more randoms...

I enjoyed the style of my last post so much, I'm going to do it again. Short excerpts on what's going on with me, my fam and the rest of the world.

On Friday Adam and I purchased a PS2 and Rock Band. Let me just say I've been rocking out with my cock out since Friday afternoon. I haven't yet touched the guitar but I plan to eventually so I will be able to play anything should any member of our band suddenly drop out or need to go back into rehab. My specialty so far has been the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums...sorry, was channeling The Ting Tings there for a minute. They should put a Ting Tings song on Rock Band. Blake would flip!

Found an awesome website last night at work. www.x-entertainment.com. This guy has everything 80's. Not for sale, mind you, just as a general discussion. He's complete with pictures too. For instance he's got an entire section dedicated to old school McDonald's tray liners. Go. Look. Feel old.

On Wednesday I worked first shift and the cafeteria served my favorite soup, California Medley. I'm working first shift again on Monday and guess what? California Medley soup is being served. It's like I just won the soup lottery.

Speaking of lotteries, I also won the "you just pissed out your ass lottery" at a local McDonald's bathroom on Friday. Apparently drinking 2 glasses of milk the night before and then eating at Denny's the next day for breakfast automatically enrolls you. I had no idea. TMI? Yeah. I thought so too.

Blake is Iron Man for Halloween. The best part about this is when he puts on his costume he walks around Ozzy-style saying, "I. Am. Iron. Man!" Now if I could just play that on my Rock Band drums.

Adam's been called back to working out of town. Boo!

Playing Rock Band instead of sleeping before you go into work 3rd shift will make you very, very, very....VERY tired about 2 hours before your shift ends. I wouldn't recommend this.

Sometimes when you're at home and bored you pull out the old Microsoft Paint and draw pictures of your hubby that look like this:



Seriously. It looks just like him. See?



Told you. Pay no attention to the bitter look on his face. This was taken New Year's Day this year and he had just put his car into a large snowbank on the side of Interstate 80.

The above cartoon Adam is the first time I've mentioned his band since I started this blog almost a year ago. Let me now give them a proper introduction:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Plagued By Saints

www.myspace.com/plaguedbysaints

I don't like people who call us at the switchboard at work and want to know what time their appointment is with their doctor when they don't even know their doctor's name. Honesty, how do these people function every day?

30-year old women who go to the ER for a pregnancy test need to man-up and find the courage to spend $9 on an EPT at their local drug store. No. Really.

Tonight I went to Emily's school for a parent-teach conference. Turns out I signed up for Thursday night, not Monday night. Maybe I should write these things down.

Last night it flurried. I am NOT ready for winter. Winter can suck it!

Remember THIS post? Turns out I'm not skerrd anymore. I've actually listened to "American Girl" a few times. In my car even. Ta-da! I'm cured.

You should be more like me

I've been eating some yummy things and watching some great tv so I thought I would share. Actually, I've been eating some decent things and watching some OK tv, and I'm bored and want to share.

Tonight for dinner I made Stouffer's Beef Stroganoff. It's about $7 at Wal-Mart and everything comes in one big bag. It has 3 very simple instructions:

1. Pour contents of bag in large skillet, cover and cook on high for 3 minutes
2. Uncover and stir
3. Re-cover and cook on medium for 9-11 minutes.

Viola! Dinner. Here's how quick and easy this is. I worked until 5 tonight. I got home at 5:35 and I was clearing off the table at 6:30. Now that's awesome. It was pretty good too. The only thing I would remove if given the option was the onions. I love onions, don't get me wrong. In fact when I was little, like say between the ages of 2-6 I would sit on the floor, in front of the onion bin and eat them like apples. My mom, a true cussing genius, would say to me, "Amy! God dammit! Don't eat those like that! You're three! That's not right! Fuck!" Frozen onions put into once prepared food and then reheated into pieces of slime are acky.

