And....

I'm back. I've been hibernating and processing and generally just ignoring the world for the last week. But I'm over that now. Back to real life!

I had a pretty busy Thanksgiving weekend and thought I'd share. First, Thanksgiving at my sister's. Mmmm...
My dad falls asleep every year either before dinner or after. And I usually take a picture. This year, it was after dinner.On Friday, my new nephew was born! William Matthew, 8lbs, 11oz. Cute as a button. :)
A rare photo of me on the blog. Little Will had to be in the NICU for a bit, but he's all better now and at home with mommy, daddy, and his two big brothers.On Saturday I put up the Christmas tree. Marbles found it FASCINATING and just the best thing EVER to rub up on.
The tree is lasting pretty well, even with curious cats. I tied it to the table it's sitting on and didn't put any breakable ornaments on, which will help.

Also on Saturday, Sadie and I went with our neighbor and her dog to get a bath.
It didn't go over that well. Water is evil, apparently.
Percy was a good dog. :)
Sunday was brunch with friends and some guitar hero. And then laying on the couch and watching TV. No pictures of that. Sorry! :)

Glass

Hi!

So with the holidays approaching, I'm sure you're all wondering what to get for your loved ones. I have a solution! Bob is having a sale on his glass with items from 50-75% off.

Check it out here.

Pretty stuff. And he does commissions as well in case you'd like your favorite pet captured in glass or want something like the Last Supper with Apes (seriously. It was a question from a customer).

And if you live in Chicago you can probably get free delivery of the piece! ooo! Bonus!

Laid Off

So they're closing my company's offices next year, which means that I'll be out of a job in February.

Anyone need an experienced editorial manager? :)

12 of 12: November 2008

It's 12 of 12 time again, Chad's brainchild. It's a workday so nothing TOO exciting. Enjoy!

6:41am, Bathroom: Getting read for work
7:12am, Bedroom: Dressed and ready to go. And...wow. Our bedroom looks like it's a mess: dog beds and lamp cords and hoodies laying about. maybe I won't take pictures in here any more...
7:23am, Family Room: Jinx is guarding my purse, waiting for it to move so he can flop back down on the desk. I also put a post-it on my purse reminding me to bring my baby shower gift to work for a co-worker. Even putting it right BY my purse doesn't mean I'll actually remember to grab it.
7:35am, Division St: Walking to the el. It's another gloomy, gray day.
8:16am, My Desk: I stopped off for a couple things on the way in: a baby shower card, breakfast, pretzels, and a diet coke. The necessities.
10:22am, My Desk: Quick stop by facebook to post the hamster video. The song has been stuck in my head for a couple days now.
12:02pm, My Desk: Origami calendar time! Today was an angelfish.
3:39pm, Conference Room at Work: We had a baby "sprinkle" for a co-worker (a sprinkle is a smaller shower that's just for necessities like baby wipes, diapers, and things like that. It's usually for those that are having second (or third, or fourth) babies)
6:25pm, Bedroom: Laundry day. Oof. It's been WAY too long since I did the wash.
7:00pm, Kitchen: Dinner time! As things are chugging away in the laundry room, I got started on dinner. I attempted to make risotto for the first time and ended up cooking the onions and garlic a little too much, but as I added the chicken stock it was getting a little better.
7:27pm, Kitchen: Dinner time! Breaded chicken with leaks and risotto. It all turned out pretty well, considering the potential risotto failure from about 30 minutes ago.
8:42pm, Bedroom: As I was folding load 3 of 4 of the laundry, Sadie jumped onto the bed to lay next to Jinx who was sacked out on my robe. Since Jinx is not too fond of Sadie, I was surprised that he didn't run off when she got up on the bed with him. Luckily the camera was close so I could capture this rare moment of peace between the two...although you can see that Jinx is keeping his eye on the dog, just in case.
And that's it! No Marbles pictures today, unfortunately. Most likely she'll show up in next month's group of pics!

Video

Beautifully said.

Change Has Come to America

Watch the speech (if you haven't already) and feel the hope and the joy and the power of this man.

It's an exciting time and I'm looking forward to it.

Election Day

I voted today. First time ever.
Have you voted yet? Please do. PLEASE. It's terribly important.

Weekend, October 31-November 2

First off, the time change is totally messing me up. I got up at 7am on Sunday, watched a movie, and the it was 10am. And it felt like 3pm or something. And then at 8pm I wanted to go to bed. I know that the time change is only and hour but for some reason my body read it as, like, 4 hours. And leaving work tonight in the (almost) dark is going to suck.

Anyway, my weekend.

Friday was halloween so Bob and I went to our neighbor's halloween party upstairs. (so convenient!) We didn't know anyone, really, but had a good time. Everyone was dressed up which is always fun. Bob taped a bunch of pictures of Robert on himself and went as...Mucho Deniro (hee) and I was a biker. Yes, I have a couple of pictures. No, I'm not posting them. Sorry!

Saturday Liz and I did errands--target, Dominicks, etc.--and I bought my first Christmas present! Woo! I feel so accomplished getting stuff somewhat early! I'll probably still be scrambling until Christmas though...

