OK, it’s Friday and I’m (mentally) done with work.

1. I was so excited this morning — there was a moving van out front and they movers would going to the apartment above me. But, alas, it was a false excitement because the movers were quickly on their way. (I’m still confused as to what they were doing there but I guess it’s really none of my business.)
2. I am completely obsessed with looking at my flowers outside. Fortunately it’s kind of cold this week or I’d probably be sleeping out there so I could look at them more. LOL (OK, not really because then I’d be more likely to see Mr. Creepy.) But, seriously, I go outside like 10 times a day just to stare at them.
3. I really want to get a nice patio chair (or two) for my front patio (yes, so I can sit and stare at the flowers for longer periods of time). I have some chairs on the back patio but I want another one for the front patio so I can enjoy that area too. Maybe I’ll look this weekend, hmm….there should be sales, right?
4. My computer is really annoying me. I need to replace it but I don’t want to spend the money (I’m cheap) besides whenever I go to look at them online I get all confused because I don’t know what I want. Any recommendations? All the talk about RAM and memory and processors is just greek to me.
5. I’m totally bummed that I don’t have any plans for Memorial Day. I wanted to go somewhere but the entire panhandle is under flood watches or warnings and many parts are literally under water so I guess I’ll just stay on dry land. (Plus, I don’t have anyone to go with me so I’ll stay home.)
6. My mom freaked me out today. She sent me a picture message of my nephew and his eyes were swollen as big (or bigger) as golf balls. He’d had an allergic reaction to something. She was holding him on her lap waiting for my sister to arrive. I’d tell you how he is but my sister isn’t replying to phone calls or text messages. (And no, she’s not still at the doctors with him.)
7. I seriously HATE junk mail. It’s gotten to the point that I rarely go to the post office any more because all I get in my PO box is JUNK. Will someone send me something fun there so I have a reason to go, sheesh.
8. I want tacos for dinner. I realized last night that I haven’t had tacos in a long time. I love tacos. I seriously could eat tacos every night for dinner (and almost did for a while a few months back LOL) but I haven’t had them in a couple months. Hmm…maybe I’ll go get some tortillas so I can have them tonight (or better yet maybe I’ll just take myself out to dinner tonight).
9. I want to go to church tonight, but I have home group and haven’t been in a few weeks and told them I’d be there this week. (I would rather go to church, though.) I think I need to call my brother and see if they are going tonight…then I’ll go with them and miss home group again.
10. I have some pictures of my niece on my desk. They are from December when we went to Princess Wishes. They were on my dresser but I moved them to the office a couple days ago. This one is my favorite and makes me miss her each time I look at it (pretty sad…she lives about two miles away and I miss her LOL).

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So, you’ve heard me complain about my upstairs neighbor. Seriously, he’s annoying. But he could be worse, I guess, which is why I’m not moving. So, here are 13 annoying things about my upstairs neighbor:

1. He is a noisy walker. Seriously, he pounds his feet when he walks.
2. He allows people in his house that have wrestling matches in the living room. (You may think I’m kidding…I’m serious! They admitted to having a wrestling match IN the living room when he was gone!)
3. He smokes, a lot, on the back patio which really is two annoying things:
   1. The smoke blows into my apartment when the windows are open.
   2. If the windows are closed the opening and shutting of the sliding door makes a lot of noise when he slams it.
4. He has a surround sound system which he likes to use, at night.
5. His preferred time for doing laundry is very late or very early in the morning.
6. He takes really long showers at 2AM.
7. He has been known to get in loud (VERY LOUD) arguments with his girlfriend between the hours of 2 and 4AM.
8. He likes to listen to music, LOUD MUSIC, really late at night and early in the morning. (When I say loud picture items on my entertainment center rattling so much that I think they are going to break from the vibrations of his music — not to mention the rattling of the windows.)
9. He recently moved his girlfriend in with her very young baby that they let cry for long, LONG periods of time (seriously, he’s directly above me, the lady next to me complains about the baby crying).
10. He has squeaky springs on his couch. Please, don’t ask for details on why I know his couch springs are squeaky.
11. He has a tendency to use substances in the evenings that make my talking to him not a pleasant experience. (i.e. he FREAKS me out)
12. His truck is very old and VERY noisy so everyone can hear when he comes home (which, I guess, is good because then I know not to go outside for a little while — not that it matters…he won’t speak to me any way).
13. He’s just plain creepy.