This past Sunday on my weekly Sunday grocery shopping adventure I picked up Ben & Jerry's Pumpkin Cheesecake ice cream. It's the bomb! Holy gourds, Batman, this shit is great. I grabbed one for my sister too. No word yet on if she's tried it or likes it. The only thing I don't like about it is the texture. Because it has a swirl of graham crackers the texture is a little gritty. The flavor though, rocks!

Every Sunday night Adam and I wrap up our weekend by watching Little Britain, USA. According to my bestie, Jim, who knows all things having to do with British TV shows, it is basically the same show that's been on in England, just now finally making it's way to the US. This show is raunchy and hilarious, and I love it. Just once at work I want to imitate the skit with the lady who works in a hospital and say, "Compu-ah sez no."

Raising the Bar. This show is on TNT and stars Mark Paul Gosselaar, aka Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell. It's a lawyer show and MPG plays an attorney sporting a Jesus meets Richie Sambora shag hairdo. I think this show started out a little weak but it's getting a lot better. I look forward to watching it each week.

The Cleaner. Two words: Benjamin Bratt. Yum! I can even make my way past the 'stache and goatee he flaunts that really needs a trim. Unfortunately the season finale was last week so you might not be able to check this one out, however it's worth a search on your DVR. I think this one is on A&E just like...

Intervention. I'm sure you've heard of this show. I watch it every week to remind me not to do drugs or drink to excess. These people are all kinds of fuggered up. Love it.

Easy Fries. These are microwaveable fries sold in single serving boxes that sell for about 88 cents each at Wal-Mart. I bought them for the kids last week as part of a quick dinner that included hot dogs. They actually microwave up crispy and are pretty good.

Baked chicken and rice. I'm throwing this one in just to prove that not everything I make comes out of the freezer section premade. I got a recipe for this online and the rice is made with onion soup mix. Once I served it and tasted the rice I almost cried. It tasted EXACTLY like the chicken and rice my grandma used to make. Should you find yourself wanting the recipe, let me know. I'll hook you up.

So, what have you been watching and eating? Anything I need to know about?

Some things and some pictures

I haven't blogged in a while and I'm planning on participating in my first NaBloPoMo next month so I guess I better get on the ball here. This post isn't going to talk about world hunger or the recent economic crisis, however I do plan on talking about murder, death, alcohol, vandalism, Lysol, trickery and the color red. I know! You can hardly wait!

So in my last post I talked about taking the kids to Disney, Live! Well, the next day my sister came to take the kids for the weekend and I got to get my hairs done! I was so freaking excited you have no idea. I haven't had a haircut since maybe June but no later than July. I was tired of it and wearing it up all the time. I walked into the salon I always go to, headed toward the girl that always cuts my hair and she totally read my mind. I said,

"I want something kinda funky."

"How about red?"

"OK."

"No, like real red."
"OK."

"I mean like red-red."

"Sure!"

With absolutely no prodding on her part she talked me into bright red, red-red, no like really-real red highlights in my hair. It looked awesome. Then she totally chopped it up and I absolutely love the cut. I can blow dry it without even putting product in my hair and it looks awesome. I can also put a bit of wax in it for definition and some spray and I'm good to go. I couldn't love it more. Here are 2 pics that absolutely do it no justice. The color these pics came out don't really do the highlights justice, but you can get the idea.




Excuse the disdainful look on my face. From the lanyard around my neck I must have just gotten off of work. I'm probably tired and cranky.

Last week was fairly uneventful. We found out on the 9th that a long-time friend of my family, who has also been my dentist since I was about 5 years old passed away. His name was Phil. He was only 60 years old. The story was told to me that he was hunting, had a heart attack and fell out of a tree where his deer stand was. Also, apparently he was out there for a while before he was found. I've heard several hours and I've heard a couple days. I do know his wife (who has worked as his office manager for 35 years) was out of town at the time and that everyone became suspicious when he didn't show up at the office for an appointment Thursday morning. That's when he was found. Anyway, my dad had grown up next to his grandparents and that's how he got to know Phil as well as his many brothers and sister. When Phil and his brother Jamie were in dental school, my dad got them jobs in construction. Because of this I got very cheap, if not free dental work for a long time. I remember one time when I was about 21 or so I came in to the office to have Phil fix a cavity. He fixed it, then another one he found. He said, "Amy, I fixed the one cavity, and I also filled another. Consider the second one an Easter present from me to you." I was only billed for the one filling, and was probably only billed $50. It seems like everytime I went in there, if there was an actual charge, it was $50, no matter what. He also asked me during this visit, "Amy, are you seeing anyone?"

