{2011}

January-March was when my life wasn't happy.
Who knew? Who knew that in March, standing in a club, I would meet Vlado?
The way he glanced up and say, "Hey" and I just nodded. The smirk in his eyes when I said, "No" to him asking if he could buy me a drink. The way he pushed away my friend to dance with me. The way our eyes never left the others for the entire night. The fact that we were both sober in a club at midnight is beyond me.

The laughter in his eyes as he dropped me off at another club with my friends, only for me to march in, walk up to my DJ  boyfriend at the time, and promptly break up with him. We weren't happy. I knew that feeling of happiness now and I knew I had to get to know this guy better. The shock in that boyfriends face, the happiness in mine as I walked out. The next day, meeting Vlado in his cool car and getting to know him and laughing, touching, hugging, kissing.

Since March, I have been away from Vlado for exactly one day. You might pick me up and place me in the needy girlfriend pile, thats okay. I would too.

In 2011, I found my soulmate. My best friend, the love of my life. We moved in together. I can jump into his shower with all my clothes on and kiss him admidst his uncontrollable laughter. I lean over, "Night, sweet dreams, see you soon... in my dreams! Love you little Angel" and he rolls his eyes, kissing back. We make food together, we do everything together.

In 2011, my life finally felt complete. I spent 24 years wandering aimlessly around this earth always feeling like I wasn't good enough, or I was settling, or that group of girls wouldn't like me because I was weird and I had to control what came out of my mouth... and then he came into my life and sat back and watched me destruct his life into a masterpeiece.

...I wasn't scared anymore to be anyone but me.

and I can hold his hand in the middle of the store, look up at him and say, "... If an elephant came into our apartment, would it go through the floor because it was so large?"... and it never fails: He is going to laugh hysterically, cup my cheeks in his hands, and kiss my forehead. "This is why I love you Audge."

Thats why I love you too, Vlado.

Do you have a bread machine? I do too!

I have been wanting one since I was in University. Every birthday and Christmas - and nothing.

I'm not really Sally Homemaker. I'm more of a 25 year old adult who will randomly climb into a tree and sing to birds, pretending shes from Disney.

My mom had a hard time grasping the seriousness of me using a bread maker.

Well, I did it. I am making my first bread as we speak. I don't know why I am so petrified of failing - maybe because it is so expected. It came to the point where Vlado was walking around with my Black and Decker Bread Machine instruction manual, and I had a meltdown, grabbed it and ran away to bed.

The second the door clicked this morning signalling he left for work, I was up and racing towards the kitchen with my yeast and flour in hand.

We shall see... xox.

Breadmaker people? Here you go. Merry Christmas, belated.

Under the tree,

I found...

+5 wii games, 4 controllers, 250$ gift certificates, spa things, kitchen grater & kitchen glassware.

With our 100$ gift cert from my sister to winners/home sense, we went and purchased a gorgeous little cabinet. Then we went to pier1 and purchased a wine rack, wine charms, and an adorable wine carafe!

xox, I'm lucky. Were you???

Christmas

Happy Holidays!!

I finally have two days off so my to-do list is jam-packed with cleaning, organizing, and budgetting.
My house has had a mini earthquake run throughout it. When my house feels cluttered, my life feels out of control.

Vlado and I spent a beautiful holiday together. We ate amazing food, we slept over places, and we hosted parties of our own.

However, admidst our insane schedule, our house turned upside down. We trekked in and out with tons of gifts, dumped them in corners, threw dirty clothes on the floor instead of the hamper, animals were fed but plants weren't, our kitchen is a disaster, we haven't taken out the trash- stressed.

So, off I go to clean... xoxo

Cute :)

Usually, at bedtime, we lay in bed and talk for about ten minutes, kiss, and roll over so our backs are touching and fall asleep.

Yesterday, it was so hot in our condo, Vlado turned off the heat. Entirely.
He forgot to turn it back on.

Last night, we got home late from a friends house, and we both fell asleep. The house cooled off and at 4-5am, I woke up to find myself shivering. I dug into the blankets more and fell back asleep. At 5:30 I woke up again and was over-heating and felt trapped; like I couldn't move.. I realized Vlado must have been cold too as he had wrapped his entire body around me and was just hugging me to his body.

..Loved waking up this way.

Can I get you a cup of coffee?

My boyfriend and I are in love with coffee. He gets 4 cups in his thermos for work. I make four cups for myself when I wake up. During nightshifts, I always hit that "gonna throw up" phase from just sitting there, downing coffee, and not moving for 3-4 hours. Often, when going out window shopping, we will stop at Tim Hortons and each get a hot drink. When we go out with friends, COFFEE, When we invite friends over, well.. I usually get tipsy on wine by myself (problem?) and they just drink more and more coffee.

