CAMPING?!?!

Yes you read the title right....CAMPING....

One of Eric's work friends invited us camping this weekend.....we were originally going to go to an Omaha Royals baseball game with friends from church but to many people were going out of town so it got canceled

When my brother called yesterday I mentioned our plans and his response....."you're not really a camping kind of girl".....my response...."I know"

So wish us luck and I'm sure we will have stories and pictures to come.......AHH!! I haven't been camping since I was in grade school when we had Daddy Camp Trips with Dad, Brent and Me.....at least I've been, one of the other couples that's going his wife has NEVER been camping. Should be an interesting weekend....I better go get some OFF WOODS Insect Repellent. Yikes.

I got Tagged....

Well I'm not usually one for chain STUFF.....BUT I'll give it a try today!

1. What’s your staple meal (ie. what meal do you cook most often when you can’t be bothered to be adventurous)?

PIZZA!!! No its not takeout.....I make my healthy homemade pizza made with part whole-wheat flour.....you can't even tell the difference....pepperoni is our flavor of choice


2. What do you want to be when you grow up?

Teacher.....I would seriously bargain with my classmates to take there workbooks home at the end of the school year to play teacher with all summer long.....I would get SO frustrated with my brother (my lone pupil) because he wasn't mastering my spelling tests (I mean he was only 2 years younger than me) I'm telling you that's why my brother is such a SMARTY PANTS!

3. What book are you reading at the moment (if any)?

Eternal on the Water by Joseph Monninkger BUT I should probably should be reading some management book about how to manage tattle tales (seriuosly sometimes I think I'm playing referee at work between siblings)

4. How do you relax?

Running! YES I know CRAZY! I ran at 6 this morning and it was AWESOME! I don't know why I don't do it everyday.

Read! It's an escape.....

5. What color are the interior walls of your home?

I would like to plead that we haven't lived here for THAT long.....but right now all but one room is the tan that was on the wall when we bought it.....I am trying to figure out what I want to do! Our office is PRETTY in Purple and Grey.....if you remember we had quite the time trying to find the PERFECT GREY!

6. What is your guiltiest pleasure?

HANDS DOWN........Raw cookie dough.....I will make cookies just to eat the dough (Ask my husband...I rarely eat more than a couple of the baked cookies and one of us ends up taking them to work so they don't end up going in the trash)

YEAH, YEAH, YEAH......I know don't consume raw eggs....WHATEVER....its SO GOOD!

7. What time is bedtime and getting up time?

You know when you were younger and you HATED that you're parents made you go to bed at 10:00.....well it stuck around....granted my hubby gets up SUPER EARLY to go to work so he needs his beauty sleep.....technically I wake up the first time at 5 when Eric's alarm goes off.....maybe 5:10 if he hits snooze.....then at 5:30 when he kisses me good bye......at 6:00 my alarm goes off to go run BUT lately I get back in bed and GET UP at 7:00 (I REALLY like my sleep :-)

8. How long do you spend reading blogs (per day or per week)?

More than I should.... :-)


Now I am supposed to tag other people, so I will try Elizabeth at Everything in Moderation and Megan at Coffeehouse and Rachel at Keepin' Up With The Kelly's. Well I better get back to watching the Bachelorette....I know guilty pleasure.....DON'T JUDGE!

Wrong Choice....

Well.....Tuesday night is NOT the night to go to Applebee's....why you might ask? Because kids eat for 99 cents.......no we didn't know before we went.....but it became more apparent as our meal went on for sure.....I do believe we were the only people in the joint that didn't have some tag alongs. (I'm not a huge fan of Applebees but Eric won a gift certificate at a golf tourney recently and won't stop offering to take me there)

Well there is never a dull moment at work and today proved to be no different. I am hiring in my department and I conducted a rather interesting interview today. First off I knew I was in trouble when the front desk called me and told me my interview was there to see me.....and I got a heads up that they didn't speak English.....YIKES! Well she brought her brother to serve as a translator (language of choice.....french)....who became inappropriate before we even got into the room where I was going to do the interview. "You're a good girl I can tell you're a good girl"

Well lets say the interview didn't go much better than the introduction. One of my structured interview questions was what kind of training or education do you have that will help you succeed in this position......ANSWER with lots of french translation....."You will see" REALLY!