"No."

"Well, when you find a boyfriend that you think you want to marry, make sure he has a nice father. You want to have a father-in-law that will spoil you."

It was the most bizarre advice I've ever gotten, yet the sweetest. I can't even tell you how kind and gentle Phil was. Phil made you look forward to going to the dentist. I sure will miss him.

My dad and sister and I decided to go to Phil's visitation. We knew it would be very, very busy so we got there early. The visitation started at 4:00, we got there at 3:45 and didn't leave until 5:00. That's how long the line was. It was easily 4 times as long behind us as it was in front of us so I don't even want to imagine how long some people had to stand in line. Ugh.

One day last week some ambitious girl decided to write on the windows of all of the cars in front of our building with one of those window paint markers. You could tell it was a girl by the writing. Well, everyone got their window written on except Adam. Apparently it was done sometime after he left for work. He was actually bummed. I was pretty pissed. I had to drive to work that morning with "UR Sexy! Rock on!" on my back window. Some other people got I "heart" U" and "Hi" on their windows. None of them seemed so large or blatantly obvious as mine. Mine covered my entire back window. Others were just small-ish in the corner of a back or side window. Awesome. No one fessed up to it, although I have my suspicions of who did it. Idiots.

Also on Tuesday, before I left to get Emily from school to get her ready to go to the visitation, I got to hear an awesome argument coming from our neighboring apartment. What I heard was a one-sided phone conversation that went a little something like this:

"I fucking hate you! I fucking hate everything about you! You are a fucking liar! You can just give me your money for the rent and go live in your car for all I fucking care! I will kill you! You are lucky I haven't killed you yet! I will cut you in your sleep!"

(slight pause)

"I don't care! I'm done! I'm so fucking done! I can't stand you! You were in town! You were in town all day yesterday! I saw you! I had no fucking idea where you were! I hate you mother fucker! I hate you! I'm done! Good-bye!!"

(heavy sobbing, then a couple minutes later...)

"I don't care! You are a dumb fucker! You are a DUMB mother fucker! Why were you looking for this girl? Why did you want to kick that guy's ass? You never told me why you wanted to kick that guy's ass!"

It was soo sweet. The chick who lives there is around my age or slightly older. She has a teenage son and her boyfriend was the one she was yelling at. This past Saturday night she had a bunch of friends over and they were all pretty drunk. Adam and I were on the front steps with the neighbors we normally hang out with that night, drinking and chatting. We also have a newbie in the building who hung with us and she is super cool. Anyway, drunkies upstairs were yelling down to us from their balcony in a manner that drunkies do best and Adam played stupid and asked if the boyfriend was there. One of the party-goers was like, "Uh....no....no, he's uh....he's not here." I love drama.

So, Adam and I hung with our neighbor-friends without the constant badgering of our children. How did I pull this one off? Because I suckered my sister. On Saturday afternoon Emily had a birthday party to go to for one of her classmates. I hung out with Blakey then met my sister at Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then shopping. We left my car at C.F.A and picked Emily up from the park then did a little more shopping. When I was almost done shopping Adam called on his way home from work. He asked if my sister was keeping the kids overnight.

"I don't think so."

"Well you should ask her, then we could go out or hang w/ the neighbors."

"I don't know..."

"Or you could just use the kids to sucker her into it."

"Whatever, Adam."

So fast-forward to my sister dropping me and the kids at my car at C.F.A. She pulls behind my car then gets out to throw some trash away up by the building. I get in the backseat, reach over Blake to take off his seat belt and quietly say to him, "Well Blake. I guess you're not staying at Aunt Lisa's house tonight." He immediately starts crying. I get him out, set him down and my sister says, "What's the matter?" I said, "Oh. Nothing. He thought he was staying at your house tonight." "Awwww! Buddy!" My sister picks him up and he's just sobbing. I know right then that I've got her. She says, "So, is it going to be just you that's staying, maybe Emily can come another day?" My mind scrambles. What? No! My plan wont work with one kid still at home! Anyway, I did a little more fast talk and soon I was driving away kid-free.

