Increasing the "Aww" factor, baby style.

Gotta love office birthdays.  If it's not free lunch, its treats. But today was special, a birthday and a baby shower.  The birthday, although special, was nothing different than the standard office birthday crowding around the kitchen pretending we all don't want a slice of that fluffy grocery store cake knowing after everyone walks out we'll each slink our way back to sneak a piece. 

However, despite an office full of women, a baby shower is a rarity which draws all the women to hover around to envy the mom-to-be of her new baby outfits and toys.  I don't know about you but I certainly can't help but have my own Lily Aldrin "but sock" moment when the baby socks get passed around with little monkeys.


How I Met Your Mother - Season 4: Not a Father's Day, Drunk Lily(in case you haven't seen it, here it is)

(horrid quality, and it cuts off in a bad spot but it's all I could find on my first youtube search)

Today one of the men sprung for lunch, not in honor of Mom-to-Be but in honor of reproduction around the world.  It was a nice gesture, and a tasty meal.  While waiting for the food to arrive, I sauntered over to the kitchen in an attempt to abate my hunger with some of the other tasty treats ruminating on the counter.  As I walked in, some of the other women were admiring the decorations and commenting on the cute packages we all took time to wrap with pretty pink bows and purple tulle.  I grabbed a cracker and one of them turned to me and said "You need to have a baby now."

Ok, I'll get right on that. <wink>...is what I should have said.  Instead, I shoved a cheese topped cracker in my mouth as my eyes doubled in size searching the room and tried to think of what to say to that strange comment.  It took me by surprise, though it shouldn't have considering I've been bombarded with all sorts of baby making insinuations from the day my cousin's daughter was born.  "It's your turn!!" has been spat at me more than enough times to count.  So needless to say, my surprise was a surprise in itself.  It's probably because I never got it from anyone at work before.  Certainly not that bluntly put either.  

Lets just say this now..I do want kids.  But most days, I can wait.  That's what the puppy is good for.

I'm sure I mentioned the pink.  The mom-to-be is having a girl, so everything is pink.  All of the cute adorable dresses, and footies, and onesies, and bathrobes, and burp cloths given today were pink.  All except mine.  I figured there was going to be more than enough pink, so I bought the cutest purple sweater with bright flowery pants, and a yellow and green onesie/pantset that proudly sported 'Mommy's Little Girl' across the front.  One of my coworkers made the comment that if we had not known who gave what, her guess would have been that I gave the yellow and purple outfits.  Apparently, I'm known as 'shoe girl' because of my collection of bright shoes...so who else but 'shoe girl' would give the baby bright outfits? 

Bright outfits a la Shoe Girl

How cute! I suppose I could have gone a more classic route with pink and cute little monkeys and ducks, but where's the fun in that?  A couple of genius ideas others have given:  a big piggy bank and a "big brother" present which consisted of a couple books and a pack of m&m's.  The woman this shower was for has a son who is I think 5-6 years old.  So, I thought it was an extremely thoughtful gift to also give the older sibling something as well.  I'll have to steal it the idea for the next baby shower...which, considering how many people I know that are pregnant right now...could be any day now. 

i don't poop sunshine and rainbows everyday people

Click image to go to Wright Engineers blog, where this crack comic is originally posted

Funny forward from my dear friend Mellissa, who works for The Mouse.  There may be advantages of working for Disney but observing Mellissa's life through the walls of Facebook, since I hardly ever get to talk to her lately, I previously came to the conclusion that Mickey is synonymous to a slave driver. 

Slave Driver Mickey

Just a little doodle of mine from a couple years ago.  Mostly traced from bits and pieces of Mickey pictures, so don't get the impression I know how to draw.  

i photoshop...part 2

before..

 after...

 

 It's Friday. What more can I say?

Things that make me go, hmm...Armageddon via Comet Elenin

"The government don't want you to know about it cuz they scared!"...."It's all lies, the government made it all up!"...."They're not talking about it in the news yet but Google it!"..."They're keeping it a secret, but..."

I've heard them all. Armageddon, Doomsday, The End of the World, The Ultimate Showdown....whatever you call it, the existence of the world will cease through some cataclysmic event that is bound to happen sometime in the near future, certainly within our own lifetimes.  We're all bound to end up at some kind of gate in the end...be it Heaven or Hell.  But what will inevitably cause that end?  I'm on the boat called "I hope its old age and not something you idiots are trying to scare me with"    Everything in my logical mind screams, "you all are crazy!", and I sit back and shake my head.  However, it does spark interest in my creative mind to follow such nonsense.

