Penny doesn't believe in the tooth fairy

Today was a pretty good day other than we both had to work. Penny got knocked out and her teeth pulled. Everything went just fine and she is running around acting like it didn't even happen. She had a weird thing under her skin where she got fixed last month. We thought it might be stitches that didnt dissolve like they should have. We had them take a look at it too and they said everything looks good. They are internal stitches and will dissolve in time. So hopefully that will be the last time we have to go to the vet for awhile.

Today I mowed the lawn for the first time this season. Man that was a mistake. I should have done it alot sooner. The grass was tall, thick, and still a little wet. It was very slow going with our little push mower. Atleast its done now. Its suppost to rain now for a couple of days and it was now or never on the mowing.

Amber made teriyaki chicken burgers tonight. She made them to be sort of like the Hawaiian burger they used to have at Hardees. They were so good. Amber said they were just OK because of the texture. She used canned chicken and not whole breasts. Josh came over for dinner which was a surprise. It was good to see him.

It's only Tuesday...

And we are definately ready for the weekend. Well, I am. Allen actually has to work, so the weekend isn't really the weekend for him, which is sad; but I have to say I can't wait. Work is getting really REALLY hard with all of the job loss...but not going to spend this blog talking about depressing things.

Hopefully all this rain is going to bring us many mushrooms! Keep your fingers crossed.

Going to plant some vegetables this weekend! YEAH! :)

Not much else to say, oh, tomorrow's Penny's big visit to the V-E-T to get her teeth pulled. SHHHH! Don't tell her!

This NASTY picture is from Allen to all of you!

Allen insisted that I post this picture. This is his mouth at the moment. He has bit his lip sooo hard sooo many times that he now has a GIANT knot on the inside of his lip that is about the size of a dime, possible a little bigger. He just keeps biting that same spot over and over, and any one who knows Allen knows how he eats, so this is really no suprise; but still I can't help but feel sorry for him. If anyone has any home remedies to get rid of the knot, besides the obvious eat more carefully, take smalle bites, etc. Allen could use some!

Today was definately the kind of rainy Monday that made me just want to go back home and crawl into bed with a good book.

Yesterday, we had the very best tuna melts either one of us has ever had! Seriously, this recipe is good enough to have at least once a week for sure! We only changed the recipe a little , we used wheat bread instead of french bread, and added sliced tomatoes. The best thing was, it made a delicious hot sandwhich for dinner and then we ate it again today for lunch as cold tuna sandwiches and it was still just as good! You gotta try it!

RECIPE: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mr-Heads-Spicy-Tuna-Melt/Detail.aspx

Saturday night adventures at the Downings

Well yesterday ended up being quite the busy day. We decided against going to Missouri Friday night because Charlotte was scheduled to work until 9pm, and mom needed us to bring over somethings for her corsage. Allen had to work yesterday, but I spent the entire day at Mom and Dad's. First I helped Caleb and Charlotte clean house. I helped so that Charlotte could stop cleaning and start primping. Last night was her senior prom. I helped curl her hair. Which, I don't know if any one out there can honestly know just how much hair that girl really has until you have to curl all of it. She has enough hair on her head to make a full wig for someone else and still have a thick, full head of hair. She looked absolutely beautiful, and her boyfriend Keith is a cutie too. They make a very nice looking couple and he seemed like a very nice gentleman. I'm happy for her. His parents actually came over with him (in a separate vehicle) to pick Charlotte up so that they could take pictures. They actually went to the school to take pictures, so I'm very excited to see those. (I will post up a pic from the house, after I get permission from Charlotte and after I get my camera back. I accidentally left it on Mom and Dad's kitchen table.)