Adam was at home and had already eaten dinner so I decided to run through the C.F.A. drive-thru since I was there. I ordered a combo meal which was $5.72. The lady hands me a bag that's pretty heavy and I'm quite certain there's way more in there than a sandwich and fries. I get home and there's actually THREE sandwiches and THREE fries. Super sweet! I gave the other 2 to the neighbors.

After our outside pow-wow w/ the neighbors dispersed we decided to go to karaoke and took one of our neighbors with us. It was fun except for Adam's horrible gas. We were sitting in a booth with hard seats when Adam let a pretty loud one loose. The karaoke DJ, who was a woman, was nearby, heard it, and without missing a beat said, "We need Lysol over here! This guy shit his pants!" It smelled so terrible I had to go outside. Blech!

Nothing exciting going on this week. Just work and life. I got some pumpkins from my sister and bro in law yesterday afternoon so we'll try to get those carved maybe this coming weekend. The pumpkin I picked up for myself is so huge it might take me all weekend to get it scraped out! I'll be sure to post pictures of the whole experience!

Oh, and here's a picture of the mouse pad my sister brought me back from Vegas. It rocks my world.

OK, so it wasn't so bad.

I lived through Disney Live, and so did the rest of my clan.

Let me start my story by saying that I've really been lacking in the sleep department for the last several days, and not by choice. It's just happenstance and a crazy work schedule that have been denying me dreamy bliss. So, on Thursday night, the night before the show I had to work 3rd shift. This was the 2nd day in a row I had to work and I was running on about 1.5 hours of sleep for the 2 day period. Adam had worked out a deal with our awesome, awesome neighbors who said they would watch Blake for a few hours so I could catch some zzz's. They came and got him around 8am and I slept until about noon. I got up, got Blake and made him some lunch. I hopped on the computer to check email and things got quiet out in the living room. I peeked in on Blake who was sound asleep on the couch. Whoohoo! Another nap for me! I jumped at that opportunity to get back under the covers, even if for an hour or 2. I woke up at 3:30 as Emily was coming in the bedroom, just home from school. She said Blake was awake and watching cartoons quietly. I let Em play on the computer for a bit while I caught "just a few more" zzz's. I woke up at 4:45. OMG! I said, we have to get going! The show started at 6:30 and I had promised the kids McDonald's before the show. I put the kids in their new tshirts my sis and BIL had gotten them from Disneyland a few days before and we headed off. After we ate and were on our way to the show I was bummed and so were the kids when we realized we forgot their Mickey Mouse ears at home. My sister got them each ears from Disneyland and had their names embroidered on the back. Blake's is a Pirate Mickey version. There's a scarf around the "head" and a big gold earring in the ear. Emily's is an old school Minnie Mouse one. The kind when Minnie used to wear that little yellow hat with the daisy coming strait out of it. You know, when Minnie and Mickey used to have white faces and pac-man eyes? Yeah, now you get it. But I guess it's ok that we forgot them because it would have been just one more thing for us to deal with. Also, I forgot the camera. Dang it!

Our seats were great. I didn't buy floor seats because I think its ridiculous to pay that much for something so...childish, I guess. The people who buy seats on the floor for these types of shows:

A) must not have anything better to spend their money on since they are literally paying more than twice what I paid.
B) all seem to have pretty little kids, like 3 and under
C) are stupid because they don't even think or realize that their little 2 year old cannot see over the heads of the 20 people in front of him because the seats are ON THE FLOOR. They aren't staggered and tiered like the lower or even upper bowl seats. You can't see the stage on the floor unless you are in the front row. Seriously, don't parents think of these things???

