The Irony

The week my fiance proposed I was on vacation (Christmas break) so no one at work knew I was engaged.  BTW in case you're wondering why I almost never refer to my fiance by his name, my reasoning is a little twisted, especially since most of my blog-readers have met him, but I feel weird mentioning people by name in my blog w/o their permission.  He knows I blog and he knows he's been mentioned in them, but he's not big into blogging (he just doesn't get the whole blogging thing, I think he might think it's a little strange, though he's never specifically said it.  He doesn't really like to write so the idea of writing a blog is so not his "cup of tea" or in his case "cup of mountain dew"--one of his favorite sodas), so I've gotten in the habit of not mentioning most people by name in my blog and it just kind of stuck with him too.  Yeah, I'm weird, what can I say?  Okay so back to work...so no one at work knew and I didn't tell them the day I went back to work.  In retrospect, my reasoning might have been a little weird, but the reason was, I didn't have the ring, okay, that's not entirely true. I had the ring, but it was too big, it needed to be resized.  And what's the first thing most people ask you after they congratulate you (unless you're on the phone of course), "can I see the ringt?" So I figured I would wait until I had the correctly sized ring before I told my colleagues.  Strangely enough, almost every year, after Christmas vacation, at least one person at work asks me if I got a ring for Christmas?  I always said no and got a little annoyed with the question every year.  Seriously, why did people have to keep asking?  Well, go figure the one year it happens, no one asks.  The irony.  A few days later I got the ring resized and wore it to work.  No one noticed!  Okay, that might seem normal to you, BUT some of these people notice if I have a new shirt or a new necklace or if my shoes nicely match my shirt.  I was even standing around a lot with my hand on my cheek, tapping my fingers on things, etc and still nothing.  I couldn't believe it, these ladies notice everything.  I went to go tell a colleague who works right next to me, but she had just gotten some bad news so I didn't have the heart to be like "oh, I'm sorry, by the way I just got engaged, so I expressed my sympathies and left it at that--I told her later and she said I totally should have shared my good news and not worried about being non-pc.  Anyway, I ended up telling one of my colleages who I'm pretty close with at lunch time and she was happy/excited, but she too was shocked that no one else at work noticed/knew so she dragged me to the other end of the buildign to show the ladies I work most closely with and they were all, "I can't believe you didn't tell us" and I was all, "I can't believe you notice everything and didn't see the ring."  One woman did say she thought she saw a new ring, but wasn't completely certain.  Well, word travels fast at my work, so before long it seemed like half the world new, people were popping by to congratulate me, offer hugs, etc.  One of the secretaries even felt the need to put it in our work annoucements that week.  I'm not big on being the center of attention, but I will admit it was nice to hear such nice words from my colleages.  We're often so busy at work, we barely have time to talk to each other about non-work stuff.

How We Spread the News (aka another wedding related blog)

