Hard Boiled Egg

Have you ever tried to peel a hard boiled egg only to have it be endlessly frustrating? Like, the white peels off, it comes off in small chunks, etc. Then you see someone with perfectly peeled eggs on a platter for a party and you wonder where you went wrong? I finally have the answer to this frustrating situation. The fresher the egg, the harder it is to peel! So when you feast on that perfectly peeled, perfectly intact egg, just know that it is that way because it has spent a significantly longer amount of time away from its chicken. So here's to enjoying crater filled, ugly hard boiled eggs!

In other news, busy season is already exhausting. I have been working in Dallas Oregon - the commute is 3 hours round trip plus 10 hour days. I went to bed and was sleeping by 9pm last night. I am so tired! A week of this has been quite enough - but busy season is just starting. Drat.

Trooper (the dog) has not been very thrilled about our new schedule. Up by 6:15 am (I am so much not a morning person that I take showers at night, let my alarm go off at 6:15, drag myself out of bed and put on the clothes that I set out the night before and get out the door in less than 10 minutes), Trooper tries to stay in bed as long as possible. He tried to look uber cute so that we wont bother him. Poor little guy!

In other Trooper news, he is teething. So far, he has eaten my Jessica Simpson flats (probably because I wear them without socks). I caught him munching on my tennis shoes but ended the fun before he caused too much damage. Other things he has enjoyed include a mocha (which wired him beyond belief), lots of tissues/paper etc, and cases for things like cell phones and flashlights. We are working with him to chew on his own toys of which, he has many, but at times - our toys seem so much more enticing and tasty!

Among his current tricks - Sit, down, rollover, spin. Among his current tricks "learning" crawl, bow, shake (he hates this one), stay. When you bring out a treat, he knows he needs to do a trick, so before you even say anything, he will sit, down, rollover spin and then jump up and down as if to say "I did it!, now feed me!" but he has to do his commanded trick first.

All dogs have quirks- Troopers is getting brushed. When we first got him, he would cry and squirm when we tried tor brush him, so we though that it hurt him. We tried using the "non" brush side but we discovered that it is less the brush potentially hurting him and more that he doesn't like something about a foreign object that is not a hand stroking him. At this point, he will put up with it, ears back and miserable looking. After you are done, he will sulk and you have to have a moment with him for the next hour. The other day, Nick brushed him and they had their moment for like an hour before I came home. Nick tells me that he brushed him and I get excited, Trooper actually got brushed! So I decide to try it out. Bad idea. Trooper go so upset he peed in the laundry room and then curled up on the bed in the smallest ball and would not hang out with us for the remainder of the evening. Mind you, he is totally potty trained so he must have been really really upset to pee in the laundry room. Poor puppy!

Facelift

Not a facelift like Heidi Montag - a blog lift!

• I have been thinking about re-tooling my blog a little bit. I think it needs a face lift, update, etc. This will require me to take more pictures - which might require a new camera. I am between getting a Cannon Rebel and a Nikon DX somthing or other. Any thoughts / likes / dislikes, etc? Anyway, bear with me while I do some of the transformaiton work.


• I also need to be better at writing in general. This will require me to either 1) do more exciting things 2) be ok with writing about the mundane day-to-day happenings - if I do 2 I will have to get better at talking about the mundane.

I haven't talked about what we are up to lately. I guess I get so entrenched in what we are doing that I forget that my blog was meant to update on what we are doing - not just the exciting stuff, but everything. So here goes:

• Nick is done working in Ontario, Oregon and is now working on I-405. The nice thing is that he is home. The not nice thing is that he is working nights. I feel bad for him because Trooper (our mini-aussie) wakes up when I get up to go to work which means Nick also has to get up. That means that poor Nick has not been getting very much sleep lately.
• We finally got our kitchen island wired, after a year and a half of having either no dishwasher or one that was hooked up via extension cord, we can finally use the island like it is meant to be used. This also means that we can finally start figuring out what kind of backspash to do.
• In other home improvement news, we have about 1/2 our baseboard trim up. It looks really amazing. I can't believe how much baseboard trim finishes off the look of a house.
• Nick has been busy working on a fence/gate for our backyard. We have lots of projects to do on the backyard and this is phase 1. Nick plans on building a shop in the back, the grass is all coming out so that we can level and then replant, the deck is coming off and we will do a covered patio area which hot tub and other cozy ammenities. I am really excited to turn the backyard into a place that feels like a vacation at home.
• We have been planning some really awesome trips: we loved the hotel we stayed at in Maui last May so much that we will be going back this year in April. In addition, we are planning a southern carribbean cruise in November. Hopefully, we can find some time in between when we can head out to McCall and spend some time relaxing out there. I have to say, after growing up without vacations, it sure is nice to get to go on several each year. I am so greatful for a husband that loves to travel and for 2 good jobs that give us the means to be able to take the vacations that we want to take. Sometimes it is easy to forget how lucky we really are for all the things that we have/get to do.
• At work, I have moved to a new division. I am working primarily with construction clients. I moved from one side of the floor to the other so it has been nice to get to know the people over on my new side better. I just have to be sure to keep up with everyone on the other side. :-)

2009 - A Look Back

• January - Busy season for McKenzie
• February -Busy season for McKenzie
• March - Busy season for McKenzie
• April - Went to Maui, Hawaii for a week in an ocean front villa.
• May - Heidi spends Memorial Day with us in Portland.
• June - No big happenings
• July - Watched the fireworks in McCall, ID - visited Amanda in Whidbey Island, WA
• August - Amanda got married on San Juan Island.
• September - I think we went to McCall, I can't remember though!
• October - No big happenings
• November - Went to Whidbey for a pseudo girls weekend with Amanda and Jessica - Went to New York and stayed in the Roosevelt Hotel for 2 nights and then went to visit Heidi in Pennsylvania. Missed our plane due to an overturned truck and spend a night at the Marriot by the Newark Airport
• December - Celebrated our 2 year anniversary - Went to McCall for 2 weeks and went skiing, snowshoeing, hosted Matt and Missie.