Reminder & Stuff

Pizza burgers today! I found those old fashioned pizza burgers with the mozz in the middle last week, so I'm making these tonight. I'm quite excited! Does anybody actually know what I'm talking about?

Reminder-today is probably the last day to send Boo and I a letter for the 3 Day!

3-Day Camp Post Office
[Participants Name]
PO Box 577886
Chicago, IL 60657-7886

Check the comments in my post below about this if you need my last name. If you don't know Boo's name and can't get it on time, just send it to me with a notation that it's for "Boo." Or just write us one letter that we can share. *smooch*

I would like to make cupcakes this week because I have some canned frosting to use. I need an excuse to have cupcakes. Help me out.

Mondayisms

Bacon, leek and guyere puffs today.

1. Your weekend plans sounded fun! Sounds like everyone was out and about. Does Frodis have any cookies left for us?

2. The wedding was nice. Not super fun, but not bad at all. I have a very nice cousin in his 40s from Branson that rented an Elvis suit and showed up during the dance to boogie with the bride. That was very odd, but entertaining.

3. I'm not sure if it was the beer talking or what, but I volunteered our house to be the location of the 2008 family reunion (remember when we went to Branson in 05? That was the last reunion.)...eeek! The good news is that my dad will be eager to help finish some projects around our house that we need help with. :-)

4. I'm still watching Rock of Love, and that is pathetic. I think both psychos should have gone home last night.

Weekend

Baby swiss, thinly sliced today.

So, whatcha' doing this weekend? I know Breezy is driving north to pick up her DD. What's everyone else up to?

We are going to the wedding. My dad is picking us up tomorrow morning and we are coming back early Sunday.

The pregnancy juice is being passed around again. One of my best friends (well, we've grown apart a bit over the years, but are still good friends) moved back to town from D.C. and announced she was preggers last night. She's not the "mom" type, so I was quite surprised! My friend Jen also announced a few weeks ago they are preggers, and she's also not "momish." I'm very happy for both of them, though. They knew it was time for them (well, one thought it would take a year and it happened the first time they tried!). I'll get to spend some quality cooing time with some new kiddos next year! Babies are so darn cute.

A companion to MMs Mom post

I think I might get banned from my first message board! There are some wackjobs at this certain INXS fan board. I have only posted a few times on it, but go there sometimes to look for gossip.

I mentioned on MMs site about the blondebimbo at the INXS concert. Well, she posted on the board about how her kids were great because the band members thought they were cute and gave them souveniers (guitar pick and drumstick). Well that was the tip of the iceberg! One mom took her kids to the airport and waited for the band to walk through and made the band members in sight pose for pics with her kids (none of her and the band). The other...this is great...made her young (10?) daughter hold up a sign that said "JD, Taste My Mom" (as in the song "Taste It," which is very sexual and JD has performed some naughty naughty moves on stage during the song).

So I finally said how that was all a little weird and seemed to be rather irresponsible parenting.

Just waiting to get my notice....

Important News!

If you love Boo and I, send us a letter for our walk! Envelopes only, no boxes and they need to arrive in Chicago about one week before the walk (August 10-12). We'll feel saaaaad if we go to get mail and nobody writes us. *grin* I hope Conner writes Boo a letter. Boo had better drop a big hint to Mr. Boo.

3-Day Camp Post Office
[Participants Name]
PO Box 577886
Chicago, IL 60657-7886

Oh fine.

Bruschetta with lots of shredded parmesan today.

Puffy is right. I'll go to the wedding this weekend. A few of my aunts and uncles health isn't the greatest, and since we only see eachother ~every 3 years, I should probably take this opportunity. Plus, this family came to our wedding. It's only proper. I'm going to look at hotels and possibly Priceline it (ok, just did...$60 total, so that helps). It didn't help that local cousin called (who never calls) last night to see what our plans were.

Random: I'm going to start the Middlesex discussion on OT today.

Another Random: I watched a lot of crap tv last night (Chris was gone at the annual EAA fly in): Rock of Love with Bret Michaels, Age of Love and Hell's Kitchen. My brain is thoroughly rotted.