So, here’s where I actually need (want) your help.  Can you share some reasons why I should be grateful for my upstairs neighbor…maybe some worse stories of upstairs neighbors?  Or maybe give me some things to remind myself to not dislike him so much.  Seriously, I’m going to be living here for a while and I don’t see him moving any time soon….I need to have a reason not to cringe when I see (hear) his truck pull up.

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I was watching the news tonight, don’t usually do that, and realized how bad the flooding around here really is. I haven’t been near any of the local lakes or rivers to see for myself but I guess it’s really bad. You know, all that snow we got has to go somewhere…well, it’s hitting the rivers which hit the lakes and none are prepared for the huge amounts coming.

But, onto something more exciting…my dinner. Yes, I know that might not be exciting to you but it was to me. I like to cook. And, I really like when I cook something that tastes delicious. Lately I haven’t been in a cooking mood so I’ve been eating frozen stuff…nothing exciting there. Tonight I decided to cook and it was pure YUMMYNESS.

I had:

Grilled Honey Mustard Chicken
Parmesan Broccoli
Salad

I’ll share my recipes because all of these I came up with on my own. From the bottom up…

Salad LOL Nothing super exciting…some lettuce (Italian Mix) with some sunflower seeds and Red Wine and Olive Oil dressing.

Parmesan Broccoli. I steamed it in the microwave, drained the water then tossed with some fresh grated parmesan cheese.

Not, the real yummy part.

Grilled Honey Mustard Chicken.

Chicken Tenderloins (use the Tyson’s Natural — less sodium
Prepared Honey Mustard (I had some in a bottle, you can make your own)
Almond Meal (prepared or grind your own almonds — today I used my own coarse ground almonds)

Make sure the Honey Mustard is warmed…you might even warm it in the microwave otherwise it’s really thick and hard to coat on the chicken. First coat the chicken in the Honey Mustard then in the Almond Meal. I grilled mine on my George Foreman Grill.

Now, here’s the cool part…the whole thing START to FINISH took me 15 minutes (and I had to defrost the chicken). Here’s the time schedule:

Put the chicken in the microwave to defrost (it was late…I hate defrosting in the microwave unless I have to but…)
While the chicken is defrosting preheat the grill (you can put the honey mustard in the microwave with the chicken now)
While the grill is preheating prepare your bowls with the honey mustard and the almond meal.
After the chicken is defrosted coat in the honey mustard then roll in the almond meal and put on grill
Prepare the broccoli to heat
Prepare your salad
Prepare your plates
When the chicken has about 4 minutes left put the broccoli in (I do mine for 2 minutes)
Take the broccoli out, drain and toss in the cheese add to plate
Toss your salad
Chicken’s done, plate it.
Of course, throughout this process all my dirty dishes are put directly in the dishwasher (yes, we all know I’m neurotic) so all I have to do at this point is leave the grill open to cool and when I’m done eating I rinse the grill plates and put in the dishwasher with my dinner plates and dinner’s done but oh so YUMMY!

Oh, and for dessert (this didn’t get done in the 15 minutes but could have if I’d planned right) will be Strawberry Shortcake (I say will be because I’m not ready to eat it yet LOL). It would have been fresh strawberries but Tween-He and Tween-She ate them all when they were here but it’s OK, I had frozen in my freezer. I’ll have it in a bit when my DVR is far enough along in American Idol that I’ll watch it. (Although, I’m not sure why I’ll have watched exactly TWO episodes this season…last nights and tonights….but there’s nothing else on….or I might watch a movie…either way, I’m eating STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE!)

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When I was doing my devotion this morning I read this quote:

Don’t ever become so busy that you fail to realize how very happy you are!

That statement really made me stop and think. As a business owner I’m busy. Besides owning and running a successful business I volunteer for the middle school ministry at church, I’m an Aunt, I keep a house running, and I try to have a life. There are times when I can barely see straight for all the things I have on my plate. It’s important that even in the midst of all that busyness that I (and you probably too) remember how truly HAPPY I am.

