No Pain, No Gain!

I officially worked 53.5 hours this week. I’ve technically been in the building 55 hours, since there where a few half-hour lunches. I’m a little exhausted, a little delirious, but a whole lot of proud. It’s no secret that I would rather get a root canal than come to work 99.9% of the time, but I feel like I helped out when we’re busy, ergo helping the co-workers that I like, and am also that much closer to a house, because, well, that’s a whole lot of time and a half.

Today I’m working 1-10, so I joked with my husband that I was excited for a “short” day. I’ve been working 11am to 12am most of the week. I keep myself occupied looking for houses and writing for Nano, so I still have a firm grip on my sanity.

Speaking of Nano, I blew past the halfway point of 25k words! I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of that sort of accomplishment, I never thought I would actually push myself to hit that point, but I have some amazing support along the writing process, and I’m even beginning to talk about my characters and discuss their background story as though they’re real people….which is either a good thing or a bad thing, I haven’t quite decided yet. 🙂 I do know though that I will finish Nano and I will win. Right now I’m basically pounding out the frame of the story, the minor and major plot pieces, and then I’ll go back in December and flesh it out. One major surprise with this entire process is that the story just flows as I write. I’ve long since tossed my original outline in the fire and haven’t looked back. My characters are suddenly in charge of the story, and I’m simply giving them a voice. I’m immensely proud of how far I come, and once the story is written I want to have the editing done by the time I’m 23 (which lands on the end of January).

As promised, I would also like to share with you my new favorite food, the panini.

I call this my “grown up” BLT, minus the L, haha. I have found that instead of using butter on the outside of the bread to keep it from sticking to the hot plates, using pam is a fat-free and crispier alternative! I used butter flavored Pam and it was basically amazing. This sandwich consists of lite mayo, bacon, tomato, fresh mozzarella cheese, and onion. I’ve also made steak sandwiches with french fries, ham and cheese, and tuna, all turned out amazing. The thing about the panini maker is that it seriously makes the sandwich look and taste like you bought it somewhere like Panera Bread, even hubby agrees. I’ve had a panini every single day this week and am not sick of them because every one can be different, but the easy prep and quick time is always the same. Love, Love, Love!

 

I Love to Cook!

My panini maker is my new favorite wedding gift. My favorite changes from day to day, but the panini maker is winning for the third day in a row.

What an amazing little device! I’ve been experimenting with different sandwiches every day now, and am absolutely in love! I have been working 13 hour days at work, and I just throw together a couple sandwiches in the panini maker to eat throughout the long (very long) day. Warm or cold they’re still pretty amazing!

I made some delicious wedding soup in our crock pot on Monday as well. I think I did over do it with the veggies, as it smelled like wedding soup, but definitely tasted more like veggie or chicken noodle. Still good though! It is most definitely soup season, which while I hate the cold, nothing is better than being warm and cozy on a cold day. Eat a little soup, drink some hot chocolate or hot cider (rum optional!) and you have a happy girl right here 🙂

I’m adding a new little section to my side links on the right. I’ve stumbled across so many fantastic cooking blogs that I need to have them in one place, and certainly need to share. My latest discovery? A Year of Slow Cooking. Slow cooker recipes! And a lot, I might add. I like cooking blogs because these are real people, usually mothers or other busy people who don’t have the time (like me) to put together a gourmet meal. I like cooking, but I simply don’t have the time to hang out the kitchen for a couple hours every night, so ta da! Easy recipes for all!

About 4.5 hours left of my 12-hour day and I’m still awake. I consider that a win today 😉

 

God’s Gonna Blow Those Clouds Away, and Give Me a Sunny Day.

The house hunt continues. Wednesday our Realtor took us to a house that Justin and I both loved, which has not happened yet on our adventure. Unfortunately it was also about $15,000 over our price range and exactly $34,000 over our comfort zone. It just went on the market a couple weeks ago, so we’ll keep it in the back of our minds and continue to look. If it is still on the market in a couple months then we’ll see if the price drops or possibly low-ball the sellers. It’s an estate so it could really go either way. In any case, it really set a standard, and I hope we can find something else just as great!

Finding that house has also really lit a fire under my ass. I have been working like crazy and will continue to do so in the coming months. We’re at that point where we’re so close we can taste it, but we just have to find something that meets all our criteria. Patience has never been a strong characteristic of mine, but this is something so monumental that I just don’t want to settle for anything short of what we both love.

I guess that will be it for houses until I have some more concrete news. I have other things to amuse me this month (like my 50 hour work week next week, ha) Nano is coming along splendidly, I’m still about 10k words over where I need to be at this point. And notice the cute widget I added to the right there? It’ll keep you updated. ha.

I am currently three hours into my 10 hour work day. Like I mentioned before, Next week I volunteered (ick, I know) to basically work 50 hours. 10 hours of glorious time and a half over time though, and we just got our yearly raises, so I really can’t complain too much…until later next week anyway. Justin also picked up a little over time, in the form of 8am to 12am on Friday. He can pound it all out at once though, I on the other hand would probably hurt someone.

So as I’m rearranging my schedule and biting my nails at the thought of spending so much time at a place I am not incredibly found of, I got to thinking what might make the work onslaught a little easier. First thing that came to mind? Chocolate chip cookies. Random, yes, but also an excellent idea. Another idea was to break out the Panini maker that we got as a wedding gift that I’ve been itching to try out and stray away from the boring ham and cheese sandwiches Justin eats every single day (I usually go hungry because I’m lazy) and try some fancy sandwiches to keep us entertained throughout the impending week. As of right now I’ve added about 10 Panini sandwiches to my Recipe archive and still going strong. One website I found in my searches is absolutely amazing, Panini Happy. I highly recommend that site, and will definitely be using some of her amazing recipes this week!

I hope that some creative adventures in the kitchen will distract me enough from the workload for next week, and I truly hope hubby isn’t going to get sick of my creative adventures. Truth be told, he’s not quite as into my….creativity sometimes. I know once or twice (or, you know, a dozen) times I’ve made something for the two of us and he grins and bears it. He truly is a very supportive man, so I hope to impress him as well as fulfill my domestic duty to keep him full and content with some yummy sandwiches!

As long as life doesn’t get the best of me, I’ll try to take some pictures to share throughout next week, we shall see!