Busy bee.

Well, it's August now. The month of my birthday and wedding anniversary. So I'm pretty excited for all that. But I'll save it for another post.

 My DMO (Distribution Management Office) shipment arrived. I think I mentioned it before(?). But it came a few days early, so I was extremely pleased. So of course I immediately started unpacking everything and trying to find places for it.




<<<That's my 34 packages. They wrapped everything. Even my seabags and bookshelves.

Nothing was broken or damaged!! Yay!! Super happy!

As I was unpacking I came across a little package that was just labeled as "Pin"
I was very confused, so I opened it.

I felt 'something' in my heart, just a bit when I unwrapped it's many folds and it was my corporal chevron.
All that wrapping, and such care for a "Pin". I was a bit touched.

That rank was something I carried for half my time in the service. At one point it meant  a lot to me.
But so much occurred that everything I wanted to do sort of always just fell apart. I don't think I was a bad NCO, and I know I was far from being 'the greatest'. But I actually took pride in the fact I was a Corporal. I wish it would have meant more to the rest of the Corps. They only want to you be an NCO when it's convenient. Otherwise it's preferred you just be a friend, or a good follower.
*Ahem*
Not even going to get into trying to express my thoughts on all of that.
We'll just leave it at the sense of how I might miss certain things about my previous lifestyle, and I did not leave the service without a number of regrets. (Many of which I lose sleep over)
But I've decided not to focus on that anymore, and to just look towards a better future!

So onward!

Our basement is now a complete disaster. Though I bet children would have a ton of fun playing in it.
And this is not even it's final form. I'm pretty sure you can barely see that door in the back now. There is more boxes and paper, and more to come, I'm sure.
I don't want to just throw away everything. The paper is in perfect condition still, and the boxes are pristine. I have no idea what to do with them though! If I had kids they'd be the luckiest ever because they'd be getting some sweet box forts or something. But for now I'm gonna fold them all up and try to save them. Never know when you'll need some huge boxes.


On top of all the unpacking I've been enjoying my time in the kitchen too. So has my husband. Though our bank account reflects the inner pain of how sometimes enjoying good food can be pricey. our grocery bill might be beyond what it needs to be. But we eat all the food, and I think our simple but fun dishes are worth it. Especially when you take into account all I've had is chowhall food mostly.

I even got a bit stereotypical and enjoyed some flavored water that is all the rage on Pinterest nowadays.
Orange Blueberry water. It was super tasty! Though I drink a ridiculous amount of water everyday. So a jarful only lasts a few minutes around me.  I would need a whole case of jars to survive a day. So it was more of a treat than anything I guess.
I reused the berries and orange slices multiple times, they held a lot of flavor. Though I didn't taste much of the blueberries. It was mostly orange.
If I was to make a habit out of enjoying flavored water everyday I'd have to save it for just meals or relaxing time. I did enjoy not drinking just plain water for once, but using fruit at that rate isn't something I should do often. Fruit isn't cheap around here.

 I'm feeling a bit not up to going through all the crazy steps to rotate this picture on google. So we'll all just rotate our faces and see this delicious creation. We were going to have BBQ chicken pizza, but decided that BBQ Chicken Crescent Pizza rolls would be awesome too. We ate all of them. They were way too good.

 The hubs had Gatewatch on Friday, so I didn't see him till Saturday (Gatewatch is exactly what it sounds like. You sit at the front gate and check people's ID's and watch the area. You are only there from open to close, but the shift is 24 hours because then you stay overnight for base security). It's really lame, and probably pointless. But I wanted him to have something to look forward too when coming home, other than just looking forward to coming home. So I decided to try my own hand at some form of crepes.

These aren't overly beautiful or anything. Not sure if they are even technically considered true crepes.

 But they were super delicious!! We've had them twice now, maybe three times. Usually we just spread some creme cheese on them with some fruit, or peanut butter and fruit. They are magical. We definitely over-ate the first time we had them. We're slowly learning control when it comes to delicious meals. (hahaha!)

Our most recent kitchen en devour was curry.
I cannot express how excited I was when I found multiple Asian markets in our area and they carry a lot of interesting things. We've only been to one so far, and it carried the curry cubes I wanted. I'm sure nothing will compare to actually having curry in Japan. But this stuff was pretty darn good! Though we bought hot and extremely hot, but to me, they taste more like extremely mild. So next time gonna spice it up myself, maybe build up a coco's spicy sweat. :P
It was a very thick sauce though, and we had beef cubes, carrots, onions, and potatoes in it. When making it I felt like I was making stew, and then turned it into curry.