Josh was home this weekend, and Grandma Hazel came over. After Allen and Dad got off work, believe it or not, the whole family (except for Charlotte, or course) went mushroom hunting together. Mom, Dad, Caleb, Josh, Grandma, Allen, Penny and I set off into the woods with high hopes of coming back w/ pounds of mushrooms. After we all finally made it back to the house, the findings were as follows:

Amber: Nothing

Allen: Nada

Josh: Zip

Dad: Zero

Grandma Hazel: Zilch

Caleb: dead animal bone

Penny: a feather

And MOM was the big winner, and her find: ONE STINKING MUSHROOM!

That's right, seven people went mushroom hunting for an hour and half, and came back with ONE mushroom between us all. Never fear though, we know they are out because earlier in the day, Caleb, Charlotte, and I took the dogs, Penny and Mia on a walk and I actually found one mushroom from the driveway, it was about two inches tall just sitting right next to a tree, Caleb also found one small mushroom while on our walk.

So, grand total of mushrooms found : ACTUALLY ACTIVELY MUSHROOM HUNTING-1

WHILE WALKING THE DOGS-2

Something is wrong with this equation! :) Well, we are not giving up. We are supposed to get some rain this week so we will probably be returning next week.

After mushroom hunting we ate a fantastic meal of pork sandwhiches that were made with pork cooked on the grill and the most amazing pork bbq sauce EVER! Dad bought it from his work, where they sell bbq grills. It was called Hot Apricot BBQ sauce. I LOVED IT!

Then Josh had to take some movies back to Blockbuster's in Hannibal so we went him. Caleb, Allen, myself, Penny, and Josh, on an innocent family trip to take back some movies and rent a few more were pulled over by a state trooper! Josh didn't get a ticket. The officer said he pulled us over because we were fluctuating between 71 and 72 miles per hour, but the truth of the matter is we were four people riding in a hot little red car at 9 o'clock on a Saturday night; and he wanted to see what we were up to. I bet he was pretty disappointed when he got to the car and found a tiny dachshund riding in the front seat, and a 13 year old boy in the back seat. I bet he was even more disappointed when Josh told him that we were all related and were on our way to get some movies to watch at home on a Saturday night. PSHHH! 71 or 72 miles per hour...granted that is over the speed limit, but a policeman will VERY RARELY pull someone over for those speeds. In fact Josh said the cop was getting ready to speed past us in the left lane until he got close enough to see there were four people in the car, then he slowed down to get behind us and flipped his lights on. Oh well, it made for an interesting memorable ride to Hannibal.

When we got home we watched "The Day the Earth Stood Still" , the new one. I thought it was a fantastic movie, loved it. Allen said it is quite a bit different from the first one, so even if you have seen the original , I definately recommend this as a rental.

What a great night! Now we just can't wait to see the rest of the pictures from Charlotte's prom.

Magic of Spring

Today was gorgeous again! I love this kind of weather. Not too hot, not too cool, and everything is bursting with color! Minus the allergies, this is definately my favorite time of year. After winter, when everything comes to life again, it's truly an awesome event. Probably next weekend we will have to mow the lawn, maybe even sooner! UGH! Not complaining though because at least we have a yard. We couldn't make it living in a bigger city, too much concrete for us!

Allen made an appointment for Penny to get her teeth pulled next Wednesday. It's not as expensive as we thought it would be , and getting it done could save her life, so it's definately worth it.

I made beef enchilada caserole tonight. Mmmm...pretty good stuff.

Love you all!

Dreaming of Mushrooms

Ok, so, today did not end up being my evaluation. It just ended up being my regular monthly supervisor feedback instead. WHAT A LET DOWN! I was so ready to find out what my raise is going to be. She said the reason she couldn't do it today was the fact that they have to wait for all of my April stats to come in. So, my year review is scheduled for May 4th. That's ok though, I'm still for sure getting the raise, I just have to wait a little bit longer.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous today. On Friday night we are going to go to Missouri to visit Mom and Dad, Caleb, and Charlotte. I get off at 4:30p.m. so we think we are going to have just enough day light left to do some mushroom hunting!!!!! Man on man do I hope we find some of those mushrooms! I haven't had any in YEARS. Seriously I think the last time was while I was in high school, possibly even junior high. It's been so long I can't remember. Allen hasn't had any in a long time too. It should be a pretty good year for them I would think, with the rain we've had and the warming temperatures. We shall see!