Much of the interview went this way with the translating brother giving lots of commentary....that wasn't helping there case. At the end he said okay now I have questions for you....Okay I just asked if you have any questions so now would be the time.....

Question: What do you think of her so far?
My answer: Well I have several other candidates that I'm interviewing and we will let you know as previously discussed by mail or phone call the results
Question: That DOESN'T answer my question

OH GOSH!!! I hope the other interviews go better because for obvious reasons I won't be hiring today's candidate.

Weekend of Celebration

Wow where do I start?!?!

First off.....HAPPY FATHERS DAY to my favorite dad out there!

And although I couldn't be there with him today I was happy to hear when I called today that he was doing his favorite thing to do on Father's Day.....cutting wheat in the combine! I think the only thing to make today better for him would be having me ride in the combine with him!!! :-)

We were in Creston, IA last night celebrating Eric's grandma, Carol's 85th birthday! What an accomplishment! We had a great BBQ with family and friends!

Eric and I with the birthday girl!

4 generations! Eric's oldest cousin Kyle and his wife just had the cutest baby boy, Harrison, who will be a month old on Tuesday! First Great-Grandchild!!

Grandpa Krantz and Harrison

Today, Eric's family came over for lunch. It was great to have Floyd and Bonnie, Carol, and Brian and Jillian over to see the house.

I think we need to search a little harder to find a dining room table......Jillian and I had to sit at the bar so we'd have enough room and Alan had to sit in a lawn chair!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO ALL THE DADS OUT THERE!!!

Friday Night Drinks

Well as you can see from the picture above.....Eric and I had a good time tonight! One of the ladies at work had a birthday today and wanted to go to a winery outside of Omaha. Soaring Wings Winery in Springfield, NE.

There was live music!

And a Great view! We paid the $5 cover and then also spent $6 for a wine glass and 5 tickets which got you 1 oz samples of the various wines. It was nice to hang out and relax on such a beautiful night!! We learned that they have live music every Friday night of the summer!! TO FUN! I can't wait to go again!!

Have a GREAT weekend!

Survival

Well I survived the flood of Norfolk, Nebraska. Our first night there we all got phone calls in our rooms to let us know we needed to pack as they may need to evacuate us in the middle of the night if the water kept rising.......we ended up not having to evacuate but as we went to the conference the next day the parking lot next to us (the mall) and almost all of the parking lots across the street were flooded....and not just a little flooded. I feel bad for the families and businesses who are displaced from the flooding. FEMA was staying in our hotel.....trivia information for ya!

By the time our administrator made hotel reservations the only rooms left were suites. SO......we all got way more space than we needed. Our rooms had 2 rooms and 2 TVs. We didn't share rooms because our boss didn't realize the rooms were going to be so separate..... so to get good use out of both TVs I turned both to the news in the morning so no matter what room I was in I got to watch :-)

Bedroom number 1....otherwise known as my changing room

Bedroom Number 2......sleeping quarters

The conference itself was a bit of a snooze but mostly because it was for all disciplines and I only am responsible for 2 sections out of a LOT ......Nutrition and Dental....not sure how excited I am to ask people to open up so I can inspect their mouths but I guess I'll gum my way through it.....haha! The other reason.....the instructor literally read the book to us......I just have a big problem with people reading things to me mostly because I'm a visual learner and I figure we all got through college so we can probably handle reading.......just saying.

But anywho! I'm going to spend some quality time with my hubby who I missed a TON while I was away!!

Weekend O' Fun

This Friday we trekked it down to the Omaha Royals baseball game! Eric's parents invited us to the game and we had never been before so why not?! RIGHT!!

and who did the Royals play.....the Nashville Sounds....thats who!