So the night after I got engaged I knew I had to tell my friends and family.  I don't know if there's a proper protocal re: who tell first how, etc, but I knew I had close friends and relatives that still didn't know.  I really didn't want them to find out on Facebook.  I like Facebook and all, but I hate finding out "big news" from friends/family that way.  (Once that was how my mother found out a relative of ours had died, let's just say that didn't go over so well with some family members.)  I know it sounds cheesy, but I kind of wanted the "joy" of telling people.  So I called my closest relatives (my grandmother, an aunt, an uncle, my stepgrandmother, and my brother) over the next two days.  Most of my relatives' reaction was something along the lines of, "Really? Congratulations."  Or "Are you serious?  Congratulations."  I wanted to say, no, I'm lying, I just called you to lie about that. Actually, I think I did jokingly say that to someone.  My brother wasn't answering his phone (again) and I didn't want to leave a message so I just hung up when it went to voicemail.  He told me later he was surprised to have so many missed calls from me without a message (usually I just call to say hi and say something like that in the message). Not to sound cocky, but I have a lot of friends.  Honestly, if you asked most of my friends, my fiance, or my parents, they would agree completely.  My fiance jokes that I need to lose a few friends or our wedding numbers are going to be huge. A friend of mine was having a party the following night so I figured  could tell a bunch of people in person that night (so far Matt and his sister, etc were the only ones I'd told in person) and I've heard it's more fun to do it live than over the phone.  I told a couple of my closest friends who were not going to be at the party via calls and texts that day.  Still no luck with my brother.  My parents and my fiance's parents came over for dinner that night (this had been planned prior to the engagement) and it was cute.  His parents were so excited;  I hadn't seen them that excited since their grandson was born.  They brought me flowers and him cookies (he loves chocolate chip cookies) and they loved looking at the ring (even though they'd all ready seen it, they wanted to see what it looked like on me, too cute).  The following day I finally got ahold of my brother who had been wondering why I'd called so many times.  And that night was the party.  We were all going out to dinner before the party (well, except for my fiance, he had to work so he was coming later).  One of my closest friends who didn't know yet was going to be at the party and I knew I should tell her before everyone else.  I told her I had to go the bathroom and she did too, she didn't really want to come with me.  She kept saying, but I don't have to go the bathroom and I kept saying, yes, you to.  She finally agree to come with me (honestly, people can make it so hard to tell them good news lol); when she did and I told her, she was litereally jumping up and down with excitement (yep, I'm sure we looked really cool doing that in the middle of a nice restaurant, I'm surprised no one yelled at us), but promised not to say anything at dinner.  Let me back up for a second and say that since I wasn't telling anyone besides her until after dinner (when my fiance was there) I had my ring wrapped up carefully in a small ring box my purse, but I kept checking to make sure it was there (under the disguise of needing tissues and chapstick).  Talk about paranoid.  Anyway, when we finally told people (my friend who knew could hardly contain herself, she was so eager for us to spill the beans), they were happy for us, but quite puzzled as to where the ring was.  One of my friends knew a ring had been purchased and apparently did check out my hands at dinner to see if I was wearing a new ring.  They thought I was pretty sneaky for keeping it hidden.  Anyway, over the next few days I finished telling most of my friends and of course lots of people aksed if we had a date, location, etc, which we didn't.  We were just enjoying the moment before the planning began.  I've got one more semi funny blog story about how we told some people before I do any blogs about wedding plans.  And there are more new foods to blog about this week too.  :)

A Blog That is Months Overdue

So this seems a little late to be writing about something that happened months ago, but let me explain my thinking.  I've been blogging about my new recipes lately, which is good because it's keeping me on track to make new things.  However, it also means I haven't been doing a good job of thinking about what other topics to blog about.  So when I got home from work today I came on-line to check my e-mail, specifically a wedding related e-mail and of course to blog.  Well, guess what?  An idea was born.  I've never blogged about any wedding planning stuff so you can guess what's coming on those days when I can't think of a blog topic?  So be warned, if you do not like reading about wedding stuff, just stop right here and I'll see you next time. 
Oh, you're still there?  Okay, well, having never been engaged before, I'm finding this whole wedding planning process is quite a learning experience.  It's also a fun (sometimes stressful) and of course an expensive experience too.  :-p   So let's start with the early learnings...Many of my friends have told me their boyfriends (soon to be fiances) have tried to plan some nice romantic something or other for their girlfriends only to have the girl mess things up (unintentionally of course).  Well, that was me.  My boyfriend and I didn't have plans one night and we talked about doing dinner.  Long story short a friend of ours was home from the Air Force (who had recently gotten divorced and told me all about that about the day I ended up getting engaged--talk about timing).  Anyway, my friend invited us to his sister's house for dinner.  I was up for it as it meant I wouldn't have to cook and we could save money by not going out to eat.  I'd just make a dessert and my friend asked us to pick up a bottle of wine.  Well, the bf  was not too happy about this because it messed up his plan to propose.  Of course he couldn't say anything about this because it would ruin the surprise.  He really didn't want to go to dinner and I was not happy. I thought he was just being grouchy and didn't feel well.  I kid you not, when I walked into my family room and saw him crouched over, I thought he was having severe stomach pains, I didn't realize he was getting down on one knee to propose (Yeah, I'm smart huh?).  Well, he ended up proposing right before we went to dinner.  I said yes, but you knew that all ready.  :)   And then I understood why he was so grouchy.  I was all, omg what do we do?  Well, he said we should still go to dinner (since I'd messed up his plans to take me out for a nice, dinner, oops) since we were about to be late.  But of course I had to tell someone.  So I did the "right thing" (I hope) and called my mom.  She was a little surprised, but not completely shocked as the bf had told her he wanted to propose to me soon.  She thought it wasn't going to happen this soon though (mind you we'd been together for 6 years so it's not like this was coming out of nowhere and he had been asking me about rings a while ago, but it was still a surprise to me as I wasn't expecting it yet).  Anyway, after telling Mom, figured I'd better tell Dad so she passed the phone to him--let's just say he wasn't as excited as mom, men!  Well, then we left the house, picked up a bottle of wine as we were instructed to do so by my friend (the whole time I was at the store, I kept looking at my ring like a big ol' dork) and then I called two friends on the way to my friend's house (and no, I didn't cell phone and drive, the bf--I mean fiance--it took me a few weeks to get used to saying fiance instead of bf--was driving).  Funnily, enough when I called one of my friends she thought for sure I was calling to ask her husband to fix something that was broken in my house (he's done that for me twice).  She was pleasantly surprised.  I instructed everyone NOT to post anything on Facebook and then it was dinner time.  So no more calls.  I was a little hesistant to tell Matt (my Air Force friend) since he'd just gotten divorced, but he was a good sport about it (and shocked that it had happened in the two hours since I'd seen him).  His sister was getting married in a few months so she was excited for me and we discussed typical wedding stuff a bit.  They also popped some champagne for us.  So even though we didn't get quite the evening my fiance wanted we had a good night with friends, good food (dinner and dessesrt), champagne, Scattegories, and lots of laughs.  And hey, it'll make a good story to tell the grandkids one day.  Okay so that blog really had nothing to do with specific planning, but those'll come in future blogs I'm sure.  Today's blog is long enough all ready.  :) 

