"You can't see us! BOO!"

Ahhh yes yes yes..I'm actually blogging! Amazing, right? I thought so, too. On that note, here we go:

Throughout the lifetime of this blog, I've mentioned Eric "here" and "there" in terms of how supportive he's always been whenever it comes to stuff I wanna attempt, not to mention, my various shopping adventures. Now, this post is alllll about him! 

Six weeks ago, Eric had to leave in order to attend something called Non-Commissioned Officers Academy. It's basically a class that helps guys learn management and business skills since they've reached a certain rank and have to deal with more responsibilities. It's a six week course where they work on speeches, how to address certain situations via the Air Force way in addition to team building skills. Once you're there, you're assigned to a flight within the class; Eric ended up in Phantom Flight whose motto was "You can't see us! BOO!" He jokingly said that it should've been called "Profile" Flight, since everyone who was in that class is older, physically broken in some way or another and have some sort of medical "profile" put on them because they're not running at 100% capacity. 

Over the six week course, he had told me about his classmates and how well they've all bonded. Basically, there were fifteen different versions of him in this class...ohhh man! The stories about the things they've done were pretty hilarious, although I can't really repeat them on here..but all that matters is that he actually liked his classmates and managed to pass the class! HOORAY!! 

Of course, that meant there was a graduation ceremony to attend. This was the first time I was able to go to  something like this for him since we didn't know one another when he went to Airman Leadership School when he made Staff Sergeant many many ...many moons ago.  

The ceremony itself bordered on four and a half hours. If you know me, you know I have a short attention span..also known as "shiny syndrome". Lots of awards were given out to the Tech Sergeants who were top of their flight, scored well academically, and a variety of other things. Lots and lots of clapping..so much in fact that my hands were getting rather puffy by the end of the night. Every time a Tech Sergeants name was called, their affiliated flight or base that was there for support would scream their motto. One base in particular had A LOT of recognized Tech Sergeants, so by the end of the evening, I was extremely tired of hearing "SEEK, ATTACK, DESTROY!" followed by what sounded like a death scream. Good times!

When everything was finally done, Eric was given his fancy diploma he had worked so hard for and actually SMILED when the time came for a picture! SWOON! He never smiles in 'em, so this made me extremely happy cause I know he was pretty proud of himself for making it through NCO Academy. 

A nice group picture of Phantom Flight 2012-4 

Of course, we got some pictures of us together schmoozing for the camera since it's not very often I see him in his Blues, or with me actually all dressed up. I think the last time I did the whole shebang (dress, nice makeup, special jewelry) was our wedding day..which was almost five years ago. Good grief..it's been that long?!

Oh, and some people were curious about my dress. I got it from a fabulous site called Kiyonna and they cater to women who are curvy :) I actually got the Retro Glam Lace dress earlier this year since that's when Eric was originally supposed to go to the academy, but ended up getting pushed back due to a serious back injury he had. Like I mentioned earlier, since this was the first event I had to actually dress up for, I was nervous that I was potentially under dressed...

...turns out, I wasn't! This gals dress kept having technical difficulties, and by that, I mean it kept lifting in the back and showing her ass cheeks every where. You could hear the necks breaking in a room of 400 people whenever she walked past tables to go say hi to someone. It was rather entertaining. 

Then there was this gal who sat at the table right behind ours. She looked like this lil petite thing when she was sitting there, but when the time came for us to have a 10 minute "intermission" so the tables could be cleared...my jaw dropped when I saw her booty. Even Eric was like "OH MY GOD." I gotta hand it to her, girlfriend knew she looked good and rocked her curves like a champ. 

After all was said and done, Eric ended up walking away with a lot of good friends from his academy experience as well as lots of fond memories. I'm ridiculously proud of him and SO happy to have him back home :) 

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Footing

Oh goodness...where do I even begin. 

*DEEP BREATH*

I haven't been too active lately when it comes to writing some beefy or interesting posts for my blog. Honestly, I've lost the desire to write. I don't want to really do a whole lot of anything anymore. Hell, I even gave up on my camera...I don't even know where it is..it's somewhere around here. Oh, and my home businesses...given those up as well. All three of them. Buh-bye. 

It feels like I've hit this imaginary wall of total bull shit and anxiety that I can't seem to move past...I dunno what it is. Actually, that's a lie. I know exactly what it is, but there's a whole lot of "nuthin" I can do about it. For the last several months, I've been fighting some serious depression which has made me feel like a shell of my former self. I don't want to go anywhere anymore, I talk to a very limited amount of people, I suck at getting back to people via email, I screen phone calls, and I have a ridiculous amount of anxiety when it comes to going anywhere near individuals I don't want to be around. 

