Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Vacation: Part Two... Sort Of

The rest of my vacation was fairly uneventful. Other than Thursday's "Wild Life Encounter" things were calm, relaxing and mellow.

Friday I went grocery shopping, and I felt like being the awesome wife that I am and pick up some beer for my hubby (he likes this Jamaican stuff called Red Stripe... I am not a beer fan...). I decided to surprise him and let him find it on his own (I put it on the top shelf in the fridge with all the other beverages since that is where he generally puts his beer). When he got home I asked him to fill up my water bottle (the water pitcher is in the fridge on the top shelf) thinking he would see the beer. He sweetly filled my water bottle and brought it to me in the living room.

A little taken aback by the lack of enthusiasm I asked him, "Did you see the surprise in the fridge?"

He responded, "The feta cheese?" (the feta was for a meatloaf I made on Sunday, I'll get to that later.)

"Ummm, no..."

He said, "Okay, let me go look again..."

Next thing I hear is him opening the fridge and then exclaiming, "BEER!!"

I'd like to think it totally made his Friday....

Now, the feta cheese... I made meatloaf on Sunday and was feeling adventurous so tried something new. First off, we don't eat red meat for the most part so my meatloaf is made with ground turkey. What I did was I made (basically) a stuffed meatloaf and for the filling I mixed baby spinach, a mostly-drained can of diced tomatoes, and the thing of feta cheese. It was so FREAKIN' GOOD! I am thinking I will try it again sometime, maybe using a different combination of stuff for the filling. (I am open to suggestions!)

Yeah, the rest of my vacation was nice.

The weather here the past few days has been absolutely gorgeous. It's sunny and about mid-to upper-seventies outside right now... And I am stuck at work. What's worse, Collin has the day off!!! Oh well...

By mid morning yesterday I felt like I hadn't really even had a vacation... Luckily I am mostly caught up and things weren't out of control while I was gone...

Now I should get back to work... Ugh...

(Yay! Tonight is pork stir fry! Another new thing I am trying to make... I hope it's as good as I think it will be...)

And that just reminded me...

Collin found a really simple recipe for traditional Scottish shortbread. We made two batches on Saturday, one plain and one with mini chocolate chips.... Sooooo good, but not really healthy...

Hasta!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Adventures In The Park

And other misadventure previously omitted...

I have seen too many sci-fi movies (thanks Dad!)...

Me: I think there's aliens...
Collin: Why?
Me: 'Cause the dogs won't stop barking.
Collin: Okay...
Me: It's a sure fire sign of cyborgs and aliens. (***after thought: not an indicator of zombies, zombies would eat the dogs one by one....)

Yesterday I went to the park bright and early to walk a couple miles. While I was driving through the park to the parking lot I like I saw a dude jogging/running (this shouldn't be big news considering that's what most people do at the park...). What made this instance particular and different was how the dude was running... This may sound weird but it looked like he was moving in fast forward... And it disturbed me slightly. Your guess is as good as mine.

Today when I went to the park for my walk I got a little startled. I was just past the halfway point, focused on finishing so I could go home and pee (no way will I use the port-a-potties at a city park) when something popped out of the bushes and onto the path in front of me. At first my brain was a wee bit slow to catch on and I thought it was just a dog, then the gears kicked in. It was a freakin' coyote. They have signs warning that there had been some sightings but I never gave it much thought since coyotes are typically skittish creatures. I think I startled it as much as it startled me. (I almost peed my pants... Remember I really needed to pee though.) I managed to get to my cell and snap a couple of shitty pics of it. They are on MySpace.

There are also new pictures of me and of the flowerbed before and after on MySpace.

Now I am going to veg out for the rest of the day... Today is my day to do nothing (even though by typing this I am doing something... And going to the park equated to "doing something"... Basically I only have to do what I want, no errands or cleaning or laundry.)

Yay me!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Vacation: Part One

I' m gonna break this down the easiest possible way (for me that is...).

Friday Night: After work Drea came over to work on some school stuff. I took her home when she was done. I had an Easter present for Mia (Drea's two year old daughter, oh, and Drea is Renee's daughter BTW). Collin and I found this HUGE Dora the Explorer coloring book at Costco. I mean it was like HUMONGOUSLY HUGE. And , it came with a full page of stickers (over 100). I gave it to Mia when we got to Renee's and she was so excited. Then I went home. About twenty minutes later I get a text from Drea, Mia kept sticking the stickers on Drea and Renee, then she'd say, "Feel better?" Mia thought the stickers were BANDAIDS!! Too freaking cute.

