Comfort Food

This past weekend, I was hit with a pang of homesickness, so I decided to combat it with some good ol' fashion comfort foods. You know what I'm talking about... Those foods that your mom used to make all the time when you were young and at the time, they didn't seem like anything special, but now, after being out on your own (even if it's just at school and ARA dinner), you would give your pinky toe to come home one night to mom's meatloaf and brussel sprouts. So this weekend, I fired up the crockpot for a nice batch of ham and bean soup. If you're not from the mid-West (specifically Ohio), you may not be familiar with this classic wintertime dish. Traditionally, the bone from the Christmas ham is placed in a crockpot with some water, pinto beans, onions and enough brown sugar to make your teeth rot. It's then cooked initially for 8-10 hours, and after the first serving, it continues to be cooked until you finish it. And a must-have sidedish for this 5-ingredient wonder... cornbread! Crumbled up into the soup to absorb all the liquidie goodness.... hmmm...

Minnesota Snow

So, for the first time this winter, we got snow last night. It was only about 6" but here they treated it like a blizzard! It started coming down pretty hard around 1pm so I thought that by 5pm they would have a handle on things, so I left work and took the highway home. Well, I was wrong! It looked as if the roads hadn't been touched, and these crazy Minnesotians acted like they were from Jersey or something. They would just drive where ever they wanted to all over the road. No turn signals, no lanes, and they couldn't make up their minds on how fast they wanted to go. And today I went out, and thank goodness the roads were clear, but everyone had their snowblowers out! Snowblowers for 6"??? And Minnesota snow is a lot different from other Midwestern snow. It's light and fluffy and just blows everywhere, unlike the wet clumps that fall out of the Cincinnati sky. I will never understand these people.

Nakedness.... At the Y?

So recently I've been really good about getting up in the morning and going to the Y to workout, but I think that may need to come to an end. This morning, I was extra good, and was there by 5:45am for my morning routine. There are several women that work-out at that time and then get ready for work. Today I was shocked. There is this one lady that I had seen before. The last time I saw her, she was topless... That's right, she was only wearing underwear, while she was fixing her hair and putting on her make-up. Today she was totally NUDE! Not only was she not wearing any clothes, but to dry off, she took two of the hand dryers (that are hung to high) and pointed them at her naked body. I was thinking, "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!" Get a towel! I then head over to where my bag is and such, in complete disbelief, and as I'm taking my jeans out of my bag, I look up to see the naked backside of another lady. She's in the toilet area, fixing her hair, carrying on a conversation with another lady. I've talked to Jackie in the past about this, and she said that proper locker room etiquette is to be covered by what a bathing suit would cover. I don't care if it is a "women only" locker room, or if these women are comfortable running around nude, it makes ME uncomfortable! Goodness, I thought that this was a place founded on Christian morals... and last time I checked, Christians looked down on strip-clubs.

AHHHH!

To e-mail or not to e-mail, that is the question!

So I'm having a bit of a struggle.... I have a "friend" who I haven't talked to in about 3 years now living in New Jeresy. We parted ways on not so good terms. I'm going out to NJ for some training next month... do I offer up an invite to meet or not?

Adventures in Baking

So recently, I've been doing quite a bit of baking, bread to be specific. Today, I made my dough and placed it into a greased plastic bowl. I then started to boil some water on the stove and turned the oven on "warm". A warm, moist oven helps the yeast to react (ask any woman) and the bread rises faster and larger. So I placed the pot of boiling water into the oven, with the bowl of dough, turned the oven off and then focused my attention elsewhere. About 20 minutes later, I heard the oven turning on and off... so I went to check on my dough. When I looked at the oven, I noticed that the little "Hi; I'm on!" light was glowing red. I opened up to see my dough burnt, and the bowl it once was in, in globs all over the oven racks and stringing to the bottom of the oven. It seems that when I turned the oven off, I was a bit overzealous and left the oven on "broil" So if there's anyone out there that has some advice on how to clean up burnt plastic, please let me know!

I think I'm going to invest in some glass bowls too.

Snowflakes

So today I was talking to the bossman about the lack of snow in Minnesota right now, and he says to me, "You're probably happy about it... I bet you don't like snow."

If you're not laughing right now, you don't know me.

RARHS!

It's been a long week... leave me some love!

2005.... Are you ready for me?

So I spent the last few hours of 2004 and many of the first of 2005 in the Second City. Good times, Good times! Lots of company with friends and I even learned a few things too. Like, did you know that Hugh Grant was arrested in 1995? Some how I missed that. I like him anyway though. There were a few questions left unanswered at the end of this weekend, the most pressing would be, according to Canterbury Tales, what does it mean if someone's eyes are set too close together. This is not to imply that anyone has unhandsome eye placement, just a question that came up.

Andrew has the picture thing set-up for me, I just have to get some pics up and I think that may also mean that I need to develop a watermark or something. I wonder if I have to apply for copyrights for my images. Something else to look up.

