something's gotta give

and lately it's been this. that's not intentional, it's just that this has fallen a bit on the wayside. however, today in speech class we were assigned to write a short piece (basically just creative writing) that utilizes a list of 'principles of good writing.' i tried to do it, writing in a present active voice that was simply not my own. all my sentences were starting with 'the' and sounded like something in a 'fun with dick and jane' reader. can't writing be too simplistic? i didn't like it and i'm going to try taking one of my blog posts and editing it with these principles. we'll see what happens...

single parenting

just for the weekend. friday night me and jake just hung out and played and watched baseball together. i let him watch an episode of bob the builder and then he got progressively sleepier in the bottom of the 9th. he fell asleep in my arms as we were cuddled on the couch and then i took him up to bed.

on saturday morning, he had two small waffles and then we ventured out to the park. there were a ton of youth soccer and football games going on, but jake mainly enjoyed the climbing and the slides. afterwards, we went to the store where i bought some essentials for the ut-florida game (brats, wings, etc.) and ingredients for spaghetti for sunday dinner. we ate lunch and jake wasn't too keen on taking a nap so he laid in our bed and watched a pooh movie while we both dozed. i woke up with a headache from waking up just a bit too early from the nap, but we got up and straightened up before company came over. kasey and thad arrived around 7 and the game was good for the most part (that is, that little part where florida scored a go-ahead td late in the 4th quarter). during the game, jake watched toy story 1 in our room and fell asleep during toy story 2.

sunday morning, i gave jake a bath and we hurried off to pick up cousin lindsey (2nd cousin (mom's sister's daughter's daughter), new frosh at uk) for church. we had a good service before all heading home together for lunch. i cooked the spaghetti and made my first spaghetti sauce ever! here's the recipe (just for you jen ;-) ):
3 cloves of chopped garlic in evoo for a minute or so
then add a chopped onion
then i added a pound of ground beef and a half pound of italian sausage (an smc addition)
once browned, i added:
29 oz. can of tomato sauce
2 Tbsp butter (recipe called for twice as much)
1/8 cup of sugar (recipe called for twice as much)
~1 Tbsp of basil and oregano each (i added more than the recipe for more flavor)
salt and pepper to taste

i tried to find the simplest yet highest rated spaghetti sauce recipe and then massage it for taste. lindsay got back home during lunch (yay!) and everyone seemed to enjoy the spaghetti - or at least they had seconds!

the new job

it's really going well. i'm enjoying my work and working hard at it. my first week, i generally learned the systems and directory structures and completed my first little project which, in the end, only really required editing a few lines of code. the second week i have begun working on a much bigger project and i finished the first phase of it. i haven't made too many connections or (any) lunch buddies so that's what i hope to work on in the coming weeks.

labor day weekend

whew! the first few days of work and school have been a whirlwind and i had multiple thoughts for posts, but i just haven't had the time to get it written.

we had a great extended weekend in nashville seeing my side of the family. we stayed with mom and charlie and brooke was there for most of the weekend as well. we went to dad's for a family cookout for most of the day saturday and lindsay had zero ill effects from the cats that are now gone. we were worried there would be some lingering dander even after stanley steamer had visited. anyways, yours truly was on the grill and i did the big no-no after the gas wouldn't ignite - i lit it with a big match and found a big fireball in my face for half a second. nothing happened, well, besides singe-ing the very front of my hair... barely.

saturday evening we went over to my cousins' house - joy and alan - to watch the ut game on espn. wow! i was so surprised and excited! you've got to love those preseason polls. my only qualm was that they seemed to get their touchdowns on big 'home run' type plays and didn't have to grind out many long drives and then punch it in from the goal line. hopefully they'll have to do that once or twice when they beat air force this saturday. gotta get some good practice in before the big florida game the next week. no matter what, you can already tell it's going to be a much better season.

sunday was church, big lunch, nap, and then hanging out with cousins joy and sam, brittany, and baby bella. me and sam are 6 months apart so i grew up really close to him and his brother joseph. bella is just over a year old so we pretty much just watched the kids play - highly entertaining.

monday, we realized we would lose an hour driving back and that we had a huge week ahead of us so we pretty much got up, met dad for lunch, and headed home. we stopped off for fried dill pickle chips to go from toots in bowling green, ky (tradition now), some starbucks to keep me awake on the drive, and then ordered carryout thai food when we got close to town. it was almost 7pm by the time we got home and the rest of the evening proceeded like a normal weeknight.

next up: the week that's been.