I want Yakiniku and Gyudon with all my heart though. I like to whisper it at night in bed before falling asleep, so maybe my husband will dream of meat and want it as bad as I do too. (He just thinks I'm really weird at the moment)

random updater.

So here I am, been almost a month. But not quite. I keep thinking to myself, "Oh! I should put that in my blog!" "Oh! I'll have to keep this in mind...for my blog." And then I end up being too lazy and easily to distracted to get around to it. Soo... Here I am, updating. Considering prepping further updates, so It'll look like I'm task oriented and prepared, but really I just plan ahead for my laziness. 0.o;;
Any who~
Noticed the interface of the website changed. I'm very unhappy with this. I like it the old way, I didn't change to the new way for a reason. I can't find anything!!!
Sucks.
I've been on this cooking fix recently. I want to learn to cook more from-not-out-of-a-box type foods. So homemade tomato soup! 

It was super tasty. I actually ended up making this because of the random ingredients I had in my fridge. Like, celery, carrots, garlic cloves, onions....and it was an easy recipe. So that helped me pick it too. I'm rather low on money this month. So looking up recipes based on what I already have and limiting what I go out and buy, is rather useful. Though, it is much easier (and cheaper) to just buy cheaper food that is practically pre-made for you.  Very unhealthy though, I've looked into it.
While I was waiting for the soup to slow simmer itself to being done I did this:
This is a Totoro (from My Neighbor Totoro by Studio Ghibli) peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I had it as a snack while making tomato soup. The soup was more lunch for the next few days at work. Tiny sandwich, little details, very tasty. 

And following that I started to work on this!! Totoro chocolates! They are so cute!!! For a first time I think I did rather well with them. 

They'll be better next time. First time is always a learning process. :)
I didn't think of these awesome ideas on my own. I wish I could say I did, but I found them on this awesome website: http://www.annathered.com/how-to-bento/characters/
She has lots of cute How-to's about making different character foods. I found it while looking for croquette recipes and she has one to make them look like Domo. Soo...next week's cooking for fun project has already been decided. I'll let you know how it comes out. Super excited!! But check it out if you're interested. She has all sorts of cool stuff scattered throughout her website. It's pretty nifty.

I know my last post I discussed my gardening. I finally got around to uploading the pic of it from my phone: 

Of course this is it before I planted anything or put the fence up around it to keep the dog out. (It's not my dog, it's my house-mate's.) Oddly and shockingly enough it's coming along rather well. I haven't killed anything off yet. Lol! Though the seeds haven't had too much time to grow yet, but I did buy some plants already grown and blooming, and they're doing okay. I worry that they don't get enough sun with how the yard is set up, but I'll be moving this summer, so not much I can do about that. :(

And also interesting thing I did this month: Played Disk Golf. I didn't believe it was a real thing the first time it was mentioned to me. It's real, and it's pretty fun too, regardless of if you're any good at it or not. My right arm and shoulder muscle's were so sore the next day though. Definitely not used to using them like that. XD
Odd thing though: the disk golf course is literally right next to a waste facility plant. 0.o Thankfully enough I didn't get random bouts of turd smells while playing. Luck was with us that day. Though on the list of interesting ideas for mail boxes I think they have the right idea with theirs.

Hilarious!! We were taking pictures of it and a person was driving out of the waste plant and he stopped, rolled down his window and said to us, "That wasn't my idea, just so you know."
Then he drove away.  Random, but funny. I got a kick out of it.

Lastly: before I end this for today, I beat Mass Effect 3!!! I'm about a month or so behind everyone else, but I did beat it. I understand people's upsetness with the endings, and I think next post I shall discuss this further.
And to help with my research I read the Official Mass Effect 3 Guide book. It was insightful, but not extremely helpful. But there are 8 endings involving the three endings you hear people talk about. Just keep that in mind.
And male Shepard and Kaidan forever!! <333 I can't believe you got to romance him as a male. *sparkly eyes*
*ahem* Like I said, next post. We shall discuss. >:D