potato-chicken casserole

It's been a windy lazy day. I'm reading Into the Wildernessby Sara Donati and I've read a couple hundred pages today alone, with just under 400 pages left. Thankfully I have the 2nd book in the series already, but I am concerned about what I'm going to do after that. When I get into a series of books, I run with it! I devour the series until there is no more and then I lament the end of the series. No need to dwell on that for now though.

Yesterday I made a peruna-broilerikiusaus, which roughly translates to potato-chicken casserole. I didn't follow any sort of recipe, but rather thought of other recipes I've made over the years and went from there. In the end, it was a very basic recipe, but it was quite good.

peruna-broilerikiusaus / potato-chicken casserole

6-8	medium potatoes
1 pkg (~400g)	marinated shredded chicken
2	eggs
~5 dl	milk
1	onion  (I didn't add one this time, but that is only because we didn't have one in the house.)
pinch	pepper

Directions:
-wash and cut the potatoes into small pieces and then boil them until almost done. The potatoes will cook quickly because they are chopped up small.
-fry up the chicken.
-beat the eggs well, add the milk and pepper.
-add the potatoes and chicken into the milk mix.
-bake in the oven for about 1hour at 200C
-let the casserole cool a little bit before serving with a nice green salad and enjoy.

Taking back myself

I love to bake and cook. I have more recipes cut out of magazines and printed from online sites than I know what to do with, but I just can't seem to help myself. I love food!

Part of my relaxing this summer and not stressing about TTC or IF treatments (or lack of them during the summer) is to do things I like and that make me happy. The sort of things that make me who I am or at least who I want to be and not the person I've become during this last year and a half of treatments and 3 years of TTC.

So, here's to trying more new recipes, doing some arts and crafts, sewing, reading and just plain ol' enjoying summer!

Here's the recipe I found this weekend and tried last night. Very simple and full of ingredients I like individually, so why wouldn't they be good together? I quite liked this. Hubby liked it too!

Meksikolainen maissisalaatti / Mexican corn salad

1 bag / ~1 1/3 cup	frozen or canned corn
1	avocado
1	cucumber (peeled, unless you use an English cucumber)
1	red onion
3 tablespoons	finely chopped herbs, for ex. basil, chives and parsley
2 tablespoons	lemon juice
1 tablespoon	olive oil
pinch	salt & ground black pepper

Melt and drain the corn. Cut the avocado in half, remove the stone and then peel it. Cut the avocado into little pieces and sprinkle the lemon juice on top of it to prevent it from browning. Cut the cucumber into little cubes. Peel and chop the onion into small pieces. Mix all the ingredients together. Make the dressing by mixing the lemon juice, oil and herbs together. Then pour it on top of the salad. Stir it together and enjoy!

Fantastic Friday

Friday was an awesome day for me and one that I needed for some time. So many good and positive things happened to make it a great day for me. Not to mention that just by the fact that it was Friday, it had to be a good day!

Having said that it was a great day, let me get the one not so pleasant thing out of the way first so I can focus on everything positive. Ever since stopping the progesterone, I've been a bit dry and itchy in the lady part area. Ugh, I can't wait for that feeling to go away!

And now, on with the good.
Really, Friday started out like any other day. I did get to sleep a bit earlier the night before, so I actually got close to 7 hours of sleep. Yay me! The alarm went of, I woke up, got ready for work and went to work.

At work, I was able to help a co-worker with some of his stuff so that he could focus on a messy project that really needed to be cleaned up.

Then, a lady from IT brought me the 2nd monitor I had asked for/requested via my TeamLeader. It was a different size than what I already had, so it was given to my co-worker, but IT lady did bring me a matching monitor a bit later in the day. IT Lady also figured out why my computer is insanely and extremely slooooow! So painfully slow it literally stresses me out. She will build me a new computer and bring it to me early next week. Yes!
And this was all before lunch! Ok, so what that I didn't go to lunch until almost 1pm?!


After lunch, BigBoss wished to speak to me. I went to her office and she told me that I was not going to get assigned an extra duty that I had said I'd be willing to take on. She just wanted to let me know that it wasn't because of any lack of skills or what not, but rather that she would like to keep me available for some other projects that will be coming up later this fall. I told her it wasn't a problem and that I understood. Remember my mantra of late? No stress.