Saturday: We did our monthly uber grocery shopping (loads of fun). Then I went to get an outfit for our lunch with his family. While I was walking through the clothes section at WalMart I heard, ever so faintly, "LiLi." It took a moment to register with my brain. "LiLi!" I turned to my right and there was Renee, Drea, and, of course, Mia. We talked for a few and then I needed to be on my way, it was 11:30 and I still needed to get home and get ready for the lunch thingy at 1:30.

The lunch thing was at the Markum Inn in Marquam (little itty bitty podunk town outside the Mount Angel/Silverton area) for Collin's Grandma. It was arranged by the nursing home she's in. It was nice and the food was good and inexpensive. Collin's cousin James overdid it a little... He has been a vegan for about four years and recently decided to eat meat again. This was his first real burger, and he got a Jumbo Markum Burger (which is like a 1/2 pound of beef with ham and cheese and so on) with fries. Poor guy should have stopped at the halfway point when his stomach first got upset... But he didn't. He ate the whole thing, and then subsequently chucked it once we got outside before we took the big group photo... Nothing else eventful happened after that... I think.

Sunday: We picked up Joshua bright and early, came here and had breakfast, and just sort of chilled. Then around 12:30 we headed over to dad's. Jenn made an early dinner for us. She also showed me a picture from her ultrasound. Sooooo cute.... Little itty bitty parasite growing in my sister to become an even cuter baby niece or nephew. Four weeks and she should be able to find out whether it's a boy or girl. Jordan was fun... At first. Right before we had to leave he started acting out (he didn't know we would be leaving shortly), and threw a huge tantrum. This involved kicking, hitting, screaming, and biting. It was bad. After he calmed down he apologized and gave us all hugs and kisses before we left. Then we took Joshua home, and picked up some dessert. Mind you, it was still Easter Sunday. We stopped at WalMart and thought maybe we would hit up the Easter candy, but it was all gone already! They had cleared it out and put out the "summer" stuff... It wasn't even 7pm on Easter Sunday! WTF people?

Monday: We went to the park, and his parents house to borrow a shovel, and bought plants at Costco (I forgot we had bought a plant at WalMart Saturday night...). While we were at his parents we got a really cool plant from them. It's like grass, but it's black! He (I decided it's a male plant) looks emo so I named him Trevor. Collin named the plant we bought at WalMart (he also picked it out). He's a Blue Star Juniper, and Collin named him Frederick.

Tuesday: Collin had to go to work...(sad)... I cleaned the entire house before 10am, and this was taking my time. Then I got to work in the flower bed. I turned the soil, then mixed in the potting mix we bought on Monday, and then arranged the flowers (in their pots) so I could get an idea of what they would look like. At this point it was time for some lunch so I took a break. After said break I planted everything (except the Begonias, I will plant those as I feel like it), and watered them. It looks AWESOME! There will be pics on MySpace in the next couple days. I never caught the right sunshiney moment today for me to get good pics of the finished product.

Today: Went to the park and managed not to get attacked or killed by hobbits. Did some laundry and mostly chilled. Renewed our Costco membership. Watched a movie OnDemand. Nothing too exciting.

The past two days have re-enforced the fact that I could not be a housewife. I would be bored out of my mind or would have to redecorate our home every month. It'd be one thing to be a stay at home mom where you have a child or children to keep you more than busy enough, but as just a house wife, no kids, would lead me to drink. I'm sure there are rich housewives out there who keep themselves more than occupied (with the pool boy), but that's not for me. Even if I won a BIG lottery prize I would still have to work or I would go absolutely mad as rabbits.

To be continued...

Tune in next time for Vacation: Part Two.... Though I may post between now and then... We'll see won't we. Now it's time for bed (it's 10:24.)

Good Night!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

It's All Downhill From Here

So in my last post I was mostly pissed off and ranting because Monday was a stressful and fucked up day. As I had mentioned, next week I am taking off (yay me!), and it was planned that Collin would be taking the 13th off so that we would get a three day weekend together. This was advantageous because we were planning on picking up my brother Sunday morning (Easter) and going to visit my dad and sister. The following is what really ticked me off on Monday:

I went online to check my messages on Myspace and see that my brother had written me back about Easter. He informed me that he had to work on Easter. I kind of flipped out at him... Well not him, but his work place, indirectly... I think. I wrote him back and asked him if he worked for a bunch of "Christ hating jews"... I was a little miffed. I told him I loved him (even if he worked for a bunch of Christ hating jewish people) and we would still work out something for Collin and I to pick up his PC so Collin can see about fixing it (it has been giving him all sorts of grief).

