Memorial weekend and a deeeelicious dinner

Memorial weekend was great. Saturday I got up at the a-crack of dawn to help my mom with a garage sale. Sunday was church and loooots of napping. Monday we went to a near-by beach town to meet a friend and her new bf and go OUTLET SHOPPING!! WOOHOO!! I love to outlet shop. Unfortunately it was like a jillion degrees and there were like a million people there. Pretty miserable. Plus, right when we walked out of the GAP outlet, a little Asian baby threw up right as we walked past. It was disgusting.

So, going back to work this morning sucked, because I got way too used to sleeping after the 3 day weekend. I wanted to make something delicious and italian for dinner, so I headed over to the trusty Tasty Kitchen site, and found an interesting recipe for Quick & Easy Zesty Sausage Pasta. I improvised and made half the recipe and put the can of diced tomatoes in the chopper to make a thinner sauce. 

I don't have a picture. Lame, I know. But it was really good! And pretty healthy, actually. Had to share. Ok. The end.

Moderate Couponing

I have previously stated my newfound desire to begin couponing. And not just a little bit, but a lot. Enough so that I end up saving big bucks. I know it will be a long time before I turn my garage into an apocolyptal refuge where we can outlast a zombie attack, but I know its good to make some sort of progress.

So, I clipped and clipped and clipped on Sunday afternoon, and printed and printed and printed on Monday. Tuesday I went to Publix because the new ad comes out on Wednesday. Publix does not double coupon amounts like some stores, and really no stores do that in my town. So, I took advantage of their B1G1 deals with the few coupons I had.

This is how I did:

Its not that easy to make out because there are tons of items stacked on top of one another. But for the total, I got $113.19 worth of stuff for $70.38! That is $42.81 worth of savings, for those without a calculator. Not great, like the people that get $5000000 worth of stuff for $1.25, but still pretty good savings nonetheless for my first couponing trip!

Coupons and McGriddles

I watched Extreme Couponing for the first time, all the way through, about a week ago. While I think those women are ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS ( I mean, what housewife really needs 400 cases of Powerade or 90 bottles of hot sauce) I can see how being a diligent couponer in general would be very helpful. So, I've decided to take up the hobby. I am realizing that It will probably take a couple months of collecting coupons before we actually will see some real good deals, and I don't expect to get $200 dollars in groceries for .37 anytime soon, but it doesn't hurt to at least knock a couple bucks off the grand total!

Yesterday marked the BIG 6 for me and BC!! I can't believe how the time has flown. While this has possibly been the suckiest 6 months of my life career-wise, it has been the best six months of my life, period. BC told me this morning he realizes his purpose in life right now definitely involves me and keeping me sane. I totally have to agree. :)

So, since I worked yesterday and didn't get to do anything fun for breakfast, I decided to make him something fun this morning. Up on the menu: sausage McGriddles. His fave.

I researched some yesterday, and found that people had some success in freezing syrup and then breaking it in little pieces. McDonalds has those fun little bits of maple goodness in their sandwiches, so that's the most important thing to recreate.

So here's my picture by picture attempt, but the stupid flash was on for most of them. Boo.

Mmmm, mmmm the pancake batter. I tried to make ours a little healthier with the HeartSmart Bisquik, EggBeaters egg whites, and skim milk.

Get yo skillet ready!

Since the maple syrup didn't freeze enough to break up, I poured it right into the batter. Now, since this is the step I ended up having to take, at this point I should have used maple extract or something. Next time I'll definitely stick the syrup in the freezer for at least overnight, if not longer.

Here is the beginning of the pancakes...

 39,000 pancakes later....

 Love watching the lil bubbles come up :)

 Then,  I cooked up the turkey sausage. I went with turkey to keep with the healthy theme. As you can see, the turkey patties were super tiny, so I made the pancakes super tiny too. Of course, this makes tiny skinny pancakes, so when we made the sandwiches, I put two on top and two on bottom.

Once I could see the light at the end of the pancake tunnel, I started with the eggs. Of course, the eggs were super thin as well, so flipping them was a huge challenge.

The finished product! I gotta say, all in all, not too bad. Of course, they don't taste like the real thing, but the pancakes were sweet, the sausage and egg were savory, and the cheese was perfectly melted :)

BC gave them a thumbs up!

Also, please notice the time on the clock says 9:54. I went into the kitchen at 8:20. YEP. Mcdonald's is about 5 minutes away.

MIA

I've been missing for a good...mmm...few months? Either way, for SOME reason, I still have people visiting my blog. So I figured I shouldn't be MIA forever.

If the cat wasn't the WHOLE way out of the bag, here it is: I failed the bar exam for the second time. Surprisingly, I wasn't as devastated this time. I mean, don't get me wrong, I still balled my eyes out. But this time around, I had relied so very much more on the Lord, praying day in and day out I would pass. Which, I understand sounds selfish. But truly, that's not where my heart was. Its a very long story, and perhaps one day I'll get in to it. Suffice to say, I had grown as a child of God, and as an adult, quite a bit while I was waiting for my results. When I found out a couple days before my results came out that my blog/twitter friend Legally Fabulous didn't pass on her second time, I broke down and sobbed. I sobbed as only a person who has mutually felt that pain could cry. I have never met LF, and might never do so, but when you go through a rare experience that someone else has gone through, you still feel a connection to them through that. I cried for her, what she must be feeling, how hopeless it must feel to read the same results. I cried for me, the fear I had that the same might happen to me, the hopelessness I was struggling with, how I desired so badly to be licensed and make a difference and make my family feel more secure. Ultimately, I also didn't pass.

The short of it is that I got to keep my job. My boss told me later he was breaking the office rule by keeping me. I was eternally grateful. I am making about half of what I could as a licensed attorney at my office, and supporting myself, my husband who is in school, and now a little puppy who eats way too much. I was, and still am, very thankful to still have an income.

I got the scary call to meet with the big boss last week. I was told they were putting me out on leave without pay starting in June. That means no paycheck for two months. No money coming in. Zippo. The plus side, my job is being held for me, and August 1 I'll pick it right back up. Plus, I get time off to study for bar exam attempt #3. Down side: bills, bills, bills. While paying bills is important, passing this test is even more so.

Well that was depressing. In other news, we got a puppy! BC and I are now proud parents of sweet lil Coco. She is precious and sweet and we love her so much! But she has not gotten it though her lil tiny brain to not pee on the carpet. It is stressful. We found her at a local no-kill animal shelter, and she seriously stole our hearts immediately. She'll be 4 months old on the 23rd!

In the last picture she is wearing her Def Leppard t-shirt. She wears clothes like its nbd and I love it, of course. We've also had her buzzed for the summer since then, so she looks much different! I'll have to post some updated pictures.

Also, the 20th marks our 6 month wedding anniversary! Time flies so fast! We got out wedding video today, I cried when I watched it. I had so much fun that day, I would totally do it all over again :)

That's it for now. Bar review starts AGAIN tomorrow. This seriously better be it. I can't hardly take it anymore.