Can You Get There From Here?

Working for a half day, doing some last minute packing, and then getting on a red eye flight does "wonders" for a person's sleep.  I don't know why, but I just cannot seem to sleep on airplanes, even when I'm tired, which I certainly was by the time I got on my connecting flight in NYC to go to Iceland.  I did manage to doze a bit here and there, but could not get comfortable enough to fall alseep (perhaps it partially due to the fact that I was stuck in the dreaded middle seat). Sure enough, I was mighty tired when I got to Iceland.  So I mentioned the Blue Lagoon in a previous post, well, after Blue Lagoon, we boarded a bus to our hotel.  We didn't think we were going to get to our hotel because the bus went back to a transfer station, then to the airport, then back to the transfer station, before finally heading to our hotel.  We kept thinking, are we on the right bus?  Will it really take us to our hotel or will we keep going back to the same places (earlier we'd taken this same bus from the airport to the Blue Lagoon).  Anyway, we did finally get on a smaller van at a transfer stop and that took us to our hotel (which btw was great, staff was SO nice and helpful, if you ever go to Iceland, I'd be glad to suggest a hotel to you).  We checked in, went upstairs, and I was so excited to collapse on my bed.  I'm not normally a big napper, but I set the alarm, and fell asleep almost immediately (also unsual for me) and slept soundly for just over an hour.  Then it was time to get ready and head down to the hotel restaurant for a quick dinner before doing a 5 hour evening tour (because that is "smart" planning after just taking a red eye flight and needing to be on the road at 8:30 the following day). Food in Iceland is good, but it's expensive.  I had a salad and it was $10.  The salad was a bit different from salads at home, but it was good (for $10 it better be).  Then it was off to The Golden Circle, which will most likely be my next blog post.  :-)  And I will post pictures. 

I really want to like you, but I just can't

Side Note:  There are more Iceland posts coming, I just want to post pics with them so I need to get my pics all uploaded, etc.  I took over 500, oops.

A week after we looked at the first wedding venue, we looked at two more. Talk about differences.  The first place we looked at, we LOVED.  The place was gorgeous, the man we met with was wonderful, and well, the only thing we didn't like was the price, it was so far the most expensive place on our list.  We were there for over an hour just chatting with him about the place, weddings, etc.  We feared we'd be late to look at the next venue (and we feared we'd take so long there that my fiance would be late for work, yikes!).  I REALLY wanted to like the next venue because the price was great and so was the location, but I was just not impressed.  We showed up, the woman asked, "How many people are you thinking" and lead us to a room.  She said, "Here's the room, here's the room with the lights on" (after putting on the lights), "Do you have any questions?"  I asked two or three questions and then she took us back to the office, gave us a folder, asked if we had any questions.  She didn't go over anything with us.  I mean I guess she can get points for not being pushy, but please, tell me a little bit about the place, go over options with me.  I asked two questions and I think my fiance asked one or two as well.  We asked if they locked in the prices when you booked (one place we looked at did and the other place wouldn't lock them in, but would put a cap on how high they would go).  Someone else who worked there was around and said, "No, but if you look around our prices are very reasonable..." blah blah blah in a snooty voice.  Lady, I didn't say your prices were unreasonable, I just wanted to know if you capped them or not.  Anyway, we were only there for a grand total of 15 minutes and needless to say, this venue (that I REALLY wanted to like) did not make our top four list.  :-(