Letters From a Lazy Blogger

Do you ever have days where you feel like you have no motivation to do anything?  I'm feeling that way now, but for no apparent reason.  It's summer, happy time, usually, I am enjoying my afternoons/evenings after work whether it's with friends, a movie, or a good book, but today I just didn't feel like doing much.  Maybe it's the heat, who knows.  Anyway, it was even a struggle coming up with a blog topic today.  I contemplated blogging about not knowing what to blog about, but that might be a bit much so instead here are some letters...

Dear TV Stations,
   Is there any way you could limit political ads to say like one a day?  I'm so sick of them, ugh!

Dear People Who Leave Glass Bottles on the Side of the Road,
   Is that really necessary?  I mean, come on, clean up your mess or go drink at your house/a bar/whatever and leave the bottles there.

Dear Mother Nature,
   I know we haven't spoken in a while, but you have been on the good list this summer.

Dear My Poor Plants,
   I fear for my future children/pets.  If I struggle to keep plants alive, it makes me worry how I'd do with other living things.  My fiance says we need to to better with plants, then get a dog and if that goes well, then have kids.  lol  I think he's saying all this b/c he really wants a dog.  P.S.  How come the plants struggle to grow around here, but weeds come up no problem? 

Dear Channing Tatum,
  I could look at you all day (oops maybe I wasn't supposed to admit it, but saw him on the screen the other day, and darn he looks good).

Dear Summer,
   I repeat you are going by too quickly, please slow down. 

Deart Netflix,
   I am quite impressed with how quickly you sent a replacement DVD for my broken DVD.

Dear Pedometers,  
   Why do you keep freezing, breaking, etc?  Perhaps I should just buy 100 of you at a time. 

Dear Allergies,
   GO AWAY!

Dear Iceland, 
   I am looking forward to visiting you later this year. 

Dear Blog Readers,
  Thanks for reading!  I'll try to find some more energy/motivation tomorrow! 