In other news, Chris likes to watch Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger on the Food Network. He likes that she doesn't try to jam pack things too much with substitutes (a chief complaint of his about my food when I get on a healthy baking kick). So we made her energy bars last night and are eating those for breakfast instead of toast. More calories for me (since I was using butter substitute on my toast), but more filling.

Energy Bars
Copyright, 2005, Ellie Krieger, All rights reserved

Cooking spray
1 cup quick cooking rolled oats
1/2 cup raw unsalted sunflower seeds (I also added some flax seeds)
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
1/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour (I just used plain whole wheat flour)
1/2 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup raw almonds
1/2 cup raisins (I omitted these and substituted dried cranberries, cherries and blueberries)
1/2 cup pitted dried dates (omitted these also)
1/2 cup powdered nonfat dry milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup pure maple syrup (I used honey because Chris prefers it)
2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9 by 13-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
Place all ingredients except the syrup and eggs in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is finely chopped. Add the syrup and eggs and pulse until the mixture is well combined. It will resemble a coarse paste.
Transfer to the baking pan and spread evenly. Bake until just done, about 20 minutes. Cut into 20 squares.

Nutrition Information
Nutritional Analysis per Serving
Calories 133
Total Fat: 5 grams
Saturated Fat: 0.6 grams
Protein 5 grams
Carbohydrates 20 grams
Fiber 2.5 grams

WWBD?

Welcome to this addition of What Would Bloggers Do? Let's have some onion and dill havarti and chat.

I have an aunt, uncle and cousins in southerrn Illinois. It's a big family and it's one we see about every three years. They are the only part of my dad's immediate family still living in Illinois. I like the family a lot, but we aren't particularly close. My cousins are all in their 30s now. My cousin is getting married this weekend. We received an invitation to reception (I'm not sure what they did/are doing for their ceremony). I told my local cousin I was going and she decided to go, too. It's a 5 hour drive, so it would require leaving on Saturday late-morning and coming back Sunday.

Now, we are back from Seattle and have the 3-Day coming up. Money is tight. I know I'd have to end up charging everything for the trip and have been trying to avoid that. So, WWBD? Should I suck it up and go? Or should I just send a nice gift this week with my regrets? There was no RSVP requirement, so my cousin doesn't know if I'm coming or not. The only part I'd feel bad about is that I told my other (local) cousin I was going.

Sigh. Should I go, or should I be honest with local cousin about why I'm not going?

Beautiful/handsome

Caprese salads for this pleasant, sunny day.

Well, my face is slowly returning to normal (for those that didn't catch it on Bob's blog, I cut jalepenos then scrubbed my face with a cleanser...all while having jalepenoey hands). I was able to use a buff puff pad (from my shelf of rarely used products) to gently buff away the dead skin on part of my face. There are still some patches of flaky skin left. I am hoping by tomorrow they will buff away nicely.

Anyway, have you ever thought, "I'd probably be really good looking IF...?"

I've always thought I could be really attractive if I were thin and had great skin. My eyes would still be squinty, but that's ok. Not that being a hottie is the most important thing to me (I'd have made more effort to lose weight if it was). I just sometimes have that thought as I wash my face at night, or do my hair in the morning.

Things & Pics

I'm fighting the germs now, so it's safe to eat. Taco dip with lots of shredded cheese & chips today.

Wal-born (generic Airborne) dissolved in orange vitamin water makes it pallatable.

My facial skin is so wrecked from the jalepeno face washing incident. It was dry already from traveling, so the sear created by jalepeno hands only made it worse. I have been using all my samples up of super moisturizing lotions and gentle cleansers, as most of my regular stuff is for oily skin. This sucks.

Vacation pics!

Our visit to the Olympic National Park:

Pretty Sushi:

Downtown Seattle:

*cough*

You don't want anything I touch, so no cheese today.

Catt & Maroonclown were spreading germs this weekend. Chris and I both fell victim. *evil eye*

Sorry I wasn't checking in on blogs yesterday. I promise to make the rounds today.

I've missed you!

Crab Rangoon today.

I had an awesome trip to Seattle. We'd seriously love to live there. Sharnina's husband got a job there last week and they are pulling up stakes...they are braver than we are. The land is so lush and the mountains are so gorgeous. People can grow the most beautiful flowers with such deep colors in their yards.