You Want Me to do WHAT at The Blue Lagoon

So as you probably figured out from a previous blog, I recently went to Iceland (kind of random, huh? but a great time!).  Anyway, getting to Iceland was a bit of an annoyance as we were delayed by weather and "bathroom problems" on a plane.  I can safely say that's the first time I've ever been delayed due to "bathroom problems. (look back two blogs if you're confused by what I mean)." Anyway, we finally got there, a few hours late, but we got there.  And it took some doing to find our bus, but we (I went with a friend from work) eventually found the right bus and headed to the Blue Lagoon.  The Blue Lagoon is great, but you have to shower before you go in.  That's fine and all, but I'm an American of Irish descent (translation:  I don't do public nudity, I don't know if that's really true for Irish people, but I heard once from an Irish person, that they aren't big on naked).  If you expect me to get naked in front of all these people, NO, it's not gonna happen.  After some searching, I was able to find single showers that had doors on them (thank goodness).  I read on-line that you can tell who the American tourists are because they're all hiding behind towels or looking for the non-group showers.  Anyway, funnily enough the lifeguards at the Blue Lagoon are anything, but naked. They are dressed in pants, big coats, and sometimes hats and gloves (it's a bit chilly), nothing like our lifeguards back home.  Long story short, the Blue Lagoon was nice.  The water is WARM, but the 20 seconds it taks you to get your towel and walk from the water back inside is COLD.  I can't imagine doing that in the winter, but people do it.  Okay, that's all for now, but you can be sure there'll be more Iceland posts coming soon.       

1 Venue Down, 10 more to go

Time for another wedding blog (and yes, we really did look at 11 venues, but that's only because people kept suggesting places to us and it could have been more, but some people  never responded to my e-mails).  Anyway, after this one, I'm going to mix things up with some posts on Iceland.  :-)  So it took some doing, but I finally started setting up appointments to see some wedding venues.  I researched a bunch of places on-line, narrowed it down a little bit and then the e-mails began.  And in case you were ever doubting that I am a HUGE dork, here's reason for you to trust me on this, because I confess I typed up three pages worth of info about all the places we were potentially interested in visiting including cost, pros, cons, questions, etc.  (This would later become a little chart, but more on that in another blog.)  At the time, my fiance was working a lot of weekend shifts (I'm glad those days are over!) so that combined with my sometimes busy social calendar on the weekends, meant it took us several months to get through all the venues we wanted to see as with a couple of exceptions we were primarily just visiting places on Saturdays.  I don't know if this happened to you when you were planning a wedding (if you've done so), but you certainly get a variety of responses.  Most people are nice, congratulatory, and eager (or at least pretend to be eager) to meet with you, but some people seem like they could care less.  They don't respond to e-mails or they'll respond to one, but when you e-mail them with a follow up question or to set up a time to meet, they don't respond.  One woman and I went back and forth with like four e-mails (she was very nice, we were just trying to coordinate a date to meet) and then she never responded any more.  Geeze, lady just tell me you don't want my business.    Anyway, I was nervous about our first venue.  We got there too early so we drove around the neighborhood for like 15 minutes (we're dorks) then went in to see it.  The place was nice and the woman was nice, helpful, etc.  She went over various packages with us and gave us a legit estimate.  (And we looked at a BIG book of cakes.)  As I said, I thought the place seemed nice, but my fiance who I never even thought paid that close attention to details said the place was all right, but the carpet and walls needed to be updated.  Um, what?  He notices those things?  Needless to say, I looked much more closely at the rugs and wall after that lol.  But I wonder do people actually pay attention to what the carpets and walls look like at wedding venues?  I never did.  Maybe I'll have to pay closer attention at the two upcoming weddings I'm attending.     

Cars, Planes, and Desserts a.k.a. A Mishmash of Stuff

There is no real theme to this blog, it's just random things I've contemplated blogging about, but didn't have enough to say for a whole blog so hang in there for a few minutes...

1.  I made those chocolate crunch brownies again for a group of friends and they were a hit.  I think I may have found a new favorite dessert.

2.  I recently went to Iceland and my flight was delayed on the runway because someone wouldn't get out of the bathroom.  (I kid you not, I could not make this stuff up, the pilot actually got on the intercom and said we couldn't take off because someone was in the bathroom).  Then it remained delayed because someone had to clean the bathroom and take care of some paperwork, but the captain didn't feel like elaborating.  Um, was someone sick?  If so, my sympathies, but if someone was drunk or being stupid, what the heck?  Did you really feel the need to delay our all ready delayed flight?   

3.  Waiting until four days before a bridal shower to buy a gift is NOT a good idea.  My poor friend is receiving such a mismatch of stuff from me. 

4.  A car at the gym today took up THREE spaces.  Um, my parking is certainly not perfect (and please never ask me to parallel park), but I'm pretty sure taking up THREE spaces is a little rude. 