*Steps down off soapbox*

I set rules on the way to the show. First of all, everyone was going to go potty when we got there. Secondly, we were not going to buy a bunch of souvenir crap especially when they got the real thing brought back from Disneyland and also because they are waaaaaay overpriced at these stupid shows. I said we might buy something small and then maybe something to drink to share.

We pulled into the parking lot of the arena and the lot was fairly empty, which was one of the main reasons I wanted to leave so early. I said, "Hey kids, we're gonna get a great parking spot." I paid the attendant and he said to take the first left into the lot. Sweet! Well we kept driving, and driving and driving down this aisle. The attendant finally pointed me into the second spot from the end. What? I was one of the first ones here and now the losers behind me are going to get to park closer because they get to go into the next aisle. I don't think so. So I sat there until the "attendants who point" headed back up the next aisle to direct more cars. I then backed out of my spot, headed 2 aisles over and parked in the 3rd spot from the front without even being noticed. It was also directly in front of the main sidewalk so we wouldn't have to try to remember what aisle we were in when we came out in the dark. Muahahahaha! Adam would have had a coronary if he were with us and would have never DREAMED of doing such a thing. In his mind you park where they tell you and don't even think of driving an extra 20 seconds to find a closer place to park.

Once we got inside the potty thing didn't go so well. I took Blake in a stall with me while Emily ventured out on her own. I went to the bathroom and then Blake refused to go. I fought and fought with him in that stupid little stall while all the other moms listened and thanked their lucky stars they weren't me this time. By the time I finally got Blake on the potty and got out of the stall Emily had been standing outside our door for some time. "Troubles?" she said, smiling with her hands on her hips. I had to laugh at her. She's like Blake's 2nd mom sometimes and knows what a handful he can be.

We made our way upstairs and checked out the wallet rapists vendors. Everything was freaking expensive, just as I thought, especially when you factor in that you have to buy two of whatever you get. We decided on pennants for each of the kids. They were $6 each so not too terrible. Then we made our way to the food and grabbed a bucket of popcorn and a large lemonade. Had I been thinking and not sleeping just before we left, I would have snuck in some juice boxes and snacks from home.

So, like I said, our seats were great. We were in the lower bowl in the section directly in front of the stage. The show was based on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so we got to see Mickey and his buddies, Little Einsteins, Pooh, Tigger and their pal Darby, and Handy Manny. Blake freaked out when he saw Handy Manny. He started waiving and yelling and saying, "Hi Manny! Hi! Hey! Manny!" It was cute. I had no idea he had such a love for the guy. Blake asked me towards the end of the show, "Where's Pluto?" Emily wanted to know where Daisy Duck was. I really had no answer. Back at the Clubhouse? Sorry. Not sure.

The show lasted about an hour and 20 minutes, which isn't very long but it's the perfect length for kids. We made it out beautifully and without me having to drag a kid out by the arm. Of course we found our car right away, got out of the parking lot with no issues and without a lot of traffic. It was a great way to end a fun night.

M-I-C...
See ya real soon!
K-E-Y...
Why? Because like you.
M-O-U-S-E.

M-I-C. K-E-Y. Don't Make Me Kill A Kiiiiiiiiiiiiddddddd.

I'm taking both kids to Disney Playhouse Live tonight. By myself. Pray for me. Pictures tomorrow.

A gnarly picture and a Pussycat Doll

On Wednesday night Emily finally lost her other front tooth. We were sitting at dinner when I noticed the other tooth was almost exactly in the middle and sitting kinda crooked.

"Emily! Your tooth! That things gotta come out!"

(Anyone else finally catch on to my obvious obsession with getting Emily's loose teeth out? Yeah, me too.)

Long story short I got it out. The new one is already starting to come in and she said it was hurting.

These are kinda gnarly looking but I'm sharing them anyway.





Tonight Emily went to a Halloween themed birthday party for one of her classmates. She decided to go as a black cat, which I was excited about because it makes for easy costuming. Black tights and leotard to the party, possibly a black sweatsuit on the night of Halloween since it will probably be cold, as per usual here in Iowa. I'm particularly proud of how her make-up came out, which is my main reason for posting the next two photos. Sorry the first one is kinda dark. I forgot to turn the flash back on from Wednesday night when I was taking pics of her teeth.





