Thanks and What's Up.

First of all, I tried to write a response comment to you fab girls in the last post, but I'm having computer issues.  I won't go into the gory details, but I need to take my laptop baby in to the doctor. 


Thanks so much for all of your great ideas for dinner. 

I want to get that book Cutz was talking about and I went to Trader Joe's and picked up a few things.  Sadly, one of the things that made it into my cart was a chocolate mousse torte that only I liked.  Which means I ate it all in 3 days time.  Impressive, no?  I'm totally getting another one.  It rocked my world.  Thanks Michelle!!  My front butt thanks you, too :)

You know what?  The weather's turning more fall-like and I almost feel like cooking again.

 Noodle is happily living in her new room and she's keeping it neat and tidy!  And like any tweenager, she's in there for hours on end with the door shut.

Did I tell you Noodle's in middle school?  

Boy, is that a saga.  It's been a big deal for us.  The middle school she's attending wasn't our first choice of schools for her.  The test scores aren't great, so we planned on sending her to a college prep charter school with awesome test scores.  However, when we went to the open house for the charter school, we didn't feel good about it.  The principal seemed a little nutty.  Also, there weren't many extra curriculars to choose from and she wouldn't be able to continue her Spanish immersion.  In the end, we chose the not-so-great public school and you know what?  

It's been SO GREAT!!  

She's in the Spanish immersion program still, and she's got an amazing teacher.  Plus, the extra curriculars are awesome and she can resume the violin (it was cut from elementary schools last year) and play volleyball and be on the ski team and the tennis team!  Here she is with her bff and the little sister on the first day of school.
Don't they look old this year??

 

Here she is way back in kinder:

 Grade 2: 

Grade 3: 

 

 Grade 5: 

I started working at a new company this week.  Still as a consulting recipe editor and I love it.  

The last couple of years at my other job have been tough.  

Then in December there was a big change in the company which took away most of my work.  I still get called in occasionally, but my profession has been deeply affected by the recession.  I have only worked about 1/4th of what I used to work.

This new gig came just in time.  You see, Zuddy and I have been going all Dave Ramsey for the last 3 years and we are finally almost done paying off some serious debt.  I'm so looking forward to the freedom we will have starting in January.  I will finally be able to finish the kitchen!!

I've also been struggling a bit with the blogging.  I've been feeling self-conscious about "putting it out there".  I mean, who cares about what I'm doing?  I mean, even I'm bored by me.

Well, not many people know about this thing.  I don't share it with a lot of people and I figure I'll keep at it, just to keep in touch with my pals.  In fact, I should really write in this thing more.  

Thanks for keeping in touch with me, girls!  I'm going to get better about responding to your comments, too.  Just check back in the comment section :)  

Okay.  I'm going to go make some meatballs for my Zuddy.  

Balls of meat.  

Want the recipe?  I'll give it to you later this week.  It's from the cooking school where I used to work. 


Love, Mart