The night even ended with fireworks! They were really good! We are planning to go to the game on July 3rd with some friends and there is supposed to be fireworks that night too.

Saturday we headed to Iowa for one of Eric's college friends weddings. We had a good time and since it was a Catholic wedding Eric and I decided that we went to church for the weekend.....definitely not the way to look at things but I went into work for a couple of hours.......

Funny Story: We were talking with another couple from K-State before the wedding started and made a comment about the fact it wouldn't be a 30 minute wedding and the couple in front of us turned around and told us it would be good for us........well gosh its not like we don't go to church we just aren't catholic.

I'm headed to Norfolk, NE for most of the week after work tomorrow so not sure how much I will be blogging but have a GREAT week!!

LOVE IT!

Well I really think I've found my place! Which feels AMAZING!!! There is never a dull moment at the long term care facility that I work at and tonight Eric got in on some of the action!! We had a fathers day BBQ and invited their families. I asked Eric to come to sit with residents who's families didn't show. It was also a good opportunity for him to meet some of the residents that I talk about.

Poor Eric he is subject to my jabbering of oh it was so cute when this person said this today.....etc......When I got home tonight I said, "Oh didn't you just love Ed. He's one of my favorite residents!" Eric's response....."well he didn't talk much but yeah I guess he was okay"

Well back to the BBQ we had steak, baked potato, sesame green beans, texas toast and apple pie ala mode. The male residents were SO excited for it. One guy held onto his invitation all day just waiting for 5:00, another made the therapy department take him to the activity room so that he could see where it was going to take place.....and he doesn't get excited about anything. Another would not believe us that we were really having steak! We had a barber shop quartet sing for an hour while they finished up dinner. Eric said one of the residents that sat near him just sang along!

Well afterward the Barber Shop Quartet hung around and ate some apple pie and Eric was visiting with them. Apparently they thought he would make a good bass (if you know Eric.....he doesn't carry a tune to well) and they actually made him sing doe, ra, mi, fa, so, ti, la.....LOL!!!!

I Really Love older adults and am so happy that I have the opportunity to touch peoples lives at the end of life and hopefully I make it a happy time for them and can bring them joy.

Funny Quote of the Day: "One of our male residents stopped me in the hallway and told me that I just looked really classy in my skirt" Well.....I wouldn't categorize the skirt I wore as "classy" more fun and summery but you can make that judgment call.

No judging on how I look....this is after being at work for 11 1/2 hours today.......and if I come home and blog about how much I love my job after a day like that.....its saying something! :-)

HAPPY FRIDAY TO ALL!

Wakin' Up is Hard to Do

......Especially when you don't reset your alarm......Yes at 8:00 this morning I woke up and went OH MY GOSH what time is it! I HATE it when that happens! So here's how it went.....

5:00 a.m. --Eric gets up
5:30 a.m. --Eric leaves and kisses me goodbye and tells me its pouring out so I won't be able to run outside
6:00 a.m. --My alarm goes off...I get up grab it from across the room and lay back down in bed

TIME OUT: This is fairly normal as I get back in bed and reset the alarm for 6:45 or 7:00 because I decide that I don't want to work out and I'd rather sleep.....yep that happens

8:00 a.m. -- OH CRAP! It's 8:00 and my phone is laying open.....yep I didn't even reset the alarm...I fell back asleep before I had a chance....
8:15 a.m. -- I'm out the door....YES you heard right....and no I didn't take a shower so YES I rocked a ponytail
8:30 a.m.-- Rolled into work.....WHEW!!! I made it in time for my 8:45 meeting

My day was good EVEN THOUGH it didn't start as planned and one of my favorite residents threw up shortly after arriving in the dining room tonight for dinner......Puke definitely not something I deal with well so glad I'm not a nurse in this particular instant......but I grabbed a nurse and rubbed his back a bit.....guess its good training for when I have a kid.....or when one of our parents has to move in with us.....UM probably not going to happen :-)

Well Happy Hump Day tomorrow!!

Strawberry Spinach Salad

Eric and I are going to a BBQ with our small group tonight to celebrate the beginning of summer and we will be going on break from meeting regularly for the summer. So what will the dietitian and her husband be bringing tonight......you guessed it (if you looked at the title) Strawberry Spinach Salad!


Here's what you'll need:

-1 package fresh baby spinach
-1 carton fresh strawberries, cut into sections
-1/2 cup slivered almonds
-1/4 cup granulated sugar
-Light Done Right Raspberry Vinaigrette

Sugared Almonds: Place almonds and sugar in saute pan and turn on medium heat. Constantly stir mixture and when sugar is melted and almonds are lightly browned take off of heat and cool on waxed paper.

Toss all ingredients together and enjoy this YUMMY HEALTHY SUMMER SALAD!! The sugared almonds provide a crunchy texture and add a great flavor!

I started training with the contract dietitian today at work and it was a good day and I'm excited about the possibilities and can already see how much of a beneift it will be to have a full time RD on staff and in the building. I am headed to Norfolk next week and I was very excited when the non-smoking car asked me to ride with them......it will be fun to get to know everyone on a different level AND there is free wine from 5-7 at our hotel......YES PLEASE!

Talented Husband

So not only can my husband kill unwelcome creatures but he can also make dinner! Yes I know you all are insanely jealous but he's not up for grabs.....he's all mine!

Last night I got home from work later than Eric and I wanted to go for a run so I asked him to make dinner! What was on the menu......Aloha Chicken Burgers.......YUM!

ALOHA CHICKEN BURGERS from allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 3 slices thick cut bacon
• 2 large hamburger buns, split
• 1 tablespoon softened butter
• 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
• 2 slices Swiss cheese
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 slices pineapple
• 2 slices tomato
• 2 slices of iceberg lettuce

Directions

1. Place chicken breasts into a plastic zipper bag with soy sauce, seal the bag, and marinate in refrigerator for 30 minutes. While chicken is marinating, cook bacon as desired (we cook ours in the microwave)Drain the bacon slices on a paper towel-lined plate, and set aside. Spread cut sides of hamburger buns with butter.
2. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium heat, and lightly oil the grate.
3. Remove the chicken from the soy sauce, and discard the excess soy sauce. Place the chicken breasts onto the preheated grill, and grill until chicken shows good grill marks, is no longer pink inside, and the juices run clear, 4 to 5 minutes per side. When chicken is almost done, brush each piece generously on both sides with teriyaki sauce to finish grilling. Place a slice of Swiss cheese on each chicken breast, and cover with a lid to help the cheese melt onto the chicken.
4. While chicken is grilling, spread the buns open on the grill and cook until toasted and showing grill lines, about 2 minutes. Set the buns aside.
5. To assemble, spread the grilled sides of each bun with mayonnaise, and top each bottom bun with a cooked chicken breast, 1 1/2 slices of bacon, a slice of pineapple, a slice from a head of lettuce, a slice of tomato, and the top bun.

We served with sweet potato fries and a lettuce salad

ENJOY YOUR FRIDAY!!!

Mouse Killing Husband

YES I had another mouse sighting outside the house (thankfully it was outside but not good that they are out there!) It was climbing on our basement window when I went to check the plants.......

MY REACTION: Running into the house.....ERIC COME QUICK!!!!

Him running into the yard without shoes......

ME: KILL IT! Where's the mouse poison?!?!...

Eric: Jill go inside and finish dinner and I will take care of it

ME: Take care of it?!?! Does that mean kill it?!?! I want you to kill it!

Eric: Yes

ME: Okay....you sure you don't want me to watch it

Eric: It can't get out of the window well.....

YHEW! End of story.....Mouse is dead via shovel and across the street in the weeds. Eric will be finding the poison after dinner and setting up a perimeter....(he didn't want to put out poison and then eat....I can understand)

Well better go stir my sweet potato fries....just wanted to let you know about my amazing husband!