Post Christmas Scare

So while playing with our new christmas gifts and eating some Russell Stover truffles, I happened to look down at our coffee table and see that we had run out of chocolates. So I asked Nice Guy, "Did you eat the rest of the chocolates? That was like half a box of chocolates!"
And he said no, I haven't had any since before lunch.
Just then, my Pride (aka my dog, Nice guy's dog is my Joy now that I've moved in with Nice Guy and have pretty much adopted all his animals... sorry, need to update more often) puked up a little brown puddle of mostly water.
SHIT!!!
So then I'm on the internet research chocolate poisoning in dogs and all the websites say to call the vet because the amount, type of chocolate and weight of the dog are really the determining factors in how serious it could be. So we called Nice Guy's vet since I haven't switched my Pride to the one here in town yet. And this is a super nice vet who I won't actually acknowledge on here but is going to get a very nice Thank You note.
After a bunch of questions about how long ago he ate the chocolate and what exactly the chocolate was and how much he probably ate she told us we can either bring him in or we can get a syringe and shoot 1 ml of hydrogen peroxide for every pound of body weight of the dog down the back of his throat. *if you try that at home by yourself, you are trying at your own risk and all I'm saying here is what I was told to do and am no way shape or form condoning or suggesting that you do this*
She said he should start throwing up in about 10 minutes. So we did, although we were smart and did it outside because we only had a 20 ml syringe and he needed 38 ml. After the first dose he walked away and puked a giant puddle of brown liquid goop. And then he seemed okay, so we were wondering if we should give him the rest. We decided to do that and after the second dose he started throwing up like that episode of Family Guy where they drank ipecac. I can't believe how much chocolate he actually ate. He was really mad at me but I tried to tell him it was for his own good. After a few minutes of petting and cuddling he seemed to forgive me and then he drank some water so I think he's all good now. I'll be keeping an eye on him for the rest of the night though.

Falling In Love is Like Owning a Dog

I found this poem and I love it so I want to share it.

Falling in love is like owning a dog
an epithalamion by Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

First of all, it's a big responsibility,
especially in a city like New York.
So think long and hard before deciding on love.
On the other hand, love gives you a sense of security:
when you're walking down the street late at night
and you have a leash on love
ain't no one going to mess with you.
Because crooks and muggers think love is unpredictable.
Who knows what love could do in its own defense?

On cold winter nights, love is warm.
It lies between you and lives and breathes
and makes funny noises.
Love wakes you up all hours of the night with its needs.
It needs to be fed so it will grow and stay healthy.

Love doesn't like being left alone for long.
But come home and love is always happy to see you.
It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life,
but you can never be mad at love for long.

Is love good all the time? No! No!
Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.

Love makes messes.
Love leaves you little surprises here and there.
Love needs lots of cleaning up after.
Sometimes you just want to get love fixed.
Sometimes you want to roll up a piece of newspaper
and swat love on the nose,
not so much to cause pain,
just to let love know Don't you ever do that again!

Sometimes love just wants to go for a nice long walk.
Because love loves exercise.
It runs you around the block and leaves you panting.
It pulls you in several different directions at once,
or winds around and around you
until you're all wound up and can't move.

But love makes you meet people wherever you go.
People who have nothing in common but love
stop and talk to each other on the street.

Throw things away and love will bring them back,
again, and again, and again.
But most of all, love needs love, lots of it.
And in return, love loves you and never stops.

Long Weekend

Wow it's been a long time since I've posted. I'll just get right into the recent stuff

I started a diet/exercise program and I've lost 6 pounds in 1 month. I was on a pretty good roll but then I started eating really badly over the long weekend and apparently a few bad days can really pack on to you. On the bright side, I've started running and I'm up to 5 km in 45 minutes (9 min/km). Not bad since I started at 3 km in 27 min (9 min/km).

I'm super sore though because Nice Guy and I planted a vegetable garden on the weekend so I was squatting for hours. We have sunflowers, corn, garlic, potatoes, and onions so far. He says we can't plant the other stuff yet because the risk of frost is still here for another 2 weeks. But eventually we'll have tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and other things that I can't remember. Oh we're having pumpkins and squash and gourds too, as soon as he rototills the other half of the garden.

