Day 117

So last night I remembered exactly why I hate Wal-Mart. I will preface with this: it was raining. I had to go after work, which is never a good time to grocery shop. And the Wal-Mart closest to our house isn't in the greatest area. Read: the ink cartridges are behind lock-and-key. Nice.

I had a gigantic list of things we needed. From salsa to deodorant to an over-the-door shoe organizer, we needed it all, and I even took a few minutes at work to categorize the list by department in an attempt to minimize the store-crossing. The minute I pulled into the parking lot, I knew I would be cutting the list short, and going home with the bare minimum. As I said, it was raining, and, as usual, the parking lot had an annoyingly high ratio of cars to shopping carts. Okay fine, those three carts can keep their close parking spot, I'll just park far away, at least I have my new mini umbrella.

The rest of trip was one mini-disaster after another. The few carts that had made it inside were dripping wet, the green bell peppers were near-rotted, there was only one can of black beans left, and it was off-brand and dented (can I get a discount for that?), the over-the-door show organizer was in the kitchen supplies (??), and on and on and on. So on top of the wet crowd and the check-out attendant's rude demeanor, my only consoluation was this: it's cheap.

Day 73

Okay, so it's been so shamefully long since I've posted. I wish I could say that I've been super busy doing lots of exciting things that have kept me far, far away from a computer, but nothing could be farther from the truth! Actually, I just haven't quite figured this whole "blog" thing out, and am pretty sure that almost nothing happens in our life that is worth writing about! Yesterday, I decided that that was pretty sad. So here's to getting into trouble, or something, worth posting!

In the mean time, you may just have to endure either loooong breaks between posts, or just some pretty boring posts. For Lindsay's sake, let's hope it's the latter.

Day 26

Well, I'm sort of officially Mrs. Bonds - or at least that's what my driver's license says. Pretty weird!

In honor of this milestone, I'll tell you about another one. The other night, Tuesday, I think it was, I burned my first dinner. Actually, to be more specific, I burned a couple of tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil on the bottom of the oven, not dinner. But there was plenty of smoke, some mad towel-waving to keep the smoke detector from going off, and even a flame or two. Wes was so proud.

See, what had happened was, I was trying a new recipe from my new Barefoot Contessa At Home cookbook (if I ever figure out how to make live links, I'll give you the recipe). I planned to serve my Chicken Piccata with my go-to recipe for asparagus. Snap off the ends, place on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper and little minced garlic and bake until tender. Pretty easy, and I've done it a handful of times. This time, however, I decided to be "smart" and put the garlic bread on the same cookie sheet and pushed the asparagus to the end. Turned out to be not-so-smart, actually, because the olive oil dripped off the end, smoked like there was no tomorrow and sent me (and the cat) into a little bit of a panic. So now I guess I can say that I've burned my first meal, and since all of it was still completely edible (and tasty, to boot!), I'll take it.

In the beginning ...

Dang, I've always hated intro paragraphs. So I'll think I'll just skip that part - it's my blog, right? I'm writing because I think this is a pretty groovy way to keep in touch with folks and a fun little record of mine and Wes' first year (or more, we'll see) together.

A little about us: we met while working in orientation at Auburn University. Wes now works in project management for a big construction company, and I maintain the Web site for a premium shelter magazine. We were married June 30 on the most beautiful, blessed day of our lives. It was awesome, and I'm still not over it. After a fabulous honeymoon in Charleston (aka, the most lovely, charming city ever), we're just plugging away at life, trying to spend time with each other, our families and friends and our cat, Peepers.

And this, I suppose, is our diary ...