To Italy and Beyond

For as long as I can remember, I've enjoye traveling.  I blame this on my parents.  :-)  Almost every year from as far back as I can remember until I graduated from high school we went on vacation.  Actually, most years we would do two vacations, one to Nova Scotia to visit my grandfather and then one elsewhere.  We went to typical places and some random places.  Trips included:  Disney World  and other parts of Florida, (twice), Virginia, Virginia again and Washington D.C., New York City, New York (various parts of the state), Toronoto, Prince Edward Island, Montreal, San Francisco, the UK, Tennessee, New Jersey, Las Vegas/Arizona...you get the idea.  Anyway, I continued to enjoy traveling whether it was trips to Nova Scotia post-high school, traveling in college and graduate school, and traveling now in my adult life.  The "problem" is the more I go places I seem to want to go to more places.  You would think after going somewhere my list of "places I want to go to" would shrink, but that doesn't always happen.  For example, when I was in Belize, someone was telling me all about Costa Rica (not on my list) and got me thinking, hmm, maybe I'd like to go there some day.  Talking about traveling can also cause the list to grow.  I knew almost nothing about Iceland, but some conversations with a friend of mine, led me to want to go there.  And now I'm reading Eat Pray Love (mostly because I wanted to see the movie and then heard it was a book so figured may as well read the book before I see the movie).  Anyway, in the first 1/3 of the book, the author is in Italy.  I've always had an interest in going there.  My fiance loved it, friends of mine have loved it, my parents talk about wanting to go there, my future in-laws enjoyed it, but now after reading this first 1/3 of the book, I really want to go to Italy.  Instead of just touring through Europe (like I originally wanted to do with a stop in Italy), I think I want to do a trip just to Italy for a few weeks.  Of course it's not like I can afford all these trips, but some day...Remind me not to read any books that take place in Antarctica, though I'm pretty sure I couldn't handle the cold so I'm not likely to want to venture there.

2 Down 50 To Go (a.k.a. Melt in Your Mouth Chocolate Cupcakes)

So I made my second "dish" for a recent cook-out.  As you can guess from the title, I made cupcakes.  I have made cupcakes many times, but not this kind.  I bought a cookbook at a work fundraiser a few years ago and I've tried a few recipes in it, but not this one.  This one was called Melt In Your Mouth Chocolate Cupcakes.  So they're chocolate cupcakes, but here's the catch they have zucchini in them (they also have chocolate chips).  To some people, that probably sounds weird, but I have made zucchini bread before and it's really good to me zucchini in cupcakes though a little strange didn't seem completely out there.  The frosting was a raspberry concoction.  It was your usual sugar, etc, but it also had raspberry jam in it.  I'm not a huge raspberry fan, but it wasn't bad.  Hmm, can this count as two things since I made the cupcakes AND the frosting?  :-)  The cupcakes were decent, not my favorite dessert, but not bad.  They were soft, but a bit like a muffin texture.  I brought them to a cook-out I went to the other day and people seemed to enjoy them.  Also, funny story about the cupcakes, when I went to make them it was after 9:00 and I was moving right along, when I realized I was out of milk.  I drink milk every day and I thus buy it every week so it's rare that this house doesn't have milk in it, but sure enough I'd run out the day before and forgotten to pick some up at the grocery store 3-4 hours prior.  Well, it was now nearly 10:00 and I was in the middle of cupcake making and what's a girl to do.  Well, my awesome finance reluctantly I mean kindly went to the grocery store (the only one still open at that hour) and bought me a gallon of milk despite the fact that he was exhausted and it was bed time for him so I could finish my cupcakes.  What a guy hee hee (see honey, I said something nice about you).   This might not seem like a big deal except that about three or four weeks ago while making strawberry pizza for a family party, I ran out of condensed milk at 10:30 at night (think maybe I should bake EARLIER in the day?) so guess who went to the grocery store for me then?  Yep.  Note to self:  check cabinets and fridge before assuming you have all ingredients (even if you "always" have them in stock.). Oh, as a side note, I had a few cupcakes left over so I shared those with a friend the other day and she liked them too.  So I guess the cupcakes were a success.  Do you think we can count them as healthy since they have a vegetable in them?  Hey, can't blame me for trying. 

Beach, Babies, Brimfield, and Baseball

Yep, that sums up my last weekend (that and I like the alliteration going on there).
Beach=Friday I went to the beach, which was fun as it was a beach I had not been to before and the girls I went with and I always have a lot of laughs when we get together. (Also no splinters on this beach trip). I have to say though, there are some nasty bugs at this beach. I believe they are called greenheads or something like that so you basically have to cover yourself in poisonous chemicals to avoid being stung/bit/whatever by one. It's really a toss up, do you want the itchy (and I've heard painful) bites or the potentially toxic chemicals on your skin? Decisions, decisions.

