stressful week.

Well, at least it was a short week! I'm having quite the week over here, and it just sucks. Things at work have gotten weird, it almost feels like we're treading water and I'm starting to feel like I can't hang on much longer. It's hard when it feels like you're not valued by upper management. I really don't want to go into it, since I"m not sure if anyone at work reads this or not, but it's definitely been a very stressful few days. Nathan and I have some serious talking to do this weekend about future planning.

Last night was just the last straw. I made my favorite dinner (hotdogs and sauce, which is basically boiled hotdogs that I get from Buffalo- Wegmans in VA carries them- with a ketchup based sauce that's kind of like a mild bbq sauce. That, and mashed potatoes. So I found a freezer bag of hot dogs in the regular freezer wednesday, and put them in to thaw for last night. I then made dinner, and everything smelled great! Until I took a bite of the hot dog. Not sure what was wrong with it, but they were definitely not right. They didn't taste spoiled exactly, but the flavor was completely wrong, and the gag reflex started up after 1 bite. I pushed my plate away, and almost lost it. It was my favorite dinner. After a long and stressful afternoon meeting, it was the one thing I was really excited about. And we couldn't eat it. I thought about just making more hot dogs, but it would have taken a while considering the rest were frozen (in the garage freezer). So, Nathan suggested just going out, so that was what we did. 5 guys was good, but not what I wanted. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I had thawed the hotdogs, then decided we weren't going to use them so I tossed them in the freezer to save them for later? Not something I would do, but maybe I did. For some reason I seem to be remembering doing just that...though I have no idea why?!

Anyway, dinner was fine. We got home and the UPS truck was at the end of the driveway! I knew exactly what was being delivered, and it helped cheer me up a bit. For Xmas, my mom gave me a gc to Williams Sonoma to buy a pot that I wanted. I've had a Le Creuset dutch oven that's relatively small for years, and I LOVE it. I've wanted a larger one for ever, and decided that it was what I wanted to get myself this year for Xmas. So I asked my mom for the gc, and figured any other money I got would go directly towards that. I meant to take the gc to the mall last weekend, but I forgot. So I decided to just order it online, if shipping wasn't too crazy. Otherwise I'd hit the mall this weekend again. And, there was an online sale. In exactly the color that I wanted (the Sonoma Blue). So, I bought the pot Monday, that in nearly every other color was $235, but in the blue, it was $175! So by the time I added tax and shipping, I still saved $30 off the original price. And it arrived yesterday, and it's beautiful and BIG!! I'm now the proud owner of a 7 1/4 Quart Le Creuset round dutch oven, and I am SO excited about this! This weekend will definitely be a soup-making weekend!!

I'm just really, really, really glad that it's friday already.