Help Find Adam

A young man I graduated high school with has been missing and not heard from since the beginning of this month, and his family and friends are understandably very concerned.

Adam left Texarkana, Tx on January 29 to travel to the San Fransisco area for a job interview, according to credit card records he made stops in Durango, Colorado, Fillmore, Utah, Ely, Nevada, and the last known use of his credit card was on February 5th in Tonopah, Nevada. The flyer above, (click it to make larger), has information about his description and the vehicle he was driving.

Please help get the word out about this! Two weeks is a long time for someone to not speak to anyone, use their cell phone, or use bank cards, and everyone is very concerned!


You can get more information from the HelpFindAdam.com FaceBook page or from this youtube clip of a local news broadcast about him.



Jennifer

Wanna Know a Secret?

Those blue toile drapes in our dining room:


Not drapes at all.

For the past few months the fabric has been hanging on the curtain rod without a single stitch holding it together/hemming it.

See how the fabric is just bunched on the floor in this picture from last fall?

For the record I did have the best of intentions when I bought the fabric. I carefully measured out all the sides and ironed seams where I wanted to sew. And then I got on out my sewing machine and it wouldn't work.

So then I borrowed my mom's sewing machine. And it ran out of white thread and she was three hours away and I didn't know how to re-thread the machine. And then she wanted her sewing machine back. The nerve.

So, with these unfinished "drapes", (and many other projects), in mind I asked my loving husband for a new sewing machine for Christmas.

Asked is a mild term in this case. I shopped around at several stores and online for about a month. I finally honed in on the one I wanted and then began telling him about it.

Every single day.

Multiple times a day.

Thankfully, he picked up on my none too subtle hints and got the right one.


And honestly, I've been a little scared of it since Christmas.

You see I messed up my last sewing machine the first time I used it and had to enlist the help of my mother and my grandmother via the phone to help free the bobbin I had somehow tied into the machine. (Don't ask, I still don't know how I did it). And this new machine cost about 4 times as much as the cheap one I messed up within 10 minutes of opening the box. So, please excuse my thinking the sewing machine was a little intimidating.

Well, since we were having a few friends over last weekend, I decided it was high time I faced my fears of ruining the new sewing machine and actually put it to good use finishing the dining area "drapes" once and for all.


So, I did.

Proof. Look at that pretty little seam. I may be in love with the new sewing machine.

And I'm still alive. And the sewing machine is still functioning correctly. And now my "drapes" are real live drapes. Double hemmed and all. :)



Since I've had success in sewing a few (albeit super long) straight lines to make drapes, I'm wondering what I can make next. I've always wanted to know how to sew, and now I'm really excited about my first victory and completed project, however simple it may have been.


You gotta start small my friends.


Jennifer

Pizza and Sangria

Those two words pretty much sum up our weekend.

Friday night we had a Valentine's party for some of our friends and I made 6 homemade pizzas. Most of which were pretty good. ;) We had a pizza margherita-(fresh mozzarella & fresh basil), PW's BBQ chicken pizza, (very yummy but even better with cheddar and jalapenos added), pepperoni pizza, supreme, white pizza-(alfredo sauce, mozzarella, spinach and fresh mushrooms), and a caramelized onion, prosciutto, and Gorgonzola pizza, (a combo of this one also by PW and another I read online somewhere but didn't bookmark). I think the white pizza and the BBQ were the biggest hits.

white pizza - alfredo sauce, mozzarella, fresh spinach, red onion, fresh mushrooms, fresh basil

pepperoni pizza

I didn't take a single picture of anyone on Friday night, and I've about decided that I'm ok with not taking pictures at every single get together we have because sometimes it's better to just live in the moment and enjoy the evening without worrying about trying to get pictures of everyone.

Since it was supposedly a valentine's themed party I did make a few little decorations with scrapbook paper I already had around the house:

Hearts hanging from the chandelier
Valentine's Day heart banner

I also bought one little metal mailbox from the dollar section at the front of Target for every couple, and we all filled them with little valentines and treats.