We hatched out baby chicks at the end of April! They are so cute! I have named the only yellow one with white wings Castiel (Supernatural reference anyone?) We don't know the sexes of any of the chicks yet but I don't care. I like him.

We also had baby ducks at the beginning of April. Nice Guy got me two Runner Ducks that I named after my sisters and he got Cayuga ducks (2 boys, 4 girls) that are going to have ducklings next year (hopefully). On a sour note, I thought it would be nice to let all the chickens run around the yard in the nice weather this weekend, but when I let out the two roosters who were rooming together (and had been getting along fine for the past month) they started fighting each other! One of those roosters was Dinner the Symbolic Chicken and the other rooster hit him in the eye and made it all bloody and now I think he's blind in that eye. Stupid rooster..... grrrr.... So now they are separated and I hope something eats that other rooster. 

My dog got his final leg in Rally Excellence. So now he has RE after his name. And we got High In Class so we have a big blue ribbon that I'll have to hang up somewhere. I'm also babysitting my friend's dog while she's in Cuba. She's a little overly-energetic but I'm hoping she'll calm down soon and go to sleep.

I also got really homesick on Monday night and started crying in the car with Nice Guy. I missed my brother's birthday and Mother's day and I'm going to miss out on so many other things that I just got so sad. And I realized I hadn't heard from my siblings in a while. My mom is usually pretty good about calling but I hadn't heard from her in a little while either. So I called her when I got home and she made me feel better like she always does. She's going to come visit me this summer!

I think that's it for now and I'll try to post again soon. Maybe I should include some of the recipes of the healthy food I'm eating...

Awesome Weekend

This past weekend we made no plans, and it was absolutely fantastic.

We had gone to the home and garden show the weekend before and I had entered my name in a few draws so on Tuesday I got a call that I had won a family photo session. Unfortunately all my family is 3000 km away so I asked if I could bring my boyfriend and dogs instead so we changed it to a couple session for Friday night. We had a lot of fun. We couldn't see the pictures until Saturday afternoon though. So Nice Guy slept over on Friday night and we just hung out and caught up on PVR tv shows that we had missed.

Saturday morning we woke up and went to pick up baby ducks! They are so cute! Nice Guy got me two runner ducks that I named after my sisters and he got 6 Cayuga ducks. They are going to live at his farm. Ducks are the happiest farm animal. I didn't take any pictures though, so I'll have to do that and post them next time. After we brought them back to the farm and set them up with their heat lamp, food and water, we came back into town and stopped by the pet store that was hosting adoptable dogs. We have two now but I had seen their pictures online and they looked so sweet. Nice Guy is encouraging me to adopt one but I don't think that's the most responsible thing to do at the minute since I'm travelling a lot for work and would require someone to take care of it and my regular dog for me. They were nice dogs though...

Then we ate at YoYo's, where I got a strawberry banana nutella crepe and my stomach experienced euphoria. It was so delicious I nearly cried. When I dream of food this will be on a pedestal. I took a photo when it was half eaten so it probably doesn't look as good as it actually was. But just trust me on this one....

Finally we get to see the pictures! There was a picture of us doing leap frog that I liked the idea for but needed a better expression on my face. We tried to do a photo of me flipping up on his back but I look scared and I was wearing jeans and although my legs look long, the pants just made them look funny. There was a few with me on piggy back too. But I liked the photos with the dogs in them the best. I ended up getting this long photo that has us lying on our stomachs and the dogs on either side, we all look very happy. It's not a normal photo though, they custom frame and put some sort of protectant on it and stuff so I can't actually pick it up for 6 weeks. They also didn't let me how much it would cost before we did the shoot, but at least the photography session was free. Plus I think it'll look really good on my wall.

Then we picked up the dogs and some clothes for me and drove out to see a house/acreage (the one we fought about on Wednesday). It ended up being way too far and the land was flooded on a dry year so neither one of us liked it. So we went back to his place and I did some painting and he worked on a shed and then we built a campfire and had hotdogs and potatoes. It was an awesome night, nice and warm and no bugs!

Sunday we went to church and saw his family but we came back in the early afternoon because I wanted to keep working on the painting I was making for his brother. And I got it done! I don't think I'm totally happy with the head, I may go back and make it a little darker. I decided to leave it for a few days and come back and see if I was honestly happy with it. If not I'll make some changes and then wait again. When I am content with it I'll spray it with some protector stuff and then give it to him.

