jalapenos

man oh man. i've chopped jalapenos before and never had any problem. but this time - not so lucky! i did chop up a bunch of them, where i normally only do one at a time, but i'm making a bunch of salsa and other dips for this weekend. my hands are burning, not tooooo bad, but still burning. the worst part though is my CONTACTS. last night i decided to take them out using my right pinky finger, thinking it was the least contaminated. it burned, but not for long. this morning though, i tried to put them back in and there was NO WAY that was happening! i guess i should've just slept in them and dealt with the dryness. this burning is way worse. so i'm wearing my glasses today. it's kind of odd because i never wear my glasses for any long period of time, especially to work. i'm not used to it, and they feel weird on my face. *sigh*... plus i forget that all my peripheral vision is lost now. i actually tripped down the stairs because i didn't see the last step. haha im such a loser :)

so what to do about the contacts?? i'm wondering if that pair is a lost cause and i should just throw them out? or is it just that my hands still have the pepper juices on them. i would just get a new pair of contacts, but if my hands are still bad, wouldn't i just be ruining another pair? i don't know... i don't want to have to wear my glasses for the next week... especially not saturday at the party. and i'm almost out of contacts (i have two pairs left), but i can't go to the eye doctor until the new year because of insurance. what to do, what to do....

progressive dinner

My church's college and career group had a progressive dinner last night. I used to be really active in this group, but not so much anymore. It used to be about half "college" and half "career", now it feels like all "college" and no "career". so basically i feel too old for the group. oh well. anyways, i got a call last week telling me about the progressive dinner and asking if i would host the appetizer course. I think this officially pushes me into one of the "adults" in the group. haha that's ok with me.

so of course i said yes i would help out. that was the easy part. then i had to figure out what to make for about 25 people. i ended up doing four things, my goal was three, but somehow that expanded. when i cook for events like this i try to make things is several categories -
1. something i've made plenty of times before and know pepole like it.
2. something really easy.
3. something ive never done before that sounds good - this tends to be the most time consuming.
for this event i added a fourth category:
4. something not too hard that would make a whole lot so there'd be plenty left over for darren's graduation party. i guess category 4 isn't very generic so i doubt it will be used in future parties :)

here's what the menu ended up being -
1. bruschetta. this seems to be my go to appetizer lately.
2. queso dip and chips. heat up one can of rotel with a box of velveta cheese. what could be easier than that?
3. stuffed mushrooms. i'm not a big fan of mushrooms, but they were gobbled up real fast so they must've been good. the hardest part about making this was cleaning the mushrooms. there's got to be a better way... also, for this recipe, i used my mini food processor for the first time ever. it came in very handy :)

4. chex mix. yes you can buy this, but i thought i'd try making it. it wasn't hard and it made a ton, but i dont think it really had as much flavor as i was hoping for. there's plenty left over for darren's party though, so that's good.

all in all, things went well. i had everything ready and out before the group arrived, which was amazing to me. they all came on the church bus so everyone streamed in at once. you know normally with a party people show up over time and the noise level slowly rises, but this was like bam! everyone there at once. i think the favorite was the queso dip, which was also the easiest to make, which should probably teach me something haha.

darren and i went along to the other two house for dinner and dessert. it reinforced my feeling of being too old for the group, but it was still a pretty good time overall. i really should remember to get my camera out more often... i'll have to work on that.

it's only Wednesday

I kept thinking that today was Thursday. Unfortunately, it's only Wednesday. That's always kind of a let down when you realize what day it actually is. Oh well. Not much planned for today. I'll probably go home and work on my scrapbooking endeavor some more. I did start last weekend and managed to get a lot done. I'm on Day 11 of the 17 day trip. But, this is more impressive than it sounds because we have a LOT more pictures from the beginning of the trip than the end. I believe this is due to three things. 1. James's camera broke around Day 5, so after that point we only have two people taking pictures. 2. I think people in general tend to be more picture happy at the beginning of a trip when everything is more new. 3. We slowed down our activities towards the end of the trip also, which meant there were fewer "things" to document. Anyways, I'm hoping that maybe I might get this done before Christmas. That's the goal.

Scrapbooking isn't the only thing I've been up to though. Last weekend we went to a Christmas party thrown by one of Darren's coworkers. It was pretty fun. Lots of food and people, lots of babies. i did my best to mingle and make a good impression. *whew* that's tough work! haha. After the party we went out to dinner for Kari's birthday. It was one of those things where there were like 20 people there, so everyone's all spread out. But I have to say, our end of the table was super fun.