Jamie's To Do List

Jamie here....

I'm currently working on backing up my computer and going through files to see if I need them. I stumbled upon a Word document titled "things to do.doc". I opened to find the following list:

Things to buy
Bigger bookshelf
House


This list was from 1/7/06...unfortunately I've only accomplished one of the two items. Well, I guess I did marry into a bigger bookshelf and I get extra credit for marrying into a second house too. Maybe I can count it as 80% complete...

that is all..

Jamie

Continuing Education

So, as a pharmacist, I have to complete 15 hours of CE (continuing education) per year in both the state of Illinois and Iowa in order to keep my license active. It is unfortunate that for the last two years now I have waited until December to complete at least half of my CE's for the year. Last year, as people were coming over to my house on New Year's Eve I was finishing up that last CE at about 10:00pm, just to make sure the date on the form said 12/31/07 and not 1/1/08. Once again this year, I have waited until December 29th to do my last 7 hours of CE. Luckily I had a 5 hour car ride (and a generous husband who doesn't mind driving the whole way) to do a 3 hour CE and today had a half day off in order to complete the rest. Now I'm just suffering through technical difficulties of not being able to submit my quiz on a particular website. I'm hoping that later this evening or by tomorrow they will have their "ERROR" figured out so my date stamped can once again say 12/31/08. I have 1.5 hours remaining and am confident that I can complete the hours before midnight tomorrow night, New Year's Eve!

Thanksgiving 2008

For Thanksgiving this year, my family was traveling to Ohio to be with my mom's relatives and celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday. I had to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving so Jamie and I couldn't travel to Ohio and we had his family come to our house for dinner. Luckily Jamie's brother, Aaron, and Jamie cooked Thanksgiving dinner the last two years so they were experts at preparing the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. All I was responsible for was making my family's normal dishes: Sweet Potato casserole and BBQ Green Beans. I also made a Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle that was pretty tasty. Jamie and Aaron also made a pecan pie and a pumpkin pie and Jamie's mom made their famous asparagus casserole.The one unfortunate event of the day was the dressing/stuffing. Jamie tried a new recipe that called for 6 cups of chicken stock (which in hindsight is way too much) and the stuffing ended up being a very soupy mess. It baked for over an hour and still couldn't absorb all of is liquid. It was a Thanksgiving disaster (for Jamie, not me, I don't even like stuffing). But did you know that it's stuffing when it's in the bird and dressing when it's not in the bird? So I guess this was actually dressing because it was baked in a pan in the oven. One of the good things about Thanksgiving was the Turkey. Jamie and Aaron soaked it in a salty brine overnight to make sure it turned out very juicy. I'm not normally a big fan of turkey, but I have to admit this was pretty good.
I bought new fall cloth napkins to use on Thanksgiving, which I thought added a nice little touch to the table. We also got to use our china for the 2nd time which I was very excited about because I love my china (Jamie was also happy to see it put to use...)

The goal was to eat around noon but the turkey took a little longer than usual to cook and then the casseroles had to go in the oven and they took a little longer than expected so we didn't end up eating until about 2:00. For me and my family that would have been our estimated eating time, but I guess the Murray clan likes to eat a meal closer to the noon hour. Luckily we had some delicious veggies and dip courtesy of Aunt Peg to munch on while the turkey was cooking and we watched the National Dog Show and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Jamie was the official turkey carver of Thanksgiving Day 2008 and he did a great job (we even had some antique turkey carving knives from a great grand relative of Jamie's to do the job).