So the squirrel finished off the rest of the bird seed in the bird feeder, that devil! He'd better watch out for Allen and his sling shot!

Oh, and in other news, mangoes are 2 for $1 at Hy-Vee...yay! We love mangoes! Is it mangos or mangoes? Hmmm...

A Childhood Favorite...of Allen's.

Well, today we received the DVD Allen has been waiting for. Drumroll please...none other than the first movie to use computer graphics, Disney's 1982 "TRON". Allen said he thought I would hate it, but I didn't. I thought it was pretty creative for it's time, and at least now I can say I've seen it.

Today was much better than yesterday at work. It was actually my one year anniversary. Hard to believe that I've been with the company for a whole year now! Time goes by so quickly. Allen and I are going to blink and will be celebrating our 5 year wedding anniversary! Tomorrow is my one year evaluation. It's actually considered a promotion so the raise I'm going to get is supposed to be pretty substantial. It is only considered a promotion though because my job title changes. I go from being a CA1 to being a CA2, and the way it works is either you move up to CA2 or you lose your job, lol. So not much of a "promotion", but that's what they are calling it at work. I'm really excited about the raise. I will let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Tomorrow for dinner we are eating an altered version of Allen's mom Brenda delicious pork roast that we ate at their house a few weeks ago. I hope ours turns out as good as hers was! Allen is the one that put it together, we are cooking it in the crock pot. Mmmmm! :)

The biggest news of the day: Allen has a new weapon to add to his collection of many- a B52 Daisy Slingshot. We have an evil squirrel that is eating all of our bird seed. He hangs upside down from the clothes line pole we have the feeder on and just helps his happy fat self! He's a little glutton, so Allen bought the slingshot to get rid of him.

So again....I'm still trying to find that magic wand.

UGH! Today was by far one of the worst Monday's I've had since I've been at my job. We were experiencing system issues and were told to tell callers this and have them call back after 1:30. Which I did, very clearly, might I add, yet I still had the few people who still believe that customer service workers bring magic wands to work with them every day.

ME: "Thank you for calling, we're sorry we are experiencing system issues and asking that you please call back after 1:30p.m CST which when we are expected to be up and running again. I'm sorry, but thank you for your patience."

BELIEVER IN MAGIC: "Well I just want to know....Can't you just tell me...But I need to know...I just have one quick question..."

ME: (in my head, and not out loud of course) UMMMM...sure let me pull out my super special magic wand...or, oh you're right I CAN help you because the system issues are only for people who's last name have a K and and E in them. And today is you lucky day and only YOUR lucky day. Pshh!

Allen says that people do that all time at his work too. Like when their ICEE machine is broken or the car wash is out of order.

BELIEVER IN MAGIC: "Did you know your ICEE machine is broken? That the colored liquid in the machine that doesn't look like an icee at all didn't magically turn to ice when it hit my cup after I removed the cup that was clearly placed over the dispenser indicating that it was out of order. Did you know that, huh?

ALLEN: I'm sorry our car wash is out of order right now.

BELIEVER IN MAGIC: "What do you mean it's out of order?"

COME ON PEOPLE!!!! WHAT DOES OUT OF ORDER MEAN? DOES IT MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE COUNTRY?

Ok, now that I have that out of my system... ( well sort of out of my system...I could go on and on for a LONG time, but I won't) a quick run down of the weekend:

Friday night: Bought a wallflower and hand soap from Bath and Body works, as an employee of BCBSIL I was able to get 20% off my whole purchase this weekend! YEAH! Bowling w/ our friends at Tangerine Bowl - FUN!

