John's Bday Part 1

I'm currently getting ready for John's birthday. Presents are wrapped. Now there's house cleaning to do, decorating to be done, and I am making chocolate chip cookie bars with mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. He's going to be 27! That's only 3 years away from 30! How did I marry someone so old!? :P He hasn't celebrated his birthday for the last 15 years or something, so I am going all out. I bought him presents, a birthday boy badge thing to wear, I got streamers, Happy Birthday banner, pirate candles, and pirate napkins. It's going to be great. I don't think anyone is ever too old for birthday parties! John is going to make himself his birthday dinner because he wants to. He's making corned beef, asparagus, and twice baked potatoes. I'm so excited! He's on CQ tonight (he has to stay overnight at work) so that he'll have tomorrow off to spend the day at home. When he gets home I will have everything ready and breakfast ready. I'm so excited!!

Then... in 10 days.. is MY birthday!

July Starts With a Bang

I got a twitter! If you have one, mine is @ABitByBritt, I don't use it tons.

Spent the last three days in Illinois working, just to see the fam and make a bit of money doing so. It went by ok, other than locking my keys in the car! I missed John & princess puppy a lot. Helga did flips she was so excited when I walked in the door! I came home to a super clean house & flowers thanks to my amazing husband so it was perfect to have some dinner and relax and not have to worry about that! (I can't relax if my house isn't clean) John's birthday presents finally came in so I am really excited to wrap them and decorate the house for his birthday on Monday. I was getting a little worried about them coming in time so it was relieving when they showed up. Today I am relaxing, enjoying princess puppy & being home. Finally working my way through Dexter Season 4 and waiting for John to get off work. I watched the last NASA take off today. It's so sad to see that program end. I also got a wedding invitation for Kyle Kortz & Hannah Burns' wedding! So happy for them! Not too much else to report. Later this month we are going on a float trip (canoeing) as a birthday gift from me to John. I've never been on one, so I am excited! I have my t-shirt, hat, and 110spf sunscreen ready to go! I'll take lots of pictures for you all. Debating about deleting my facebook again. I have a blog, goodreads, twitter, and facebook and I don't think that's necessary. It takes up a lot of my time for no good reason. Do enough of you read this to be able to do that? Let me know!


I have a story for you all. For those of you who don't know, Mother Nature hates me. Whether it's sunburns, heat exhaustion, poison ivy, storms, tornadoes, etc... She seeks me out. So of course it doesn't storm the 3 days I am in Illinois, but starts raining while I am at the gas station filling up to hit the road. I am in rain the entire drive back to MO and even sat in a thunderstorm in downtown STL. I couldn't see anything it was raining so hard. Well, if you've ever driven on 44, a lot of the interstate is simply cut out of the woods. That means that there are trees lining both sides. Right after getting through the thunderstorm in STL, I see a bunch of cops up ahead. I then found someone Mother Nature hates more than me. From what I could tell, lightning struck a tree and the tree fell on top of a car while it was driving. Therefore there were quite a few cop cars and the cops were all out on the road cutting the tree up trying to get it off the interstate. Crazy! Luckily it didn't do too much damage to the car so I'm sure no one got hurt too badly, but I was glad to know that Mother Nature has more people on her radar than just me! 


Current Read:

Our Home!!

I finally took pictures of our house! Still working on furniture & everything. Oh... and no pics of the living room because It's covered in gear and books. :)

The front on the day we moved in.

Bedroom

Bedroom

Garage (Before it got covered in Army gear)

Bathroom

Laundry Room

Kitchen

Kitchen Table

Our yard.

Back Yard

My sunflowers are getting so big!

My hiding place from tornadoes!

FOOD!

As most of you know John loves to cook & I love to bake. I love his food so much that I take a picture of it every time so when he's deployed I can just look through the pictures to decide what I want to make for dinner. Thought I'd share some of our creations. :)

Sausage, peppers, and rice. 

Chicken & cheesy broccoli rice.

Oatmeal, pecan, and blueberry cookies.

Fried porkchop, greenbeans, and noodles & gravy.

Pork, mashed potatoes, veggies. John calls this recipe "Brittle Pork."

Chicken wings, cheesy rice, and green beans.

Bacon, egg, & cheese biscuit. 

They don't look pretty, but they're from scratch. 

Blueberry, vanilla, orange cupcakes with buttercream icing.

Stir Fry & Rice.

Blueberry Cobbler.

Kielbasa & Cabbage.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Pancakes.

Egg In a Hole & Potatoes.

As you can see... I had a lot of blueberries to use up!

Helga Beth Hufflepuff

She used to be so small...

And now she's SO BIG!

Helga-Mania!

I got a request for more Helga, so here she is!

Helga reading a book:

 Helga sleeping very unladylike:

Helga sleeping in a position that one would think would be uncomfortable:

 Helga being cute, so she probably did something wrong:

Book Review: Rick Riordan- "The Lightning Thief"

Book Review:

Rick Riordan- "The Lightning Thief"

I think I had too high of hopes for this book, because it just wasn't quite up there for me. The basis of the story with the gods and being a demi-god was pretty interesting, but I just didn't fine myself really wanting more or caring what was to happen next. Overall, I'd say it was simply ok. It was cute, not a complete waste of time, and I wouldn't mind reading the others in the series if I had some free time.

3 Stars

Current Read:

J.K. Rowling- "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"

I'm re-reading it because of course I am SO excited for the movie to come out!!!