Skin of My Teeth

I almost let stress overcome me yesterday and I nearly dropped the ball again big time at work. I was working on a SWMM 4.0 model that we received from another company for the purpose of making our proposed modifications to it for a watershed to see if there were any impacts. In a gist, this model based upon input will output information such as water level and flow rates where specified. Well the entire thing is text based and I f*ed up an input. I put the wrong value in somewhere. I didn't catch it either before both my supervisor on the project and boss were questioning that their must be an error in the inputs. They didn't immediately place blame on me though and my supervisor asked for my files to check them. I actually caught the error and fixed it before sending him the files but if I didn't have a reason to rerun the files I was still screwed.

Well, come this morning and my supervisor did find something but that something was that the company we received the model from changed a few inputs and he didn't previously notice it. So that probably was the real issue not my typos and I had an excuse to rerun the model. The results of the rerun were expected. In the long run everything came out just fine, whew...

To my flip out last night. This showed me how much stress I'm under and how work and home stress are snowballing on me now. Stresses from home are causing me to be distracted at work and then make stupid mistakes like the above. Then I bring the stress from work and it affects my attitude at home. Somehow I need to slosh all of this off and start from square one but I'm unsure where to start.

New Layout

I've realized there is one big snag to my blogging directly from my phone. My current layout doesn't work well with the default picture sizes I send. So over this week I will be redoing the layout of the blog, doing some spring cleaning and maybe even a new header if I'm so ambitious. The graph paper scheme is just seeming a bit old to me now. I think I need something cleaner, crisper, and more modern. Any good suggestions?

My brown thumb

I love plants but unfortunately I don't have much of a green thumb. My problem is I have a tendency to forget to water them. I'm trying again though. Here is a picture of my new herb window box. In it is sweet basil, Italian parsley, and oregano. I had good luck last fall with a sunflower in this window. What eventually led to its demise was not lack of water but that it grew too tall on a small stock and snapped. FYI this is the kitchen window that gets great sun during the day and is right by the sink. It makes it easier to remember to water it. Hopefully within a few months I can share news of my success. I hope so because the front yard needs some serious landscaping.

Anyone have any good pointers?

A love/hate with tv

I love many tv shows but I hate them all at once. The spring is a hard time in our house because there is just so many good shows on. Sometimes I feel like all we do at night is watch tv. I mean tonight we have American Idol, Big Bang Theory, Whip Out, and Jersey Shore. We are getting this pretty crazy back log of shows on the DVR too. I guess there are plenty of worse things out there. TV is a great escape though. I guess it could be said to be one of my vices.

Calzone Hearts

I found this recipe for Calzone Hearts last week and decided it would be a great thing to do for the family Valentine's Day dinner. I prepped them on Sunday night because making the dough and forming the hearts took quite a bit of time. I won't kid you the dough is a pain in the butt. It is a very stiff dough and at times I almost wished I had a pasta machine to get it right. While watching movies with Hubby I put together all the calzones and it took me over 2 hours to do it all. First I rolled and cut out all the dough. I happen to have a heart shaped cookie cutter so I just used that. Once they were all cut I prepped the filling. For ours it's just mozzarella and turkey pepperoni. I chopped the pepperoni really fine first. Once I put the filling in I just crimped the edges with a fork. After I was done though I just covered them in plastic wrap and stuck them in the fridge to be baked the next evening.

The next night I made garlic bread and threw the calzones in the oven. While they were baking I also make a berry cobbler like dessert for later. I got the recipe from Allrecipes.com called Easy Fruit Cobbler. I used strawberries, blackberries and blueberries. Yes, it was very easy to make. Based on the comments on the the site I added vanilla extract to the dough and some brown sugar on top of the berries before baking it.

There it is sitting in the oven. It tasted great. Hubby had it with whip cream where I prefer vanilla ice cream with mine.

But the final picture of what dinner looked like.

Voila!! Lil' R loved the calzones so I think I may go through the torture of making them every year.

Growing bigger

Here is Wee Rose holding her own bottle. She'll be 7 months tomorrow. Really that long has passed? Sometimes it feels like just yesterday she was born and other days I feel as if there never was a time before she arrived. It's the same with Lil' R. It's hard to think back to the days before I had him. Having children changes your life so drastically. I feel as if I was even a different person. As the kids age I'm sure I'll see the differences just grow with them. I love all of it though and know I will miss the day when Lil' R and Wee Rose are no longer little like this.

Mini blogs

Maybe instead of beating myself up over not getting out enough full blogs a week I should instead just do quick mini blogs. Blogger just put out an app so now I can easily update from the convenience of my couch. The only thing that sucks is when the touch screen errors out mid sentence.
I wanted to sew tonight but we have to leave early in the morning. I save to prep all the kids stuff for the day. I'm wondering if I am ever going to get the diapers done. I guess I should get up off my butt and get to work.