I Cooked Bacon...

For any of you that know me very well you know that I hate bacon.  The way it tastes, smells, texture, grease, all of it.  I refuse to cook it, but I made on exception last night.  So if you know all of this you know how much of a big deal and out of character it is for me to cook it. 

Here's the story: 

Scott has been starting to get sick and when I asked him what  he wanted for dinner he said he wanted soup, potato soup (see recipe posted below).  I told him I would make the soup if he would cook his own bacon.  The thought of cooking it made me feel sick as I have always refused.  The agreement in our marriage from the beginning was that he would cook his own bacon, preferably when I wasn't around.  So I go home from work pick up a few things from the store that I need and head home. 

I get there and start getting the potatoes ready for the soup since that's the longest part.  Once I get them in the pressure cooker I ask Scott when he was going to cook his bacon.  He was working on an assignment he had to do that night and said he would do it when he got to a good stopping point.  I felt bad because he was working hard on school stuff and was sick at the same time so I didn't want to bother him.  So... I pulled the bacon out of the fridge, got out my pan and started to separate the pieces.  I thought to myself, how do you even cook bacon?  You can tell I haven't done this in a very long time.  I turn on the stove, wait for the pan to heat up and put the bacon on.  It started getting all sizzly and greasy and making the weird noises that bacon does and I thought, okay I can do this. 

I decided to make Scott aware of how good of a wife I was.  I said, "I deserve an award, I'm such a nice wife.  Just listen..."  Scott was too busy paying attention to his schoolwork that he completely ignored me so I stormed out of the room since I didn't get the attention I was hoping for.  I went back to cooking the bacon and Scott runs in and tells me thank you so much (he was very grateful!), and he does me a favor and pulls the bacon out of all that nasty grease so I didn't have to.  Anyways, I am making a big deal about a little thing but I was proud of myself for kind of getting over that fear of cooking bacon.  Now I'm not saying that will happen anytime again soon...  Also for the record, I did not eat it just cooked it.

P.S. Here is the recipe of the soup.  My older sister Amber found this recipe a while ago.  It's our go to potato soup recipe now.  Thanks Am!

*Things I do differently: 
-We have the bacon on the side so Scott can add it to his soup.
-I cook the potatoes in the pressure cooker, it's faster.
-For us I cut the recipe in half so we have leftovers but not too much.

Potato Soup

16 strips Bacon
5 large Potatoes
2 cups Chicken Broth
2 cans Cream of Chicken Soup
16 ounce Sour Cream
3 ½ cups Milk
½ large yellow/white Onion
2 cans of Corn, drained

Cook bacon and crumble into small pieces, set aside in small bowl. Simmer onion in small frying pan until tender; add to bacon. Peel and chop potatoes into bite-sized chunks. Boil in large pot until soft (not too soft). Drain potatoes and set aside. In large pot, add bacon, chicken broth, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, milk, onion and corn. Bring to a low boil, stirring often, until thickened. Add potatoes and reduce heat to medium. Salt and pepper to taste; let simmer until desired consistency. Sprinkle cheese on top and serve with rolls.

Yield: 1 large pot of Soup

A Long Weekend Calls For a Long Blog Post:)

So I keep wanting Scott to make a blog post, but life as a medical student in rotations is very busy. I will just have to include a recap of his birthday for him. So here is a look at our holiday weekend, and sorry the blog post is really long!  I guess it makes up for me not blogging very well lately.

Friday, the day before Scott's birthday the weather was amazing, mid 60's! We decided to go out for Korean food down by Columbia's main campus. It was so nice, no coat was needed, I wore a sweater and flats (no boots necessary). It was the perfect night to go out, afterwards we walked around the campus.

So Scott and I have a tradition that on birthdays we decorate the apartment for the other person. This started right when we got married. These are homemade decorations which is fun and you can use creativity. Scott set the bar really high last year with a funny idea to make signs that had pictures of celebrities and a birthday wish from them to me. I decided to follow along with that idea and do that for Scott this year. So when Scott was sleeping Friday night I woke up and hung these up around the apartment. Most of these are people that Scott likes, but I threw in a wildcard because I couldn't resist.

On Saturday, it was Scott's 25th Birthday and Scott woke up to all of his signs. I was still asleep but I could hear him laughing so I went to see him find all of them. Scott opened up his present from me which was The Price is Right game for the Wii. We agreed to only do a small gift for our birthdays, like $25.00 or less. I found the game and I was like, oh perfect, it's on sale and everything. I was so excited to give it to him, he opened it up and we played it. Sad to say, it was not a fun game, it was a huge disappointment. I felt so bad because my only gift I had for him was a flop. I'm working on a replacement gift...

We got ready for the day and headed out the door. When we were getting ready to leave we were determining the outerwear that we needed. It was going to be colder than Friday by 20 degrees, but still didn't sound that bad. Too bad Friday couldn't have been his birthday... So we each put on a coat, and decided we didn't need a scarf or gloves. We were planning on going to lunch on the east side so we decided that on the way we were going to try to win lottery tickets for Wicked. I didn't want Scott to be disappointed if we didn't win since it was his birthday. We headed to the theater to put our names in and it was freezing cold! The wind was so strong and sooo cold! This was our 5th attempt to win cheap tickets for this show, so we weren't holding our breath. Waiting for the drawing it was still really cold! They waited longer to draw the names so we had to wait outside for a while. They drew the names and.... no we didn't win! I thought maybe we'd have a birthday miracle or something, but no.