We went to the Olymipic Penninsula on Thursday and perused a bunch of port towns. We found some great chili, great bbq, and decent beers.

Friday we hung out with Jim & Chelli until we met up with the whole group in the city. We had a great, casual sushi dinner with yummy cocktails. The waiter even wanted to start posting on SB. *snort*

Saturday we prepped for the bbq (mmmm, sangria) and drove into town. We met up with the Maroonclowns at Pike Place and wandered along the waterfront. The bbq in the afternoon was awesome. Hot tubbin' was divine.

Sunday was our "tour the city" day. We did some serious shopping in Pike Place, did the Space Needle, and wandered around those areas. We then all went to the Crab Pot for dinner, which was so fun and yummy. They just throw the food on the table and you dive in.

I highly recommend trying to make one of these meets. Even if you don't love everyone there, it is worth it to spend some great time meeting new peeps and spending time in a fun location.

I still missed all of you, though.

Randoms

1. Grilled kasseri cheese with french bread today. You'll love it.

2. It is the day before vacation and I'm not wanting to do anything.

3. My BIL? Rocks. He bought me a refurbished i-pod nano after hearing of my MP3 player drowning. Anybody have tips and hints for me? My Sansa was very simple, plug and play type stuff. I'm just getting the hang of i-tunes. Any settings or such I should make sure I have in place? When importing my cds, which encoder should I have it set to? It's default is ACC, but is MP3 encoder better? I'm so confused.

4. My listy of things to do after work: Buy papertowels and tp, buy cat litter, buy an i-pod skin, buy Chris a book for the plane, return things to Target and JCPenny.

5. I take requests: *smooch* MTW during AND after work.

ETA: 6. The new dictionary includes "GINORMOUS!" I LOVE that word!

I went to Jugville *giggle*

Sit back, have some nachos with cheese. It's time for a long story. :-)


Friday


Friday night I met Dragonflies for a drink on my way through Milwaukee. It was her birthday, so we had extra reasons to celebrate. I had a nice, albiet short, chat with her. She gave me two cupcakes and said I had to share with Breezy. *pouty face*


I then hit the ferry terminal. The high speed Lake Michigan Ferry was the first of its kind...not sure if it is anymore. It's about two years old now. It has very ample seating and observation areas. It made the trip in 2.5 hours. Had I gone around Chicago it would've been about 6 hours. This was much better.

Breezy picked me up at the ferry and we headed back to her new digs with the new man. He wasn't very chatty when we got there because he fell asleep on the couch. :-) I changed into my jammies and insited on having a glass of Breezy Slush. *burp*

Saturday

Breezygirl was in a wedding on Saturday...in Jugville...at The Shack. She looked so grown up as a junior bridesmaid! Everyone commented she was getting taller than Breezy. *snort* BTW, Breezy's ex? Looks about 25. I think she robbed the cradle on that one. :-)

Ok, so The Shack was actually a nice place. But it was in Jugville. *snort* And in case you forget, they remind you that you are in the good ol' US of A.

Oh, I should probably give Bravie a PSA on Breezy's driving: Bring a copy of directions with you. She isn't very good at remembering. :-)

We stopped at a fruit stand on the way home so I could buy some Michigan cherries and blueberries to take home. YUM! We headed back home to drink more Breezy Slush. Wheeeeeee! Then I was kind of high maintenance and wanted to go check out the Summer Celebration grounds early. There was a tiki bar area I wanted to check out.

We made sure we looked extra hot (like we need to try *hair flip*), just in case JD wanted to take us on tour with him.

See, Breezy put in curlers and everything:

Oh fine...I'll be nice and save it for later...blackmail. :-)

So it was off to Summer Celebration and INXS!!!!!!!!! We checked out the tiki bar, which had some strange country/bluesy singing man. It was a little strange. So we headed back to the grounds to hear the opening act, Four Finger Five. We realized we could ditch our seats and go stand up front through the whole concert, so I whined until we did. :-) We were situation next to Four Finger Five's lead singer's dad. Breezy made friends with the dad. And we knew he'd leave when the openers were over, so that also meant we could scoot forward another row. Because Glow would want us to have good seats, we moved up to second row. :-) Breezy is good at elbowing her way into things. The people liked being behind us because she was short. Really, they told me that when she went to the bathroom. *snort*