Overall I had an awesome weekend. It was so nice not to have to be committed to do anything. I should try to do this more often. 

I just wanted to sleep

So we got into a fight on Wednesday night... and it's partly my fault but it's also a lot of his fault.

First, let's just set some background information; I like my sleep. I've always liked my sleep. I don't function well on little sleep. When I was young and the news would come on and say "it's 11 o'clock, do you know where your children are?" my mom would confidently say "they are in bed." And every time she would be right. All through highschool, all through university I was getting solid sleep. I have never pulled an "All-Nighter". Ever. Not once. So now that we've established that I really need my beauty sleep, I'll continue with the fight.

So on Wednesday we had fooled around and then I was done. He had slept over the night before so I wasn't expecting him to stay, but he lingered. And he likes to talk, so I was lying there and letting him talk, although what I really wanted to do was shut off the lights and go to sleep. But then I start getting grumpy, because we'd been spending a lot of time together lately, and he likes to talk in bed, at bedtime.... And I've been tracking my sleep patterns on my iPhone with Sleep Cycle and I'm used to getting 8 or 9 hours of sleep and for the past month I've been averaging 7 and a half... Just saying....

So apparently I brought up looking at houses, although he's the one that printed off the descriptions and left them on my coffee table accidentally, and he wanted to know when a good time was and which houses we should look at. And there was one North of the city, that's almost as far North as he is West right now, but it would be good because it's closer to his parents and the church and stuff. And at some point I just got tired of the talking and said I don't care, I just think it's really far.

I have forgotten what happened during this next part but I do remember him asking if I wanted to live together before or after we got engaged and I said "When I'm ready", which he didn't like... But I have no control over when exactly he's going to ask me, so how can I know if I'll want to live together by then? And I was tired and grumpy and I don't think well under those conditions so I probably said some stuff that was a bit insensitive.

After a few more minutes of him talking to me about houses I broke down crying and yelled "You never let me sleep! I just want to sleep" and he questioned why I didn't want to look at houses or move in together and I told him "That's just how I feel. At this very second I am just nervous about that step. It's just how I'm feeling at this moment. I'm just not comfortable with it. But I'm tired and I might feel completely different tomorrow once I'm more like myself". But he didn't really like that answer and was questioning how I felt about him and us and are we moving too fast and I just started crying again.

Then he said "What can I do to make it better?" and I told him "You can leave."

Which I think really hurt his feelings but at that point I didn't care. I just wanted to sleep, that's all. I didn't want to fight, I didn't have the energy, I wasn't getting my point across anyway. I needed sleep.

So he left and I slept great. And I woke up the next morning all happy. I sent him a text message which he didn't respond to so I sent him another asking if he was mad at me. And he responded that he wasn't mad, he was just frustrated. So I said we could talk after work.

And we did. I explained that I seriously need my sleep, and I just don't function well without it. And he said "Ya I can see that". So at least we're on the same page with that now. And I told him I feel better about looking at houses, just to see how far away they are and if I'd be willing to make the drive. And once we know how far is too far we'll have a range for when we're really ready to look. I'm much more reasonable when I'm awake and rested. And I explained the "I don't know exactly when you're going to ask me so how will I know if I'll be ready to move in before or after?" thing, which I had done a terrible job of the night before. So now we're going to try not to bring up things that may be bothering us right before bedtime.

So we fought. And we made it through to the other side. I'm really glad he told me he was frustrated with me and just didn't wimp out and say nothing was bothering him. And I'm glad he didn't guilt trip me about anything I had done that night, I know I hurt his feelings but I wasn't trying to, I just wanted sleep.

Something that really annoyed me about the Ex was that whenever we fought, he would say "You're right. I'm a terrible boyfriend. I don't know why you're with me". And I would be manipulated into saying "You're not that bad. I may be over-reacting a little. You really are good to me". And some how, whenever he did something wrong that seriously pissed me off, I'd end up consoling him about it. It drove me insane. So one of my big hang ups with Nice Guy was that we had never really fought yet, and I really didn't want to be with someone who fought the same way as the Ex.

I feel really good about this guy...