5.  I like Halloween as much as the next person, but I was a little disturbed to see Halloween decorations out in full force in MID AUGUST.  It seems a tad early. 

Dish 6

Dish 6 was also a dessert and it came as a result of some last minute plans.  My fiance told me between 9:00 and 10:00 on a recent Thursday night that he had invited his friend and his friend's wife to come over the following night.  WHAT?!  I had a ton of things to do that Friday including errands, painting (that will likely appear in a future blog), grocery shopping, etc, clean the house, and now I had to cook a nice dinner.  UGH!  Before I could freak out, he told me he'd told his friend we'd order pizza or something.  Oh, okay, that I could deal with.  So I got up early (well, not that early, but early for me on a day off, it was just after 8:00), painted (which of course took longer than I thought it would), ran some errands (which also took longer than I thought), and before I went to the gym and ran the last couple of errands, I remembered, shoot, this particular friend of my fiance's enjoys my baking and will prbably expect a baked treat so some googling (which also took longer than I thought to find a good treat) produced a "Rich Cheesecake Bars" recipe.  I had all six required ingredients. 
So after errands and the gym, I quickly made the bars, then showered, changed, etc while they were baking and as lucky timing would have it, I was good to go when the timer went off.  They were delicious!  I liked them as did my fiance's friend. The next day we also had company for a little while and I offered them some "Rich Cheesecake Bars" and they liked them too.  Success!  I would gladly make these again.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture.  If I ever make them again, I will take a picture and include it in a future blog.

More Reasons Not to Enjoy Painting

I don't like painting.  Okay, that's not entirely true, I do like those paint your own pottery projects and I've painted a few crafts here and there over the years, and that's kind of fun.  But painting anything in my home?  NO THANK YOU!  When I bought my current home, I painted cabinets, the kitchen, one of the bathrooms, two closets, closet doors, another door, and siding (oh, just thinking about that one still makes me feel ill).  Over the course of a few months, I hired someone to do the bedrooms, the stairway wall, the living room, and the rest of the siding (just thinking about the price of that last one also makes me a little ill).  So once all of these projects were done, I had NO desire to paint anything in here again.  Unfortunately, some previous owner once decided to paint over the upstairs brown trim and baseboards with white paint.  Let's just say in some spots, it looked AWFUL.  You could totally still see the brown.  I've dealt with this for two years and never lost sleep over it or anything, but it's always been on my mental list of house projects to do.  I've found reasons not to do it (being busy, being lazy, not having money for paint, doing other cleaning projects, instead), but eventually, I decided, I needed to get this done.  I promised myself I would do it this summer.  I procrastinated a while, but finally one day I found some motivation and decided this would be the weekend I'd do it.  And a couple of Fridays ago, that's what I did.  I had Fridays off in July and August so one Friday at the end of July, I actually woke up a little after 8:00am and decided today I will paint.  I set everything up and the painting began.  Unfortunately, three hours later, it was nearly done, but I'd dripped on me, the floor (which came up easily), the carpet (which didn't come up so easily), and the stepstool (some came off that easily, some is still there).  I also (stupidly) decided to paint the trim around the downstairs bathroom door and the baseboards in the entryway.  That all came out okay, but I dripped way too much on the floor.  Thank goodness for sponges, nail polish remover, etc.  I never wanted to paint again, but I knew I'd have to touch up a few spots later in the weekend.  It took some serious work to get some of the paint off me, but work I did as I was going to a wedding the next day and didn't want to be covered in paint.  I was busy all day Sunday including Sunday night so Monday I spent about an hour or two (including setting up and cleaning up) touching up the spots that needed to be touched up.  I'm definitely not a good (or neat) painter, but I think I covered up the brown pretty well.  Unfortunately, I once again dripped paint on the floor, my flipflops, the stepstool, and me.  :-/  But it's DONE.

And the planning begins...

