In Honor of Valentine's Day

What is your husband’s name? Justin Mathew (that's right - only one "t")

How long have you been together? We think that we officially starting dating over Spring Break in 2003, so almost 5 years. But our first date was over 6 months before that.

How long did you date? Until we got engaged? - 4 months, but we were engaged for almost a year.

How old is he? We are both 30

Who eats more? It depends - lately he does.

Who said I love you first? He did

Who is taller? Since I am only 5' 3", he better be taller! He has a good 5-6 inches on me.

Who sings better? I used to be a good singer, but have gotten way out of practice. And since many times I feel like I can't hit the soprano notes but can't find the alto notes I would have to go with him.

Who is smarter? It depends on the subject, we are both pretty smart - that is why we chose each other.

Whose temper is worse? Me, me, and me - Justin is too mellow and doesn't get worked up enough sometimes.

Who does the laundry? I usually sort it and run the washer and dryer, but I hate folding clothes so we usually do that together.

Who does the dishes? Typically Justin does. It is our arrangement - I cook, he does the dishes.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you are standing at the foot of the bed and looking at it, then I do.

Who pays the bills? I used to, but then Justin wanted to take it over. Fine by me! :)

Who mows the lawn? It depends on if we are able to do the yard work together on a Saturday. But for the most part I do more mowing than he does.

Who cooks dinner? This goes back to our arrangement that I cook. Justin is a little lost in the kitchen. He usually wants to help though. Sometimes his helping is just being the in way though, but I love him for wanting to help!

Who drives when you are together? This depends. I have perfect eyesight (thanks to having LASIK a couple years ago) and Justin definitely does not. I always drive at night and any other time his eyes or contacts are bothering him.

Who is more stubborn? Hmmm, my first impulse was to say me. But he can be pretty stubborn too sometimes.

Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? I have to agree with how my sister answered this one - I am rarely wrong so I hardly ever have to admit to it. ;)

Whose parents do you see the most? Well - now that we live in TX within a 4 hour drive of both my parents and his dad it is a toss-up, but we only see his mom about once a year.

Who proposed? Justin

Who is more sensitive? Hmmm, it depends on the circumstances.

Who has more friends? He has a lot of co-worker friends and I don't really have co-workers anymore. If we look at Facebook friends it would be him. If we count it by who sends us Christmas cards we get too many from people that he has no idea who they are so I would have to say me.

Who has more siblings? I have 3, he only has 2.

Who wears the pants in the family? We make decisions together, but if Justin just shrugs his shoulders, I take charge.

Where did you meet? The Tallahassee student singles' ward at church.

What was the first thing you said to your husband? I was told that I needed to fill out some questionnaire and give it to the ward clerk, Justin. When I was relaying this info to my mom, he turned and said "That would be me." My response was something along the lines of "Ok". It was quite the conversation.

Where was your first date? He took me to the bowling alley on FSU campus and then to get gyros at a Greek place (can't remember the name of the place). I do remember listening to Guster songs in his car and being impressed that he listened to Guster (since most people haven't heard of them).

Where was your first kiss? We were sitting on my couch in my apartment in Tallahassee.

Where did you get engaged? In the Nauvoo Grove in front of the Nauvoo LDS temple.

Where were you married? The Houston Texas temple

Where was the honeymoon? Acapulco, Mexico

If you could have changed anything about it what would it have been? About the whole courtship? I would have forfeited dating Jared when I first moved to Tallahassee and been with Justin all along.

That pretty much sums it up

The cheesecake disaster

Tonight I am hosting Bunco. Which means I have tons to do. The problem is, I have tons to do at home and I am currently waiting on 25 students to take an exam. At least I don't have to grade them.

So - seeing that Valentine's Day is in 2 days, our theme for Bunco this month is Valentine's. I wanted to have a great dessert for this (well - let's be honest, I want all the food to be great but only the dessert fits into the theme). Anyone that knows me very well knows that I am the queen of holiday bakeware. For Valentine's I have a heart tartlet pan as well as a heart-shaped mini cheesecake pan both of which I got from Williams-Sonoma (as previously stated, one of my most favorite stores).

I have used both in the past and while they are super cute, they make cooking a bit tedious. But of course - I must try to awe everyone when they show up tonight so I decided to whip up some cheesecake and make some in the tartlet pan and some in the mini cheesecake pan. If you have made tartlets before, you know that the pan itself is fluted, so instead of a graham cracker crust you need to make a pastry shell that lines each heart-shaped cavity of the pan (that means I needed at least 12 pastry shells since the pan cooks 12 at a time).

It has been a few years since I have used this pan and forgot how much I hate it. Not the pan itself, which I love and think is beautiful - I just hate using the pan. The pastry is so difficult to roll out in order to fit into the little hearts. And to make matters worse, I was a bit further behind schedule last night because the girl I tutor once in a blue moon wanted me to tutor her either Monday or Tuesday (since Bunco is Tuesday, that was completely out of the question). So I finally get the tartlet pan in the oven around 10 last night and I am thinking - I think I can still go to bed in 2 hours.

Wishful thinking on my part.