I don't go searching for these things, I don't need to. I have a coworker so deeply embedded into the fabric of the conspiracy world I hear about some new "big government secret" almost weekly.  He is particularly interested in astro-paranormal weather effects.  Having studied meteorology in college 30 years ago, he's who I refer to for my weather concerns, since he's usually right.  But when he starts talkin' stars...I'm not sure where he gets his information. 

This week its Comet Elenin.  The comet that will supposedly come within 0.15 au of Earth sometime in October March of this year!!! <note heavy sarcasm> "Scientists" have forcasted some serious action...including the biggest doozy of them all: pole reversal and/or earth's ceasing to rotate.  With the earth suddenly at a stand still, there will be massive volcanic eruptions, earth crumbling quakes, and land consuming tsunamis. Who knows, maybe the lost city of Atlantis will be found! All in all it ends with maybe a few million survivors, maybe no one survives...

The thing with these theories is its always somehow based on real life events that are occurring every day.  Some of them are a little odd...sinkholes for one baffle me. And they keep appearing all around the world.  Record storms, spikes in volcano activity, and earthquakes in distant faults that have long been forgotten...  Add in an article about Yellowstone taking a "deep breath" before some ultimate explosion (because Yellowstone actually IS a giant volcano), causing the land to rise several inches...and Old Faithful perhaps not being so faithful anymore, and I can see how it's easy to fall into the hype.

So, buying into it just a teeny bit this time around...hello end of the world.

My girl scout cookie addiction...

Every year, it never fails, at least one mother brings in that glossy tri-fold order form offering the greatest treats ever invented....the girl scout cookie.  Continuing to perpetuate my unending addiction to the best of them all, the thin mint.  If left unattended, I will eat the entire box in one sitting.  The order form has changed many many times, names have changed, cookies dropped from the selection list, etc...but the one thing that has always been constant is the thin mint. But of course, its the best seller!

Last month, our resident girl scout mom brought in the order form and of course I had to order some.  At $4 a box though, I curbed my addiction and only ordered 4 boxes of thin mints, 1 box to leave at my desk for munchies and 3 boxes to go home and be devoured by the husband.  I also ordered a box of samoas, previously known as caramel delites.  The delectable combination of chocolate, caramel, and coconut adds a new layer of mind blowing sweetness that only makes my taste buds do a happy dance.  Yet, nothing the sweet samoa offers holds a candle to the minty crispness of the thin mint.  Every crunchy bite of peppermint flavored chocolate explodes in my mouth causing an eruption of endorphins to surge through my blood, creating blissful euphoria for the few seconds it takes to devour one cookie.  I cannot stop at just one little taste, I must have more!


There must be more to the cookie than a simple chocolate wafer covered in peppermint chocolate, yet as I examine it inside and out using all my senses I can find no such difference.  We have tried once to make homemade thin mints last year after the last of the seasonal cookies were ingested...it didn't turn out so well.  It is quite difficult to make such a small skinny cookie.  I will attempt to create this delicacy in my home kitchen again this year, keeping at least one sleeve available for taste testing.  But sooner or later, it will get eaten.  Hopefully I am able to find the best replica recipe somewhere in this world...that's what the internet is for is it not? Many people have come up with 'thin mint' knock-offs, but from what I can tell so far...none are the right consistency for the wafer cookie, or the right amount of peppermint, or light and flaky just as the original. 

I most recently found this recipe for "Homemade Thin Mints"  and I hope with everything in my belly it's close.  The picture looks awfully close to the real thing...doesn't it? <----------
Maybe this weekend I will vainly attempt to recreate it in my kitchen.  I know the husband would be all for it if I could concoct such tastiness with my own two hands and he wouldn't have to wait for girl scout cookie season.

My cookies have arrived, though I asked my co-worker to hold them hostage since I haven't paid for them yet.  And if I receive them and take them home I'm liable to forget to pay her.  I did snag a sleeve of thin mints, and have managed to refrain from eating it all...but now I have the taste in my mouth and it's bringing out my inner cookie monster....*roar*

I'm not sure I can hold out from eating the rest of them before the end of the day.  My hope is to bring the rest of the sleeve to my PE review class tonight so I can snack on them whilst sitting through a session with the most incredibly boring speaker/lecturer in this series thus far.  Just another hour to go and I should be good to take them to class with me.

COOOKIES!! NOM NOM NOM...

Corniness on Valentines Day..

I love, love, love this new song by Matthew West.