I'm told "Oh, it's the weather that's making you feel this way". No, no it's not... it's the people. At my ripe age of twenty nine, I'm still learning that the only people you should rely on is family, and friends who are family. Over the last three and a half years, I've definitely learned who my friends are and who was a complete waste of time. I've learned who my true friends are, who is a friend out of convenience, and who has forced me into viewing them an enemy. It sucks, especially since this is somewhere where I've made fabulous memories with a variety of people...and I am now forced to wipe some them from the adventures. 

In my eyes, I'm a push over. I put up with peoples bullshit and lies for the sake of not causing waves. I get told that I'm "too nice". Is there something wrong with being nice and going with the flow? I'd rather invest my time with making memories, having laughs and all that other fun shit. But, apparently that's not how it goes...at least that's how it seems for this place. Where I was hoping to make a gaggle of new friends, I've made a few good ones...but others have showed me how sharp they keep their daggers when the time comes to plunge it in others backs. It's depressing and makes me wonder about myself.... THIS is the type of person I hang out with? What the fuck.. 

At this time, we have eight or nine months till it's time for us to move elsewhere. I'm excited all while nervous because, to be frank, I don't want to end up at another small base where women are catty bitches. It's a constant grind and emotionally draining. I don't want to put my self "out there" anymore..I'm perfectly content with what friends I have. I'm sure that probably sounds so "woo is me", but I've just had it. I've had enough with people lying to me, letting me down, falling through, flaking..oh the list goes on and on.....and on..

In addition with that weighing my heart down, I'm also addressing some health things that have made me wanna curl up in bed & not do anything. Since November, I've been in and out of the doctors office to figure out what's going on with some severe pains I've been experiencing in my stomach / intestines. Thanks to socialized medicine, it takes 10x longer to be seen, hear results, more blood work and all that fun shit! In March, I was rushed to the emergency room because I had a serious infection in my large and small intestines in which they took blood samples and did ultra sounds. Found nothing aside from the infection...yay? Once the infection is clear, the pains are still happening and causing extreme discomfort. Finally get an appointment to have a biopsy done (that happened in April) and I just got my results back on May 3rd. The doctor still can't find anything, but has decided to test me for Chrons disease, which frankly scares the shit out of me. So, between getting poked, stabbed, scanned, popping medications and avoiding anything with flavor..it's all wearing me down.

I'm twenty nine. Come on now. 

...I'm just trying to get my footing back. 

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DVD Downsize!

Ugh..where do I even start...

Eric and I met each other back in 2006. Back then, he had a pretty impressive DVD collection, as did I, so of course when the time came to move in together, our collection got pretty magnificent. Over time, we've accumulated more and more movies / TV shows...it's a little ridiculous to say the least. In our old neighborhood in California, we were basically the local Blockbuster / Hollywood Video.  Friends would always stop by and pick up DVD's (they knew we always had the newest releases) and would bring 'em back later in the week to switch 'em out for something else.  

Yeaaaaahhhh...When the time came for us to move here, it took 12-15 MOVING boxes to move our collection. Le sigh. 

Now that we've been here for three and a half years, our collection hasn't grown as much as it would've if we were stateside, but still, it's grown. In fact, the majority of it is being housed in this wardrobe we picked up last year. The top part is all the DVD's while the bottom drawers are video games. 

LE SIGH. 

The craziness.... the top shelf is two rows deep :-/ 

In about 10 months, we'll be moving again and I'm really on the fence about whether or not we're taking the wardrobe with us. Odds are, it'll stay here, but who knows. In the mean time, I wanna get our DVD's (only the movies) all organized because I don't want to have to dedicate one massive piece of furniture to hold all of that stuff! I mean, come on now! 

So, after hunting through various sites to get ideas as to how I can go about conquering this massive mountain, I finally found a way to do it:

I ended up ordering six of the organizing boxes (all have been re-enforced with Gorilla Glue), got a pack of alphabetical dividers in addition to some CD protectors. Honestly, the CD protectors were the hardest thing to find!  It took me a month to get my hands on them since no one on the local economy seems to carry them (or are reasonably priced) ...thank gawd for Amazon! 

Exciting, right? I know I know..it's too much for me to handle as well. I'll post an update...probably in a month or two, when I have a finished project. 

*whimper*

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When in Belgium...

..be like the Belgians!

Back in March, a friend and I relaxed in Brussels for the day and enjoyed some of the things that most Belgians enjoy. Had a few beers, some waffles and definitely had some mussels. They were UH-mazing and looked extremely easy to make. On that note, I decided to attempt making this awesome dish at home since I was really craving them and my son was willing to be my guinea pig :)

I went to the market first thing in the morning and picked up two containers of pre-packaged mussels. Price wise, it wasn't too bad. With the conversion rate and all, it came out to about twenty dollars for them and the pre-cut veggie baggies I was also able to get at the time. 