Then, while I was on my lunch Collin texts me and tells me he isn't going to be getting Monday the 13th off after all, even though it had already been approved... Turns out his boss was in an upset mood to put it nicely, and decided he wanted to take all next week off and wanted Collin to move his vacation day. This pushed me over the edge... I was practically foaming at the mouth. I just about lost it here at work. I started furiously texting (I know it sounds funny right?) back to him, and brought up the point that it was already approved and what if I had made plans to where we would be out of town that day, and he knows how difficult it is for me to get time off from work, and on and on and on! I was livid. I told Collin his boss is a self absorbed prick, and doesn't care about anyone but himself and blah blah blah. Looking back, I am amazed I didn't just flip out, snap my phone in half and throw it at the wall.... I was that pissed.

It was basically looking like the whole first part of my vacation was fucked before I even made it to this Friday. I guess someone, somewhere must like me though, because by Tuesday (yesterday) everything fell into place as I wanted it. Joshua pulled some stings at work and called in some favors and now has Easter off, and Collin is taking Monday off with me (he just has to make sure that he leaves instructions on what needs to be done while he is gone that day) and I am content.

I forgot to mention the three movies we watched this weekend (I love Netflix). We saw Pineapple Express again (we rented it from Hollywood Video when it first came out and then forgot to take it off our Netflix queue), and we watched Role Models (it was okay, not as funny as I had hoped but this is why we didn't see it at the theater), and finally we watched Repo: The Genetic Opera.... Yea... It was fucked up. Being that I work in collections... Yea. It was disturbing. About halfway through we got a reprieve from my boss, he needed our help at the office because the server was coming up with a bunch of weird messages (and he's old so it scares him when weird things happen on the computers). Then after we left the office and after we went to the park to do our three miles, we came home and out of morbid curiousity finished the movie (if you can even call it a movie) ... The best part was when Paris Hilton's character's face fell off... That was HI-larious! If you haven't seen it: DON'T! Unless you want to see Paris Hilton's face fall off, then by all means go for it...

I mentioned in the last post I was going to read my Rachael Ray magazine, I did and it was great like always. They mentioned this place (in California, I think it was) that I really REALLY want to visit some time. It's a place where you can go and buy cheap glasses and dishes, then you get outfitted in safety gear, and then you get to smash the stuff to pieces by hurling it at a "target wall"!! Sounds like it would be a great place to go and work off some stress. I wonder if the founder has considered making a chain... She could hire me as long as I get to break stuff for free. What's awesome is that all the broken shards of plates and glasses and what-not get donated to local arts programs to be made into cool stuff.

Oooo, ANTM is on tonight!! Yay for catty bitches! Just need to make it to five... Then need to make it through tomorrow... And the day after tomorrow is FRIDAY!!! It's all downhill from today...

(I almost posted this with it saying "throught tomorrow" but I caught it at the last minute... of course now someone is gonna point out that there are like five other mess-ups on this post right? That would suck...)

Monday, April 6, 2009

You're Just Morons, Idiots, Retards & Whores

That's how I felt about the day today... Other than the weather, today sucked huge sweaty, sumo wrestler balls.

The weather was great this weekend too. Saturday I cleaned out the flower bed and Collin helped me by digging out the ten year old azalea bush that looked almost entirely dead. When I am on vacation next week I will be planting new stuff (naturally there will be pictures upon completion). It will be awesome.

Sunday we went to the park and did our three mile walk. We are also going to start doing that on Friday nights.

Friday night we went back out to Target to hunt for that infamous purse. They still didn't have it, but I found a hideous green purse that I loved the style (just not the color). We walked around a bit and found the green purse's family, and they had it in black! So I got it. It's huge, but not too huge. Today when I was getting something out of it I thought about Mary Poppins... The purse doesn't even have the same closure as Mary Poppin's bag but yeah... K, I will post a pic in the next couple days.

