This Is What Happens When...

...your husband leaves the door open when he takes the dog out to the dog run.

'Member this??

Well it seems that my bird experiences aren't over yet. After coming home from work last Friday (and talking with my mom over lunch who, coincidentally, had a bird nest of her own built on top of the front porch patio light. The eggs had hatched and they are waiting for them to fly off on their own...we hope...since my 5 yr. old nephew was a disobedient little sh@# and knocked it off and threw them in the window sill) I pitter pattered around my kitchen to fix something to eat and then relax on the couch for a few minutes before I had to get ready for a baby shower. Paul called me and I wandered back into the kitchen while I was on the phone with him.

I stopped dead when I saw bird poop...ON MY COUNTER. A little white plop and a terd. What the......???? I told Paul there was a bird in the house. He said no, that a bird must have flew up underneath the open top of my kitchen garden window and pooped on the screen. The logic (and trajectory) didn't match up and I told him so. While I was proving my point to him, suddenly a loud SCARY flapping sound took off on my right and landed in the garden window that was in question. I screamed. Like a girl. It caught me completely off guard and scared the crap (pun not intended although very fitting) out of me. This bird went crazy trying to get out and knocked down my plants and frames in the window. Paul thought there was someone in my house, not a something until I stopped screaming and told him that I was right about the bird and he was so, so, so wrong!!

K - so I got the bird out of the house by opening the front door. That's all it took. See ya later. I bleached my counter top and wiped things off. Done. I went upstairs to take care of a few more things and I stopped dead...again. It was on my bathroom counter, in the sink, on the bathroom floor, the office chair, the dressor, Paul's alarm clock, and the worst, absolute WORST of it was in the absolute WORST spot. My bed. My freaking BED!!!! Ughh!!

I had little time to clean but I was not letting that sit in my house so I cleaned like I had rocket boosters installed. The sheets went directly into the wash, the bathroom and all surfaces were bleached, toothbrushes thrown away, floors mopped, carpet inspected and vacuumed (although I couldn't see anything, they will be shampooed!!!) and I still have to find the time to go sit in a laundromat and get my comforter washed.

BAHUMBUG!!!!

This Is What Happens When...

I'm becoming quite the professional chef now. I have been to TWO cooking classes so, yeah, I'm a pro. Teresa suggested we take a Contempory Sauce class at Sur La Table a few months ago. She LOVES cooking. She makes stuff up in her head, tweeks recipes all on her own, has fancy French cookbooks, won a pie contest for crying out loud, owns a fancy shmancy ScanPan (gasp!!), watches Top Chef, and this was her third cooking class at Sur La Table. She is obviously much more chefy than me. That's okay - she rocks it.

We arrived at Sur La Table and you know when you walk into a store with lots of fun gadgets, miniature versions of big gadgets & awesomer versions of gadgets you already own and all you want to do is shop for hours and spend money like you have piles and piles of the never-ending stuff shoved in your underwear drawer and other equally nonsensical places ??? That was me.

Screw the cooking class.

Kidding.

Okay so we walked into an awesome professional kitchen and met our chef, Bobby Christy. Just say the name out loud. Bobby Christy. It has a certain flair doesn't it? Bobby Christy. Now whisper it seductively - Bobby Christyyy. He's a nice man who is very passionate (might I add dramatic) about cooking. The chefs, I learned, are very passionate about what they do and like to use the word 'Beautiful' about everything. Not just 'Beautiful' but 'Beauuuuuutiful'. As in, "The sauce will have a beauuutiful satiny, shiny look to it" and "You are looking for a beauuuuuutiful golden brown carmel." Oh and everything has a gender,too. As in, "He just wants to be left alone right now. He knows how to play well with others so he'll tell us when he's done." Awkwaaaaard.

Moving on. I had a GREAT time!! First off we made a beauuuutiful French sauce which was served over (barely) grilled shrimp. We learned how to devein the shrimp - or as I prefer to call it, taking out it's poo vein. I have a hard time eating shrimp for the very fact that they are scavengers so actually de-poo-ing it yourself was somewhat gross. I lived through it though. My poor shrimp were quite massacred due to paranoia that the alien intestines were still there.
And after that we skewered the little suckers right through the poo hole for cooking:

Insert picture of Teresa de-poo-ing a shrimp here. Have to add it when I get home - thought I did but apparently didn't.

Here is Chef Christy making the beauuuutiful sauces to go over the salmon (gag! but I ate it with dignity and because it came straight from the fish market it wasn't that bad....and I was starving):

The sauces were the best part. Absolutely beauuuuuutiful. We agreed that we could have easily just slurped up the sauce from a bowl and been satisfied. I could hardly taste the French sauce over the grilled shrimp but it was good nonetheless. This second one was really fantastic but the third, which was served over barely seared beef (very scary!!!) with roasted red peppers was my favorite. Also the easiest. My kinda sauce right there. With all the barely cooked meat I was a little grossed out, but I decided to trust in the chef who knows what he's doing and I wasn't disappointed. I still won't ever cook it like that myself, though. No. Way.

