Iced Coffee

When we were in Tucson for our convention, my husband had to be there by 7:00.  He was an attendant.  So my mother-in-law and I would take care of the dogs, get ready, eat breakfast and then head out around 8:30 or so.  We would stop at Starbucks to get coffee for us and to bring my husband an iced coffee.

I think that was his inspiration when he bought this on Amazon a couple of weeks ago:

It is a brewing system for iced coffee.  I used to think that iced coffee was made by just making regular coffee, letting it cool and then pouring it over ice.  I was wrong.  The Pioneer Woman has an iced coffee brew recipe on her site, and I did try it once.  Honestly, the coffee turned out great the brewing was a HUGE pain.  I only ever did it that once.

This system is soooo much easier.

Basically, you put coffee and water into this white thing (very technical):

There is a filter in the bottom of it and a stopper, but those come into play later.  I won't get into the measurements and all of that because my husband did all of this and I wasn't paying attention.

When you're done adding your ground coffee (we used Dunkin Donuts) and filtered water, it should look kind of sludgy like this:

Then you put it in the fridge and let it do it's thing for 12 - 24 hours (the longer, the stronger).

Then you take it out of the fridge and pull the plug out of the bottom and let it filter into the glass carafe provided:

What is filtered out is a concentrate.  You use one part concentrate to two parts water/ice, etc.

It can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks.

It turned out so good!  The Toddy system is rated high on Amazon and we have since found out that it is the cold brew system of choice of many coffee shops.

July

I think the month of July may go down as the busiest month we’ve ever had.

Here’s a rundown: 

July 3 – 6 – Regional Convention, Tucson, AZ 

July 9 – Josh French Bible Highlights 

July 11 – meet Monica for dinner to practice Josh’s public talk/translations for Saturday 

July 12 – Josh’s English public talk (with French translation), followed by hospitality
July 15 – 20 – French Circuit Overseer visit 

July 16 – take a meal to an elderly brother in our hall whose wife is in the hospital
July 18 – dinner plans with a friend 

July 19 – French meeting (C.O. visit) 

July 20 – hosting a congregation gathering at our clubhouse for 75 – 100 people 

July 23 – Angie French talk, Josh French Draw Close book 

July 26 – French meeting 

We have three Saturday French meetings in a row this month because of the circuit overseer visit. Which also means that we will have three free Sundays, which will help. Except one of them won’t be ‘free’ because that’s when we will host our congregation gathering.

I also didn't include our family worship evenings each Tuesday night when my mother-in-law comes over.

Oh and I'm in charge of decorations for the gathering.  I have no clue what I'm doing yet.  And I think I'm going to order a cake too.  Hmm....

And I need to start working on my French talk NOW.

I keep telling myself that it will go fast and August will be here soon.  But in August we have more of the same....plus one wedding to attend...plus one graduation party to attend (and we're going to both).  Oh.  And we're pioneering. 

 Nuts!!!  But....it's a good 'nuts'.  Anytime things are crazy because of spiritual things, it's just really not that bad.  :)

Tucson, AZ

Last Thursday around 1:00 we left for Tucson, Arizona for our convention.  

And we took the dogs.

We took two cars.  Me, my mother-in-law, Watson and Bella (my mother-in-law's dog) in my CRV, and my husband and Hannah in his Elantra (along with most of our luggage).  Our luggage consisted of clothes for three days, lunch food and snacks for three days, two large dog crates, and dog food and snacks for three days.  It was a lot.

It went really, really well.  Was it easy?  No.  Did it go better than I thought it would?  YES.  The dogs did soooooo well.  So much better than we thought they would.  We only had one 'incident' the entire trip.  Well, two if you count the dust storm, ha ha.  The first time we stopped, Watson lost his breakfast in the car.  But thankfully, it was easy to clean up.  I had folded down my seats so they had plenty of space and also laid down a waterproof canvas-like pet cover to protect the seat backs as well.  Clean up was easy. 

In Arizona on the way out we ran into a dust storm.  We've had dust storms here in Albuquerque (fairly frequently), but this was pretty intense.  Usually they shut down the interstate because the visibility is so bad.  We thought they were going too, but then it cleared a bit thank goodness.  The joys of living in the desert!

We arrived in Tucson around 8:00 p.m. Thursday night.  It took us 7 hours, but that included making two stops with the dogs - each stop about 30 minutes).

We checked into our hotel.  We stayed at La Quinta, because they are pet friendly.

It was a brand new hotel, and it was beautiful!

Everything was so nice and clean and new!  There was a free breakfast each morning that included eggs, breakfast meats, waffles, toast, pastries, cereal, oatmeal, etc.  Our room was large (we didn't feel cramped with three adults and three dogs!) and there was plenty of space.

We set up the dog crates right away.

We stacked them to give us more room.  Watson on the bottom, Bella on top.  Hannah did not have to be crated while we were gone at the convention because she is not destructive like the other two can be, ha ha.

Each day over lunch, my mother-in-law and I would come back to the hotel (about a 10 minute drive from the convention center) and take the dogs out to do their business.  

The dogs made themselves at home right away on my mother-in-law's bed.

The weather was decent.  It was hot, but it rained each day and the cloud cover really helped keep the temperatures down.  I loved the rain!  And the palm trees.

