Evening is here, the board is spread

That's the line from the dinner blessing that we sing at camp, and the only song I could quickly come up with about dinner. Anyway, we've been in the house together for about a week and a half and we've made dinner several times but it hasn't been anything impressive or REALLY good because we've been unpacking the kitchen and what not. Last night I finally decided that we needed a serious meal. I consulted several of the new cookbooks we received as wedding gifts and decided that The Kitchen Diva had a recipe that was a winner for a cold, wet day: Easy Chicken Pot Pie. It lived up to the name; it was indeed easy and it was indeed a chicken pot pie. I took some pics to share, but I promise this won't turn into something I do every time hit up the kitchen. Most of what I make isn't that exciting or picture-worthy. Also, I suck at remembering to take pics while I'm cooking.

So we start with some chopped up veggies:


I seasoned some chicken breasts with lemon pepper seasoning and poached them. Then I diced them:


I forgot to take pics of sauteeing the veggies, or of the pan when I added the rest of the ingredients (chicken broth, cream of chicken soup, peas, chicken, etc.). I thought a pic of the pie crust in my new red pie plate (which is extra cute) would be kind of boring, so no pic of that, either. Instead, here's the pie plate with the crust in it and with the filling poured in:


Here's the whole thing with the top pie crust on, sealed on the edges and with steam vents added:


Aaaaand the finished product:


A snapshot of a quickly-put-together fall dinner table:


So that was our first official homemade dinner! It was delicious. If you've got a Kitchen Diva cookbook, definitely try it out!

Swimming in the Blankets

We're working on setting up the house. When it's in a more "complete" phase, I may post some pics. L had been sleeping on his old bed until my furniture arrived (that only took 5 weeks. Awesome!) We set up the guest room the other night with the real furniture that will be used in there and I found a storage box under the bed with a Velux blanket in it. It needed to be washed in the worst way, so I threw it in the washing machine that night. I went to pull it out the next afternoon and throw it in the dryer. Apparently the washing machine has attitude about what it wants to clean and what it doesn't. I wish I'd thought to take a picture of what the insides looked like but I didn't think about it til after I'd removed it all. This is what was left of the blanket after I shoved it in a trash bag:



Yes, that's a blanket. Or at least tiny scraps of one. Here's another shot:



Apparently that blanket was stale. L said he hadn't pulled it out of the storage container in years (gross), thus leading to its demise by washing. While that was pretty gross to clean up, even worse was that I'd thrown an errant pillow case in with it. I picked it up to see if it could be dried yet and the white pillow case had some tan streaks of dirt on it, which was weird because the blanket had been gray, and it definitely felt gritty. Kind of like it had been dropped on the road at camp on a rainy day and left there to soak and had maybe a car drive over and several campers tromp across it. If you're a camp friend, you know what I'm talking about. After getting re-washed in a clean washer with some other whites, it's back to 100%.

Just Want You to Know

Just a random thought for all of you readers. After I posted the "Life is a Highway" post, it occurred to me that some of you might have immediately thought of the WRONG version of that song, which would be the awful cover of it brought to us by none other than the Rascal Flatts. (The correct version would be the original by Tom Petty.) For the record, I LOATHE RASCAL FLATTS. Seriously, I don't get how some of my friends like them. Don't worry, I still love those of you who fall into this category. Some of you may be wondering, Why the extreme dislike? Aside from the obvious (which would be mediocre music), how about a visual aide?



I mean he seems to be serious with that hair. I tried to find a pic of him without the spikes but there were none to be had. Honestly, if he wanted to be in a boy band, why didn't he just follow his dream? A friend of mine is bff with Lance Bass; I'm pretty sure if N'Sync ever does a reunion tour we could hook him up with LB and find a way to make him the 6th member. Or at least a back-up dancer/singer. Except this guy isn't cool enough for N'Sync. Or BSB. Maybe O-Town or LFO, though. God, I miss the 90s.

Tennessee (Tennessee)... Tennessee (Tennessee)

Because we were so jetlagged from flying through so many time zones in so few hours, we took turns sleeping in the car while the other drove. This is what L looks like sometimes when he's sleeping in the car while I drive through Tennessee:

Life is a Highway

After the wedding, we spent a week in Hawaii looking at this:



We got back early the following Saturday morning and quickly repacked our suitcases and hit the road in my car and headed for our new home. This view replaced the one above for 22-ish hours:


We split the drive up over 2 days and arrived at the house at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night. Somewhere in the last 2 1/2 hour stretch of the ride, someone may or may not have been fiddling with his new wedding ring and lost it in the car. A week and a half later, it still has not been recovered. It's somewhere in the car in the depths of the underside of the passenger seat. Keep your fingers crossed that it magically appears in the next few days so that we don't have to buy a new one less than a month after getting married.

We've Only Just Begun

Your favorite absentee-blogger is back in action. The big news: in my extended absence, I became a Mrs.! Most of you already knew that because most of you were there, if not actually IN the wedding in some fashion. I haven't gotten the pics back from my photographer but I'll share a few that I've swiped from my friends. Without further adieu, I give you the briefest recap ever:

My dress


Most of the bridesmaids. They have eyes in real life but I didn't ask their permission to post the photo, so just rest assured that they are all beautiful girls who have eyes where the white bars are.


Bouquets:








Cakes:






It was a great night! Thanks to all of our bridesmaids, groomsmen, house party, and ushers, friends, and especially our families for being there for us and making it so special!