Hello, family. I'm back.

First of all, I'd like to say thanks for all the packages and letters I picked up from the post office today! I had to check the calendar and make sure it wasn't my birthday....

My Army course went well. I came out in one piece and did everything I was supposed to do. Mother Nature was kind enough to send snow and plummeting temperatures for those two weeks. And for those of you who worried I wouldn't make it off the land navigation course in three days, let alone three hours: I made it just fine. Granted it was probably the easiest land nav course in military history.... but that aside, I am confident that given a map and a compass, I can find North and walk in that general direction. And that aside... Lets be realistic. I won't be doing anything crazy, like leaving my GPS at home. They invent modern conveniences and market them to people just like me for a reason.

After today, Mother Nature and I are on good terms once again. I ran outside in SHORTS for the first time this year. I could've kept running all day (if I wasn't so out of shape). Only one person was blinded by the glare of my white legs, so I consider the excursion a success, overall. The thermometer says it is currently 61 degrees. I've been watching it like a hawk all day. At one point it said 82, and even though it was a false reading, my heart did a happy little flip-flop. I think you'll all agree with me that it has been a LONG winter. I just hope it's really over.

Today was also the day I had to start the four-wheeler so it still runs when Ted gets back. Okay, easy enough. Luckily for me, with the choke open it started right up and stayed running when I closed it. Since everything was going so well, I thought I should just take it for a spin. I kid you not, people lined up on the side of the street to laugh at me. Apparently I don't really know where the gears are. I made it back to the garage in one piece, and went upstairs to put my helmet away. I went back down to close up the garage, and somewhere in that short period of time, I lost the key to the quad. I would say don't tell Ted, but he reads this, too. I'm sure it'll turn up, but honestly- I'm starting to wonder about my current state of mind.

I was frantically searching the garage for that stupid key when Karl decided to make amends for yelling at me the last time we spoke. He's still creepy, but I had a normal conversation with him. For the first time. Ever.
I called it a conversation, but really there was no dialogue. I think I make him nervous, because once he opened his mouth it was like he's been waiting to talk to me for the last 15 months and finally got it out. Now I know his son goes to school in Weiden one day a week, is a mechanic the rest of the time, and just got his driver's license. Little Andreas looks like he's twelve, but he's always been nice to me, and maybe the little squirt will find the key to the quad and save my butt. Karl has a new car coming in April, because it was cheaper to buy a new car than keep the old one. I could go on and on.... He talked AT me for twenty minutes. I decided to be really charming, you know, batting my eyelashes, flipping my pontyail...
maybe next time we'll revisit the topic of AFN. And the leaky hatch window. And what he could do about that mustache.

Love you and miss you.

Ash

Farm Fresh

Well, I got to it and made my chocolate cheesecake. It's out of the oven, cooling on a rack and everything. We'll see if it sinks or cracks or does some other thing I've never even heard of. I would take a picture, but there's a mysterious bubble right in the middle of my precious cheesecake. I'm trying to remember if I dropped something in the batter.

Now that it's made I'm just going to pawn it off on other people (pre-cut, to disguise the bubble....those that don't read my blog think I actually know how to use an oven and a spatula...I'm perfectly willing to keep up that false notion). I'm pretty sure the only cheesecake dessert I'll lick the pan over is the one my mom makes that has cherries on top. I don't know why I didn't try to make that one. I just got it in my head that a girl should make a chocolate cheesecake at least once. Just in case. Besides, whenever I try to duplicate anything of Mom's, I'm always disappointed.

I promise I'm done talking about cheesecake. Probably for forever. Wipe your tears, there's always layer cake, lemon cake, red cake, angel food cake... But for tonight I want to leave you with a pearl of wisdom I learned in animal science class. You can tell the color of egg a chicken will lay by the color of its earlobe. It's true. Brown or red earlobes mean brown eggs, and white means white. Look it up if you don't believe me. And this, my friends, this is how you know your eggs are Farm Fresh:

They come this way at the commissary now. Buyer assurance that this particular egg was very recently "nestled" somewhere else.