So I wrote a while ago that I was going to mention wedding planning in some blogs and instead I just told you about the engagement.  Whoops.  Well, truth be told, we didn't do any planning for a while.  I think that violates all the rules because one of the first things people ask you after, "Can I see the ring?" is, "Do you have a date set yet?"  So there it was a month later, no date, no venues, etc.  We did make a list of people we wanted to invite.  And I did finally start looking at venues on-line and freaked out a bit when I saw the prices and multiplied that by the number of people we wanted to invite.  Seriously, why does a chicken dish cost $23 at say a conference, but you say wedding and that same piece of chicken triples in price?  Is it because of the nice table cloths?  The veggie stand?  The scallops and bacon they pass around?  I have no idea. So while I contemplated playing the lottery, switching to a higher paying career, and my fiance's somewhat joking/somewhat serious idea of getting married in Vegas (I don't really see myself as the getting married in Vegas type, but I know lots of people do it and it works for them, just not my thing) I finally started e-mailing people for information.  That too is a learning experience.  Some people are so nice, full of congratulations and information.  Other people, well, you wonder if they hate their jobs and should perhaps consider a career change.  It's like you're bothering them or something, when really you're going to be giving them a big chunk of your hard-earned $, the least they could do is respond in a timely  manner and be a little kinder.  Oh, and my fiance was working a lot of weekends at the time and I do the Mon-Fri thing so trying find time when we could both go look at these places was also a process.  It took us three or four months to get through them all because of our crazy schedules.  Also, during this time I splurged and bought one of those brides magazines and a friend of mine who was getting married a few months later gave me a bunch of her old magazines (if you are not yet married and ever get one of those magazines, skip the sections entitled the $40,000 wedding, the $68,000 wedding, etc if you do not want to have a mental breakdown).  I also went to a bridal show with my mom.  Mom and I have very different tastes when it comes to clothing, but neither one of us liked any of the wedding dresses at this show.  And can I just add, I am not into feathers, lots of ruffles, etc.   Is that really the in thing right now?  The show was fun and gave me some ideas and shortly afterwards we began looking at venues.  I'll have some stories about some of those experiences in a future blog. 

Dish 5

It's back to desserts.  So for Christmas, someone gave me a jar of dry ingredients for oatmeal scotchies.  Basically, you mix the dry ingredients with eggs, butter, etc, grease the pan, fill the pan, bake, cool, and enjoy.  I don't usually keep oats in the house so I never really make anything that involves oats.  I'm not a huge fan (though I did quite like oatmeal as a kid, I've never really liked oatmeal raisin cookies and I don't even put oats in my "famous" peanut butter fingers), but these were actually quite good.  Maybe I've gained a new tolerance for oats.  Anyway, the jar had been sitting in the cabinet for a while so I wanted to make them before they went bad (I'm not sure how long jars of dry ingredients last for, but certainly not forever, right?).  A friend of mine was hosting a game night so I decided I'd make these that way I could take care of a dessert AND a new dish (AND of course a blog :-)).  I am proud to report that they were mostly a hit.  I believe all but one person liked them.  Of course we were all starving when we got there since we were ordering out for food so anything may have tasted good at that point, but people did continue to munch on them after dinner a bit too.  And one of my friends flat out told me she liked them.  Success! 

5 Cutesy Engagement-Related Things

So we finally told most of the people we thought we wanted/needed to tell (of course later on we realized, oops we didn't tell so and so here and there, but eventually we got there via e-mails, phone calls, text messages, etc).  There were a few people I really wanted to tell in person, but trying to get us all together in the near future never worked so I ended up telling them in e-mails instead.  I never did end up posting it on Facebook (but my mom did), but did it the old-fashioned way, though it's hard to say e-mail and text messaging are old-fashioned since they weren't around when I was a kid.  How times have changed!  So here are just a few cute things that happened in our early engagement days

1.  I got four of the same engagement card (two in the same day).  Unknowingly, two of my friends who are very close friends with each other sent me the same card.  My aunt and grandmother sent me the same card (and though they are mentally close, physically they live at opposite ends of the country so it was pretty funny)

2.  Two of my former colleages came over for dinner one night and when I went to tell them I said I have two pieces of news for you.  After they found out I was engaged (one guessed so I didn't even really get to tell her), one of them said, "Wait, you said two things, are you--"
"No, I'm not pregnant," I yelled!  My other piece of news was work related, but the way I said it, I guess got them thinking hee hee

3.  One of my friends cried (fear not, they were happy tears)

4.  Only a couple of people said, "It's about time!"

5. Having a celebratory engagement drink with two friends  4 months after I got engaged because that was the first time we could all get together (talk about crazy schedules!)