Egg Beater Legs

So a little while ago my friend mentioned that my dog runs funny. I knew that he ran funny, like his legs are egg beaters, but I didn't think that meant there was something wrong with him. She didn't think he'd be able to do agility because of it. We've almost completed all the Rally events possible, we have one more leg of Excellent to get his RE and then we could go for his RAE if I wanted to continue on. But that's just doing the Advanced and Excellent in one trial and qualifying for both. He's won High In Class 4 times now though, so I think we might try for the RAE. But it really isn't anything "new". So I thought agility might be fun. So back to his egg beater legs. My friend told me our other friend/ acquaintance does dog massages and could tell me exactly what was going on with his body and could potentially help me fix it. The first thing that crossed my mind was that he had hip dysplasia or some other disease that would shorten his life.

So I asked the Massage girl, let's call her Jane, to come over and do an assessment on him. His abductor muscles on his back legs are weaker than they should be and he's not a flexible as she'd like him to be. He's also needs to lose 5 pounds... She gave me a bunch of exercises to do with him to strengthen his legs. We have to do perch work, side steps, going from sits to stands and back again, slow circles and doggy yoga or doga as I like to call it!  :)  I have to hold a treat near his tail and get him to bend to both sides, then bend to his back feet and then put it right between his front legs to get him to bend forward and in. She's also going to get me some poles to lay on the ground and he'll have to walk over them so it forces him to pick up each foot individually. And once he's made some progress with that she wants him to trot more, not full out running or nicely walking, but a nice trotting pace. So I asked her "should I take up jogging?" and she said "that would be great!". 

So for my dog, we're going to exercise daily with stretches and perch work, I am going to lose 5 pounds with him and take up jogging so we can trot together. Right now he's 40 lbs and I'm 155. Although if we're going for % body weight I should really lose about 20. We'll see how it goes.

On a side note, Nice Guy has already planned my birthday in April. I have to dress up nice, we're dropping the dogs off at his parents on our way, we won't be staying in a hotel and I can bring casual clothes to wear the next day. I have no idea what we're doing but he promises not to chop me up into little pieces.

Always relied on the kindness of strangers

So a slightly horrible thing happened to me yesterday. I had just flown back from a work seminar and dropped my colleagues off. I went and got groceries first since I had been gone all week, had just finished putting them away and thought it's a really nice day. I think I'll go out and clean up the back yard with the dogs. So I'm outside with the two dogs and I'm about to grab a shovel and had to bend over slightly when the most intense pain I have ever felt went stabbing into my back. So I lowered myself to the ground using the shovel and just lied on my side for a few minutes. I thought maybe it would go away if I was just really still. Then I tried to move my arm and more pain shot into my back. And I was thinking "Crap. It's like 2:15 in the afternoon and my boyfriend won't be here until 4:30. That's a long friggin time to be laying here." So then I tried rolling onto my stomach to see if maybe I could drag myself towards my house and get my cellphone to call someone. So while the rolling part really hurt, I did get onto my stomach and dragged myself along the cement to the stairs up to my house. But I couldn't bend in any way that wouldn't cause me intense pain. So there I was, stuck at the bottom of the stairs. And I'm thinking "How is this actually happening to me? I'm 25 years old. This is ridiculous."

It was a nice day but it's still just the beginning of March so the ground was still cold. I was laying on one of my arms and it was getting numb and I was thinking about how the ground sucks the heat from your body and in my head, worse case scenario was not only is there something wrong with my back, but I'll get hypothermia as well. So that's when I decided even if I didn't think anyone was home I'd start yelling anyway. So I started yelling "Hello! Can anyone hear me?! Hello!" about every few minutes. Then I started getting colder and I noticed that when I shivered it hurt more. So then I started yelling for help. Eventually a ~12 year old kid found me and asked if I needed help. From the time I lowered myself to the ground to the time that kid finally came was over an hour. And I think I was in shock for a while because as soon as he came and said he'd call 911 the pain got dramatically worse and I was screaming in pain while he was on the phone. He kept telling me not to move but it hurt so much that my body desperately wanted to find a position where it didn't hurt. I think I really scared him, because I was crying from the pain by then. So the ambulance shows up and then all my neighbours came out of their houses. So the whole neighbourhood saw me lying on the ground bawling.