Later that night Chris and Liz came over and we played Guitar Hero World Tour with all four of us, rotating who did what. I also made Corn and Kielbasa Chowder...yum...that's a good one. And EASY!Sunday (after my movie), Bob and I went out to the Aurora outlet malls for a bit and then pretty much crashed. Somewhat lazy day. Oh! I DID make some baja fish tacos that made my apartment smell like fish all night (Sorry, no pics. We were starving). They were ok. Kind of boring, really. It COULD be that I really like regular tacos so I felt that these were missing something. If I liked fish more, I'd tweak the recipe to make it more interesting, but...eh. It's just not worth it to me.

The highlight of my weekend might have been the gas we got for $2.55. $25 to fill the car? AWESOME. I think that last comment makes me an official adult. I'm way too excited about gas being less than $3.

:)

Thursday, October 30th

No cooking last night! Instead Bob and I ate leftovers and went out to Quenchers to see his friend's band play--Bear Head.

It was a fun night. Each of the 6 bands played either Misfits or Ramones songs, and Bob and I only stayed for two bands. Don't judge! We still got home at 11. If we had stayed for the whole thing we would have gotten home really late. And it was a school night. :)

Wednesday, October 29th Dinner

Last night I went for the unhealthiest of my recipes. Oh my. Butter and cheese. LOTS of butter and cheese.

I made Ham and Cheese Cannelloni and garlic bread. It was super-easy with just a few ingredients, most of which were easy to find. The only weird one was the egg roll wrappers, but since I only used 6 of them, I'll have them for a while yet so I won't have to search for them again.
It took really only took about 15 minutes to put this thing together and stick it in the oven. The garlic bread took about 5 minutes more (mostly because I had to chop garlic. If you have that stuff in a jar, it'll be even faster). The recipe called for a 9x9 pan (which I don't have) and for 8 cannellonis. Um...I only had 6 pieces of ham (Bob had a sandwhich before I could stop him) and then I ran out of the cheese filling and room in the dish anyway, so it worked out well, actually.
The recipe calls for 20 minutes in the oven, but in order to get a browner top, I left it in for almost 30. The dish was crazy-bubbling when I pulled it out of the oven.And the final meal. All yellow. No vegetables. All butter and cheese. Oy. I think we'll have have to have something really green and veggie tonight to make up for it.
It was REALLY good though (was there ever any doubt? Cheese? Butter? Bread? Good stuff) and not that expensive. I just needed to buy the ricotta and the egg roll wrappers, both of which have leftovers so I could make this dish twice with the standard packaging. I'd say...about $10 total? Only because of I got good ham. Replace the ham with budding or generic ham and it'd be even cheaper.

Marbles Watching Guitar Hero

Marbles Watching Guitar Hero
Originally uploaded by hak123

Apparently the cat is fascinated with all of our video games lately. Last night she was intently watching Bob play Guitar Hero (I had already dropped out after some serious drum and guitar playing--hello? 407 note streak! Go me!)

Tuesday, October 28th Dinner

Last night's culinary feat (ha!) was...Chicken, Biscuits 'n' Gravy Casserole! It was pretty chilly last night and this sounded like a good idea. Total comfort food. Well, that and I needed to use the rotisserie chicken I bought from the grocery store before I went funky.

Not too many ingredients and it was easy to put together--just shred chicken in the bottom of a casserole pan, make the gravy and pour over, and then add the biscuits to the top. There were even vegetables in there so we felt somewhat healthy as we ate biscuits and gravy. :)

The recipe calls for you to make garlic butter and brush the tops of the biscuits. Yum, yes. But now our kitchen is TOTALLY garlic-y. Is there a way to make that smell dissipate a bit? I like homey, cooky smells, but this is a little much. Here's the dish before going into the oven:

And here it is just out of the oven:

Good stuff. It could use a little more liquid in the gravy (the biscuits make it a little dry) but otherwise it's pretty good. Bob and I kept throwing out ideas to adjust the recipe--sausage for a breakfast version, brown gravy for the top, things like that. Pretty versatile recipe, I think. Also, it was pretty cheap to make--about $10 in total. The biggest cost was the chicken and the mushrooms. Not bad!

Tonight I'll be using wonton wrappers. Oh my. We'll see how that works out...

Monday, October 27th Dinner

I spent a good amount of time on Saturday looking through recipes so that Bob and I could have real food instead of frozen chicken patties or pizza for dinner. We really want to try to eat healthier and while the foods that I picked aren't exactly low-cal, at least they're not directly from the freezer. :) Baby steps.

My first dinner creation was Gaucho Cheesesteaks.
It took me about an hour for the whole process, but then again I started using the food processor, decided it wasn't working right (it wasn't...I needed chopped jalapenos, not slices!) and then hand cut everything. And I cooked the meat after I did the sauce, so the whole "15 minutes prep" thing noted on the recipe? Not so much. They turned out pretty well through.I only used 1 pound of skirt steak (because...expensive!) but forgot to split the sauce part of the recipe, so there was a really strong flavor of red wine vinegar, but I still got 4 sandwiches out of the deal. So leftovers!It came to about $24 total for the ingredients (I had some on hand) for 4 sandwiches. Not horrible, but not that great. But then again...steak. So it was worth it. I'd make it again. Except I'd ask for help with the dishes. There were a lot because I had issues with what size bowl to use. :) You can't see it, but there are two more in the sink.