These little bags of pre-cut veggies were a bit of a life saver seeing that they have onions in it in addition to green onions, celery and carrots. Makes it a little easier rather than make an even larger mess in my kitchen :) 

While I was out and about a few weeks ago, I came across a kitchen store that sells "mussel pots" for pretty cheap ( 8 euros a piece), so I ended up getting a set since I know we'll use 'em for lots of things despite them being labeled for one thing. I got curious and went online to see how much they would cost on there and it kinda blew me away. Some sites had them listed for $60 a piece!  Eeesh! 

I remember my friend telling me about how she made mussels at her house and how it was really...really easy. When it comes to making the sauce for the mussels to sit in, you can kinda wing it since all that really matters is that you steam the little critters and their juices enhance the sauce. Fine and dandy. What do I love a lot? GARLIC! So, I minced up a bunch of garlic with some parsley:

I busted out my Le Creuset round oven and sautéed the veggies for about 10 minutes in butter to soften 'em up. When it comes to finding a recipe to make these, you can find all sorts of stuff on all recipes.com or anywhere else on the internet. They all basically consist of the same thing: butter, veggies, mussels and whatever else you feel like using to season. 

Then I added white wine (Chardonnay) to the base and let it boil for 20 minutes to get all of the alcohol out of it.  

Once the wine is boiled out and the sauce is at a simmer, I added some cooking cream to thicken it up. After a few minutes, I tossed all the mussels in and let them cook for another 6-8 minutes. 

Make sure you stir them around to ensure that all of them have opened up. Whichever ones didn't open up  need to be tossed out! 

Of course, I made my own fries to go with the mussels...

Voila! You can serve mayonnaise with your fritz ( at least that's what they do over here), but my son opted to have Samurai sauce since he likes things a little spicy. 

It came out AWESOME! We were both happy campers and totally inhaled this dish! My son was surprised as to how filling it actually was since he commented how mussels don't really have a lot of meat in them. Gotta love the fries! lol

All in all, I got a enthusiastic "two thumbs up" and will be making this again sometime :) Not bad for trying something that the locals make! 

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Itchy Trigger Finger

Sorry it's been a little bit since I've blogged. Between running around and taking care of errands, then my stomach problem flaring up, I haven't been feeling too motivated to sit down and type out a bunch of stuff. So, my bad!

Let's see here... we're basically a month and a half away from potentially finding out where we're going next for our new base. I'm rather excited about it since I actually like (yes!) moving to experience a new place. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Belgium and all it has to offer, but I'm ready to find a nice place to settle down, buy a house somewhere and just have our solid foundation for "home" set. I guess Eric missed the window to where he could see what our overseas options were (oh well), so now we're just hoping for the best when it comes to stateside. Sure, there are bases that we specifically have in mind that we want verses ones we want to avoid like the plague, but that's all up to the Air Force in terms of what we're dished out. 

Of course when you're trying to mentally brace yourself for a big move, especially when it involves changing continents, you go through all the motions of deep cleaning / purging anything and everything under the sun you don't think you'll need / want / use. So far, I've purged my office...in which I didn't realize I had as much crap in there as I did! Next I'll be working upstairs in the "man cave" since I'll have a lot of time on my hands for the next several weeks, then slowly moving towards the garage since there's tons of stuff that hasn't been used in, well, years. Of course I can't really conquer that area with Eric's seal of approval since there's a lot of his goodies and collections boxed up. Heaven forbid if I toss any of those by accident. 

And, I'm guilty of house hunting & day dreaming of our new place. It's a little sickening. Since we have absolutely no idea where we're going, I've been looking up real estate for the bases we want to see what the housing markets look like. Odds are, we won't live on base since we both didn't like how the base housing was at Vandenberg when we were stationed there. Given, every base is different...but the outcome is usually the same: small housing for Enlisted folks and the homes are pretty shitty unless you're way up on the food chain.  Not to mention, we have a fair amount of fur balls that probably wouldn't be allowed on base, lol. In addition to that, *I* like having my privacy, which is a sparse luxury when it comes to living on base. Given, you can have nosey neighbors when it comes to living amongst the civilian population, but it's different. I don't know how to explain it, really. I would just prefer to not live in a confined military community, especially since Eric has just a little over four years left. I'd rather enjoy the last years, lol.

I'm ready to get this show on the road! It's hard to plan for things when there isn't solid ground to build it on!

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Citrus Cakes

It's Spring(ish) time here! How do we celebrate it? With cake, of course! 

Actually, I was gonna make a blueberry / lemon loaf recipe I found on Pinterest, but I decided not to do the blueberries since I only bought enough of those to use in my morning shakes, lol. So, I opted out of the blueberries and made mini "brownie" size cakes with my new Pampered Chef Brownie Pan. 

