I love chicken.

I know what you're thinking. My list of loves is becoming quite lengthy (and, after that sentence, perhaps I should add alliteration), but I simply can't help it.

Of course, chicken isn't going to be near the top. The upper echelons are home to David, Mike Rowe, the smell of rain on a summer night, dirty emails from my mom (yes - the General forwards those emails that you know you're not supposed to laugh at but do anyway) and letters from Grandma. I mean, honestly (and those of you that have lived with me or are related to me know the answer to this) - how could chicken ever surpass a letter from Grandma Shirley?

"Hey kid. How's Nebraska? Watching any basketball? Boy, I sure hope those Illini win their next game. We got lots of rain this week. Grandpa's leg is feeling better. We're going to Iowa for that horse sale next weekend. What kind of pans do you use when you cook?"

Notice, there are no paragraph breaks. But, back to chicken. I grew up on a farm, and have always had an appreciation for production agriculture and the agriculture industry in general. But, I grew up with horses and dairy cattle, so most would think my favor would lean toward milk. Don't get me wrong, milk is wonderful. But, somewhere on my list between comfy underwear that maintain elastic instead of sagging and a worn out pair of square-toed boots, chicken has found a place on my love list - and for a couple of very good reasons.

First and foremost, David and I aren't exactly rich, so chicken has become a staple of our diets - mostly because we can only afford to look at steaks at the grocery store. But, that's okay because you can do anything with chicken. Think back to Bubba's explanation of shrimp in Forrest Gump and you can pretty much do everything to chicken that he lists when describing his love for shrimp ("Forrest, have you ever been on a shrimp boat?" "No, but I've been on a really, really big boat..." Sorry. Had to.). "You can bake it, broil it, boil it, saute it, barbecue it..."

Second, but equally as important, chickens produce eggs. And, as I told my husband this evening, I sure am glad they do because if we didn't have eggs, I wouldn't have anything to feed him. David loves breakfast - most often for supper - and eggs are always a staple of breakfast/supper. Not to mention they come in handy around Easter time when it's time to hard-boil three dozen eggs and hide them around the yard. Perhaps you can now understand my love for chickens.

In order to keep things even, though, I must add a couple of items to my "I don't really love these things" list.

Right now, these things would be the door frame to our bathroom and my knee. And yes, those things are somewhat of a joint item right now. All you need to know is that my knee, courtesy of the the door frame, is swollen up like a balloon and this means that I have not been able to get my normal two-mile-run-a-day in. This I do not love.

David can hear me typing in here and just wondered aloud, "How much can you really write about chicken?" I can't think of much more, so I suppose he's right. But remember, when you go to sleep tonight...

...thank God for chickens. And, ask him to make my knee feel better and to keep the bathroom door frame from attacking it again....

Bring it on!

I look out my windows here in Nebraska and the trees are starting to bloom (well, the ones that do, in fact, bloom) and the grass is greening up. I can FEEL spring...BRING IT ON, MOTHER NATURE!

And, of course, spring also means it's that time again. No, not time to get outside and work in the yard. It's time to sit inside on Tuesday nights and watch Deadliest Catch.

You're all all well aware of my love affair with Mike Rowe. Of course, I love to watch Dirty Jobs - I have never seen someone with such perfect comedic timing! But, one of my favorite things about Mike Rowe isn't his looks or humor - it's that voice. Yummmmmmmyyyy. And, who else would narrate Deadliest Catch but Mike Rowe. What can I say - it makes my life happy. Plus, I think this is going to be a kick-ass season.

Stop complaing. I don't care if you don't love Mike Rowe as much as I do. I'm obsessed. I've come to terms with it and it doesn't bother me anymore.

In other news, David and I finally parted with a few extra dollars and rented some movies (and yes, it was like prying the pacifier out of a crying baby's hand). Anyway, we rented several movies, among them was Fireproof.

Most of you that know me know that I'm a fairly religious person. Well, that isn't correct - my faith is very important to me - I don't think religious is ever the right word because it can mean way too many things. That being said, Fireproof is a movie that focuses on mending a broken marriage through faith and keeping God at the center of your relationship. But, even with that, we thought it was a great movie and one that every married couple should watch. Fireproof really doesn't pull any punches - it comes right out and shows you just how nasty a marriage can get. But, it also shows how rewarding and carefully maintained marriage can be. Apart from the not-so-great acting in the first few minutes of the movie, it gets four thumbs up from us.

Coming right up (in the next two weeks in fact), David and are I going to be making the journey home. Like usual, we'll plan to be home sometime late on Friday night and then on the road again early on Saturday morning - headed up to Chicago for the Cubs-Marlins game. I've been to a major league game, but this will be my first Wrigley experience and I'm so excited!