Wouldn't Change a Thing - Matthew West

had a picture in my head

of how I thought it all would go

but look who showed up instead

turns out you never know

love will steal you by surprise

and take your heart just like a thief

love can bring a stubborn man

down to one knee

and I wouldn't change a thing

it's perfectly imperfect

so crazy but it's worth it

and I'm wrapped around you like this ring

and something tells me even if I could

I wouldn't change a thing

love will show you what you lack

love will laugh at all your plans

and if your heart won't give it back

well love will slip right through your hands

but heaven knows we've had our share

of days we'd rather leave behind

oh but love don't really seem to care

it makes the wrong turns turn right

and I wouldn't change a thing

it's perfectly imperfect

so crazy but it's worth it

and I'm wrapped around you like this ring

and something tells me even if I could

I wouldn't change a thing

I'm truly, deeply, madly, completely, devoted, every moment, to my last breath, I'm yours

gotta picture in my head

of a hundred years from now

when all our lines have all been read

and were both up there looking down

saying I,  I wouldn't change a thing

it was perfectly imperfect

and every bit was worth it

and I'm wrapped around you like this ring

and something tells me even if I could

I wouldn't change a thing

I heart you husband.

Rubberband Me

I think maybe twice a week, one of my bosses comes up and asks me for a rubberband.  I once gave him a bunch and put it on his desk since he kept stealing mine, but I think he's just used to asking me now.  Anyway, Greg comes up behind me singing "Rubberband me..you can rubberband me".  As I put a rubber band around the set of drawings he's holding, he asks "do you remember that song?"  I simply look up at him and say..nope as I start laughing.  Why would I remember a song that's about rubberbands unless it was some kind of psycho-seseme street knock off song?  He in turn gently smacks me upside the head with the roll of drawings calling me a little shit as he laughs with me.  Initial thought: I think I made him feel old...

I then turned around and proceeded to look up said "Rubberband Me" song, and found this:

Project Pat - Rubberband Me


Now, unfortunately it's stuck in my head.  2nd thought:  Greg is as old as if not older than my dad...he listens to rap?  <mind blown>

I'm a walkin' bankroll, you can rubberband me...

Bachin' it up - Days 2-3

In the middle of the day on Friday, I got to jonesin' for a banana split. So, as I was talking to a couple of my friends at the time, we decided to go get ice cream after work.  Being the kind of person that loves to cook, I made dinner.  I'm also the kind of weird person that has to eat a normal meal before dessert or I get a stomach ache.  (Didn't used to be that way...but getting older has weakened my stomach). After dinner we went to Oberweis and my friend Aaron treated us to ice cream.

Aaron: "This is my treat guys.  (points at me) You made dinner.  (points at Steph) And, you're poor." 

LOL.  We loved that the first thing he came up with to make the excuse that he should pay for Steph's ice cream was that she was poor. Not because she drove us to Oberweis, or that she had a bad day at work, or that she got stuck in traffic on the way home...nope, it was her financial disability.  She may be on a budget, but we all are this year and I'm sure she would have declined to get overly priced (yet tasty) ice cream if she hadn't allowed for some treats.

We had a fantastic evening, with wine, ice cream, and the brilliance of My Sassy Gay Friend.

Saturday Morning:
The puppy decided he wanted to wake me up at 3:30am because his bladder told him it was time to go potty.  I really need to keep him from drinking a ton of water after 10pm...  But I got up to let him out and then came back to sleep.  7am rolls around and he's up again.  This time he's hungry.  Understandable...breakfast time is 6:30 for him most days.  I made myself french toast and oatmeal and started on the chores...only to fall asleep again until my mom called me at noon to tell me she and dad were going to be home all day if I wanted to come over.  (Read:  Come over, I want to see you)

I ended up going over to my parents' house for dinner, but I cleaned the house and went to the mall with Steph first.  I wanted to get new jeans...damn this ever-widening butt.  Somehow I came away with not only 2 new pairs of jeans, but also yet another purple work shirt and a "dress" that's almost too short to wear on its own.  I will have to go back to exchange the dress though as I purchased one 1.5 sizes too small.  The outer chiffon part of the dress would fit me perfectly, but the attached slip barely fit over my shoulders.