We have a tassimo brewer ; but its semi ridiculous to buy pods of just plain coffee for 6.00/14 individual cups when you can spend 10.-16.oo's for 64 cups. I mainly keep in stock pods for when guests are over or I just plain old want a latte. I keep stocked on Earl Grey, Chai tea latte, Lattes, Cappuccinos, Americano, Hot chocolate, Iced coffee, Orange Pekoe tea, Decaf.. The ones that basically, well, aren't coffee.




The best way to add spice to your coffee is alcohol. Just kidding but my girlfriends swear by Baileys. I once had a coffee flavored margarita. I got drunk so I can't give my own opinion, my friend exclaimed how amazing and tasty it was.

Add pumpkin spice & vanilla. This one if my favorite but I like the actual pumpkin cans, no syrup for this girl. If you open a can you're stuck with pumpkin coffee for a week or so. It gets old, fast.

Chocolate lovers, add some cocoa mix.

Toranis! My favorite thing from Starbucks is a grande hazelnut latte, forgo it and just grab the Torani next time. Lots of good flavors.

If I had access to unlimited cash flow and the Torani store it would be: Brown Sugar Cinnamon, Butter rum, Hazelnut, English Toffee, Cupcake, Gingerbread, Italian eggnog, Maple, Raspberry, Salted Caramel, & shortbread.

I'm in the middle of planning an event of "Hot Toddies" with some girlfriends. I always *say* I'm going to do these and never do. This is the 3rd party I've invited people too that I've never gotten past the actual idea.




...But how fun would that be? Any good recipes?

Hobbies and more

I have a post to write about my recipe I created. It was a ramekin full of eggs, toast, bacon, tomato, and spinach. Vlado was super excited - til he saw me eat the spinach. Then, like a baby, he pushed it away and refused.

I asked how his lasanga was - he shrugged and said it was fine.
I gave him a bowl of the slow-cooked stew. Non-chalantly, he commented that "it was missing something."

I still can't comprehend how he was surprised at me going into the bedroom, with the door slammed. I actually had to explain it to him. Guys can be soooo clueless.

Anyways, back to the meal I made. It was DELICIOUS, Vlados opinion not-withstanding. I took step-by-step photos for a future post.

I'm thinking of a hobby I can start to hone. I'm really attracted to photography but now that my camera is stolen, I'm not ready to invest another grand into something I didn't do while I had the equipment.

Soap making is awesome. I would love to make lotions, soaps, candles, lip butters, etc. However, our home is a in a condo building and while it is roomy, it isn't *that* roomy. Plus, Vlado thinks I'm attracted to disaster and is afraid to give me chemicals.

Maybe jewellery making? But I can't sit still for any amount of time!

:( Frustrating.

I spend a lot of my time working, at the library, cooking/baking food that my love hates, and watching make up tutorials. I feel like my life needs some sort of validation from someone OTHER then the Kardashians or Jersey Shore...

Help??

Stuff I like

My boyfriend and I watched this movie curled up in bed last night. It is similar to what I do - social work / Child and Youth Care.

I accidentally bought tons of these thinking they were body wash. After realizing they are in-shower body lotion, they stayed in my bathroom drawer. Finally, I grabbed one determined to either use it or donate them.

I absolutely loved it. Especially in Saskatchewan winters, your skin gets dry, cracked, nasty. The only minus is the faint smell of baby oil - but the soft skin ALL day? Psschhht. I will live.

Speaking of showering, Vlado ALWAYS uses his shampoo as body wash. It drives me crazy!
Not anymore ;)

I occasionally do a dark eye and I occasionally wear make up to bed. I occasionally piss off my boyfriend by the black streaks all over the pillow cases when I wake up. I found this video, tried it, and works like a charm. I love it.

The city I am in just got a Guess store. I used to go to Alberta and pick up some nice new clothes, wear them here and everyone asked about them. Now, its the hottest store, you can't go anywhere without running into the same person. As much as I am turned off by that fashion mistake, I can't get this out of my head.

That lasanga slowcooker recipe was perfect :)

xo,

a.

Christmas & more

Vlado and I are awful at Christmas.

Last night, we set up our storage room shelves which are heavy duty. Vlado snapped it on wrong and was trying to pry it off. He asked me to hold. I didn't understand so I pried too and within seconds, the shelf had flown itself into the tree.

Vlado cursed, I started laughing. He started laughing. We're just ridiculous.

Now, Vlado had a rough day at work. It happens with that much testosterone in the construction field. He came home grumpy, ate my food - but wasn't cheered up.

I was desperate to cheer my love up so within seconds, out pops his Christmas gift.

As now now, we haven't been able to keep presents from each other. Not only that, but he has found his stocking stuffers, and given me my wine set & computer already. FAIL.
WE FAIL.

Anyways, he got an encyclopedia book on turtles. He flips through it happily until he finds my serbian/bosnian books. Flips slowly through them until letting me know these were written by the people he was against and it was a informative book on his own killing everyone.

Whoops. My bad.