MEOWWWWW!

A belated Country Corner review

On September 21st the fam and I went to Country Corner. It is a farm about 45 minutes from here that goes all out this time of year. On the weekend we went they had a classic car show, a flea market and a corn picking contest for the kids. This is along with the things they have every weekend in the fall such as rides for the kids, a petting zoo, corncob cannon, pumpkin chucking and their fantastic farmer's market.

We didn't tell the kids where we were going, only that we were going, "Somewhere special." First we stopped off at Hungry Hobo (our local sub shop) for some lunch. The kids were in a good mood because of the road trip, even though they didn't even know where they were going.



Once we got there we checked out the flea market, which had some interesting things but nothing that sparked my interest. Then we headed to the ticket booth to get the kids some passes for the festivities. For $10 each they got to check out almost everything once. It was a pretty good deal considering the individual prices.

First they rode on the cow train. This was driven by a guy on a tractor wearing a bright pink curly wig. Emily carefully chose her cow. Of course it's name was Jelly Bean. Once they took off the guy headed down the road where we couldn't see them and I told Adam, "Did we really just put our kids in metal cars driven by THAT guy??"
"Yep."
"Ok then."





After that Emily and Blake entered the corn picking contest. Emily snagged a whopping 11 ears of corn. Blake aka: me, got 6.



From there we headed to the giant bouncy thing and then the kid's corn maze. This place also has one of those ginormous haunted corn mazes for adults. Here's a picture of this year's maze.



It is over one mile of trails. Adam is thinking about working at it this year. I think he'd have a blast. The kid's maze, however, is a lot less intimidating, a whole lot smaller, and there's really just one path around. One entrance that also serves as the exit so you can't really lose a kid in there. Which is good because I'm sure we would have otherwise. There are a few creepys in there though, like this guy:



We were also a little bummed that we had already eaten because much to our surprise they were grilling out some of the most fantastic food. Adam couldn't pass up a pulled pork sandwich, which he shared with me while the kids were bouncing. It was awesome! Stuffed full of pork and just really good. Yum! We were joined for lunch by this stick bug.



To make your time at Country Corners more enjoyable they had a down-home band. I wish I could remember the name of them so I could give them proper credit but they were great and you could tell they all enjoyed playing together.



I didn't get any pictures but the kids also shot corn out of a cannon and then Adam did the pumpkin chuck, which was basically shooting tiny pumpkins with a big sling shot.

While we waited for the announcement of the winners of the corn picking contest we posed for some photos.






Here I'm asking Emily if she thinks she's going to win the contest.



After that Adam just had to get his hands on one of those cows. You know only a cow named Bertha would be willing to let Adam ride on her.



Finally they got around to announcing the contest winners. We headed to the stage where the band was and they said there was a three-way tie for first with Emily being one of them! They listed off the rest of the names and the band made snarky comments about it being all girls. I know that's right! Because of the tie they drew names for the three prizes and Emily ended up in 3rd. She missed out on the cool basket full of goodies and ended up with a painted pumpkin. Here you can see her look of dislike.





After the announcements the band continued to play and Emily and her daddy danced for a bit and soon she was smiling again.



We made our way out through the country store filled with lots of goodies. We took home a gallon of the best tasting apple cider I've ever had. Adam had already drank about 5 glasses of it while we were there. I also picked up some awesome salad dressing. It's burgundy poppy seed. Something I would have never bought if they wouldn't have had samples of it for you to try. I bought a couple pears and grabbed some free apples and we headed home. It was an awesome experience and one I hope we can do again in a couple weeks.

Better

OK. Pink and brown. I can do that. My page looks more like a chocolate and caramel sundae but it's better than hangover pink.

Gross for a good cause?

In honor of the start of breast cancer awareness month I have changed my background color to pink. It's been about 5 minutes and already I hate it. Ok. That's it, I'm changing it. Sorry if you had to see it. It looks like someone puked up pepto bismol on my page. Ugh.