We decided to walk into a store to warm up and figure out what we were going to do. We decided to head straight to where we were planning on going for lunch. We had to walk a bit longer, but luckily the wind had slowed down. We arrived at our location, Baluchi's. It's really good Indian food right by my work and for lunch everything is 50% off. We love going on Saturdays because it's super cheap for lunch and really good! We are also always the only people in the restaurant---weekends are their slow days because during the week it's filled with people working in the area. We ate our food and of course it did not disappoint. Mmmm I love Indian food. I'm getting hungry thinking about it--and it's only like a block from my work... While we were at lunch, we were talking about an alternative plan for the remainder of the day because it was just too cold to be out and about. The original plan was to go to Standburger to try their famous toasted marshmallow shakes, but because of the cold we were not wanting to eat something cold. We decided to head back home and I would make "Chocolate Lava Cake" for dessert.

On our way home we went down into the subway station, paid and walked through the turnstile only to find out that the "E" train was not running that weekend. We ended up having to take an alternate route that ended up taking a long time waiting for the trains.

On the way home because it had taken a while we were hungry and decided that a donut from the street cart sounded good. To try to be festive I decided to put candles in Scott's donut. I had bought birthday candles, but I could not find them. We decided to use a regular sized candle which was pretty funny. I sang and took these pictures of Scott:

We just chilled the rest of the day, played a few wii games, Scott was able to watch basketball games. I think Scott enjoyed taking his mind off of school for one day. I made the cakes and they turned out really well! I'll post the recipe another day, super easy.

Parts of the day were good, parts were not so good... I can't speak for Scott but it was good to just be able to spend a whole day together, we haven't had much time together lately so it was nice. We are happy now that Scott will be able to rent a car for us and being 25 sounds so much cooler than 24:)

Since we weren't able to do anything amazing for Scott's birthday because of not so pleasant NYC weather pleasant... we are going to do something when it warms up to make up for it. Here's to another year!

P.S. Thanks to everyone who sent their birthday wishes! Scott felt very loved on his birthday. We especially laughed really hard when we read the comments from my sister's kids.
Sunday, I found out it was my last week to teach the 12-13 year old youth sunday school class... I am sad about this. I have really loved teaching them since I don't get to teach for a profession, and I'm going to miss it. I learned so much teaching them.

Monday, I decided it was a day to catch up on the apartment since it was a holiday and I didn't have to work. It also helped that it snowed overnight so I knew it would be a staying indoors kind of day. I feel like I never have enough time to get it really clean. Since I always leave our bedroom for last I decided to start with that first. I worked a long time doing laundry and cleaning, but our apartment looks great! Well our bedroom, living room and kitchen. I still need to finish the extra room and bathroom. How do those of you with houses keep it all clean?  I can barely keep our 2 bedroom apartment in good shape!  It felt good to have a day to get a lot accomplished. We also played Michael Jackson - The Experience, on the Wii. So fun! Scott did a few songs with me, but he was mad I kept beating him!

It was a well needed long weekend!

It's a Special Day!

It is Scotty's 25th Birthday! 

It's a big birthday year...he can finally rent a car for us:)  Feel free to leave a message for the birthday boy!  We'll post later about the festivities...and a picture of the birthday boy. 

Excited for Broadway this Year!

I'm signed up to get emails about shows on Broadway, and I was so excited to see this show opening in March!  I remember watching "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" with my older brother David.  He introduced me to so many musicals, and I give him credit that I am cultured in that regard.  Anyways, this show opening in March---anyone want to go?

I also want to see this show-Wonderland!  It's opening sometime in March too.  This one is a new musical, based on Alice and Wonderland with a New York twist.

American Idol is Back!

This is Scott's least favorite time of the year... when American Idol starts up.  It's my favorite though!

I am a little behind in posting about American Idol this year because I wanted to watch a few episodes before.  So I've watched a few weeks of it, and I love it!  I have decided that I really like all the judges.  For those of you out of the American Idol loop there are 2 new judges this year to replace the old.  Randy Jackson is still a judge, and Steven Tyler (from Aerosmith) and Jennifer Lopez are the new judges.  So I may be a little biased because I am a Steven Tyler fan.  Just ask my family about my Steven Tyler impression:)  I think the judges work well together, and I am not missing the judges that left.  I don't even miss Simon Cowell.  So if you decided not to watch this season because of the new judges, start watching!  I need more people to talk about the show with.

I like this season how they seem to be focusing more on the good singers than the bad.  I used to get so sick of hearing all of the bad people so I think that is better.  There have been a few people that have been really good!  Once they get to the Hollywood episodes I'll start listing my predictions.  I like to pick my favorites early on and see how far they go.  I also like to "judge" the contestants myself, so I hope I don't bore you with my reviews as it goes further.

If you can't stand American Idol, I'm sorry just don't read these kinds of posts:)

1 Year Work Anniversary

I have made it 1 year working at my law firm!  Hurray! 

Other good news... Scotty is home!