Cabin Fever & Chocolate Goodness

The guys I work with cleaned my car off yesterday, they're awesome!

I am officially snowed in. This would be okay except for the fact that Tom has been gone since 6am because he had to go plow, which means I am stuck in the condo all alone with just the animals for company. I really look forward to my weekends after working all week. We always go out to dinner Friday night, and Saturdays are usually spent running small errands because we literally do not leave the house weeknights. We did not go out last night for dinner because of the blizzard, and we are definitely not getting out today! What does a girl do when she is stuck home?



She brushes her very hairy dog

She stares out the window wishing the plows would show up already/her car would be magically dug out

She bakes chocolate goodness

She watches several episodes of The Vampire Diaries

At this rate the condo will be spotless by the time Tom gets home because I don't have room to bake anything else, and I only have a few episodes of Vampire Diaries left until I've watched all three seasons.

Homemade Amazing Brownies

I got off work early due to the blizzard and within an hour of being home I had to do SOMETHING. For some reason brownies sounded amazing, so I decided to try them out. I had NO idea how easy/amazing homemade brownies truly are! It makes me sad that when I was younger, my family always made cake/cupcakes/brownies using box mixes. Not only are they just not good for you, but they have all these ingredients you can pronounce in them so that they can sit on the shelves for years. I now bake everything homemade, and I'm so glad I gave brownies a try! They were incredibly simple and if you love to bake like I do, you most likely already have all the ingredients on hand which makes them basically FREE!

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1 ts vanilla extract
2 Eggs
1/4 ts salt
1/4 ts baking powder
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup semi sweet or milk chocolate chips

Directions:

1 Preheat the oven to 350 and grease 9x9 inch baking pan
2 Mix the first 3 ingredients together (oil, sugar, and vanilla)
3 Beat the eggs into the oil mix until well blended
4 Blend the salt, baking powder, cocoa powder, and flour all together in a separate bowl
5 Blend together oil/egg mix with flour mix slowly, until clumps are gone
6 Stir chocolate chips in
7 pour batter into baking pan
8 Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean when placed through center of brownies
9 Enjoy!

Exciting News and Crazy Snow Storms

Yesterday was a very exciting day in the Kuhns' residence. As I have mentioned in previous posts, Tom is currently in the process of applying to become a police officer. It will be a year in April since he started going through all of the different steps and yesterday found out that he is one of two final candidates for a town a few miles away from where we live. He has never gotten this far in the process yet and is so close, we are both very excited! He received a call from the town yesterday telling him that he had passed his polygraph and that out of him and the other candidate, the detective feels that Tom is more qualified. Hooray! They are now moving on to his background check which includes stopping by our home very soon to talk to me about Tom. It's a little intimadating knowing that a detective will be sitting on our couch asking me all sorts of questions about my husband, but I am very excited for the opportunity to brag about Tom and explain why he will make such a great police officer :)

The other exciting news we received yesterday is that we are receiving more for our tax return than we originally thought (which was basically nothing) so yay for more money! It's not as exciting as the police news but when you have several student loan payments money is good news too ;) So that is our life right now. We have sat and waited for ten months now, our entire life on hold it seemed, just waiting for some sort of good news. Tom had several doors shut in his face throughout the process and we were both beginning to feel very defeated and unsure of everything, so this huge glimmer of hope is reassuring and has given Tom extra motivation. If hired he will be going to the police academy April 5th for 5.5 months where he has to live on campus and only come home Friday night through Sunday. I'm not looking forward to those long months, but we will finally be able to start planning our future (babies!), so it will all be worth it :)

In dinner news, two nights ago I tried out this new recipe I had found on Pinterest for spicy Thai noodles. If you cannot handle a little bit of spice, I do not recommend trying these. I am a big fan of spicy food but Tom has a weak mouth and was dying throughout dinner (but he apparently loved the noodles enough to eat two helpings so he survived). The recipe was incredibly easy to make and I had everything already in my pantry which is always nice. It is vegetarian but I added chicken, which I might omit next time I make it.

Also, a snow storm is heading our way, set to hit Friday and bring possibly 12 inches. 12 INCHES. I know, we live in Connecticut so it should be expected, but last winter we maybe got a total of 12 inches all season and this winter the biggest storm was 6 inches, 12 inches in one storm is crazy! Especially when it's a work day and we don't get snow days so I have to attempt to get home in a foot of snow! And this is the reason I got an AWD Jeep Grand Cherokee...

Spicy Thai Noodles

Ingredients:
1 box angel hair pasta
1 TBS crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sesame oil
6 TBS honey
6 TBS soy sauce
Green onions, cilantro, shredded carrots, peanuts (all optional)

Directions:
1. Boil noodles and drain
2. Heat both oils with red pepper flakes in pan over medium heat for two minutes
3. Strain out the pepper flakes and reserve the oil
4. Mix oil with honey and soy sauce and whisk together
5. Toss noodles with oil sauce
6.

http://pinterest.com/pin/27936460160847301/