Dish Number 4

Be proud of me bloggers, I did another meal instead of a dessert, aww yea.  :)  It was good too, well, in my opinion, but of course I'm biased.  I made Chicken Divan (the main ingredients, but not the only ones being--chicken (duh), broccoli, cheese, and breadcrumbs).  It was good, but since I made the whole recipe and I'm the only one eating it, I fear I may get sick of it before it's all gone.  I've all ready gotten three meals out of it and I can probably easily get another six.  Too bad my fiance doesn't like broccoli, otherwise he could help me eat it.  So anyway, I made it for dinner one night last week.  You cook the chicken ahead of time, then cook the broccoli, put that on the bottom of the pan, chicken on top and then layer the rest of the stuff on top, cook it for 40 minutes and enjoy!  I will confess the chicken was a LITTLE dry, but that might be because I left it in a bit too long the first time I cooked it, otherwise though it was a good meal.  And if you're one of those people that likes to serve a vegetable with your meal, you don't have to worry about that for this one since a big chunk of the meal is broccoli.  So there you go, dish number four.  But don't get too used to these dinner foods because I can tell you right now dish 5 will be a dessert (I all ready made it, hee hee, gives me a head start for when I have a crazy week at work and don't cook a new dish that week).

Random Olympic Stuff

Random 1:  So if you've read my recent blogs you know I enjoy watching the Olympics, but I'm starting to think I'm becoming too emotional to be watching these games.  I will admit that I cry easily, but this is ridiculous.  I was getting watery-eyed watching the gymnastics the other night.  And today when I heard about a rower from Niger (I THINK; I may have the country wrong and I apologize if I do) who didn't really stand a chance to win, but he went out and did his best and the ginormous crowd kept cheering him on right 'til the end.   It was so nice to see (and course I started to get a little teary-eyed AGAIN).  And don't even get me started on the runner from South Africa (tears again!). 

Random 2:  I'm starting to feel the same way about some of the diving commentators as I do about the gymnastics commentators. 

Random 3:  I get that a gold is better, it means you're number 1 (and in some cases pays better--did you know the medal winners get $ rewards?  I had no idea, I guess you learn something new every day), but honestly, is it really that bad to win a silver or bronze?  It's one of the few cases in sports where being second and third gets you something.  If you come in "second" in the World Series, Super Bowl, etc, you don't get a nice medal.  So I say congrats of course to the gold medal winners, but also to the silver and bronze winners too!  I think you rock. 

Random 4: Do you ever wonder about why some events get more coverage than others?  Like do gymnastics and swimming get so much coverage because people like them and enjoy watching them or do people like them and enjoy watching them because they get so much coverage and are the only things on at the time?  It's one of those what came first the chicken or the egg scenarios.  It's interesting to me that some sports are so much more popular in other countries than here and vice versa. i.e. I read recently that handball is really popular in Iceland. 

Random 5:  I almost feel bad for the lesser known sports.  Did you hear about that badminton (sp?)scandal?  Poor badminton gets so little attention and then they finally get some and it's not the good kind.  And what about judo?  I know nothing about judo, but I just heard an American lady got her first gold.  And I guess some shooter (probably not the proper lingo), which I didn't even know was an Olympic sport got her 5th gold medal in her life at this Olympics.