Babies=Friday night was supposed to be a game night (not to be confused with Gay Night, when I told my grandmother I ocas host Game Nights she thought I said Gay Night and wanted to know what in the world one does on Gay Night, I guess you had to be there, but it was funny at the time)Anyway, a bunch of people couldn't make it, we ended up just hanging out, eating, chatting, and passing around my friend's baby. Babies continued at a cook-out on Saturday where not only did I see some friends I hadn't seen in ages, but I also met my friends' baby boy for the first time--he's a cutie. :)

Brimfield=Oh boy, what can I say about this. This was my first Brimfield experience. I guess the best way to describe it is picture a mile long stretch of antiques shop meets yard sale under a sea of tents. What I should have bought was more water-it was hot. Instead I purchased ice-cream, a lobster roll, and kettle corn (because one of my friends told me I must try it). Oh, yeah, I did buy some "antiques" too. I purchased a Christmas plate (I tend to host and attend holiday gatherings so why not have festive dishes for my festive desserts) and a decoration for the kitchen. I also saw some things I would enjoy if I were either a. rich and could afford them or b. had a big house with space to put them.

Baseball=Ironically, TWO people offered me tix to a baseball game Monday night. I originally turned them both down as I was supposed to go out with some friends, but my friends being kind, decent people told me they would not hate me forever if I went to the game (plus taking my fiance to the game=brownie points and you never know when you might need those) so I ended up going to a Sox game. Haven't been to one in a couple of years. We had sweet seats too. Oh, and the Sox finally won!

So that's the weekend of B's :) (oh yeah, speaking of B words, it was also a weekend of burns--just a little sunburn and bug bites--too many).

The Annual Summer Car Rant

So I typed this a couple of weeks ago and it appears I never hit publish so here it is a couple of weeks late...You know you've been waiting for it (yeah right!), but summer just wouldn't be summer if I didn't complain about my car. I really hope this doesn't become an annual summer thing, but after the past couple of summers, it appears that it may be.  Here we go... I still haven't managed to marry a mechanic or become best friends with one so my car rants continue. This time it was brakes, something I can't remember the name of, and a headlight. My brakes were making weird noises so I took them in to get checked out only to find that I needed new ones (not surprising and since it's been quite some time since I've gotten new brakes, I'm willing to accept this except that I had my brakes checked elsewhere a few weeks ago and they said they were fine; if they're so fine, why are they making weird nosies?). Well, of course you can't just get your brakes fixed, they have to find something else wrong. I believe it was called some sort of stabilizer and as the gentlemen on the phone said when he called me, it was what was causing the "crunching noise" when I "turned the car." So yes, by all means deplete my bank account I mean go ahead and fix that too. Several hours later and over five hundred dollars poorer I had my car back with fewer noises. I didn't have the heart (or the wallet) to ask them to fix my a.c, which is blowing lukewarm air even at the highest setting. I'll make it through the heat before I spend more money on my car right now. So fast forward to that Tuesday night...as I'm driving home from trivia, I see blue lights behind me. I pull over and wait for the police car to pass by me, only he doesn't! He parks behind me, for what seems like a LONG time (though in reality I imagine it wasn't more than 5-10 minutes). Here's what was going through my (paranoid) brain during that time: "I was going the speed limit, I wasn't drinking and driving, I didn't hit anything, and I did not run a red light/stop sign, etc." In other words I had no idea why he pulled me over. "I must have done something wrong. Did I swerve somewhere? Did I only think I was going the speed limit? It's late on a Tuesday evening, does he think I'm drunk? He must and he's going to make me take a sobriety test and I'm so NERVOUS I'm not going to pass (side note, I'm not sure how this all works, but I think they give you a breathalyzer before they make you walk the line like on tv, right?). I can't always walk a straight line when I'm sober, I'm that klutzy. OMG, what do I do? What if someone drives by that knows me? What are they going to think? They're going to think I'm a criminal. They're going to think I'm a drunk. Should I keep my blinker on right now? Was I supposed to turn off my car? Is my radio too loud? Is it acceptable to leave a radio on when a police officer pulls you over and is sitting in his car? Am I going to get arrested? Should I have my license and registration out and ready to hand over or wait 'til he asks for it? What is taking so long?" Let me stop right there and say I have been pulled over once before, when my blinker was out. I was nervous, but it was daytime and I was leaving work to head to a dance rehersal so I was so worried about being late, that I didn't have time to freak out, plus that police officer came over fairly quickly so my brain didn't have enough time to react. I've also been in a car when other people have been pulled over for speeding, outdated inspection stickers, etc, but never alone at night. Well, I must say the police officer came over and was very nice. I think he sensed I was nervous. Anyway, the reason he pulled me over? My headlight was out. He did not arrest me (I imagine you knew that), he did not yell at me, and he did not make me demonstrate my klutziness. He asked for my license, told me which light it was, and I think he may have even told me to have a good night. I hope I was polite to him. The only things I remember saying are I just had work done on my car (why I say these things is beyond me, he probably didn't care that I just had work done on my car), which light is it (why did I ask that? I could have just checked when I got home, he probably thought I was nuts for not noticing) and thank you. I do believe I was still shaking when I got home, but eventually calmed down enough to check my voicemail to find a message from my friend Kate (who was also at trivia) telling me, it looked like my headlight was out and I might want to get that checked so I didn't get pulled over. If only, I'd known 10 min sooner. Anyway, I went to the mechanic the next day and can you believe it cost me over $60 for a headlight? Correction, the bulb was $19, but the labor caused it go to up to over $60. Really?! Is it that hard/time-consuming to change a headlight? I mean, maybe it is, I've never done it, but when my neighbor fixed my burned out tailight for me, he spent under 15 min on it and wouldn't take any money. And when I had to get that blinker light fixed that I mentioned earlier, that mechanic did it for $10 (granted I get that a blinker light is going to cost less than a headlight, but still...). Okay, there's the annual summer car rant. And by the way, I do love my significant other, but I swear if a darn good mechanic were to propose to me right now, I may give it some serious consideration. :-p

