Happy Birthday Mr. Cob!

Today is Mr. Cob's 28th Birthday! YAY! He's not much for bithdays, but I love them and think they're a time for celebrating. He's officially in his late twenties, but he'll always be younger than his bride - yes, that's right, I'm a cougar...

Happy Birthday honey! I love you. And now, a photo montage in your honor!

Water Water Everywhere

We just found water dripping down from our dining room ceiling. This is bad and I see lots of money needing to be spent to fix the problem. My question though, how do you have a leaking in the middle floor of your house? This does not make sense to me.

On another note, I think the drought is officially over. This does not make up for the leak.

A Comment about Comments

This is a post to all you readers out there. It came to my attention not too long ago, that I had some strange safety feature installed whereby it made it difficult for people to leave comments. I have now removed said feature. I'm not sure how it got turned on in the first place. Probably has something to do with my questionable knowledge about computers.

Anyway, my point is - the problem has been removed. So please, leave me some comments people! I love comments. I live for comments. Good, bad, ugly comments - I don't really care. Just let me know what you're thinking about what I'm thinking!

So to sum up, I'd love to hear what you think about the Nesting Swans!

Lunch with the Grandparents

This past weekend Mr. Cob and I drove down to have lunch with my grandparents. My grandma's health is starting to wane and we hadn't seen them in a few months, so I decided it was time for a visit.



We got a two-for-one deal since my mom and great-aunt were down visiting as well. My great-aunt wears a necklace with a clock around her neck and my brother has taken to calling her Flava-Flav...she has no clue who this is, but it always makes me smile to see her clock necklace!

It was wonderful to see everyone and catch up - I feel guilty that we don't make the effort to visit more often, but that's going to change. We've decided to take a trip down every other weekend or so for lunch or dinner, or maybe even church. It helps break up their routine and will hopefully give my sweet mama a rest (she is on the road visiting/checking up on them more than you can imagine), as well as give us some precious time together, which is especially important when time may not be on your side. Please say a prayer for my grandma as we await some test results - she's a fighter, this I'm sure. She had one ovary removed when she was younger and told it was unlikely that she'd ever be able to have children. Well she showed them that not only could she have one, she had SEVEN healthy babies! Some might say she was a fertile myrtle!

Cooking without rules

As it turns out, my sausage, cheesy mayo-less breakfast casserole was a success! And easy to make.

1. Brown sausage in a pan with onion. I used 4 Hot Italian sausage links out of the casing and a 1/4 of an onion because that's all the onion I had. These are not exact measurements, so get crazy, use as much or as little as you want! I even threw in some garlic and parsley and Italian seasoning for good measure.

2. Remove from heat and drain excess fat (if you want, if not, don't).

3. Add 1 egg beaten and some cheese to your sausage mixture. I used a handful of Montery Jack, a handful of Cheddar and a bit of Parmesan. (Again, not exact measurements here).

4. In a separate bowl mix 2 cups of Bisquick - (I also added some flour, because I was feeling wild) - with some sour cream (like 1/4 to 1/2 cup) or you could use mayo like the recipe actually called for. And 1 cup of water (or milk, like the recipe called for...) Really, use whatever you have in your kitchen. This will create a dough of sorts.

5. Spray a square casserole dish. Add half of the dough mixture. Then add the sausage/onion/cheese mixture. Then spread the rest of the dough on top (hint: use a spatula that you've run under hot water - this makes it easier).

6. Bake on 375 or 400 (I can't remember) for 30 minutes. And VOILA, you're very own breakfast casserole.



ENJOY! Mr. Cob suggests adding maple syrup to the top. I disagree and thought it was delicious on your own. I also contemplated adding tomatoes, so you could try that too.

On another note, a pot roast is in my crockpot cooking as we speak. And I did 4 loads of laundry yesterday. So maybe I have some superwoman in me yet!

Magic Genie, For my three wishes I'll have [-----], please!

As a wife, I've found there are many expectations I put on myself. I've finally realized that it is ME that is causing much of the stress in my life - well me, and society. As I write this I even feel bad because I'm only a wife...I have yet to add "mother" to my list so should I really be complaining.