Size Doesn't Matter...Unless You Want a TV

What is it with men and TVs?  Don't get me wrong, I like tv too.  I'm just not as picky about how big my tv is.  Whoever said size doesn't matter never met a guy who liked to watch tv on a big screen.  When I was a kid, I liked watching tv (still do).  So did my dad (still does).  Unfortunately, at the time, we had one tv in my house.  It was in the family room and if Dad wanted to watch tv he always got priority over me.  Actually, at one point, we had a small black and white tv, but I Think that may have eventually died.  I forget, it's not really relevant to this blog anyway...  So I decided to save my money to buy my own tv.  I saved birthday money, Christmas money, etc and eventually had enough money to buy my own tv (a couple of years later, I saved baby-sitting money and bought a VCR, my how technology has changed).  I was SO excited when I bougt my own (wait for it...) 13 inch tv (do they even still make those any more?).  Now I could watch what I wanted even if my dad was watching tv.  Mind you we didn't have cable at the time so I didn't have tons of options , but I could watch TGIF (remember those shows?) Beverly Hills 90210, A Different World, an assortment of other sitcoms and many other shows over the years.  When I went to college, the tv came with me.  It was with me all four years (including a 4 month stint in Canda).  When I got an apartment while I was in graduate school, the TV came there too (we had a bigger one in the living room, but I still had my little tv in my bedroom).  When I reluctantly moved back home 8 months after graduate school because I finally got a job in my profession, but could not yet afford a house, condo, or apartment, it came back home with me.  In other words, I've had the tv for a long time.  When I bought my current home, I figured a 13 inch tv was a "little" too small to put in my living room, but it would still do in the bedroom.  I didn't bring it over right away because I was taking my time moving in as the place needed some work and I hadn't scheduled the cable guy to come yet.  In the mean time, a friend of mine was trying to get rid of a 27 inch tv and entertainment center.  The entertainment center was NICE.  I loved it.  Now 27 probably seems big to you, but remember I had a 13 inch so 27 was huge lol.  So I bought the entertainment center and tv and eventually got the cable hooked.  Additionally, my boyfriend's (we weren't engaged then) parents were getting a new tv for their bedroom so they gave me their old tv, which I think is 20 something inches, I never measured it, but it's bigger than my 13 incher and smaller than the 27 incher.  So my lil' 13 inch tv stayed at my parents house (where it still is as far as I know).  Life goes on, I get engaged, my fiance starts spending a LOT of time here and really wants a big tv.  Apparently, 27 inches isn't cutting it for him.  So a little over a month ago, he goes out and buys a BIG tv (he wanted to get an even BIGGER tv, but I said no, I don't live in a mansion, we have no room for a 55, 60, 70, or 80 inch tv--um, I didn't even know they had 80 inch tv's until last week).  So he buys this monstrosity (which I guess isn't really a monstrosity, but it seems HUGE to me) and it sits in my guest room/office for over a month until he can find an entertainment center for it.  It's too big for the entertainment center that I LOVED.  His friend coincidentally has one he's trying to get rid of so last week they two them set everything up and now I have a big tv in my home.  I'm getting used to it.  I will confess that when I watched a movie last night, it was kind of nice to see it on a "big" screen.  I still miss my old entertainment center though, it held ALL of my DVDs with room for more as well as board games and photo alburms.  And at Christmas time I could put my Christmas village on it.  I can't complain too much about this TV stand as it was free, but it doesn't hold that many DVDs or many photo albums (I did squeeze the board games in there) and there's no way I can fit my Christmas village on it come December so I'm not sure what I'm going to do then.  But I do believe this is the happiest I've seen my fiance since he got a new job.  Boys and their toys!

Commentary on the Commentary

So as you read in my last blog post, I like the Olympics, but I do have one little complaint.  What is with some of these commentators, especially the ones who do gymnastics?  I get that they are former gymnasts and know LOADS more about gymnastics than I ever will.  I've never done gymastics and aside from the Olympics I don't really ever pay much attention to the sport (though for not paying much attention, I sure am a sap as I teared up a little the night when Jordyn Wieber didn't make it and again the night when Team USA won). I have friends who used to do gymnastics so I've learned a few things here and there, but not much.  However, that being said, I still get a little annoyed with some of the commentators' commentary.  How can you say someone is awful?  They made it to the OLYMPICS as in best athletes in the world right now.  I can barely walk straight so the fact that someone slips slightly on a balance beam that is not even wide enough to fit your foot completely on or bounces a tad when he/she lands does not seem AWFUL to me.  I'm just so amazed by what these girls and guys can do.  I find myself in awe.  I wonder if they'd call Nadia Comaneci's (sp?) performance just okay, I mean she "only" scored perfect 10s.  And yeah, I get that they're not supposed to slip, bounce, fall, etc, but really can you REALLY say they are awful?