Saturday: Allen worked, Amber cleaned, Penny slept and tried to eat ponytail holders. Oh and rain, Went to Kate and Alex's birthday part, ate some awesome cake, went to bed way too late,

Sunday: More rain, got up way too late, walked with Penny in the rain, , Allen worked, Amber cleaned, Penny slept and again tried to eat ponytail holders. Went to Mom and Dad's, ate goulash. Went home.

Rinse. Wash. Repeat!

Today after work we walked in the park. And Penny got to see her first ducks! Next time we go we will take some bread!

Hope everyone else had a great weekend! Love you all!

Just a Ho-Hum day...

Not much to report. It was a Thursday! Penny helped me cook dinner tonight. We had "Citrus Chicken and Rice" good recipe. Had to add alot more liquid than what it calls for to get the rice cooked and followed some of the added suggestions in the comments. Also, the recipe takes alot longer than the 35 minutes it says, but was still worth it.

Oh, and tonight we were going to eat a Tangelo for snack, but it smelled like gasoline, no joke, so we didn't eat it. Well, Allen ate a few pieces of it. He's ok so far....lol.

Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Citrus-Chicken-and-Rice/Detail.aspx?prop31=1

There's something in the water...

Making people in Quincy CRAZY and MEAN! UGH!

Well, tonight we had "tasty tuna burgers" and this recipe is DEFINATELY a keeper. We both really like it and it was really cheap to make. Recipe below.

Not much else to say today. We lost Penny's Nylabone for about two hours tonight. LOL! Allen finally found it under the stove. It's clear with a yellowish tint and VERY hard to find on any floor. Oh well! All's well that end's well.

Happy 33rd Anniversay on 4/16/2009 to Allen's parents! We are very happy for them. Mom and Dad we love you! P.S. Check your email! ;)

We didn't give a shout out on here for Matt and Nicole's wedding anniversay, but they celebrated their first wedding anniversay last month. We are very happy for them too! Congratulations! We hope that the happiness and love only grows through the years!

Love you all!

Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Tasty-Tuna-Burgers/Detail.aspx

Bird House and Grocery Shopping and Plant Potting

Well today was a very productive day for us Cooleys. Allen had today off and I took a PTO day, so we slept in a little bit, then we took Penny to South Park together. We planned our meals for the next week and a half, made our grocery list, went grocery shopping, bought a bird house and bird seed, and finally made it home. Allen put up the bird house and he also repotted my aloe plant from Grandma Downing and our Angel plant. We bought new pots at Farm and Home Supply. For anyone looking for a cheap, but attractive flower pot, Wal-Mart is NOT the place! We bought one of the bigger bird houses and hung it on one of the clothes line poles. We can see it from the kitchen! We can't wait until the birds figure out it's there. We also watched American Idol tonight. As always Adam Lambert was AMAZING. The guy is seriously going to go all the way. What an an unbelievable performer. We get excited just watching him on TV, can you imagine if we ever got to see him live! He's going to be a super star, no doubt!

Oh! Usually on Idol nights we buy a frozen pizza and eat it. We've been getting this pretty good BBQ chicken pizza lately and tonight I decided to make one at home...I'm not one to brag (too much...lol) but it was AWESOME. Not completely perfect though. Next time I make it I will use a different type of BBQ sauce but it was still really good! I used Betty Crocker pizza dough mix, Kraft Honey Garlic BBQ sauce, red onion, canned chicken (much cheaper than buying chicken from the meat dept.), chopped red bell pepper, cilantro, sliced roma tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. I brushed a little olive oil on the outer crust, dusted it with garlic powder and sprinkled on a little basil. I will make it again soon!

Well that's all for now. Hope everyone is having a great week! Love you!

Rainy Mondays Are the Best

Can't you hear the sarcasm in our voices! We had such a great weekend in Sturgeon. It's just never never long enough. We could spend days and days there! We missed our family in Northeast Missouri, too! Hope everyone had as great of a weekend as we had. Of course today was back to the grind. Bleh....had a pretty good dinner tonight. Main course recipe below. Pics from Easter Weekend uploaded and added to the side bar. Link below also. Love you all! :) ooooh and if any one is wondering what the wierd red triangle on my chest is....I got sunburned this weekend LOL!


Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Ground-Beef-Stroganoff/Detail.aspx?prop31=4
Easter Pics: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Ground-Beef-Stroganoff/Detail.aspx?prop31=4

Adam Lambert Rocks!!

Ok ok, so we are a bunch of nerds but we watch American Idol every week. The best by far (and IMHO the best ever on the show) is Adam Lambert. He is in a total different league than everyone else. He has a crazy false setto and amazing control over his voice. This week Adam sang "Mad World" by Gary Jules. The judges ran out of time and Simon was the only one to say anything. He stood up and gave him the very first standing O on the show. Everyone that watches Idol is talking about him. I was listening to the Christian rock station on the radio and even the DJ was talking about him. Here is the video of his performance:

Miss Penny, Princess PUNK!

I don't know what has gotten into Penny this evening but she has been a nonstop brat since we got home! Allen walked her the same as he always does, but tonight she has had some extra energy. She'd better start behaving or she's gonna get an attitude adjustment for sure!

I cooked a recipe called "easy cola chicken" well, it was easy, but definately not a keeper. The chicken wasn't gross, but there are MANY other ways we both would prefer our chicken and what a waste of calories. The coke was supposed to make the chicken juicy and add flavor, but as far as we could tell, it just added calories. BLEH! But I did serve it with asparagus simmered in orange juice, another idea from allrecipes.com. Sounded strange, but even Allen agrees it was a good combination. Odd...but good!

Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means only two more days until we head to Sturgeon! YEAH! :)

Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Cola-Chicken/Detail.aspx?prop31=7

Two Hits and A Miss, Oh and Jedi Penny!

"JEDI PENNY"

The Force is with her!

Well, my cooking adventures from allrecipes.com continues! Saturday night was "treat" meal night, which means it was definately not low fat, but absolutely delicious. I can honestly say I was suprised at how good it turned out! Allen LOVED it! Grandma Downing, you will love the name of it, "Iowa Pork Steaks". Served it with garlic mashed potatoes and balsamic glazed carrots. Next time I make it, I won't put as much salt, but other than that, A++ recipe.

Second hit, Lemon Lift Ice Tea. Over the winter last year , Allen and I purchased a TON of flavored teas that we enjoyed hot. I decided while cleaning on Sunday to make a pitcher of our favorite hot tea, Lemon Lift as iced tea. It's definately by far the most amazing ice tea I've ever had and NO SUGAR!

So, the miss, BBQ Beef Burgers. Bleh. Yeah, they tasted ok, but they definately weren't worth the trouble. Seriously, it's just sloppy joes. It's a good recipe to have on hand if you ever really have a craving for sloppy joes and don't have any Manwich on hand, otherwise, it was a waste of time. I served them with seasoned oven-baked sweet potatoes fried and those were GOOD!

This Saturday Penny made her first trip to South Park and went on a walk with two other male dogs, Jessica and Alex's Butch, and Jim and Amy's dog AJ. She was outnumbered being the only female, lol; but I was really proud of her. It was a really nice time. We got to meet alot of other dogs along the way. She LOVED it, and she was pretty pooped afterwards.

Oh and Grandma and Popop finally got to see the new place. Of course boxes are still everywhere and we're not settled yet, but we will be soon! :)

Hope you all had a great weekend!
Recipes
Iowa Pork Steaks: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Iowa-Pork-Steak/Detail.aspx
Balsamic Glazed Carrots:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Balsamic-Glazed-Carrots/Detail.aspx
Seasoned Sweet Potatoes:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ts-Sweet-Potato-Fries/Detail.aspx?prop31=3
BBQ Ground Beef: (I didn't make patties. Just cooked it loose.) http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ground-Beef-Bar-b-que/Detail.aspx?prop31=4

Sour Cream Noodle Bake...ehhh..