Right now hes asleep on my livingroom floor. Not even kidding.

I'm not sure what else to do to cheer him up when he wakes up. Ideas? So far, we haven't kept a single present hidden from each other. We just CAN'T. AND I HAVE TRIED.

We almost destroyed our tree (TWICE! This isn't counting the time we almost set it on fire!!!!) ... I'm nervous for when the big day comes. What a disaster I'm sure is awaiting my little family of two. xo.

Tzatziki Sauce

First, combine all your ingredients.

3 mini cucumbers, peeled
170g of plain yogurt (eyeballed it - about 1/4 of the container) ** I heard there was greek plain yogurt?
10mL of olive oil
1/4 lemon or lemon juice
1 garlic clove, peeled
dill, gram
s & p, dash!

Optional: mint leaves, onion.

thennnn, toss it in a food blender. Put in a bowl, chill for an hour.

Mine is liquidy and majority of them, well, aren't.
If you don't like it, try this step:

Use a cheese cloth to strain the yogurt over a bowl for 3 to 4 hours, until most of the water has drained.

I usually use mine on fresh veggies or home-made pita chips.
As a quick out the door snack, I grab a piece of bread and just dip it in it.

Another sidenote, it does NOT freeze well.

4 hours in the life of an ADD adult

Midnight-1am, I fell asleep.
6am Vlados cell goes off.
6:30 I wander out into kitchen. He tells me to go back to bed.
6:45 Vlado kisses me goodbye.

..Z.z.Z..z..z..Z.z..Z.z.z.z.z..zz

11:45am woke up. bathroom. Put pajama pants on. Make coffee.

noon: Start texting Vlado during his lunch break, drink coffee, check e-mails/blogs. Get dressed.

12:30 realize Vlado has mine and his bankcard. Commit to staying home all day. Change out of jeans, put on lululemons. Write a blog about food (below!) Go put laundry in.

12:45 make bed. I do this weird thing where I go into each room and organize it into piles. Such as in my bedroom, I grabbed nailpolish, make up, and a comb and put it into a pile. Then I grabbed my notebook and three pens and put them into a pile. Then a dirty cup and a recipe book in a pile. Then I go to the livingroom and make my piles, and then my office and kitchen, & bathroom. Then I go to each room and grab each pile for the bathroom and go organize it. This is how I clean..

1:00 Realize I mis-counted my amount of quarters for the dryer. Go get clothes, hang in bathroom. Go to livingroom and take everything off the shelves & tables. Start dishwasher. Back on computer.

1:15 Sweep kitchen & entrance. Back on computer.

1:30 realize Vlado took out stewing beef. Take pitabread out of the freezer for tzakiki sauce tonight. Write a letter of intent for a fulltime position within my agency.

2:00 dust everything in livingroom.

2:34 finish grocery list. Back on computer to write this blog. Go finish sweeping. Go to the bathroom, forget why I am in there, go back to kitchen and see the garbage can and remember I was changing garbages. Do so. Dust and clean mirrors in bedroom. Start on kitchen.

3:02 finish wiping everything down, start self cleaner on the oven. Last time I did this, my house smoked out. Nervous. Google how to make Pita Chips. Finish kitchen and entrance floors.  Realize we have 14 eggs that expire in two days. Fuck. Decide on making two servings of Italian Breakfast Casserole and make the rest into hardboiled. Whatever. Add that shit onto my grocery list. Eat doritoes and realize its the first thing I've eaten all day besides coffee. Feel slobby. Realize thats stupid because 1. No one can even see me munch out and 2. I just cleaned my entire friggin house so how the hell am I a slob? Realize cleaning your house and eating a bag of doritoes as breakfast has no correlation. Fuck it. Clean bathroom floor now.

3:17 wipe off laptop, clean kitchen table, and put chips away.

New Food.

My boyfriend works outside and does manual labor which requires alot of energy. He usually ate as much as I did (and finished my plate also) but ever since getting this job, he turned into a dinosaur.

This boy will not stop eating. I usually will make two slowcooker meals and then divide them into containers, freeze them. He is tired of my usual meals - meatloaf (Vlado is a meat lover and surprisingly, he hated meatloaf. He thought it was boring ... WHAT?! ), baked spaghetti, mexican chilli, soya chicken... and I hate trying new things.

On the otherside, if I make things he LOVES (meatballs) he will defrost three containers and eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Majority of the meatballs don't even make it to his work. Frustrating.

I love making foods like eggplant casserole, kale chips and dip, homemade tzaki sauce- Vlado would kill me if that entered his lunchbox.

Martha Stewart? You're on.

Beef Stew.

 Sausage lasanga 

And because I am craving pizza right now, I decided to google "Slowcooker Pizza" and see what came up. 

The picture is disgusting so I won't put it up. Feel free to take a look for yourself.. Introducing? Slowcooker Pizza Casserole! 

Update soon. 

xo. A-