday, and went crazy commenting on and liking everything wedding-related. I was very excited. I got to play Boggle all day, and H. told me to stop after a while because I had apparently "Boggled my brains out", and we watched the Rangers game instead.

We got to the airport at 5:20-ish, went through security, and grabbed some dinner. When it came time to begin boarding the plane, the ticket lady scanned my ticket and said, "Hold up, I need to get this checked." We were in Group 2 for boarding, and if you know anything about flying you know that the first couple groups to board get all the overhead space. We waited and waited and waited while every other single person boarded the plane for a second lady to check my ticket. H.'s scanned just fine, but he waited with me, which was a very smart idea. Somehow, I was supposedly booked for an even later flight, and someone else had taken my seat beside H. Here's another bulleted list as to what happened with the ticket:

• lady #2 prints me a new ticket somewhere not adjacent to H., says that she will ask someone to move so that we can sit together.
• lady #1 says to lady #2 that she just had a family "misconnect", and that we can have their seats. 
• lady #2 books us for these new seats, prints out our tickets
• lady #1 says to lady #2 that she has already given another couple the family's seats, and that she moved the "misconnect" seats somewhere else on the plane
• the two ladies discuss which seats to give us
• lady #1 asks if we are carrying a pet with us onto the plane. I almost laughed out loud while H. said "No."
• lady #2 prints us the same pair of tickets where I am not adjacent to H., and says again that she will ask someone to move.
• lady #1 takes over our ticketing process, rips up those just-printed tickets, and prints us a new set of tickets at the very back of the plane. 
• we take the tickets and run.
• total time spent at airport this time = 2 hours.

As soon as we were past the door and into the little walkway connecting to the plane, I couldn't help but laugh at her question of if we had a pet or not. H. and I mused that we would have lizards - no, chameleons - or maybe some mini giraffes. And if you've seen the commercials, you would know that mini giraffes mean opulence. If we had mini giraffes, we would've bought the entire first class section for ourselves. But anyways.

We were finally on the plane. Our seats were the second-to-last row, on the left. The couple behind us were old, and asked if it would be noisy back here ... ... ... ... next to the engine. They eventually moved up a couple of rows, but we stayed. Our seats were directly behind the place where they keep the food cart, which means that we got an extra foot of leg room. Neither of us slept on the flight; H. played Boggle on his phone, I read a book. Apparently I was having motion sickness from leaning over to play Boggle with H.

The plane landed, and we asked the first available person where to pick up our lost baggage. As we rounded the corner into the room of lost American Airlines luggage, we saw our little floral suitcase hidden away in a corner and wheeled it out of there like we were never coming back. Or at least, we tried to roll it out of there. Apparently the airlines had damaged one of the wheels such that it was only half-working as a wheel, and made an awful thunking noise as we walked. H. was angry that they had damaged the suitcase, and while I was quite a bit miffed, I was still incredibly thankful to have my luggage back.

When we got back to our apartment, H. dropped all of the bags he was carrying, told me to do the same, then swept me up in his arms and crossed the threshold into our apartment. It was very romantic, and I'm thinking of making it a permanent action. We turned on the Mavs game and cheered on the only basketball team that I can name players off of, and H. was extremely happy when they won. Then it was all lights-out and pass-out, because H. has a full workday in the morning.

I had forgotten that things go bad, even if they're sitting in your fridge. I'll need to empty out our reserves and purchase some new food items to get us back on track. Poor H. doesn't have a lunch for today, but if I can figure out what to get for dinner, by golly he'll have one tomorrow.

One other task today is to pick up all of the packages (at least three, don't know the exact number) sitting in the office of the apartment complex. We did tell them we were getting married, getting married back in Texas to be exact, so I'm unsure as to why they called and were angry with us for not accepting packages all week. I might wait to do that until the afternoon, just to have an ounce of power over them for the day. At least they finally fixed their over-the-internet rent problem, and we can pay our monthly rent online.

I need to start Thank You cards ASA-Now, but that will have to wait until after we open everything. That gives me enough time to do all the dishes and take out the trash and laundry and whatnot.

For those of you who aren't FB-friends with my new brother-in-law (how fun is that to say?), here are a couple photos that he and his girlfriend took at the wedding. Mom, even though he doesn't have a beard, you might be able to figure out who I'm talking about.

Walking down the aisle - I almost, almost full-on cried.

H. pointed out that he doesn't look quite as excited as I am to be married.

Wonderful family picture.

Bubbles are my new favorite thing.