So tonight I tried my first recipe from Allrecipes.com. I tried the Sour Cream Noodle Bake. (Recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sour-Cream-Noodle-Bake/Detail.aspx?prop31=1) I made a few adjustment. We used whole grain pasta instead of egg noodles, garlic instead of garlic salt, white onions instead of green onions, used fat free sour cream, and low fat cottage cheese instead of the fatty stuff. Oh, and I added a little bit of cayenne pepper. LOL! Typing it all out like that, with all of those changes, I guess I didn't really use an Allrecipe recipe, I used an Amber/Allrecipe recipe! It was just ok. Nothing spectacular. Just so so. I give it 3 stars. It probably would have been 4 and 1/2 stars if I would have made it with all the fatty ingredients it called for. Allen and I are making a commitment with our new move to have new diets. NO, we are not fad-dieting, we are just going to be making smarter food choices, substituting the good stuff in for the bad stuff as much as we can and watching our portion sizes, a little less meat, a lot more veggies. (Which is almost necessary regardless of whether we want to or not with the price of meat!) On our grocery trip we purchased a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, instead of chips and cookies. We are going to start eating breakfast and not going to take the processed meat sandwhiches for lunch anymore.

LOL! As I am typing this, Allen just told me a funny story. We took lunches today that consisted of a piece of string cheese, one half of a celery stalk w/ 1/3 less fat cream cheese, one half of celery stalk w/ peanut butter and raisins on it, grapes, strawberries, and an apple. All in our nifty little divided food containers we bought at Wal-Mart last night. Allen said that the maintenance man at work saw what Allen was eating for lunch today and asked him if his wife put him up to eating that. Allen responded by saying , "Well, we both want to do it, but it was her idea." and the man said, "What I would have done was thrown it in the trash and bought me some Hardee's. " LOL! Cracks me up!

Well, today was Friday, but it sure doesn't mean much when you have to work on Saturday. I don't have to work Saturdays very often, but Allen gets stuck with them alot. Ho-hum.

Our bathroom has a toilet made for toddlers! LOL!

So, here are two pics of our tiny bathroom. It is definately a TINY bathroom, with a tiny toilet, but it's clean and cute. We are going to buy a wire shelf to put on the wall outside the bathroom soon for all of our towels. We have to find the right one first.

Today, Allen applied for a part time cashier position at Aldi's. They were advertising in the paper $11/hr, which is pretty good. If Allen were to get hired, he would keep his other job too. Can you believe this? They were taking applications from 9 am to 5 pm today. Allen got there right at 12:30p.m. The guy at Aldi's told him they had already accepted 130 applications! CAN YOU IMAGINE! 130 applications for a part time position, in the first 3 1/2 hours!!!! That is how rediculous the job market is around here. I'm not going to talk about it right now, or this would end up being a VERY depressing post. I'll save it for some other rainy day.

Hope everyone has had a great week. Tomorrow is Friday, YAY! :)

Little Penny Dog

I'm sitting here thinking about how little Penny was as a small puppy. She is still a puppy but she looks like a full grown dog now. I thought I would share some videos that we have of her when she was tiny.

Where have all the batteries gone?

Don't you hate it when you need some new batteries, but all the ones you had we stolen by your little brother!!!!!! (Oh yes, Caleb! We know what happened to the batteries! LOL!) But seriously, we need to just suck it and buy a decent supply of the suckers because it seems like everytime we need some they are gone.

So, most of you guys reading this won't care very much about this, but I'm really excited about this website. http://www.allrecipes.com/ is a FANTASTIC website to get recipes. It gives you all different kinds of ways to search for recipes, you can tell if other people have liked the recipes, and if they made any type of substitutions of any kind. I used the website to create our meal plan for the next week. I think I will probably be sharing how the recipes work out , here on our blog.

Not much else to share right now. Except I was wrong about not having to work this weekend. It is actually a divisional Saturday, so I do have to go to work. Bleh. Of course, Allen will be at work too, so we'll both be making that money!