Cooking in the kitchen

Well it looks like I am now infection free! After another round of antibiotics given to me by the doctor I'm feeling much better. So it looks like I'm back on track to trying to conceive. There are still some worries on my part but I'm going to try and take it all in stride. My mantra is "Everything's going to be okay."

The name of the game for the past couple of days has been baking though. I've been busy trying to use up my pumpkin that I had lying around here. I used most of it to make soup but used the rest to make some yummy pumpkin bread. I also created an apple crisp and used the leftover apples in my bread and some zucchini-cranberry muffins. I've been a baking fiend and its not over yet because I'm going to make some cookies for book club this week. It has been fun to add my own modifications and I love using applesauce instead of butter. I sometimes think that the butter may be better because my oatmeal cookies came out more cake-like than cookie like. At least they are nice and soft! I'll have to make a banana cake at the end of July for our anniversary. I may just reduce the recipe because that would be a lot of cake for the both us to eat and I'm trying to lose more weight. I guess I've substituted baking for eating when I'm stressed. The only bad thing is that Gordon is the only one around who eats my baked goods. Nobody ever seems to want to eat my bread or scones when I bring them to women's fellowship. If my family was here, they would eat it.

I've gotten two sections done on my New Merican cookbook for Christmas. I was looking at Lulu.com to see if it would be good to publish so that it looked like a real book. I may just go with the tried and true method of somewhere like Kinkos just binding it for me to keep down the cost. I still have yet to tackle the baking portion of the book due to the high altitude adjustments that need to be made. I guess there's nothing for it but to try and hope that it comes out all right. I have my high altitude conversion chart so I'll be able to work around that. Most of my recipes come from Kraft.com and Campbells but there are some that I have made from scratch thanks to the Edmonds and Cook Book II cookbooks. I'm not looking to publish it anyways so there won't be any harm as long as I have a disclaimer in the book.

My big announcement from last week was that I was going to come home in October. It looks like that may not be possible now. When I checked the ticket prices they were about $1600 for October and $2200 for December. Gordon and I talked about possibly purchasing the ticket with the credit card and then having time to pay it off and save up for my sister's family trip to come see us in March. I was really excited and told my family over the phone this week. I knew that I shouldn't have done that because I decided to recheck. The prices had gone up all across the board! Now it would cost as much to go out in October as it would if I went in December! What's a girl to do with such a limited budget? It would take us about 5 1/2 months to pay off the credit card again compared to the 4 months with the reduced price. Gordon is away on exercise so we haven't been able to talk about the possibilities. In the back of my mind, I know that these are tests to try my patience and what not but at times I really wish that they would stop testing me and let me be able to go home! The fact is that we do need to save for Ali's trip out here to pay for groceries and the rental of the welfare house and trips to places, gas is expensive! We'll figure something out but for now it looks like I can't go home when I planned. Let's just hope that Air New Zealand does some deal that I can take advantage of and go home this year. Okay, I just checked the Air New Zealand website again and it looks like they reduced the prices. I guess I just have to keep an eye on the website and strike when the iron is hot.

I'm still embroidering some cards and I just received the check for my last batch of cards. Etsy is taking longer to set-up than I hoped for. Windows vista is not my friend when I try to set-up a logo it won't let me put my picture where I want it to go and it won't align with my font that I chose. I long for the Windows XP days when I could set-up and not have to look around for something on the weird drop bars that they have now. Its even hard to find the help function at times. It will get there though and Gordon has offered to help me with making cards so I should start cranking them out so we can have a little cushion for savings and extra expenses.

An opportunity has come along but I'm not sure if I want to take it. I've been wondering about becoming a consultant for either Creative Memories or Mary Kay. I haven't been pushed to do it but I have been thinking about it. I'm not terribly sure about Mary Kay due to their prices. I just ordered a Microdermabrasion set and that's going to set me back for a bit but I need it to clear my face up. Both consultants asked me about it. I think that I would be more inclined to do the Creative Memories workshops and consulting even if it just brought in a couple of dollars a month, it would still be something wouldn't it? The thing is trying to find a space in order to do the workshops and getting customers. There are plenty of elderly ladies around Marton that I think would enjoy putting the pictures into something permanent if they had resources to as well as women my age. Its just something that I've really been thinking about lately.