But, I am a wife who works full time - some days more than full time. This past week my typical day was: wake at 7, work from 7:30 - 6:00 in the office; come home and eat dinner; work from 8-9:30 or 10 from home. Bed, Repeat. With a day (or many) like that, it leaves little time for laundry, cooking exciting meals, keeping up the house, paying the bills, exercising, relaxing, quality time with the husband and all the other things I enjoy doing. And I feel bad that I can't be a superwoman and get everything done. I should be able to wake up at 5am, exercise for 45 minutes while a load of laundry is washing and a casserole is in the oven. Pay the bills and clean the bathroom all before showering and going to work for the day. But I'm just not a superwoman. And I need to be OK with that.

But, I got to thinking - what would I pawn off (or even pay) someone else to do so that my "list" gets a little shorter? Here's what I've come up with:

1. Cleaning lady - self explanatory (Ask my mom, I've never been an inherently clean person...I've always been content with a little disorganization)

2. Full time chef or food delivery service - take away the guess work, and time necessary to prepare meals. Actually, I'd settle for someone planning out my meals and doing my grocery shopping so that I had everything ready to cook. See, I often lack key ingredients for recipes - example: last night I ran out of sugar while making chocolate chip cookies - I improvised and just used more brown sugar. (Outcome you ask....cakey cookies. But still edible - Mr. Cob loves them). And this morning I've run out of milk, mayo and sugar - so I used water instead of milk in my breakfast casserole and sour cream instead of mayo....we'll see how this turns out. And my coffee is more black than usual - and the brown sugar has made a repeat appearance! At least I'm good at improvising, right...

3. Personal trainer - now this would remove my issue of never knowing what to do when it comes to weight training, but I'd still have to find the time to meet said personal trainer. So I think I'd settle for a treadmill in the house. This way I could run first thing in the morning or while watching TV at night (I don't like running outside in the dark so the treadmill would fix this problem).

4. Laundry service - do you think a cleaning lady would take care of this?? Hum, two for one deal!

5. Lawn service - I spent about 2 hours last weekend weeding and mowing the front lawn but you can barely tell. I thought I would enjoy doing yard work, but I've come to realize that I just don't. I do like being outside, but that's about it.

So pretty much, I'd like to pawn off all my adult responsibilities onto someone else - sigh. This wife thing is a learning process - my juggling skills are improving every day and I just need to be ok with less than perfection.

So here's to hoping I clean the house and go grocery shopping before Mr. Cob's parents get here this weekend - it's the right thing to do.

I'm off to try my breakfast casserole sans milk and mayo - perhaps it'll be amazing and I'll have my next blog post.

List this

It has been yet another BUSY week for the Swans. I have pictures to upload and full stories to share, but for now, here's the SWAN'S LIST OF TEN "BIG" EVENTS FROM THE PAST WEEK:

10. Mr. Cob had his 4 week post-op appointment this Wednesday. The plan was to remove the hard cast and replace it with a removable boot. No such luck - Mr. Cob's bones aren't quite ready. My thoughts - better to be safe than sorry!

9. I avoided a round of layoffs at my job - [insert huge sigh of relief]. I'm very thankful to be employed.

8. I had my last piano lesson for a while - I just didn't make the time to practice lately and it felt like a waste of money. I had a good 4 month run and really learned a lot - i.e. how to read music and play a few handfuls of songs. Next time you are at my house, ask me to play something! I plan on resuming lessons at some point in the future.

7. I had a wardrobe/closet intervention - Katie and Lauren helped me get rid of things that no longer served my higher fashion self. They got a good laugh as I tried on clothes that I've had for over 10 years....and took photos - it's humorous.

6. I promptly went to the gym after said clothes-trying-on extravaganza.

5. I've decided the Swans need a dog. This long weekend we're dog sitting Lydia, our friends' dog and I've fallen in love. Last night after work we went on a long walk and this morning we went on another short walk before work. She's just so loving and I feel safer with a dog around. However, our kitten is not so sure a dog in the house is a good idea....I'm hoping she comes around.

4. I learned that you should always have an extra propane tank for the grill - yes, I ran out of propane while cooking turkey burgers for a group of friends. Luckily my trusty grill pans saved me!

3. I wore these on Saturday night:



And ate dinner here:



And stayed the night here:


2. On Monday night, Mr. Cob and I ate this:



(and it was delicious! We also drank champagne and watched our wedding video...)

Which leads to the NUMBER ONE event of the past week:

1. Mr. Cob and I celebrated our FIRST WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! It has been a fantastic year - my most memorable yet. I can't wait for many many more anniversaries to come.

Happy Anniversary honey, I love you!