So the ambulance guys gave me nitrous oxide and put me on the stretcher, which was terribly painful as well. Then they gave me morphine in the ambulance but that didn't work either. And I was completely lucid the whole time. I was even telling them how much I weighed so that they got the dosage right. Then they had me in the waiting room and tried to get me to turn which brought on another wave of pain so they fast tracked me to a room. There I got liquid ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant and I had to explained what happened all over again. Then Nice Guy came and looked like he was going to cry but he held together. He felt really bad that I was lying outside in pain for so long. But I told him there was no way he could have known I was hurt. So he held my hand for a little while but then a nurse kicked him out. Eventually I saw a doctor and got x-rays and my bones are all good. So they think that one of the ligaments between my vertebrae is swollen and inflamed. But they couldn't tell me what caused it to be inflamed. When I was shivering it was squeezing more which cause more pain. So I got into the hospital a little after 4 and I left a little after 8 with some Tylenol 3s and some muscle relaxants. He told me I should try walking it off. I can talk small steps but I have some trouble getting into a standing position without help. But hopefully I'll be back to my old self very soon.

I wish I could remember the name of that kid who helped me. I'd like to thank him. Maybe I'll put an ad in the roasts and toasts section of our newspaper.

Somebody Swallows

So we walked into the bedroom tonight and found a couple things on the floor. Both dogs were in the house all day and we don't crate them. Also I haven't emptied the garbage in my bedroom for a few days, possibly several days. So there, in the middle of the carpet, where earlier today there was nothing, were two limp condoms. And not only were they not in the garbage where they were suppose to be, they were also empty....Yuck!

Nice Guy's comment: "Well, I guess somebody swallows."

Valentine's and Meeting the Family

Sorry! Nice Guy flew home with me the friday after Valentine's Day so I haven't had any time to blog.
But on to the good stuff!

Valentine's Day
Nice Guy sent flowers to my work and when I got home he had left gifts on the table. He got me my favourite perfume (Euphoria by Calvin Klein) and a necklace and earrings made of Amber, the DNA gem. And if you knew me, that's very sweet. I love genetics. Then we went out to dinner at this little bistro. And he had ordered truffles from a chocolate shop in my home town and had them sent but there was an issue with delivering to a Post Office Box so I haven't gotten them yet. He made chocolate dipped strawberries instead to make up for them not coming in time. It was the best valentine's day I've ever had.

Meeting the Parents
So we took a week and flew to where I grew up. We were surprising my mom for her sixtieth birthday. Everyone really, really liked him. He cooked a dinner for my family and my sister-in-law, who's a chef and was sick early in the week, said it was the only appetizing thing she ate in days. He met my high school friends. The guys took him aside and told him I had become a shadow but since I've been with him I'm really shining again and they wanted to thank him. I have really great friends. He was really good with my niece and nephew. We got some pictures taken by a photographer my family has been going to for years. We'll get sent the photos in about a week. Before we left my mom told me he was really nice and I made a good choice. And when my dad dropped us off at the airport he said "Don't let her tell you what to do". Thanks dad...

Flavour Tripping!!!

So I finally had the flavour tripping party. I had ordered the miracle frooties from http://www.sour2sweet.com/CANADA/ and I must say that even though they got stopped at customs for a few days, the site had great customer service and I got exactly the product that I wanted.

On to the party! For some people the effects only lasted about 20 minutes, one of my friends kept going for an hour and a half, trying different combinations of flavours. For me it lasted about 45 minutes. I also tried it the night before just to make sure it worked before I invited a whole bunch of people over to my house and have nothing happen. Both times strawberries were friggin Aahhh-mazing! Other good things to try:

Grapefruit - tastes like it was dipped in sugar. Normally I can stay grapefruit but I think I ate at least half of one that night. Delicious!
Lemons - tasted like lemonade
Limes - were sweeter but pretty much just limes
Guinness - we read online it was suppose to taste like a chocolate milkshake. I don't know what kind of milkshakes those people were having but I did get a hint of rootbeer and kaluha.
Blueberries - were gross, they tasted mushy
White Vinegar - was weird and sweet. Try it because it's weird
Mango - normally i think mangoes have an earthy taste and this time they were amazingly good. Just sweet juicy mango flavour.
Raspberries - had a stronger raspberry flavour
Feta Cheese - tasted like a chunk of salt
Cranberry Juice - took the bitterness away, made it way nicer to drink
Green Apples - I didn't taste much difference but other said they were sweeter
Sour Keys and Cherry Blasters - totally took the sour away, made it like regular candy.

