product rant/rave?

No, not me, YOU!  This is my 1st time EVER living in a house that doesn't have carpet and I am struggling to keep these floors clean!  Not only are they a non carpet surface, they're white!  Who ever thought to put white linoleum in military housing is an IDIOT!  I understand it matches everything, but it also shows every tiny mark and speck of dirt!  There has got to be an easier way to clean these floors!  I refuse to drag my SUPER HEAVY Kirby up and down my stairs and I tried just sweeping all the dirt down the stairs and scooping it up at the bottom, but our stairs have these "lips" on them and all the dirt just gets stuck on the lip.  I have resorted to dragging our shop vac (which weighs less than my Kirby) up and down the stairs...UNACCEPTABLE!  And then the mopping.  I am trying hard not to have to get out a mop and bucket of water, but I can't find anything else that works...

So I need you help!  Do you have linoleum/hard wood floors? What do you use to clean them?  Do you love it or hate it?  I'd like something that is a one step process (sweeping and mopping, if that exists) and something that doesn't just push the dirt around like my swiffer wet jet does (yes, I know I have t sweep 1st and I know a lot of people love those things, but I hate it).  Since I already own one super expensive vacuum, I'd like to get something on the inexpensive side, but at this point, I will consider anything!

HELP!

well...I tried!

remember the cookies that were supposed to look like this

well, they turned out like this...FLAT, and not soft!

and these

 yeah, mine are square...on accident!

and these...oh I had such high hopes for these

mine taste nothing like s'mores...so disappointed =(

I sure hope the Marine I'm sending these to is a believer in "it's the thought that counts"!

what what

Last night, I drug Jason to Bunco with me at the community center on post and I rolled my 1st ever bunco =)

I ended up rolling a total of 6 bunco's and won 18 of 24 games!  Jason lost 17 of 24 and we each won $100!  Considering it was free to play and there wasn't a whole lot else going on around here, I'd say it was a great Friday night!

Today, this is how Jason was woke up

 yuck!  I hate dog kisses!

then we rushed to get ready for the 4th Engineer Group (Japan Army) birthday celebration (excuse the super kawaii cute new rain jacket I'm wearing over my dress)

More on that later after I have time to edit some photos.  Speaking of photos, I have to make the hour train ride to Tokyo tomorrow to get one of my lenses cleaned (and probably the other 2 and my sensor while I'm there) because this is what I have been finding on all my photos recently

it doesn't look like much on here, but it looks awful on the actual photo...ugh! (if you click on these photos, you can see better what I'm talking about)

Then when I get back from camera cleaning (and hopefully a yummy dinner with a friend), I will be making

these

these

 

and these

to send to one special Marine serving in Iraq in participation of Operation Baking GALS!

Nothing like a jam packed long weekend =)  Hope everyone is enjoying their extra day off this week!

blog friends for the assist...

So I volunteered to make chili for our Pastor appreciation lunch next week and I want to make a turkey chili (for myself) and a regular beef chili.  However I haven't made plain old beef chili in SOOOOO long that I figured I'd see if any of you have that "go to" chili recipe that you'd like to share with me!  I'm confident enough in my cooking skills that I can wing it if I need to (or I wouldn't have volunteered), but if you have a recipe to share, I would really appreciate it!

mail

I have a love hate relationship with the post office/mail system here

HATE!

LOVE!

(they have removable inserts for the winter and I wanted to try them on with and without to make sure they would fit both ways)

 I also go this super cute rain jacket in the mail today

(I tried to take a photo of me wearing it, but the color looked awful)

...now I'm just waiting for it to rain again!