Olympic Memories and Excitement

Have you been watching the Olympics?  I have.  I'm hooked.  I'm such a dork, I get excited to watch them (both summer and winter) every other year.  To add to my dorkiness, I enjoy watching the parade of countries at the opening ceremonies because I always learn about a new country (seriously, am I that uneducated?  I had to pull out the itouch and google a few places this year;  I had a globe as a kid, but I'm not sure what happened to it.  I am contemplating putting one of those decorative globes on my wedding registry).  And I like watching how many athletes are competing from each country (Places like Bermuda, and a few countries in Africa that have under 5 and various nations with 7 seem so small compared to the 559ish that the US have or the 300-560 that various European nations have).  Sadly, I missed watching "Queen Elizabetth II's" skydive, thank goodness for YouTube so I could watch it later.  I was talking to my friend about gymnastics last night and she mentioned someone from the '92 Olympics. I didn't think I started watching then, but after giving it some thought, I think that was the first summer Olympics I paid any attention to.  My best friend and I use to play "Olympics" that summer.  We both had pools so we would swim across the pool pretending we were at the Olympics.  I could freestyle and do a bit of a backstroke, but no way could I butterfly well so I just pretended.  I picked freestyle as my event.  We'd dive too at her house (I didn't have a diving board), I think we added the cannon ball as one of the Olympic competitions when we played.  Hey, I all ready told you I was a dork, we didn't have a lot of video games growing up, we had to use our imaginations.  My favorite Olympic sport though was synchronized swimming.   If I were to ever compete in the Olympics (and I fully recognize that will never happen), that's what I wanted to do.  Of course, I still think those women are part mermaid because they can sure hold their breath for a LONG time.  But anyway, this sport combined two things I really liked--swimming and dance.   I also enjoyed watching (still do) swimming, diving, and gymnastics.  In 1996 I paid more attention to the Olympics, who could forget that gymnastics team, but over the next couple of Olympics I also started watching more sports, even sports I didn't necessarily have any interest in.  I'd never paid attention to rowing, kayaking, etc, but here I was watching.  I never felt synchronized swimming got enough attention because I could rarely find it on tv, but I watched what I could when they televised it (we didn't always have cable so I couldn't necessarily see every event like you can nowadays, a quick peek at the tv reveals right now I could watch volleball, fencing or soccer right now, and if that's not enough I could on-demand any previous events).  One or two Olympics ago, I also started liking beach volleyball, still do.  And this year, for some strange reason I've been intrigued by water polo.  It's not a sport I really know anything about, but I keep coming home from work and putting the tv on while I'm making lunch and water polo always seems to be on, so I've found myself watching it and wanting to learn more about this sport.  Oh, and in case you didn't think I was a big enough Olympic dork before, I was supposed to have plans with some friends this Saturday night, but a bunch of people can't make it.  I was bummed at first, but then later I thought, hey that's more Olympics for me to watch.  hee hee.   So yeah, I'm enjoying the Olympics again this year, minus some of the commentary, but I will save that for another blog.    

One (Really Three) Dish Chicken Bake a.k.a. Recipe 3

My third dish (or fourth if we count the frosting on dish two as a sep dish lol) was called One-Dish Chicken Bake.  It's a bit of a silly title as you use more than one dish to make it, but such is life.  It only has 5 ingredients (chicken, stuffing, soup, sour cream, and water).  In other words, it was so easy even I could make it.  :)  It was pretty good.  It's somewhat similar to another chicken dish I've made, but not all the ingredients were the same (both do have chicken, soup, and stuffing) nor were the cooking times and temperatures.  Anyway, I made this one for dinner the other night and it was good.  I had to do something besides desserts sometime.  This one was from a cookbook I've had for a little while.  A while ago my fiance had jury duty and I think it was during a lunch break or something, I forget, anyway, he popped into some book store that was going out of business and they had this cookbook with 1001 recipes in it on clearance for $4.99 so he bought it for me since he knew I was trying to learn to cook more things.  However, given that I'm a picky eater, most of the things I've made in this cookbook are desserts.  :-)  (I did make a chicken dish meal from it once.)  The book does have a good size section on chicken and I do like chicken so you can probably expect a lot of chicken dishes in the next 49 weeks.