Haircut

I think I'm getting a haircut today. It's about a billion months past due. I hate going to get my haircut. Hate.it. I can't even explain why. Fancy salon, cheap salon, it doesn't matter. I still hate it.

In other news, it's spring break on campus, so it's quiet around work. Students are gone, professors are still on contract, but many of them take off anyway. My boss is in Australia, my coworker across the hall is off with her son who is on spring break from elementary school. My coworker next door called in sick. How this will impact my day:

• I'm having tea rather than coffee. Didn't want to make a pot when it's just me here.
• I might take off early for my haircut.
• I might go out to lunch with Nolay.

Food centric post

I'm going to make a grocery list in a few minutes to purchase stuff for OTCC. I'll be making the stuffed peppers and the chicken saltimbucca this weekend. Both seemed a bit complex to throw together when I get home weeknights at 6 pm.

I was out of town for a few days for work, and ate at a restaurant owned by a Top Chef Master's-Season 2 contender. He co-owns and is the head chef of Spiaggia in Chicago, where the Obama's dined on a November date-night (their first date since post-election in 2009). Well, I did not dine at Spiaggia, but at their Kenosha restaurant called Mangia. It is less high-end than Spiaggia, but still very nice. And very delicious. I have leftovers for lunch today of the Oricchiette con salsiccia (pasta with lamb sausage, broccolini, goat cheese and chilies). *slurp*

I also indulged in a little Kringle. If you've only tried the stuff from the grocery store, you are missing out. The real stuff from the skilled Danish pastry makers is so much flakier and buttery. Yummmmmmm.

Girls weekend/Man weekend

Four days of basketball and scratchy, tabacco chewing, beer swilling boys. Would you:
1) Find something else to do
or,
2) Find something else to do ?


I knew if I stuck around the whole weekend, I'd spend most of my time cleaning and serving up food. Thus, I planned to make Saturday and Sunday a.m. my annual "girls weekend" with old high school friends. Two evenings with constant basketball and messy boys was enough for me.

I met the girls at Starbucks, then went out to lunch, then went for a marathon five hours of shopping at the outlet mall. I tried to hang out with them in the children's clothing stores, but after store #1, I couldn't do it anymore.

We ate too much for lunch, so skipped dinner. Swell idea, eh? We proceeded to drink two bottles of wine at the hotel between three of us and a non-alcoholic one for my preggo friend. Then it was time to go out on the town. One of our friends got a lot of immediate attention from boys (and one sad, Jack Sparrowish middle aged man). One boy thought we were in our mid twenties. I loved him.

We hung out at a karyoke bar. It was fun, and we had lots of great pictures (I had no camera, so don't ask for pics). All the bachelorettes that came in looked so, so young.

We partied like rock stars until 2 a.m. Yikes!

Chris and I are both drank out. His birthday is tomorrow and I don't think we're doing anything. We'll probably delay celebration.

I'm a dumbass

I'm enrolled for only four credits this semester (two 2 credit classes). That is less than my usual 5-7 credits per semester (which is also two classes, it's just how the credit load worked out this time). Stupid me didn't realize this would drop me below the "part time" credit load required for my undergrad student loans to be in forebearance. Argh. In May, I'm back to above 5 credits. Sigh. There's $258 a month we hadn't planned for this spring.

New bed

I mentioned about a month ago that we purchased a new mattress and bed. We scaled up and went king sized. The bed is not in yet, but the mattresses are. We have a lot of guests coming for the NCAA tournament, so we want as many beds as possible. Thus, we asked for the mattresses to be delivered, even if our bed wasn't in. We'll put them on the floor for now.

So, yesterday it was to be delivered between 11-2. That's smack in the middle of the day, and since we live an hour from work, it necessitated me taking more than half the day off. I had a meeting that morning I couldn't miss and Chris had two guys being released from prison, so I was the one elected to be home for the delivery. So, between having to drive separate (we usually commute together) and me having to rearrange a few things and take vacation time, the delivery was kind of a PITA.

So I get home at 10:57 a.m. yesterday. I open the garage door, and there were the mattresses. Turns out they were early, and saw a sign I put out for the winter that said, "Leave packages in the garage, as the steps can get slippery." The delivery guys even "took photo of sign."

ARGH! So, we had to move the giant mattress in by ourselves and I ended up home for no reason. So, I took the time to do a little rearranging of the office bedroom and clean out some file cabinets. Whatever.

Good news, though. The mattress is DIVINE! It has the top 1/2 of the top mattress in visco foam (same basis as Tempurpedic). No cat movement nor tossing and turning from Chris to wake me up. And his snoring in the king bed I can tolerate (still with ear plugs, though). Yay!!!!! And it was very breathable. I was worried it would get hot, but they say with the newer generation of visco and latex, they are both more breathable.

Shopping bargains

It was time for a new winter coat and I found bargains! Sears and Boston Store still had a small selection left at our mall. At Sears, I bought a black wool peacoat with some subtle stitched detailling, a super duper soft scarf, gloves, cute hat and two pashminas for $47 total with tax. Then, I found an Anne Klein camel colored coat for $50 at Boston Store, so I snatched that up, too. So for under $100 I got all that!

Here's the camel coat (I've never had a camel colored coat):

Food smacking...or why I can't live in Asian countries

I understand the smacking of food is not just an Asian thing, but yeeegads, there are some Asians that have it down to a science where you can hear it from another freaking room. My friend Mark also smacks his food. He is not Asian, but rather a farm kid that grew up in a big household of boys. I suspect chewing slowly and quietly wasn't a focus growing up. I spent the weekend with Mark and his wife, and now just encountered a smacking Asian.

What is your intolerance d'jour?

And parents? Please teach your children to chew quietly. *looks pleadingly*

MIL phone calls

I write my MIL letters so I can get out of talking on the phone with her. Plus, I think it's nice for retirees to get letters in the days of so much junk mail. In the past two months, she's decided to start calling my cell phone. I usually let it go to voicemail, as it's the middle of day and some of us are working, not waiting to chat about nothing with their retired MIL. Why do I dread talking to her? There are two main reasons:

1. She talks constantly and doesn't give you time to respond to what she said, so it's not really a conversation as much as her just rambling.
2. If you do get to ask a question or tell her a story, she doesn't listen to what you've said and usually gives a nonchallant "yeah" response or "it's just been lovely weather" to most statements. This makes me wonder if she's having some hearing loss issues and is trying to cover it up.

How often do you talk to your parents and in-laws (if applicable)? Is it a decent experience, or do you also ignore calls?

Weekend

I have nothing exciting to report.

I spent Friday night finishing a paper for a class (for some reason, one of my classes was uber-condensed and ended Friday).

I spent Saturday working on my thesis. I opted not to attend a party that night as I had to keep writing and really didn't want to stand outside around a fire, talking to people I don't really enjoy chatting with. Nolay went, so I was able to have a quiet study time and then downloaded Season 1 of LOST to watch again from Netflix.

Sunday we went out to watch the Olympic hockey finals. I didn't think the U.S. would win, so was just happy that we made Canada work for it. :-)

I hurt my shoulder moving furniture last weekend, and all the computer work I've been doing has exacerbated the problem. I took old hydrocodone last night to get to sleep.