Here's the recipe I used:

For the Loaf:

1. 1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
2. 2 teaspoons baking powder
3. 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4. 1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)
5. 1 cup sugar
6. 3 large eggs
7. 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
8. 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
9. 1/2 cup vegetable oil
10. 1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed and rinsed

For the Lemon Syrup:

1. 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2. 1/3 cup sugar

For the Lemon Glaze:

1. 1 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2. 2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease bottom and sides of one 9 x 5-inch loaf pans; dust with flour, tapping out excess.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the blueberries with the remaining tablespoon of flour, and fold them very gently into the batter.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing loaf to a wire rack on top of a baking sheet.
5. While the loaf is cooling, make the lemon syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir together the lemon juice and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved. Once dissolved, continue to cook for 3 more minutes. Remove from the heat; set aside.
6. Use a toothpick to poke holes in the tops and sides of the warm loaf. Brush the top and sides of the loaf with the lemon syrup. Let the syrup soak into the cake and brush again. Let the cake cool completely.
7. To make the lemon glaze, in a small bowl, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and 2-3 tablespoons of the lemon juice. The mixture should be thick but pourable. Add up to another tablespoon of lemon juice if the mixture is too stiff. Pour the lemon glaze over the top of each loaf and let it drip down the sides. Let the lemon glaze harden, about 15 minutes, before serving.

Yields: 1-9x5 loaf

Note:

1. This recipe will also yield about 12 standard muffins or 36 miniature muffins, baking time adjusted.
2. It could be doubled and baked in a well-greased and floured bundt pan, baking time adjusted.
3. This recipe could also be baked in an 8-inch square or 9-inch round, to create a thin cake (approx. 1 1/2 inches tall), baking time adjusted.

In terms of cooking it in the brownie pan, I used the Medium Scoop (Pampered Chef, of course) to distribute the batter. Then I baked it for 15 minutes at 350*. I followed the rest of the instructions regarding the syrup as well as the icing part and here's how they came out: 

They were a massive hit and all disappeared within a few hours of making them! Yeahhh!! So if you're a lemon lover, you should definitely make this! I attempted a second batch today, but with oranges rather than lemon since Eric isn't a fan of "the yellow things". They're still just as tasty, but the orange flavor is very mild compared to the lemon. I suppose that could be considered a good thing, but I like tart / sour stuff. 

Anyway! These little cakes would be wonderful for a little get together, or as one of my friends suggested...a tea party :)

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International Shopper

Once again, the Bazaars are upon us! Since we've been stationed here, I've managed to make it to a few of 'em, so I know what to expect when we roll out to do some shopping. Here's a post from one that we attended last Spring. 

The only thing I was really wanting to pick up were some more Venetian roof tile paintings like I got last time. Luckily, the people who sell them (Bottega del Ceramista) has an online site where you can request a virtual catalog and were they're VERY helpful in terms of making an order. After corresponding through several emails with the owners son, they arranged it so I could just pick my order up from them when they reached the Spangdahlem Bazaar rather than having it ship directly to me. Normally, I'd go for the whole shipment option, but shipping from Italy to Belgium would be expensive because of the whole VAT tax thing. Plus, we'd kill a few birds with one stone if we just went to Spang since we could also do our grocery shopping, pick up others things that our usual base doesn't carry, blah blah blah. 

I really loved the scroll design as well as the leaves with the lemons. I figured it was a bright enough design that wherever I hang 'em in the house (mainly our future house), it'll brighten up any room :)

I originally picked out a colorful tile called "Rio", but after seeing this particular one in person, Eric and I opted to get this instead. It may seem like drab colors, but it really pops with the glaze and the black outlines compared to the light, water colored appearance the other one had. Although, Eric and I had a giggle about it since the Rialto is missing all of the graffiti that's scrolled all over the exterior of it. I suppose that wouldn't make for a very pretty remembrance, right? 

On our way out, I spotted this really beautiful plate that some Turkish guys were selling. Of course when they saw me stop and stare at it, they instantly wanted to haggle and make sure I took it home, lol. 

After handling it and checking it all out, I noticed it's all hand painted! You can even see the individual paint drops for the design on the plate surface! So, of course I bought it and I'll be hanging it up in my office.

*Hopefully* the vendor I got this from will happen to be at Ramsteins event later in May since I'll be going up there for Eric's graduation ceremony. I know the tile guys will be there and I need to place another order with them, so, maybe I can get some goodies while I'm there to support my hubby :)

When you think about it, we traveled from Belgium to go shop in Germany. While in Germany, we bought stuff from Italy and Turkey. Talk about getting around! 

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