Things to try next time - tea, watermelon, pineapple

I originally wanted to try this because my Nutritionist friend told me that she had done this on the best first date she ever had. And since she was a Nutritionist I trusted that it was safe, plus this version is made according to HACCP - ISO 9001 standards. 


On a side note, tomorrow is Valentine's day and I think this may be the first time in my life that I'm actually excited for it!

Heaven For Breakfast

I haven't even finished making them and I had to post this. I ate the first one so quickly I don't think I even really tasted it, and it was still THAT good! I have discovered cinnamon roll pancakes and I think this may be my new special morning breakfast.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

Ingredients:

PANCAKES:

I just used Aunt Jemima, just follow the recipe on the box or make your favourite pancake batter.

CINNAMON FILLING: 

1/2 cup butter, melted

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed


1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon

CREAM CHEESE GLAZE:


4 Tablespoons butter

2 ounces cream cheese

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Prepare pancake batter in one bowl.

2. In a medium bowl, mix butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. 

3. In a medium, microwave-safe bowl- heat butter and cream cheese until melted. Whisk together until smooth; whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla extract; set aside. 

4. Heat large skillet over medium-low heat. Spray with nonstick spray. Scoop about 3/4 cup batter onto the skillet. When pancake has started to cook a little, swirl in the cinnamon filling. When bubbles begin to appear on the surface, flip carefully with a thin spatula, and cook until browned on the underside, 1 to 2 minutes more. Transfer to a baking sheet or platter and keep in a warm oven until ready to serve.

5. When ready to serve, spoon warmed glaze onto the top of each pancake.

I'm not a very good chef so the recipe I was following had way nicer pictures. I'm sure if you used an icing bag or something for the cinnamon part they would come out perfect but mine still tasted divine! 

On a side note: flavour tripping party is tonight! Hope it works!

First Fight

So it finally happened. We had a fight, sort of. Really it was just him saying something dumb and me getting really mad and then him apologizing followed by long periods of silence punctuated by him saying sorry again and that he didn't mean it that way and that if he had really thought about it he wouldn't have said it.

What happened was I was telling him about my first time having sex and how basically it didn't actually take much time (in and out, literally). And then he asked "Were you dating him?" and normally I think I handle most stupid questions well but in this case I blew up and said "Of course I was dating him, who do you think I am? It was my first time, you think I just go out having random sex with strangers? Especially for my FIRST TIME?!" Hence me not talking to him for a while and him apologizing a lot and saying he never ever thought I was like that and it was a rhetorical question and really he knew the answer before he asked the question and so on and eventually I forgave him.

This counts as a fight right?...


On a side note: the flavour tripping supplies got held up at customs, even though they are ISO 9000 registered. So as soon as they arrive I plan something good!

Little Surprises

I was away for work from Monday to late Thursday night and when I finally walked in the door at 1 am I found a little Post-It note on my bedroom door. It said "welcome back babe, can't wait to see you tomorrow". Then I went to the bathroom and found another one on the mirror that said "Your eyes are absolutely beautiful". The one on the hallway mirror said "I hope when you look in the mirror you see what I see, a truly gorgeous person (inside and out). Then I went around my house and found 5 more. He really is sweet.

He's very supportive of me doing Rally Obedience and stuff with my dog. Plus he's a really good cook. My aunt said whenever I get married she was going to make me a personal cook book of all my favourite recipes. I'm going to send her the ones he's been making me. We brought baked brie to a Games Night last night because I got a Brie baker for christmas. It was SO good!!

Here's the recipe:
Baked Brie

1 round Brie cheese

Jam (sweet) or chutney (savory)

Brown sugar

Freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove top rind with removing sides or bottom. Spread jam or chutney on brie. Add some freshly ground pepper. Sprinkle some brown sugar on top. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Serve immediately. Serve with bread or sliced pears or apples. 

We liked it best with a fresh baguette. Yum!! All melty and gooey and delicious!

This last thing I heard in church a few weeks ago and I just really like it. So I'm going to put it on here in case I ever want to remember it one day.
Grace is getting what you don't deserve. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve.