A Lesson Learned

So Sunday night I decided it would be a great idea to make homemade pesto chicken pizza on whole wheat crust. I began making the dough and decided after kneading it in the mixer that it was way too sticky and that I had done something wrong. I added a little more flour and then a little more, and so on until I decided it looked the right consistency to me. This is a little dangerous since I am by no means a dough expert (I have only made like 2 loaves of bread in my entire life). Moving on with dinner, I completed other steps in the pizza making process while the dough rose. I made a very sticky pizza crust and put it on a borrowed pizza stone to prebake for a few minutes. I prebaked for a little too long I believe since it was very brown when I took it out to add the toppings. I added all my toppings and back in the oven for 10 minutes. After about 4 minutes in the oven, smoke began escaping out the stove top. We don't have any kind of over the stove vent, so all the windows were opened. The pizza didn't look too bad, so we sat down for dinner. Slicing the pizza was VERY difficult and it took the two of us working together to chip it off the pizza stone. Zach reported that it tasted good, but my taste buds were tainted by all the happenings up to that point and I can't say I enjoyed it too much. After we chipped off all the slices, I got to cleaning the pizza stone when I heard a call from the dining room. It was Zach informing me that the dining room table was ruined where the pizza had been sitting (on a pizza rack, on a dish clothe, on a place mat). Zach and I have officially caused more damage to our dining room table than had been caused over decades of us by my grandparents and my mom and aunt.

So, you might be asking what the lesson is....Never cook anything that you have not seen someone else successfully cook.

Mr. Fix-It

I wanted to take a moment to give a shout out to my husband for being a Mr. Fix-It this week. He got to go pick out a grill with his birthday money and then he had to assemble it. Well, technically he chose to assemble it because to buy one put together for you cost $10 extra. It was in many, many pieces and he did it in no time.

On that same day, he received some parts he ordered for our lawnmower that broke. He used these pieces to attempt to fix the lawnmower. Some pieces were not quite the right fix, so he went to the store to find better fits and he fixed the lawnmower.

You Rock Zach!!!

Lonely

As many of you know, Sheba has disappeared. More of this in a minute.

This weekend was made of crazy highs and lows. Zach's birthday was on Saturday. He woke up with a headache, but headed out to record with The Farewell Drifters right away. When he came home, he was feeling really poorly. Horrible, possible migraine. He slept for an hour and still felt horrible. We ended up calling Dr. Bob to see what we could do. While I was putting a cold pack on his head, closing blinds, etc., I was thinking he better get better well since people were coming over for his party in just a few hours. Thankfully after some more rest, he was ready to open his birthday gifts (still afraid to move, he opened them in bed). After gifts, he felt that he could get up and so then dinner and a party. The party went really well. And the cake was delicious.

I woke up early on Saturday to help with the children during the first two church services. Then Zach came for the third service to lead the welcome/call to worship and I joined him to attend that service. The church service was amazing. Our church did cardboard testimonies, which were so powerful. If it ends up being posted somewhere, I will be sure to let you know. As the services was ending, Zach asked me if I had seen Sheba that morning. I had not and neither had he. We spent the rest of the day searching for Sheba. She is still missing and we had tried everything we know to do to find her. We have been really sad the past few days. We are praying that she will come home soon.

Where Have I Been?

I am not sure the answer to that question, but I think I have been busy. I think Zach and I had something to do every day this week. The week flew by and so did today even though once again, I am not really sure everything I did, but I will give you some hints.

This morning I had just started running some errands, when the tornado sirens went off and I headed home to check on what was going on. Sure enough there was a band of really bad weather heading towards Nashville. The tornadoes were predicted to go north and south of Nashville and thankfully they did. Unfortunately, south of us, they caused A LOT of damage and took several lives. I am glad that I decided to stay in the house while the weather passed over instead of getting things done that I really wanted to be getting done. While I was at the house, I decided to make Zach's birthday cake (Zach's mom's recipe of course) for tomorrow.

After the weather passed, I headed out the grocery to get some things for the party tomorrow and I made it all the way to the grocery before realizing I forgot my list. So back home I went and then back to the grocery. After the grocery, I got my brakes checked. I had gotten a coupon in the mail for a free brake check. I thought it being free and all that it would be really quick. Boy was I wrong. An hour and a half later, I was finally leaving with a clean bill on the brakes, but told that there is another nail in a tire. With how many nails I have run over, you would think that I work at a construction site. Oh well.

Home I went to make a very quick Shepard's pie that actually turned out decent. I ran a few more errands and then off to church for Good Friday service which I am so glad I did. I came home and decided to test the shark (steam mop thing). I vacuumed and then went through 2 clothes on the shark. I really enjoy seeing how much dirt I clean up. The process to get that dirt up, I don't quick as much enjoy.

