A constructive way to pass the time:

All my life I've been surrounded by fantastic cooks, I've never really needed to cook for myself. Even when I was living in Mascoutah I was still eating at Mike and Becky's or my parents most nights of the week and the nights I didn't eat there I was going out with friends for dinner. In hindsight with going to school and working I never really had time to "cook" meals.

So here I am in my first September in 16 years that I haven't had to go to school. Along with that I still haven't found that perfect job. I can't remember a time when I had this much time on my hands. I literally work on sending out resumes and calling potential employers all day/afternoon and then spend my evening diddling around. Justin plays guitar and reads in the morning, then plays guitar and reads in the afternoon, breaks for dinner and perhaps a movie, then plays guitar and reads before bed. As you can imagine, after a week, life can become increasingly boring. Neither of us really have the money to go out and ENJOY L.A. yet, that will come with time.

Needing a change of pace, since today is Saturday, I planned out our menu for the next two weeks and then we went shopping. I've found it's cheaper and more efficient to plan what you are going to eat in advance. It keeps us from impulse buying and wasting produce. So after a day of shopping I began on supper. Tonight I made Chicken Cordon Blue (sp?), homemade mashed potatoes, broccoli and spring salad. The chicken turned out great, next time I think I'll use a different cheese though. The potatoes turned out AWESOME! It was only after I washed the potatoes and put them in water to boil that I realized (a) I'd never actually made mashed potatoes and (b) I don't have a mixer to "mash". Turns out if you cook the potatoes long enough you can mash by hand. :) Thank goodness. So while conversing over our delicious dinner and our wonderful bottle of Chenin Blanc wine, Justin decided to grade the meal. He gave it a 99%, only because the broccoli was a little over done and the chicken could have been a bit cheesier. I asked him how he rated the home-made spaghetti and meatballs I made last Friday, he said an 80% because they were a bit too garliky and the chunks of onion should have been smaller (plus he hates whole wheat spaghetti noodles). This lead me to a great idea!

I am going to make 2 meals a week from absolute scratch. Something totally different that I've never made before and Justin gets to grade me on it. We are going to take pictures and keep a journal of the dishes. It may sound dorky, but believe me, it's about the most interesting thing we've done all weekend! Finally a constructive way to pass the time.

In other news, we are getting used to the L.A. life. I almost hit my first pedestrian yesterday while driving which really isn't a great thing but happens a lot here. Okay, maybe hitting is a bad word, we'll say fiercely tapping. I mean I was rolling out of a parking garage, and he had time to step back, how fast could I really have been going?! He also cursed at me, which is pretty typical as well, actually, the cursing thing is probably typical of any "car vs. man" incident anywhere on the globe.

I am going to sign off for the night, polish off this bottle of wine and work on writing some songs with Justin. But on a final note, we both talked to Justin's Aunt Tammy for a long time today (we had a lot to catch up on!) and she asked a lot of questions she'd been wondering about for a while about our life out here. If you think of something you want to know, drop me an email and I will definitely make sure to put it in the next blog! Email is victoriagalle@gmail.com

Talk to you all soon, miss you!