Yes, my work is busy and stressful at times. Yes there are times after “work hours” when my office calls to me and I know I should do a little more work. Yes, I know that sometimes obligations or busyness gets in the way of my having fun. But, still, I’m HAPPY.

• I’m happy that God has given me a business that I can support myself with.
• I’m happy that God gave me friends that I can share time with.
• I’m happy that God gave me a group of middle schoolers that I can minister to,
• I’m happy that God gave me a house that keeps me warm, comfortable and provides a place to entertain my friends.
• I’m even happy that God gave me my obnoxious upstairs neighbor who shares his love of music and midnight cleanings with me. (OK, I need to keep thinking on that one but maybe if I look at it that way I’ll actually come to not dislike him SO much.)

So, remember don’t ever become so busy that you fail to realize how very happy you are!

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I enjoyed having Tween-He and Tween-She here the last few days. It was actually nice having the noise and chaos of other humans in my ordered world. But, I won’t lie, I’m glad to have my quiet back. I can sit on my couch again, I can watch what I want on TV again. Oh, wait, no I can’t. The TV isn’t working. My TV’s been around for a while and sometimes the sound goes out on it. This isn’t a new thing, if you google the model it’s been a common problem that’s easily fixable…unplug the TV for an hour or so. Sigh. That’s fine, but I really want to revel in the quiet of my house for a while while I allow my brain to become a gelatinous mass in my brain (seriously, that’s the day I’ve had). Seriously, I deserve it.

Last night was another youth night (our second to last for the year — can you see me doing the happy dance on my desk?). I don’t know if it was purely the chaos of the night or if my low tolerance level in increased by an issue with Tween-He earlier that afternoon but hotbatman was it a psychotically insane mass of complete and total chaos last night. Seriously, I’m SO glad summer’s almost here and I will get a break for those kids. Seriously, I care about the kids, I think highly of (most of) them. But I NEED A BREAK.

Now, I just want a brain break so I can recoup from the last few days. So, cross your fingers that sound is back.

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“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

For many years I didn’t have a home of my own to entertain friends. Circumstances had me living in a room in family members homes which limited my ability to invite friends to entertain. I’ll forever be grateful to my family for letting me stay with them for the various reasons I needed to stay there.

Last June I got my own place again. All I wanted was to have this beautiful place that I could entertain friends in. I’ve accomplished the first part. I have a nicely decorated home, I have beautiful dinnerware, my house is always clean and ready for someone to knock on the door. But, they don’t knock.

A couple week’s ago a friend, a single mom, asked if I could watch her kids while she went on our church’s staff retreat. I agreed, I thought it would be fun having her kids, 4th & 5th graders, over. It’s been fun having them here but yesterday I was a neurotic mess because my neat, ordered house was in utter chaos with all their stuff around. Today I spent the entire morning cleaning up after them so I can think straight.

That made me think: am I letting my friends ornament my house or am I protecting my ordered house from the ornament of of friends? Is it worth it? (And, to set the record straight, I do know that having two preteens around is very different from entertaining my adult friends.)

Then the excuses come: “I don’t have food in the cupboard to make an impressive meal”, “I don’t have enough seats to invite a group of people over”, “What if they can’t find parking”. But, do my friends care if the meal I prepare is impressive or do they want my company more than a four course, five star meal? Do my friends really care if they sit three to the couch and on the floor or are they more interested in sharing some laughs? Do my friends really care if they have to park at the other end of the complex parking lot and walk or do they just want a place they can sit and relax with someone who cares?

That’s what’s missing in my house. It isn’t the final touches on my beautifully decorated kitchen. It isn’t the final wall hangings in my cheerful bathroom. It isn’t the perfect coffee table to finish my cozy living room. No, my house is missing the ornament of friends. The comfort of an always open door. The messiness on the kitchen counter because coffee was shared with a friend for no reason other than they wanted to share my company. The messiness can be cleaned…it’s been done before.

“All people want is someone to listen.” Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only weblog, May 8, 2003

If all people want is someone to listen, then why aren’t I inviting them over to listen? I need to get past my “I will when…” and invite people over now. Friends are the ornaments that are missing from my house.

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