The Wii Fit is for EVERYONE

Marbles on the Wii Fit
Originally uploaded by hak123

Even the cat, apparently.

I've Been Tagged!

I've been tagged my Miss Jamie! It's my first tag, and I feel special. :)

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

5. If you don’t have 7 blog friends, or if someone else already took dibs, then tag some unsuspecting strangers.

**********
1) I was once cornered by a bear. Like, a wild bear. I was camping in New Mexico (Philmont) and during one of our treks, we were walking through a crevase-like area where we would each walk/climb down some rocks toward the water and then back up to the trail. The space was only big enough for about one person, and I was about the 3rd or 4th person to go down. Once I was at the bottom (like, 4 steps), we heard some rustling in the woods and a bear comes charging down the hill at me. It sees me and stops about 4 feet away, essentially trapping me against a stone wall and between two fairly steep hills. No where to go. I was completely frozen but luckily the other people in my group knew what to do--they started screaming. This scared the bear off and it turned around and ran off. I found out after he was gone that it was a little bear and that there was a mama or papa bear just behind him. I'm kind of glad that I didn't see the older one!

2) I once had pink hair in college. I died it for halloween, not really caring that it said semi-permanent hair coloring. I guess assuming that it would wash out? Since this was before Pink and Gwen Stefani, and after the 80s, I was a little self-conscious about it so I tried washing it with EVERTHING. Tide, dish soap, bar soap, anything. By mid-late November is was still a little pink, and there was a pink tinge to it until about Easter. But my hair on Halloween was AWESOME. Multiple people asked me where I got my wig.

3) I have a lot of siblings. My parents got divorsed when I was 6 and both got remarried so I have a sister, 2 step-sisters, a step-brother, and 2 half-brothers. That's seven of us, if you're counting. And now they're all having babies and stuff so my immediate family is pretty large.

4) Most of my teeth are fake. Well, kind of. I have crowns on all but 2 of my molars. I think this is beacuse I never got wisdom teeth and never had braces so I avoided all of the teenage teeth trauma.

5) I've never broken a bone or spent time the hospital (that I can recall). I was admitted a few times when I was under 2, but since then, I've been really healthy. Knock on wood. but I have THOUGHT that I broke my foot twice. The ER people very nice told me that I was mistaken and to go home and rest up.

6) I can remember my phone number from when I was 3 but I can't remember my phone number now. I have to look it up on my phone.

7) I'm an english major and only read 3 books in college from start to finish (Uncle Tom's Cabin, Frankenstein, and O! Pioneers). I've pretty good and finding quotes for papers by just flipping through the book. I OWN a lot of classics though...I just haven't read them yet. It's part of my massive to-do list that also contains scrapbooking 2004-2008 and cleaning out my files.

That's it! I don't have that many friends that blog so I'll just tag those that do and hope that those of you that read this in silence (lurkers!) will come out of the woodwork and leave your 7 in the comments. Or self-tag?

I know the rules say I should randomly tag, but that scares me. I'm totally a lurker too.

So my tags are:

Erin at Milwaukee High Life
Bryna at Zeena Prcelina
Gail at Rantings in G Minor

:)

12 of 12: October 2008

Wow. I totally missed last months. Like, "oh, la, it's the 15th of September. OH MY! I forgot about 12 of 12!" Totally bummer. But I'm back again! And this time there aren't ANY pictures of the cats or the dog. But there are some of goats.

Thanks again to Chad for this! And go here for more 12 of 12s.

Today we decided to head up to Wisconsin to go apple "picking" and go the the cheese castle. Bob and I picked up Liz and Chris around 9 at the Dunkin Donuts and headed out of the city.

9:41am: In the car, heading to Wisconsin
10:15am: Welcome to Wisconsin!
10:36am: After getting a little lost and then calling the restaurant for directions, we made it to Apple Holler. Just shows that you should always at least LOOK at the directions before heading anywhere new.
10:40am: Goat! If you look closely, he's bleating (?) and his tongue is sticking out.
10:42am: Liz as an apple.
10:43am: Me as a cow
10:47am: Bob is feeding the baby goat while "mama one-horn" is looking on. And begging for some treats as well.

11:14am: You had the option of picking out apples from their bins or actually going into the orchard to pick apples yourself. It was SO crowded there that we decided to just pick from the bins. Besides, we didn't need a peck of apples. No canning in my future!
11:23am: Our apples!
11:28am: Liz and Chris got some pastries from the store. Chris took a bite of this mammoth cinnamon roll, and surprisingly, got NO frosting on his goatee. Very impressive.
11:43am: After apples, it was on to cheese!! Mars Cheese Castle (which is awesome) is just a few miles from Apple Holler so we stopped there to get some cheese.
1:26pm: And then we drove back to Chicago.
The rest of the day consisted of me taking a 4 hour nap, watching dvrs of Kitchen Nightmares and Heroes. :)

See you next month!