I found out early Saturday morning that my brother Jordan and his wife Haley, (did I tell you my "little" brother got married?), were on their way to our area to do a little shopping and pick up some old furniture that was just collecting dust in our upstairs area and could be put to much better use in their cute new house.

Haley and Jordan
This picture is from September, but I like it and I didn't take any of them this weekend so it'll have to do. ;)

So we decided to try and get rid of some of the leftover pizza toppings and make more homemade pizzas on Saturday night. My Aunt Nancy and Uncle Dave and my cousin Chris also came over and we had repeats of Friday nights most popular pizzas, the BBQ chicken, the white pizza and pepperoni for Chris. And drank the rest of the sangria which was still good even though it was sweeter the second day.

In case you're interested this the recipe for the Sangria we made. I'm a big fan. My brother James got me punch bowl for Christmas so I wanted to put it to good use. To keep the sangria cool all evening I made an ice ring of ginger ale with fruit slices in it. After it melted the sangria was a little less alcoholic and a little sweeter than it started, but I guess that's kind of good for the end of the night anyway. ;)


This picture was taken at the end of the night so that's why it looks like there's a TON of fruit in the bowl and not much liquid.

Sangria

1 lemon
1 lime
2 oranges
1 pint blackberries
1 1/2 cups of Captain Morgan spiced rum (I only used 1 cup and thought it was still pretty strong)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 (750 milliliter) bottle red wine*
1 cup orange juice

Chill the fruit, wine, rum, and orange juice. Slice the fruit into rounds and put in a large glass pitcher. Mix rum and sugar and add to fruit. Chill mixture for 2 hours.

When ready to serve crush the fruit lightly with a wooden spoon and stir in the wine and orange juice. Serve.

*This is the red wine we used for the Sangria:
and I highly recommend it. It was a little sparkly and had a great flavor. At our grocery store it was $8.50 a bottle.*

And then Sunday I was exhausted from making 9 homemade pizzas in one weekend, and so we spent most of the day laying around the house watching movies and tv.

Oh! And husband's brother got engaged Saturday night!!!

Congratulations to Michael and Hannah!

So all, in all, a great weekend. ;)

Jennifer

So Apparently We Have a Sprinkler System...

I've told y'all before that we currently live in a rent house that we've lived in for about a year and-a-half now. The whole renting a house thing has been a new experience in so many ways for us, as we'd always lived in apartments before. For the first time we've had to deal with things like mowing the lawn, and worrying about sidewalks/driveways when it's icy. And last night, we entered into a whole new level of living in a house vs. living in an apartment.

At about 12:45 a.m. I was getting ready to go to bed. I turned off the tv and heard what sounded like sleet/rain coming down. With all the bad weather in our area lately and with more sleet/snow in the forecast for the night, I didn't think anything about it. After a few minutes of it sounding like it was really coming down though, I got curious and looked out a living room window, but didn't see anything. So, I opened the patio door...to a 4 & 1/2 foot tall mini geyser coming up from the ground right in front of our patio.

This is actually Old Faithful, but it's what the water coming from the yard seemed like at the time.

And I FREAKED out!

For the record I am hugely paranoid about busting pipes. I'm one of those people that starts the faucets dripping when it dips below freezing for more than a few hours. I was freaked out and worried the entire time we were in Little Rock last month and I knew it was below freezing at our house and I wasn't there and hadn't left the pipes dripping. Last week when it was below freezing for over 100 hours you'd better believe every faucet in our house was dripping for like 4 days straight.

So when I opened the patio door to our own mini Old Faithful, my first thought was that some huge pipe under our house had burst and I was flipping out. Scary stuff.

We tried calling our landlord, who is an older Chinese gentleman whose English isn't great, and who can barely understand me on a good day, much less when I've just woken him up at 1:00 a.m., talking a mile a minute while gallons of water gushed into our yard.