Now I am going to go read my new issue of Rachael Ray magazine. (I just got done with the bills for the month... It'll be nice when it isn't an hour long process to budget, write the checks and stuff the envelopes. Soon... some day soon...)

Good night! Hopefully your Monday was better than mine!

Friday, April 3, 2009

DreamMares & NightScapes

Yea... I don't know what triggered it but I had two (maybe they were one but then I don't know how it transitioned...) extremely odd "dreams" last night.

The first one (I think it came first...):

I was shopping and saw these insanely awesome cute black pants, and I wanted them. I have decided if I see pants that trigger this emotion anytime in the near future I am getting them. I think they will make me a superhero...

That dream could have been triggered by the uber amazing purse I saw at Target a couple weeks ago, but talked myself out of getting, then after pining over it for a week went back and they didn't have it anymore!!! I even went to the Target on Center St... I even considered going to the one in Wilsonville to see if they had it... It was sad... I will probably check for it again this weekend... I really want that purse and I have been really good and not bought a new purse in over a year now... I think...

The second dream:

I was at work (this happens a lot in my dreams...) and a few of my old friends from high school came to visit me. These were friends I haven't seen lately, the most recent was about eight, maybe nine months ago. One or two of them I haven't even talked to in years now.

What struck me as odd about this is (for all who haven't realized this or I haven't told) I work at a collection agency... Not the type of place you regularly have people swing by to say,
"Hey." You know? I think the trigger for this is yeserday I was thinking about how much some of me and my old friends have really drifted apart. Other than K, I really haven't kept in touch with most of the people I went to school with. I was reading one of these friend's blog post yesterday and she was sharing how she and her husband are in the process of buying their first home and their first baby is due in October! I was like, "Holy crap... I am totally out of the loop..."

Yeah, so now I have to go to work... I thought Friday would never get here....

Thursday, April 2, 2009

We'll All Die In A Blaze Of Non Glory

The top five reasons I love my hair stylist:

5. She does a stellar job making my hair look awesome!

4. She gets almost as excited as me about the crazy awesome shit we do with my hair.

3. She (like any good stylist) gives me realistic tips for making my hair look amazing.

2. She is HI-larious (I always have a FUN-tastic time getting my hair done).

1. She plays WoW! (World of Warcraft for all of you lacking a computer geek in your life)

I would be playing but it costs money and for now I need to save my monies. When I do start playing I have to tell LeeAnn. It's funny, there is another stylist in her salon named Molly who plays too. I guess it goes to show all different walks of life play WoW, Molly is a 40+ year old little Hispanic lady. She's funny too, and has done my hair before (she used to work at the same salon LeeAnn did before switching places).

As I sit here, (on lunch... not doing this during work time... this time...) I am eyeballing my juice. This is something that has always baffled me, the juice I am drinking is essentially clear yet on the bottle it says to "Shake well before serving". It makes sense to need to do that with like orange or grapefruit juice or lemonade, but why the clear juice? There was no visible "settling" of stuff at the bottom of the bottle so why the necessity to shake? I'm just curious... I guess you burn a few extra calories, especially if you really get into the shaking of the juice... I probably just uncovered some mad crazy conspiracy and now the juice people are gonna kill me...

Do you ever wish you lived in "simpler times", like the mid to late 1800s? I do. Then I think about it some more, if I were to live in simpler times would I use a time machine to go back or would I want to have been born in that time? If I go back via time machine is there a possibility of returning when I realize I don't like using the outhouse? Or I realize how much I love having a flat iron and pink hair? If I was born in that time then I wouldn't have anything to compare my life to and it wouldn't really be the same as going back there from this time... If you always lived in that time period how would you know how awesome now is (technologically speaking)? This is one of the many random things that plagues my mind when I am doing mindless tasks like data entry...

I posted new pictures of my hair on Myspace, I have some other ones topost also. Plus I have some that are totally unrelated to my amazingly awesome hair. Okay, I may be a little hung up on my hair, but it's because I really truly LOVE it. I really haven't been this happy with my hair in a long time... So yeah.

One week and one more day until my week of paid time off!!!! I can't freaking wait. Then I am saving the rest of my two weeks vacation for this year (after the week I will have 4 days and 5 1/2 hours of vacay time left) for this summer (K is coming to visit in August and I am thrilled!!!).

Now it's about ten to 1:oo so I need to go do some other stuff for the last ten minutes of my lunch. Peace Out!