Baked Macaroni & Cheese

I have nothing interesting to post about right now, so how about a yummy recipe. This is a recipe for baked macaroni and cheese, which I got from one of my wonderful nanny families back in Seattle. I love it because it's really simple and so delicious! You don't even have to pre-cook the noodles!! It's the perfect comfort food...

Baked Macaroni & Cheese

yield: 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp butter


• 1 cup cottage cheese


• 2 cups milk


• 1 tsp dry mustard


• pinch cayenne pepper


• pinch nutmeg


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1/4 tsp pepper


• 1 lb grated cheddar cheese (or any other kind)


• 1/2 lb elbow pasta, uncooked

Procedure:

Heat oven to 375 F. Spread butter all over the insides of a 2-quart dish (do not melt butter in oven). Puree cottage cheese, milk and spices together. In large bowl combine cheese, milk mixture and uncooked pasta. Pour into prepared pan, cover tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes. Uncover pan and stir gently. Bake uncovered 30 more minutes or until the top is browned. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

"If I should Have a Daughter..."

I saw this on a couple facebook pages and then I watched a bunch of her stuff on youtube. I have fallen in love with spoken word poetry! Check it out:

http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter.html

Cozy in the Closet

Today's packing consisted of cleaning out my closet and sorting through my clothes. So now my closet is completely empty, other than the shelf on top. My niece Aubrie had been helping me sort through everything, so when we finished I wanted to do something special with her. We picked a movie (Curious George), and then made a very cozy bed inside the closet out of all my pillows and blankets! We squished inside and closed the door and then spent the next hour before bedtime watching a movie together. It was a very fun way to end a lazy day!

The time I totalled the van.

Ok so I already missed posting for a day, but honestly, who really wants to hear from me EVERY day?? I had to work last night and the night before, so yesterday was a very tired day. I only slept for three hours during the day, which is typical when I'm sleeping during the day. I hate it...I am so excited to be done with this work schedule! Sleeping; eating; my whole schedule is really messed up. Annoying.

About a week ago I was driving to town at night and hit my first deer. It was awful. I was driving Jeff and Lisa's van down the highway near home and it was pitch black, so I didn't see the deer until they were right in front of me. They ran right onto the road and there was nothing I could do to avoid them; there were three, but I only hit the one in front. The van immediately shut down and I had to coast to the side of the road. Just looking at the outside, the damage didn't look too extensive. The driver's side headlight was hanging out, the front end was dented a bit, as well as the driver's door. My brother, Jeff, came and picked me up and they called the insurance to have it towed to a shop in town. We heard the next day that the van was totalled!!! The impact pushed the radiator into the computer system, and there were other problems too. The good news is that Jeff and Lisa don't mind so much because now they don't have a van payment. The bad news is that I am now terrified to drive at night.

Back to school

Here is the answer to the big question of what I am doing next: I am going back to school...again! In January I submitted an application to BYU-Idaho and was accepted to start for the Spring semester. In the meantime, I have been working in Missouri at a nursing home: Parkdale Manor Care Center. They pay for a CNA class and all testing while you work there and I finished the class and state test about a month ago. I work overnights and it has been such a difficult schedule to get used to; I hate sleeping during the day, especially now when the days are getting longer and warmer. My last day of work is the 29th! The plan is to fly to Seattle April 2nd and spend about two weeks there with my Seattle buddies, including the gorgeous Markland sisters! I am way excited to be back in Seattle for awhile and start another new and exciting path. Classes start at BYU on April 19th. I will be majoring in Elementary Education and minoring in Special Education. I think that's most of the big updates for now. I am working tonight, so I'm going to take a few hours hopefully to sleep...we'll see how that works out.

Setting Goals!

Lately I have started reading a lot of different blogs and really enjoy them. I love seeing life from other people's perspectives. You can learn so much. Today my sister-in-law (Lisa-she will be mentioned a lot in my blog, so remember her) challenged me to write a blog post every night. But there are a lot of days when I do nothing of importance...what would I do then?? Lisa suggested on those nights to google blog prompts. So I will try that. Along with blogging on a regular basis, I am setting a goal to be more consistent with prayer and scripture study, and I thought that this blog would be a great way to discuss new insights I receive from the scriptures. I am currently reading the Book of Mormon in the book of Jacob. I keep setting a goal to read the entire Book of Mormon, but it hasn't happened yet. I will do it this time! In other news, I am much too sleepy to catch up on everything that's happened since my last post THREE MONTHS ago, so I will get to that on tomorrow's post. Be excited, because I've answered "the big question" lol...well mostly!