As the little cheesecakes in the tartlet pan are cooking, I am making graham cracker crust for mini cheesecake pan (heartshaped, of course) and getting those all ready to go in the oven. At 10:30, the cheesecake tartlets come out and the other mini cheesecakes go in. At 10:45 I realize I have a serious problem. The pastry shells are not coming out of the pan. I did not have this problem last time I made these. By 11pm, I have gotten all the tartlets out of the pan. Some are heaps of warm gooey cheesecake mess. Some are just extremely lop-sided because they have only half of their shell (since the other half is still in the pan). Out of the 12 - only two came out well.

Uh-oh.

I only have enough cheesecake stuff to make maybe 6 more mini cheesecakes. With 16 ladies (counting me) to be at Bunco, how can I tell everyone - "I'm sorry you can only have one little tiny heart cheesecake. I know it is only a couple bites, I'm sorry."

So at 11pm I was in my car, headed to the store. I needed to get more cream cheese so that I could mix up more cheesecake stuff and get this finished. When all was said and done. I got to bed by 2am, and then I woke up at 6. Urgh!

At least my little cheesecakes look beautiful and I have 32 of them. If I have time before Bunco starts, I will take a picture of them to post.

I have estimated that if I had never tried to use the tartlet pan last night, and only used the mini cheesecake pan instead, I would have been in bed no later than 11.

Lesson learned.

TAGGED

OK, OK, I will play. KimberLeigh tagged me a couple weeks ago and I am finally getting around to playing. But, I am a party-pooper and will not tag anyone else.

10 years ago: Believe it or not, I was in my junior year at BYU. I was trying to decide if I should take classes over the summer or get an internship. It was actually decided for me when I couldn't find an internship. :(

5 things on my to-do list today: 1) Enter the grades into my spreadsheet for the calculus exam I gave yesterday, 2) Grade the algebra exams I gave today, 3) Write a statistics exam to give next week (are you seeing a pattern?), 4) make dinner, 5) I should do laundry or something like that but this list is no fun!

Things I would do if I were suddenly made a billionaire: Well, I would do a complete remodel of my kitchen because I am dying to have 2 ovens! Justin and I would travel way more than we do - since we haven't traveled hardly at all since I quit working full-time. And then I would just be a lazy bum!

3 of my bad habits: 1) I am lazy and a procrastinator (I think those go hand in hand) - if I have something that doesn't have to be done, I won't do it. I could veg in front of the TV, or on the computer for hours. 2) I hate to clean. It is true. I want my house to be nice and clean, but I wish it would just magically happen. 3) I complain a lot. Ask Justin.

5 places I have lived: Why stop at just 5? I have moved a lot!!! I will only list the places I have lived since I was 18. 1) Euless, TX, 2) Provo, UT, 3) Fairbanks, AK, 4) Houston, TX, 5) Tallahassee, FL, 6) Kansas City, MO, 7) Tampa, FL and last but not least 8) Katy, TX

5 jobs I have had: 1) Math TA and then Stats TA at BYU, 2) Actuary at American General Life (now AIG), 3) TA and Student Instructor at FSU, 4) Biostatistician at USF, 5) Adjunct Instructor at CyFair College

Things most people don't know about me: This one was a hard one for me. I think most people do not know that we are currently going through infertility problems (not being able to conceive for 2.5 years is a problem, right?), but I don't think that people know how hard it is for me to hear about everyone else that is pregnant. I mean - come on! People get to have their 4th and 5th kid before I even get one? What is that about? And it always comes in waves. For example, I got a call last Thursday from one friend that she is pregnant, a call from another friend on Sunday and an email from another on Monday. But then again, I want to know - don't keep it from me because that hurts even more. But I hate it when people say "Oh, I know how you feel". Actually chances are (since only about 10-15% of couples experience infertility), you don't know. I have about 5 friends who really know how I feel - the rest have no idea. And I feel completely different about it now than I did even a year ago, much less when we hit the one year mark where they actually label you as having fertility problems. Anyway - now that I have complained (see, I said I was a complainer) I'll tell another thing that people probably don't know about me: I used to work out all the time. In fact 6 years ago I ran in a half-marathon. Now I'm not sure if I could run a half mile. :( I need to get to work on that!

poor little dog

As I mentioned in the last post - we picked up a stray dog yesterday on our way home from church. She was with another dog who had been hit and killed and was in the middle of the street. :( No one else was stopping to help the dog, only slowing so they wouldn't hit the one that was still alive. So we picked her up, brought her home and then learned that we couldn't take her to a shelter until today. And we have since learned that the shelter doesn't open until 10 and we think that we only report to them that we have the dog, but we hold her.

She doesn't like Colby getting too close to her and Colby is a very curious dog. So we are hoping we can take her somewhere soon. She is very mellow and seems very friendly with people - she just doesn't like to be friendly with Colby which is kind of a requirement to stay here.

BAD COLBY!!!!

We had an interesting evening yesterday. On our way home from church we picked up a stray dog - more on that later. When we got home, we realized that the house was uncomfortably warm. In fact, upstairs it was 83 degrees even though we had the thermostat set at 77.

Before calling into our home warranty with a claim on the air conditioner, I decided to go outside and investigate. Take a look at what I found.



That's right - Colby has chewed through the wires that connect the unit to the house. We are currently waiting for a repair person to come out and hoping that it doesn't cost too much to repair. We will also be heading to Home Depot tonight so we can buy supplies to build a new fence that separates the air conditioning unit from the rest of the backyard so this doesn't happen again.