And that was my day.

Bad Weather Alert

I tend to not pay much attention to the weather. This really doesn't make much sense since I am out in the weather every day. If the news happens to be on while I am exercises and I catch the weather, I will try to take in the week as a whole. I did happen to catch that they were predicting storms for today earlier this week. I took mental note and all day today I was prepared for bad weather. All through the school day, in and out of my car, the weather was great. I even took my umbrella into a few schools just in case. Nothing. While I was at my last school for the day, the emergency weather radio went off warning of tornado type weather coming towards Nashville. Hmmm tornadoes, I had no idea. It had just begun raining when I was leaving the school. On my way home weather alerts were interrupting the regular programming talking several counties under tornado warnings/watches including Davidson County. When I got home, I turned on the news and took note of the predicted paths of the storms. I needed to be at a continuing education course about 30-40 minutes away by 5pm and I knew that if I waited for this series of storms to pass through that I would not make it, so I hit the road hoping that I could beat the bad stuff and no tornadoes were actually predicted to cross my path. About half way to my destination, there was a weather update informing me that more tornadoes had been spotted and were heading towards my route. I decided that it would be best for me to pull off the road. I took the next exit and took refuge in a Barnes and Noble. I am quite happy I did, because not long after I got into the Barnes and Noble was I informed that a tornado had touched down close enough that we needed to head to the bathrooms of the store for safety. Thankfully, the tornado did not stay down and we just had to stay in that "safe" area for about 10 minutes before we were given the clear. I headed out and continued to my destination. What a night.

GhettoGround Atlanta

We took our sweet time getting up on Sunday morning, which was a wonderful treat. I treated myself to an amazing waffle at the breakfast bar and we headed out to Underground Atlanta. Zach had seen some stuff written about Underground and I had memories of being there as a child so I was ready to go. I specifically remember my siblings and I having our caricatures down in Underground when we were younger and I was really looking forward to having one done with Zach. We head into downtown on the MARTA and walk into Underground Atlanta and immediately realized we were not in our element. Underground has turned ghetto. It was not how I remembered it. There was even a place where you could have your photo made with a backdrop that had a spray painted ghetto Sponge Bob Square Pants on it. This was not how I remembered it. I checked with my mom and she confirmed that this was not what it was like when we were there as children. Even more disappointing was that we could not find anyone doing caricatures. So Sunday was for the most part was a failure. For anyone looking to spend a weekend in Atlanta, I would recommend going to the aquarium on Saturday and then CNN on Sunday. Just a suggestion.

A Long Walk, Etc

Back to the MARTA to find a gallery selling art student's work. We got off and started walking. And we kept walking. The building was not exactly where we thought it was going to be. It felt like a really long walk to get there, but there were some neat buildings on the way there to occupy me for a little bit. We finally made it to walk in and find the gate down and the store closed. The security guard informed us that the students running the store decided to take a "break" until official closing time which was only about 30 minutes away. Bummer! The walk back to the MARTA didn't seem as long as the walk there for whatever reason.

We took the MARTA to our car and we began our search for IKEA. We found it without any troubles and were amazed by the size. I didn't really expect a building the size of at least 3 WalMarts. We began our tour of IKEA. The top floor is all showrooms and the bottom floor is where merch is set out to buy. In one of the showrooms, there was a TV on showing tornadoes heading for Nashville. After exiting IKEA with only a curtain rod, I called Lisa to make sure the tornadoes did not actually hit home. Tornadoes hit not too far out of Nashville, but I was informed our home would be fine.

We hurried back to the hotel to enjoy my #1 amenity in choosing a hotel: the hot tub. I loved winding down and relaxing after walking all day in rain/cold. We were only able to stay a short time because we needed to go eat dinner before places closed. We made reservations at a restaurant called Canoe that was said to be shaped like a canoe. The description sounded nice, but I was not prepared for what we walked into. We were greeted by name and seated a very nice table where we were offered a choice of 3 different types of water. We chose filtered tap. I knew I was out of my league. We began looking through the menu which was one page of food and 3 pages of wine choices. Our waitress asked if we would like tea or a soft drink, indicating she did not take us for 21. How funny! Zach chose the rabbit with ravioli, while I had some kind of salmon/goat cheese appetizer. Zach's meal was unbelievable and mine was really rich. We were given dessert menus and Zach wanted to know what I wanted off the menu. My response..."I really just want my cheerios and M&Ms." And that is just what I ate when I returned to the hotel to end our first day in Atlanta.

Day 2 will only be one blog, I promise.