Literally, this was the best time I'd ever had at a concert. We were so close, the music was so good, and my friend Breezy was by my side (<---look, that's the name of an INXS song).
Here's how close we were (I know, he needs a haircut..but his eyes make up for it):









And this was where JD changed t-shirts on stage. *drool*




See those two heads in front of me in this pic? Yeah, that was littleblondebitchymom and her five year old daughter. He son, close to the same age) was standing in front of her, pressed against the metal fence. Because that's where it's safe for kids during a concert. A fight broke out right behind us between some guys and a few girls. A girl got punched by a guy. Yeah, smart move keeping your small children there, lady. And I'm sure their eardrums are fine. *rolls eyes* Did I mention they got guitar picks and a drumstick? And the mom kept rocking her daughter and hitting Breezy. *whack*


Breezy and I at the concert, managing to have a good time, despite littleblondebitchymom (look! We had beads! I'd be happy to give them to JD):


My JD moments:

I got a cup. He passed out cups to pour champagne into. I got a cup, but he got a little excited with the champagne and it exploded all over by the time he got to us.

Then, during Afterglow, I was singing along, with my hands clenched by my heart (more out of sheer crowding necessity than feeling the love). He pointed at me and put his hand by his heart. *dreamy sigh*

After the awesome concert, Breezy took me to a few bars. Unfortunately, at the last bar, I got a queasy stomach and couldn't even drink soda. Breezy drank enough for BOTH of us, though. I got up in the morning and her pants were in the living room. Why? *HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURL* Yep, she puked.


Sunday

She was NOT in good condition the next morning. She meditated in the backseat while her bf drove me to the ferry. I imagine yesterday afternoon made for a long day. :-)

*smooch* to Breezy for showing me an awesome time and sharing my best INXS memories with me.

What was that thing?

*snacks on tray of squeaky fresh curd*

Hmmmm. I swear I was supposed to go somewhere tonight. WHERE was that?

*taps pencil against forehead*

Nope. I got nuthin'.

Happy Holiday Hangover!

I hate going back to work after a holiday.

Let's have some taco dip piled high with cheddar to wallow in our holiday hangover.

I hope you had a fun day off and celebrated in some way, shape or form.

We did yardwork during the day, found out our shower was leaking and did some repair of that mess, and cooked a yummy dinner. Chris made some guac, bacon & cheddar burgers. I made grilled endive with blue cheese and a balsamic vinegarette and dilled potato salad. Our friend came over for dinner and we ate on the patio. Then it was off to the outdoor theatre to see The Merchant of Venice. It was hot out for most of the play. Around 9:30 it started to really cool down. At 10:00 it started to sprinkle. The play finished at 10:15 (reduced Shakespeare this is not) and then it POURED rain. We walked back to the car drenched.

I never realized The Merchant of Venice was so anti-semitic. I knew the general premise of the play, but had never read it, nor seen it performed. Wow, it was sad in many respects.

Picture Day

Sharp and Medium cheddar slices today.
I just downloaded pics from the camera and thought I'd share a few.

The pie (yeah, not picture perfect, but darn tasty). I took this one just for all of you:


Sushi making night, kitty style:

Garden pics:

This post brought to you by Visa.

*picture a serene, tree lined river, a canoe floating along on a sunny, mild day*

Bag of charcoal: $3

Case of beer: $16

*enter motorboat, whizzing by the canoe*

Capsizing your canoe: $325

Priceless my aras. So, apparently I suck at canoeing on rivers where there are motorized boats. We capsized in deep water. Chris lost his $250 glasses and favorite bucket hat. I lost my sunglasses. We had to swim against current, pushing the canoe (there was no getting back in out there) to a sandbar. OH, and my niece was sitting in an innertube behind us. That added a lot of extra drag. But we made it to the sandbar. I realized Chris didn't check the Camelback (water backpack, for those unfamiliar) pocket before he put it in the canoe. I had my MP3 player in there from my Saturday walk. It no longer works.

On a brighter note, I picked a ton of blackcaps (like smaller blackberries) this weekend. I made a pie, and still have a huge bowl of berries leftover.