We hope to be home again sometime Saturday evening. I'm hoping the weather is nice because I am just dying to go home and have a few hours to shoot some pictures at home. We have some new babies on the ground and I can't wait to get the pictures - and practice my photography a little. Living here in town isn't exactly a great way to get the shots that I like.

I think that's all the news for now (I know - we're super-duper exciting). Hope you all have a great week!

Go Cubs Go!

BIIIIIGGGG DEVELOPMENT: David and I are so excited! We have officially made plans to head home the weekend of May 2 to watch some baseball. That's right, David and I are going to be cheering on the Cubs at Wrigley Field - and I just can't wait. I've never been to Wrigley and David hasn't been in about six years, so it's going to be fun to be able to spend Saturday afternoon at the ballpark. Of course, I'll be sure to post some pictures...

Speaking of pictures - we finally got our wedding pictures today! The album looks wonderful, but we also got a CD of all of the pictures that were taken at the wedding and you know what that means - they're going up on the blog and Facebook. So, for your viewing pleasure (or displeasure depending on the picture...)

Of course, there are about 812 more, but I didn't want to upload that many pictures. The point of the story is, if you would like a copy of one, please let us know. As I said we have all of them on a CD and I would be more than happy to send you copies.

Oh Mother Nature....

...You are such a freakin' tease!

Alright. I consider myself to be a fairly level-headed person, but I have to say, this weather has me hanging on by a thread!

Last week, I headed to Milwaukee for work. I flew home on Friday to BE-A-UTIFUL weather in Omaha. And, because David didn't have to work and the night was still young, we decided to drive on to Des Moines to visit David's sister. By the time we headed home on Saturday afternoon, the weather got all PMS-sy on us and changed its mood. David and I drove home, right into several severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings. But, of course, mother nature - never happy with her work - changed it up one more time. By Monday, it was 20 degrees outside and very, very windy. Tomorrow, we're looking forward to 65 degree weather.

So, to Mother Nature I say this: "Quit being such a woman and make up your damn mind! I want to wear flip-flops already!"

To all my ladies out there - my apologies for the above statement. But, to be fair, you know it's true.

Anyway, on to the update in the ever-exciting saga that we call David's and Rachel's life. As I said earlier, I just got home from a trip to Milwaukee. It was wonderful to see everyone up in the "big office" and to be able to put some additional faces with names. Working in a remote office is wonderful, but it can also be difficult because you only have the opportunity to speak with your team on the phone - and not face to face.

I also have a revelation this week: I have been in Nebraska for almost an entire year! It's so hard to believe we've been here this long. I suppose, that could be because we like it here - well, I do at least. I'm sure David would enjoy it more if he had a full time job. I told him he just needed to listen to the news more because Nebraska was recently named the happiest state in the union. In fact, Janell passed a link on to me proving the point:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/rn=3906861&cl=12839723&ch=4226720&src=news

As Janell said, "Quit being a wimp and open the link - it's from America's most trusted news source - ABC!"

Anyway, David still didn't believe me...

But, things do seem to be looking up. Just today David told me that one of the guys he works with was just accepted to law school at Creighton in Omaha and will be leaving his job at the paper. David is hoping to land some of his steady writing jobs and possibly his beat with the Lincoln Saltdogs - Lincoln's independent minor league team. Talking about it this afternoon, he seemed very excited. And, of course, I'm excited for him! It's hard for me to watch David turn in resume after resume without any responses because I know how talented of a writer he is and how hard he works.

In other news - Easter is coming up and I'm ready to get my bake on! David and I really didn't plan to go home for Easter, mostly because it's a long trip home and because neither one of our families do anything special for Easter. So, we had originally planned to spend the weekend here at home, but since Tracie is now in Des Moines, we thought it would be nice to spend the holiday with her. After Denise found out we weren't coming home, but were heading to Tracie's, she thought she and John would just head up to Iowa, too.

And that just gives me an excuse to bake another cake! I'm thinking white two-layer cake with white icing and a raspberry filling...yum! We'll see how it goes - I've never made the raspberry filling.

Of course, the coming of Easter means it's also time to mark the six year anniversary of my Dad's passing. It's so hard to believe that it has already been six years since he died - sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday. But, I'm still looking forward to Easter. I'm not sure if it really was one of Dad's favorite holidays, but it always seemed like it was. I have so many memories of him helping us hunt for Easter eggs or pictures of us out in the yard all dressed up in our Easter dresses.

Hopefully, Easter will also mean the coming of spring weather. I'm ready for Mother Nature to stop being such a...well, you know the word I'm thinking of.