Superbowl Sunday:
I don't watch many sports, and I hardly give a damn about which team wins, yet I hosted my own Superbowl party...without my husband, the sports fanatic.  Yesterday morning, I woke up to 2 more inches of snow, once again cursing my husband for not being here to do the brunt of the physical labor involved in shoveling.  By the time I was done and showered clean, the snow plow so graciously came by and dumped more crap snow at the end of the driveway.  I decided to just leave it... (Side note: I'm so done with snow... while the husband has been playing in it, I have been shoveling it. I'm done)

Since my friends were coming over that afternoon for the game/superbowl commercials (which by the way...I was sorely disappointed in the complete lack of interesting commercials...what happened to all the good Bud commercials?), I cooked up a storm.  Chili, chicken tenders, shrimp fried rice, guacamole, cheesecake, and chocolate pie.  There are so much leftovers I don't know how it's going to all get eaten.  My friends claimed to love my cooking yet they refrained from eating much of the food.  Oh well...at least I didn't run out of food. I could never...it's in my genes.  My mother always orders too much food, and I have a tendency to make too much for a party.

I spent a good part of the game playing with my friends 7 month old baby - Robert.  We made fun of X-tina for messing up the National Anthem, made fun of the Black Eyed Peas for sucking live (or delayed recorded in our case), got disappointed when Usher only came out for one song, and cracked Cutler jokes every time a player left the field because of an injury. 

I've left the kitchen in shambles because by the end of the game I was passing out on the floor and just too tired to clean the whole mess.  Hell, even now I'm still tired.  Somehow I still woke up at 3:30am and it wasn't even the dogs fault this time.  Or maybe it is...since he'd been getting me up at 3:30 almost every day for the past week, my body naturally thought it needed to get up.  There will be much cleaning when I get home from work today.  Sigh...somehow not what I envisioned for my great Bachin' experience.

Edit:  I totally missed the best part about Superbowl Sunday.  In the morning, I ventured to the grocery store to pick up some miscellaneous ingredients.  At the checkout line the cashier started chatting me up...now we refer to our grocery store in a completely non-P.C. manner as "the mexican store".  If you shopped there you'd know why.  But we love that grocery store because it actually has MORE than your everyday Dominicks/Jewel etc.  So the cashier was talking to me and I was in a good mood so I was chatting back, telling him about my ski tags on my jacket as he monotonously swiped my items across the laser scanner.  As I was swiping my credit card and signing the transaction pad, he caught a glimpse of my ring and you could see his eyes double in size and the gears turning as he blurted out "You're married?!" as if he were in complete shock that I'd be an old married hag.  I simply replied "yup," snatching my receipt from his fingers, "thanks have a good day!" (smile)  and walked away.

Skip a couple hours, and I'm home cooking chili and dancing in the kitchen as I blare BSB/Bruno Mars from the laptop/TV hook up.  The doorbell rings, and I try to wrangle the puppy to keep him from charging the door...gotta work on that front door etiquette.  There stands a representative from WOW Cable and the first thing out of his mouth is... "Hi, are your parents home?"  Now, I know I'm standing there in jeans and my college hoodie, without makeup, or my hair done, probably covered in flour...but, really?  So, I gently break it to him that I'm actually the owner of the house and you can literally see his face drop.  He starts to point at my sweater, opens his mouth, decides he's fucked up already and closes his mouth.  Classic 'open mouth, insert foot' moment. Then he proceeds to insist we had an online inquiry about the WOW service, and I try to tell him that we indeed did NOT have any kind of inquiry and asked if he got the address right.  Yet he again insisted that someone must have sent it from this house, and I'm thinking...didn't I just say I OWNED this house? Wouldn't I be the one (or my husband, who was too preoccupied with his trip for the past month to even think about looking around for another cable service) to do an online inquiry?  LMAO. I just wanted to laugh in his face. But that would have been rude. :-P

Bachin' it up... Day 1

The first time I heard the phrase "bachin' it up" my husband was detailing a conversation he had with one of our neighbors.  His wife and daughter were going somewhere for the weekend, I can't recall where, leaving him and his son home alone for a few days.  As he boasted about the house being left to the boys he made the comment that he and his son were going to be bachin' it up that weekend. For a second, I had no idea what that meant.  Then, slowly, as the synapses started firing properly...men, no women, bachelors...click. Ah, that's clever.

If it works for the men, it's only proper that it works regardless what sex you are. Therefore, since I have the house to myself (with the dogs of course)...I am officially bachin' it up.  The husband has gone to Montana on a man-trip with 2 of his co-workers to go snowboarding in the mountains.  They're going to be "roughing it" in the wilderness in a house with no cable, no internet, and spotty cell reception. 