I'm also looking into volunteer opportunities. I was contacted by the Palmerston North Environmental Community Trust recently. I was reading short bios on the Trustees and they seem extraordinary. I don't know if I could be at their calibre because they all have jobs at universities and such. I guess that I could offer a unique perspective though as well being a recent graduate from uni and trying to put their practices in the home. There are also opportunities to be a volunteer budgeter in Marton and giving my time at an elderly home there as well. Its just picking up the phone that I'm having a hard time with and contacting them. I'm still not very sure about the Environmental Community Trust though. I would like the budgeting and elderly home thing though because they are located close to Bulls.

Gordon and I have started looking into the house market as well. Our limit is $200,000 due to us probably going the "Welcome Home" loan route. I found some things out about the loan that I didn't know before when I was talking to a property broker at an open house. We have to pay for an evaluation of the house for the Welcome Home people to approve our loan and we can only get a loan for the house, nothing extra for renovations or anything. So Gordon and I are working on building a deposit for our loan, even though with the loan there is no need for a deposit. We could also save that money for any extra renovations that we would want to do. More than likely, we would have to look for a house that is in good condition and in our price range. I saw some houses that were extra but apparently we may be able to bring the price down to $200K. They were really nice and I fell in love with them.

I can't get carried away though, this is one time that I have to have a level-head. Gordon wants to wait for a couple of years before we even start the home-buying process, gives us time to save up money and pay off my airline tickets. I almost wonder if we shouldn't devote all the money we were putting into the credit card towards our house loan, at least something like every other month or so. We will need a little extra for Christmas time and groceries. It is good to wait because knowing our luck once we bought a house Gordon would get promoted and then sent to Woodbourne or Whenuapi. I wonder if we just shouldn't wait until Gordon wants to go to Woodbourne because he probably will stay in the Air Force for his career. Its all a bit scary and daunting but we'll see what happens. Gordon should tell me not to look at houses anymore, actually I should keep telling myself that.

The battery on Gordon's computer has totally burned out or something. It won't charge anymore so we may have to look at buying a new battery or something. I'm not sure how good Compaq computers are. I usually stick with Toshiba because they are very good computers and I've never had problems with them. I only had to replace the last one because the screen crystals were broken somehow while the computer was in my backpack. Gordon is going to need his computer when he goes on his Sergeants training course so we are working on getting my Gateway up and running. We haven't plugged it in yet because I'm so terrified have having the circuit short-out again. I have backed-up Gordon's computer onto my external hard drive so we have all the wedding pictures and documents and budget on there so that's good in case anything happens.

The women's fellowship was last week. It didn't interest me very much because it was a woman from a health care organization that specializes in medical alarms. I don't need one of those right now. I did try and pay attention though to listen to the stories about how the medical alarm has helped a lot of elderly people in getting the help they need when they fall or something else happens to them. As I was driving home I was wondering about women's fellowship. I see it as a great thing because it allows me to get out of the house and socialize with members of the congregation. Then I had an idea, well it was more of a brainstorm. Why wasn't there a women's fellowship in the evening for those working women and mothers? I've been thinking about it a lot and think that the church could use something like this to bring in new people. To offer a social aspect to congregation that may appeal to new people. Besides, the church is working on being more welcome to new comers and I think that this would be a way to get to know people in the congregation. I still have to talk to one of the church members about it but I'm working up the courage to. I think this is something that I'm really motivated to do and someone is pushing me to make this idea into reality.

Okay, well I think that about does it for this installment of my blog. Gordon doesn't get home until Friday which is why I actually had time to take care of this. I have been proud of myself though, I must be starting to feel comfortable in my home. I only check the locks and bedroom once at night before I go to bed. I even sleep with all the lights off. I practice deep breathing to calm myself and remind myself that majority of the noises that I hear are due to the fridge. I'm a constant work in progress and I'm still counting down the nights, only three more to go, until Gordon is back with me. Then we can snuggle and drift out to dreamland like we usually do. It can be hard to go to sleep without him now. I'm so used to having his arm under my neck that my pillow and back ache from not having him there for support. Its funny the things we get used to doing with our partners. Everyone have a good week and special good week to my nieces who are spending their birthdays in Disneyland! Aunt Nene loves you and hopes that you get to ride Space and Splash Mountain and the Toy Story Ride lots of times! I wish I was there with you!