I told her about my mantra and somehow from my comment, we got on the topic of having too much work to do (she's insanely swamped), health, taking care of oneself and taking time off (planned & unplanned). She brought up the reason that she was off work about a year ago for an extended period of time was because she had an emergency hysterectomy. I knew she was out of work, hard not to notice, but I had no idea what the reason was.
(I'm not sure if anyone wants to read about her story of an emergency hysterectomy, but I want to share it as it meant so much to me that she confided in and shared with me. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't want to read it.) Basically, as she was in the air flying somewhere, got horribly sick and started really bleeding. She then went straight to the hospital thinking it was maybe appendicitis, only to be shocked with an oncologist doctor coming in to talk to her. During the exam, they found a huge mass (23cm?) in her abdomen area that they thought was a tumor and it had burst, which is what was causing the bleeding. BigBoss was told they were going to do surgery soon and that they'd start her on chemo right after. She was prepared for the worst. When the doctors were in for the surgery, they instead found an endometriomal cyst (that's what I had/have!). They remove her uterus, ovaries and appendix (because they were in there). BigBoss told me that in the beginning this was difficult on her emotionally and how she struggled with the fact that her fertility was taken away from her. She is now on HRT to help ease her body in to menopause. As I told her I understood the emotions of hormones, surgery and such stresses like that (not being able to have kids), I decided then and there to tell her what hubby and I have been going through. Saying that one understands or at least partially understands what another is going through, doesn't give it much clout, strength or confidence unless you can back it up with your own experiences. Once it was all out in the open and we talked a bit more, I felt tears at the back of my eyes and a lump in my throat, but I fought it back. I was so proud of myself for not breaking down. So, now my bigboss knows that hubby and I are TTC and that we have been for some time, without success. But I don't mind. It was Friday and it felt good to share.

After work, I met hubby downtown where we walked to the restaurant that we were going to have dinner at with another couple. We used the 2 gift certificates we bought a while back (each cost 25€, but valued at 50€ worth of food each). I ordered a strawberry margarita! My second alcoholic drink of the year (I don't like alcohol generally, but since the FET was a BFN, I decided to do something that I wouldn't have done if pregnant!). And man oh man, was it yummy!! We all had yummy food and yummy dessert. The night was still early so we decided to head back to the couples' house. I got a quick tour of their house as I hadn't been there in a while and they'd done some more remodeling. We drank (they alcohol, me tea), ate Turkish delight candies, chocolate, Karjalan piirakka and played Dominion four times. I lost every time, but it was still fun and I'd love to play it again.

We were offered a bed to stay the night, but our kitties hadn't gotten their nightly snack and we felt we should go home to check on them. We took a taxi and arrived home just before 4am (the receipt confirms it)!! I haven't been out that late in, forever! I took a shower, stumbled into bed and promptly fell asleep.

The goodness continued even to today! Once we woke up hubby and I lazed in the bed reading and chatting. When we finally got dressed to go to the store, I bought some sweet things to eat (chocolate, choco-covered cookies, chocolate-licorice ice cream and nougat candies), just because. We didn't really eat proper food today, but that's ok every once in awhile. Then I drank tea and watch the 2 final episodes of American Idol. I was surprised at who won, but I think that person deserved it.

And now here it is after midnight in the early hours of Sunday morning. (Does anyone else take forever composing and writing a post?) It's time for me to go to bed and hopefully continue with this fantastic weekend when I wake up.


p.s. The text in bold struck me as something important and maybe even profound, which is why it is made more noticeable.

Friends & something new learned

Two friends & I drove to visit another friend this afternoon. It was great to see them all at the same time as it's rare for us to be able to get together. It's amazing how fast time flies when there is so much to catch up on.
Before meeting with the two today, I was wandering around the mall downtown for a bit. I went into a book store and saw Jean M. Auel's Earth Children series (The Clan of the Cave Bear, etc). Only her last name was written Untinen-Auel. I hadn't seen that before, so I whipped out my phone to google it. Turns out she was born to Finnish parents. I also learned that the 6th & final book in the series is supposed to come out on March 29, 2011. I guess that means I should read the 5th book first. I bought it years ago but I just never got around to reading it.
I was around 14 when I first read The Clan of the Cave Bear. I remember how I loved and devoured the books back then. My dad didn't want me reading them because of their adult content, but my mom didn't care. So I read them.
I remember being close to finishing the first book and staying up late to do so. As I finished the book my mom came up stairs to find me bawling my eyes out over the book. She comforted me and said soothing words, but that has always stuck with me.
Now that the final book is coming out, I wonder, should I .read the whole series again or just pick up where I left off?