The convention was wonderful, of course.  The best one I've ever been too.  I'm still on a spiritual high.  :)

Here's a collage I did on Instagram:

It went sooooo fast.  We left Sunday evening.  After the convention we packed up, loaded up the cars and the dogs and headed home.  Again, the dogs did great.  It took about 7 hours and 15 minutes to get home, stopping twice just like we did on the way out.

It was a very pretty drive home.

We got home at 2:30 a.m. this morning.  I did not go to work today.  I had taken the day off thank goodness.  I am still tired, but I slept until about 11:30 this morning so that helped!

It was a great weekend.  The dogs did well, I really liked Tucson, and the convention was amazing.  

I am by no means an expert on traveling with dogs, but here's what I found most helpful on our trip:

*I brought their toys and blankets that they use and love at home.  I brought their bowls that they use every day, even the place mat that they set on.  Anything that is familiar to them will help them adjust to their new surroundings.

*Gulpys

I found these at Homegoods.  They are portable water bowls.  These were sooooo helpful on the drive.  I filled the water bottles (I got two) before I left and then when we stopped it was so easy to give them each a drink.

*Lysol wipes.  Enough said.

*Nudges Premium Jerky Cuts

These are just dog treats, but when we stopped the dogs weren't all that interested in eating their 'usual' dinner.  So I got these just in case and they were a hit.  They're also made in the U.S.A. which is a MUST if you're buying jerky treats for dogs.  Make sure they are made in the U.S.A. and not anywhere else.

It was a lot of work to bring the dogs, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.  They did not seem stressed out at all and we didn't have to kennel them or worry about them at all.  

It was a great weekend!

Reclaiming My House - Project #4 - The Desk

My desk is in a very open are of the house - the living room.  Which is visible from the dining room, the entryway, the kitchen, and the laundry room.

So when it's messy, it can make the whole room (or 4 rooms!) look awful.

Here's what it looked like a couple of days ago:

Yikes.  It became a dumping ground.

Lovely, huh?

I cleared it all off and put everything away that didn't belong there.

Then, I used the large basket that I emptied during my last project, and put my printer inside of it.

I rarely use it, and when I need to, it's easy to plug in.

Here's the after:

Much better!  I still need to hide the large white laptop cord, but overall I am pleased with the result!

This is a much nicer space to work from:

Next up?  The kitchen (I think....ugh)

Reclaiming My House - Project #3 - The Baskets

I'm still plugging away on my house projects.

The next one I tackled was these two baskets that I have in the bedroom.

I've needed to go through the two baskets on the bottom for quite a while.  The larger one held my crafting supplies, notecards, etc.  The top one held my yarn and knitting needles.  They were both a mess and I wasn't sure I needed them both.

I got started with my trusty sidekick right by my side.

The first basket....

And the second...

I cleaned them both out and got rid of anything that I hadn't used in a while.  Then I transferred all of my yarn and knitting needles into this bag:

It's actually a sewing machine carrier, but it holds my yarn and needles perfectly!

And it fits nicely in my closet.  The rest of my craft supplies fit into the smaller of the two baskets.

Done!  Another small project completed!

Random

*My allergies have been so bad today that my eyes are itching and burning and I've sneezed 17 times tonight (yes, I've been counting).

*My husband is hanging out with a friend tonight so it's been just me and the puppies hanging out at home.  Watson has de-stuffed his Spiderman toy and Ducky.  And I have been following him around picking up the stuffing.

*I've been watching That 70's Show on Netflix.  Well, in the usual way that I 'watch' television....on my iPad either while in the kitchen or at my desk while doing some other project.  Like blogging.  Ha ha.  Anyways, some of the episodes are really funny and some are just stupid.  Kitty and Fez are my favorite characters.  Debra Jo Rupp is awesome (she played Alice, Phoebe's much older sister-in-law on 'Friends')

She's super funny.

*I've been working on my desk tonight.  I did a smaller project last night, which I will also blog about.  It feels really good to get these things done!  I need to tackle the kitchen and the office next.  The office won't be bad.  The kitchen is another story.

*My husband is awesome....he went to Costco today (he's off this week) and got all of our usual stuff.  He remembered everything....with no list!  I was very impressed.  

*Work has been nuts, but the days are going by super fast.  However when I come home I'm pretty beat.

I think that's all.  Sorry this was a boring random update, but I can't really see anymore due to the itching and burning and I need to take my contacts out.  Good times!

Reclaiming My House - Project #2 - The French Cabinet

We have a cabinet in our dining room that I call 'The French Cabinet'.  Basically, when we decided to start learning French we started accumulating books to help us learn.  And then for our family worship evening we would use a combination of those books plus our other spiritual books and I was constantly going back and for the from the office to the dining room to wherever random spot the books were kept in the house.

So we combined everything into the cabinet, and over the past couple of months, like everything else, it got out of hand.

Here's the 'befores':

Random items had gotten thrown in there over the past few weeks, so I took everything out and sorted it all.  I found my Annual Meeting Notes, which I've been looking for because I want to type them up!  I put a few things back in the office where they belonged.  Then I put everything back on the shelves.  All of the French stuff on the bottom and the spiritual stuff on the top:

I also cleared off the top.  

Our dear friend Vernon gave us this super old French-English Dictionary, which I left on display on the top of the cabinet:

This project took maybe 20 minutes at most.  And again, I feel so much better!!

Next up?  My desk (I think).  Yikes.