Rain Drops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

I've been thinking lately about a few of my favorite things. This list is in no way complete, but it's a start.

Finding old mix cd's. My parents cleaned out the room I used to have, and boxed up or threw away a lot of my old things. This was fine by me, as I typically don't have pack-rat tendencies. They gave me a few boxes with trinkets and treasures, and in one of them was a stack of cd's I'd made somewhere around my junior or senior year of high school, as I was just starting to get into music (that wasn't soft rock). On Sunday, I went through those boxes, found those cd's and have been listening to them off and on this week. On the way to work today, I was surprised by my choice of songs on one particular cd. It was quite the eclectic collection of Jimmy Eat World, Phil Collins, and even Hilary Duff (that was the surprise). It's such a fun, almost nostalgic thing to listen to music I once loved for various reasons, and remember it again.

Even though the weather has been completely unreasonable this year, I still love, and always will love spring time. I love the gradual change in the weather, as each morning gets a little warmer, the flowers get a little taller, and the days get longer.

Another favorite thing is baking. I love all kinds of baking, everything from pizza, to bread, to biscuits, to muffins. I love almost all kinds of muffins...blueberry, pumpkin chip, cinnamon, yogurt, banana nut, poppy sead, chocolate chip, and probably most of all brown sugar muffins.

That's all for this one, but stay tuned for more favorite things as I happen upon them!

Poll and Tamales

I know I don't have tons of readers (or probably more than 5) but I set up a poll, because I have a dilemma. And how else do you solve dilemma, besides asking your blog readers... Anyway, I have birthday/tax refund money which I should probably just save, but I think there would be other more fun things to do with it . Let me know what you all think.

Last weekend Daniel and I went up to Gig Harbor and made tamales with his Grandparents. They are up visiting from Arizona, and it was really fun to get to know them better. We started off the morning at 4:00 with an early trip to drop Daniel's parents off at the airport for their cruise/European vacation extrordanaire. We got back after driving through snow, hail, and rain storms (yes, it's April...) and had a yummy mexican breakfast of chorrizo (sp) and egg burros. Then we got to work. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so there won't be any pictures to showcase our efforts, but it took all day! We were still cleaning at 6:30 PM. Daniel's brother took pictures but until I get copies from him, It'll sufice to say that the tamales are excellent, and there will be more tamale making this weekend with pictures!

Birthday Fun

Today is my birthday, and I know it's only 3pm, but so far it has been quite the day. I woke up and Daniel had breakfast for me. He made me a yummy omlet with ham and cheese, and he had an english muffin, and apple all ready(he was going to have oatmeal, grapefruit, and probably something else but I said I would be fine without all that food). Then, I came to work and my coworkers have decorated my desk. There are birthday decorations and fresh flowers to enjoy. They also ordered pizza for lunch today, and Dana made a very tasty chocolate cake. My coworkers invited Daniel to come after his classes, so I picked him up from the bus stop, and had lunch with us. He's so silly, sometimes I forget how funny he is. I do love him, and I'm glad he was able to come visit me at work and have yummy pizza with my work friends. It was all a very fun treat. I'm not usually too into birthdays, but today has been great.

I have an issue where I always want to be just another year older. Not that there's any perks of being 23 instead of 22. I'm sure this year will be great, and as a goal, I'm going to try to enjoy each day without wishing it away. My in-laws are supposed to be coming down tonight, and I think we're going to dinner with them, cause Daniel's grandparents just came into town before they leave on their three week cruise. Last weekend when we were up in Gig Harbor, they had a mini-birthday party for me with a huge chocolate cake, and they gave me pearls. I've always wanted a pearl necklace, and I feel so glamerous wearing it. I'm taking a personal day tomorrow, and We'll probably have dinner with my family tomorrow, and play games or watch a movie or something. I love that I'm having a three day weekend to relax and get stuff done!

Kittens

Because these kittens are so cute, I have to share them with the world.

This chubby fellow is Gilligan
and here we have black bear and Ginger playing
Gilligan again
Skipper
And the loving step father cat: Wesley! sometimes I call him Diablo Gatto...The eyes say it all. he really is a charming cat though . The kittens have Gilligan's Island themed names because their mom was named the professor. Enjoy the pictures and have a wonderful night!

Beautiful Monday

There were several things which were just excellent about yesterday. I really had the best day ever. I woke up and just knew it was going to be good.

Number one on my list of things that made me super happy was that Daniel started class yesterday morning, and I am so grateful! Each class he takes is one class closer to when he graduates, and we get to move on from being poor students. I feel so good about this new step forward. It was great talking to him over dinner about the things they talked about, and what he thinks this quarter will be like. I only wish I'd taken some of my psychology classes with him at BYU-I. He had some funny theory about Freud and Bananas. I told him to share it with the class tomorrow. We'll see.

Another thing that totally made my day yesterday was my new addition to my desk at work. I got an early birthday present from my mother-in-law on Saturday. I've been doing research on orchids, and have always loved them. At costco they had really healthy looking exotic orchids, and I got one! It came to work with me yesterday, and just sat there looking happy and warm and summery all day. What a simple pleasure!

Another happy point yesterday was dinner. I thought there was nothing to make and we'd have to run to the grocery store. Fortunately I had a moment of brilliance and made delicious chicken enchiladas, and will now have something other than a sandwich or yogurt to eat for lunch today. Daniel and I recently decided to try cooking with a bell pepper, so we added some to our enchiladas, and it tasted great and added some pretty red.

After dinner my parents stopped by for a few minutes to see our baby kitties. These kittens are now three weeks old, and wandering all over. The one I call Ginger has even started climbing and trying to run. They're at such a cute stage now where the're still a little wobbly, but making daily improvements. I'll put pictures up soon. I just need to get batteries for my camera so I can turn it on long enough to use it.

Hope you're all having a terrific April 1st!