He hasn't been gone for 24 hours yet and I've already cursed him for leaving me.  The snowpocalypse left the cities scrambling to plow the roads and unfortunately they didn't do a final pass on my street until yesterday while I was at work.  I came home to 2 feet of chunky, wet plow snow blocking my last 100 feet to what I was hoping would be a relaxing evening.  I paused...thinking, "how the hell am I going to get over that?"  Then remembering I was in the jeep...gunned it over the top.  Vroom!

I figured I probably should shovel that crap out of the way...otherwise it'll freeze and I'll never get out with my own car, a POS Civic Coupe, until summer.  So after letting the dogs out to do their business, I bundled up and got to work.  The sun had been long gone, having set just before I got home, and the temperature had plummeted to a bitter -10°F (with windchill).  I quickly discovered how packed the snow was and spent the next 40 mins hacking away at it until there was just enough space to get one car through at a time.  I was huffing, really wishing I had a snowblower, cursing my husband for leaving me with this catastrophe. 

On Tuesday, the first time I'd gone out to shovel, I'd left the puppy running rampant through the house. After I came in an hour later, I found my nice, warm, fluffy pink slippers all torn up. I was upset that the puppy had eaten my slippers but I still learned my lesson.  So, yesterday on my way home I stopped at the pet store to get him some new things to chew on...rawhides, bully sticks, biscuits, and a squeaker stuffing-free raccoon toy.  I gave him the raccoon before I went out to shovel.  By the end of the night, the raccoon was missing his tail and lost it's squeak.  Kona had mashed the squeaker flat.  He loves it though.  He carried it around this morning while I was getting ready for work. 

So, I have a few more days to myself...I'm taking suggestions on things to do. 

snOw My God!

Snowpocalypse 2011: 

The official snowfall for Feb 1-2 is 20.2 inches. (3rd largest snowfall in Chicago history) And boy was it every bit of that, more in some spots where the snow drifts were up maybe even 4-5 feet.  It was incredible...

Luckily, I was able to leave work on Tuesday before the storm blew in.  I made it home just as it started getting heavy.  I managed to shovel the driveway on my own when I got home and again a couple hours later.  By the time the husband finally got home, he had been on the commute for 3+ hours.  But we came to find out later that others who had left before him, but were driving home vs taking public transportation, that didn't make it home until after 3am making their commute 12+ hours.  I'm glad he didn't get stuck on the train somewhere.

We managed to shovel the driveway once more before going to bed but it may have not made any difference.  The wind was brutally strong, whipping snow around, blowing what we've shoveled right back where it came from...by the time we got to the end of the driveway there was already another 1-2" at the other end. 

Wednesday morning:  We woke up to the storm still dumping snow, and decided to sleep in a little longer.  No way we were going anywhere at that time, even though technically both of our offices were claiming to be open.  Only the moronic and desperate would be crazy enough to drive anywhere in the condition the roads were in on Wednesday morning. 

Picture chronicles:

7am and still snowing...

Back door can't even open past this point

Snow nearly up to the mailbox...

We started the seemingly endless task of shoveling the driveway around 8am, only to tire out and quit an hour later only about a quarter of the way down the driveway.  Making the executive decision to break for breakfast was positively genius at the time.  It worked out well too because as we sat down to enjoy our eggs and toast, the skies cleared and the sun came out to say hello. 

12:30pm and we reached the end of the driveway!

1/2 of the sidewalk was cleared by a neighbor with a snowblower, thanks John!

The other half we had to do ourselves

Done shoveling finally.

Got done about 12:30pm, counting a total of 3 hours to shovel about 1 and a half feet of snow.  I'd like to think that our efforts the previous night helped, but as you can see in the first picture...there's not much of a dent at all. 

hubby taking a break in the snow mountain.

Husband tried to make a snow angel in the middle of the yard, only to ruin it as he tried to climb out of the hole.  After the backbreaking task of shoveling, and quite literally our backs are still extremely sore...(Santa's gonna get us a nice new snowblower next year I think)...Playtime!

we shoveled an area in the backyard for Hunter, who can't leap over the snow banks anymore

deck covered in snow...insanity

neat swirl between our house and the neighbors

Hunter exploring

Kona chasing daddy...loving the snow...

Tackled!

sniffing the snow...

I found out my cousins, who have quite the sledding hill behind their houses, built up a ramp they could do jumps off it with their snowboards.  I seriously debated going over there to sled/snowboard.  It looked like they had a lot of fun so I do partly regret not going over there...  but we had fun in our backyard as well. 

The streets are still being cleared today, and cars finally getting towed/dug out, but there are still quite a few people stuck at home because their associations/apartments have not cleared their lots.  Lucky for me, I have 4 wheel drive.