Thanks to Mellissa, I would also like to start a new part of my blog. It will be a project page. Hopefully it will be something that I will update semi-regularly, and it will have a crafty idea for the week/month/whatever. I will give as much info as possible and probably some drawings and or pictures so that everyone do it! Right now I'm in a home decorating phase, so most of my ideas are revolving around that type of craft.

Damn this post was too long!

Wow

So, I feel kinda bad because my posts have been so short recently. I haven't really had much to say. I'm uberly excited about going home for Christmas, especially getting to babysit my niece for a whole day. We're going to have walking lessons in the mall with all the crazy holiday shoppers, and if Leslie is working, I'm gonna let Clair play in her Target. I'm sure I'll come up with more silly things for Clair and I to do during the day, and if Liz is lucky, we'll fit in some nappie time, but I really wouldn't count on it.

Andrew is gonna get me set up with some picture space too. I hope to have a psuedo ordering thing so that if there is a picture you like, I can get it to ya. I'm still working on getting those wedding pictures sent out to everyone. Sorry it's taking so long.

Am I greedy?

another addition to the list....

The Terminal DVD
a mouse pad

:)

Christmas Trees

A holiday saying from Jackie:

"All the smaller trees looked like Charlie Brown gone wrong!"

Love ya Jackie!

addition to christmas list:

Mulan DVD
Aladdin DVD

i heart my list

Computah!

for christmas, martin gave me a pretty sweet deal on a computer, including monitor, keyboard and a mouse. there are a few things that i'm having issues with... like the right shift key, it doesn't work all the time, so i've given up on capitalization. i think i'm going to buy a new one... i can get one for $1 at officemax.com. good times.

sbc is tark

Addition to Wish List

I went out shopping today, and I wanted to add the following to my Christmas list:

Indoor/Outdoor digital thermometer


So, that's all I can think of right now... more updates to come

Christmas Shopping

Today was the day I was going to start my Christmas shopping. My goal is to finish all of my Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving, so that I can get all of my packages out on the Horner express to the big KY, but alas, I spent over $200 and I am still without any holiday cheer or presents for that matter. But Lestat should be happy with two new tires.

Birthday

Today, I was queen. Kinda boring, but good. Thanks to JoJo who sent me a lot of love through her away message! And thanks to Karen for remembering too! I bought a little carrot cake and a candle and Andrew sang happy birthday to me over the phone. It was great! Tomorrow I get my first hearing test since elementary school. Good times!

Pixie Dust

Christmas Wish List:

Here is the current list... please leave a comment if you have already purchased one of these gifts so that there are no repeats. :)


Blender (glass jar please)
Business Card holder (silver)


so it's a pretty short list right now... I'll try to keep it updated. Please remember that anything I get at home will have to make the plane ride home with me. :)

Addict

I have now become addicted to "Desperate Housewives." Thanks to Johanna, I have now dedicated a hour of each Sunday to this show. But what am I going to do when between 8pm and 9pm I am on the road somewhere between Madison and Wisconsion Dells? I wonder if I can get it on the radio... old skool it up! If anyone could record it for me, that would be great!

Next Sunday, 8pm central time ABC

Someone help me out!

To the Polls!

Tomorrow all of the stupid ads will be coming off my television. What ever will the networks do with all that free time? A few things that have been puzzling me during all of this campaigning....
Two of the issues that the Democrats have been pushing are that
1) They want to get lower cost prescriptions from Canada and
2) More high-tech and better paying jobs for Americans.

Now let's think about this... So we start getting our prescription drugs from Canada, this means that Canadians are making the drugs. Canadians are getting the jobs. There are about 14,000 chemist working for pharmaceutical companies in the US, making $32,000 to $71,000/yr. That sounds like a "high tech and better paying job" that we're shipping out to Canada. And that's just chemist. What about managers, hourly workers, sales, logistics, etc?

And I have one last beef... And it's with Ms. Patty Wetterling. How many times must you call me? And if you're going to harass me, don't list your number.... It makes it really hard for me not to just call you up and solicit something from you. Goodness, I'm not even registered! Speaking of which... I need someone to vouch for me tomorrow.

http://www.sos.state.mn.us/election/faq.html#question7

What were the words again?

Last night I was watching SNL... and as we all know, it's gotten pretty bad. But, like an idiot, I watched on. Eminem was on doing his little rap thingie and I noticed a few things. First, the man can't dance at all. He just stood there kinda bouncing, every once in a while removing his right hand from his crotch, waving it around, only to return to protecting his manhood or something. Another interesting thing I noticed is that he was constantly looking at the little monitors that give him the words to the song. Doesn't he write his own songs? I think I would have prepped a little more. Hell, he was even reading during the chorus. I don't understand. Just because you're famous doesn't mean you shouldn't at least try to work at your job.