We were given a small break in between to go shop the store - YAY!!!! Teresa and I snapped this pic real quick and jetted off to Kitchen Heaven to make use of our 10% off priviledges!!

I set out to get a silicone brush. I needed one of these badly! I got the green one:

I really really really really wanted a mini magnetic set of salt and pepper grinders - soooo cute!! - but I resisted because I what I need is a regular size set and I can get those cheaper elsewhere. So I bought a cool palm peeler and palm brush, instead!

Aaaaaaaaaaand, I owe this all to Teresa who very kindly reminded me that I have yet to purchase my fondue pot so that we can have a Fondue party with my acquired Fondue cooking skills. She researched pots for me a loooooong time ago but I just couldn't figure out what one would work best for me.....until this!!!!:

It's all mine. MINE!!! (greedy little laugh inserted here). I will dazzle and shine with my new pot!! Sigh. Isn't it beauuuutiful??

After we ate our last mini meal and enjoyed Bobby Christy's cocoa-covered truffles, he personally walked Teresa and I out the door. As Bobby Christy held open the door for us, he handed me his very own class packet and said "Here are some of my class notes." It was very smooth. I knew right away what his 'notes' were but I still found myself thumbing through the pages as fast as possible to see if I was correct. Second page, on the bottom it read: Bobby - (telephone number). WHAT?!!!! Crud!!! Didn't he see the wedding band? He had to of. What am I suppose to do with his number?? Oh I felt so bad because he was very courageous and put himself out there. But...But...I dunno. On the positive side, it was very flattering. I am so glad Teresa was there to share the moment.

So...This Is What Happens When....I Go To A Cooking Class At Sur La Table!!

Beauuuuuutiful.

Bobby Christy.

This Is What Happens When...

...you give your nephew a swirly.

This was at the birthday celebration Sunday night. He was laughing so hard and twisting in a way that I couldn't even get his head to reach the water till I had some help. Then Bronsynn had this brilliant idea to have Aiden rub his head on me, but unexpectedly on his way to me, he rubbed his head on Paul!! HI.larious!

This Is What Happens When...

...you are a total slacker.

You find yourself scraping off the hearts drawn on your car...at your wedding reception...almost a year and a half ago.

We really did try to wash them right after the wedding but we were in a hurry and they wouldn't come off and left them there with the intent to do it soon after and then time just flew right out the damn window. Oops!

This is What Happens When...

...we Madsen girls get together for our '1st Annual Fudge And Other Equally Tasty Sugared Treats Baking Shindig.' Sunday night we got together for some much needed laughs, carefree livin' and sugar buzzin'. The thing with getting together with my sisters and mom is that we laugh and laugh and laugh. I have some of the funnest times with them.

Here we are in our cute little aprons.....awwww!! Remember when I told you that my mom can't keep her eyes open worth a damn in photographs...and that my sister Amanda is next in line for screwing up the picture?? They struck again.

See me and Amber in the middle looking all pretty and picture perfect? And then the outsiders being dorks? That's pretty much how it goes every time. I have come to accept it.

Bronsynn was along for the ride because, well, she is a Madsen and the only girl grandkid, and she's more like a sister than a niece although still very much a niece...does that make sense?? Anyway, Aiden and Dallin were there for a little bit waiting to be picked up by their Dad and Aiden got to help Bronsynn get the peanut clusters started...he was so excited.

Amanda (she always takes good pictures when she is alone, the dork):

Amber:

Me! (Morgan said I looked like Raggity Ann in my slipper socks and retro apron. Ha! I love Raggity Ann!!):

And all the wonderful sugared treats that we get to snarf down and hand out to blessed neighbors....

Caramels:

English Toffee:

Fudge:

And Peanut Clusters:

also renamed as Steamin' Piles of Poo Stew...for obvious reasons.

Loves it!!

This What Happens When...

...your husband gets mouthy. Take notes ladies.

I can't even remember what he was doing to egg me on, but I was sitting on the bathroom counter getting ready for something and he had me so frustrated that I just whipped my arm around and slapped him. As you can see I have a deadly aim. We both laughed when we saw my hand mark but I didn't feel bad. It was pay back for the time he slammed my head into the bathroom mirror (he's not abusive or anything, just an accident that was so funny it had us both rolling on the floor. Are we weird? Tell me the truth!).

This is What Happens When...

...you get a call at work from your mother and she is in the parking lot of Wal-Mart with your niece and they are locked out of her truck. I go to the house and get her spare key, drive to Wal-mart and pull up to find this:

They were just chillin' in the bed of her truck and laughing at something so hard and the whole scene had me laughing. I grabbed my camera and turned it on so that when I came around the corner I could just snap away. They saw me camera ready and started laughing even harder.

It was really comical actually. Apparently my mother is really funny. She and Bronsynn would go out and do stuff quite often during the summer and this is pretty much what you would find at any given time...just the truck thing was a one time occurence.