After about a minute on the phone with him, the geyser relented. I walked outside and found a sprinkler head on the ground about 8 inches from a hole where the water had been coming from. Thankfully my brother's friend Eddi speaks Chinese I was able to conference call with him and the landlord while Eddi explained everything that happened.

They came to the conclusion that somehow the sprinkler system had come on, but the landlord didn't know where the controls for the sprinkler system were. He did know where the main water line shut off was. Ish.

So after a few minutes of looking around the garage for the sprinkler system controls, (where Eddi's and the landlords sprinkler controls are), husband remembered there are two boxes outside that he didn't know about and couldn't get opened before.

Enter me standing outside in freezing drizzle in my new tan trench coat and old hot pink rubber boots holding my bright blue maglite flashlight at 1:00 a.m. trying to figure out the sprinkler system controls.

As of right now we're still not sure what happened. We've come to the conclusion that the sprinkler system came on somehow, and one of the sprinkler heads came off causing the geyser by the patio. I made sure the sprinkler control dial was turned to "OFF" and so far the sprinkler has yet to come back on. I don't know if the rolling blackouts we had last week tripped something in the system and caused it to come on for the first time since we moved here. Or it could be that the sprinkler has been coming on every Tuesday at 12:45 a.m. since we moved in and we just never knew it.

Apparently we're not too bright, we didn't even know there was a sprinkler system.

In our defense, the landlord didn't know there was one either.

I don't think we're ready to be homeowners. ;)

Jennifer

P.S. The whole time I was on the phone I was wishing I had called with the house phone instead of my iPhone so I could have gotten a picture of our fountain to show y'all.

100 Hours

After our first winter in the Metroplex last year when it snowed 8 times December - March, (which the news assured us was a freak winter and totally uncommon), and after checking the Farmer's Almanac which assured me that Texas was supposed to have a warmer than normal winter, I had given in to the idea that we would in fact have a mild winter.

We had one "winter weather event", (as the news calls it), in January while we were out of town. And I was hoping that would be the extent of a white winter for us. I told y'all I hate winter.

Well last week we experienced the ultimate north Texas "winter weather event." An inch and-a-half of solid ice on the roads Tuesday morning, 6 inches of snow on Friday on top of the ice from Tuesday that still hadn't melted, at all, rolling blackouts from people using too much electricity trying to stay warm, and total a little over 100 hours below the freezing mark in north Texas.

Y'all, there were kids playing ice hockey in the street.

Now I know that 100 hours below freezing isn't that uncommon to our friends to the north, but in Texas, it is a BIG deal.

My car was stuck in the garage for a few days because our driveway is on an incline and that mixed with the sheet of ice meant I wasn't going anywhere. Even if I did want to drive on ice rink roads.

Which I did not.

So, I stayed in the house all week and tried to keep busy.

That's a lie.

I stayed on the couch watching tv in tights underneath my sweat pants, socks and slippers, and three shirts on. And was still cold.

I did get out for a little while on Thursday to go to a doctor appointment, (that had to be rescheduled from Wednesday because of aforementioned car stuck in garage), and hit up the grocery store because I didn't take the threat of ice seriously enough and we were running out of essentials.

Like toilet paper. And food. And sanity.

By Friday when the second round of winter weather hit, I had hit my limit of being indoors all lazy like. I tried to take some photos in the snow, it didn't work too well.

Could have sworn there was a street somewhere under there.

Ah, there it is.

Snow is bright. It hurts my eyes. Plus, it's cold.

So I made some minestrone to keep warm.

Yum.

And oh, so warm. :)

We're being hit with another "winter weather event" currently. There is about an inch or snow of snow on the ground again, which honestly I can handle that. The roads are already clear, which means if I wanted to leave the house I could. But, I learned my lesson from last week. I spent all day yesterday out running errands and shopping, so not only is our house fully stocked with essentials, I'm also worn out and not even interested in getting out and about.

I am however, hoping that this is the end of the snow & ice. I'm looking forward to spring!

Jennifer

P.S. Isn't it crazy how warm 35* feels when it's been in the teens with negative windchills?