52 Dishes in 52 Weeks

In my last blog, I mentioned something about a cooking/baking goal. So you may remember, a while back, I decided to try to cook/bake one new thing a week for the rest of the calendar year. I did pretty well, but I think it was only for a couple of months, as it was either summer or fall when I started. So my new goal is to try to make a new dish, be it a breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, appetizer, whatever every week. I think because I have more free time at this time of year (I only work part time in the summer) I get these moments of domestication and want to try to make new things. In September, when work is crazy, I may regret this goal, but for now, I'm giving it a try. Now, let's be perfectly honest here, there will be some weeks when I do NOT make anything new. I usually travel for 2 weeks during the year (not necessarily in a row) and there are a couple of weeks at work that get crazy where I feel like I'm barely home long enough to make a simple sandwhich let alone cook a new meal so to make up for that I may make two new things some weeks to make up for the weeks I don't make one new thing. So hopefully, by this time next year, I will have made 52 new dishes. I started last week (the week of July 8th) and my first new dish was chocolate crunchy brownies. It's kind of like brownies meets Rice Krispie treats. The bottom is a brownie (home made of course), then you put fluff on top, then you melt chocolate chips and peanut butter, mix in the Rice Krispies and put that all on top of the marshmallow. Chill in fridge and then enjoy. I got the recipe years ago from my stepgrandmother, but had never made it. My friend had me over for dinner last week and she (and her 3-year-old son) enjoyed them. We left a few for her husband who was at work so I hope he enjoyed them too. I may be biased, but I liked them too. Next up: melt in your mouth chocolate cupcakes.

It's Good to Have Goals

My father once told me it's good to have goals. I'm not sure this is quite what he had in mind, but nonetheless, I gave myself some "goals" for the summer. For once, I did not set goals to lose weight, clean out some room in my house, do work on another room, etc. Okay, well, maybe I did, I do want to clean out the guest room, paint the baseboards in one of the bathrooms, and lose some pounds, but I also set some fun goals for the summer. During July and August, I only work part time so I have time to do fun things and to relax. I figure since I work hard the rest of the year (at the regular job and two tutoring jobs) that I could slack off a bit. So my goals are to watch 20 movies and read 10 books in a ten week period. Silly, right? But that's the plan. I have tons of movies on my Netflix list so I figure I can probably watch two a week. And 10 books should be doable if I do 1 a week. I started at the end of June and plan to go through the end of August. Plus I'm trying to save money.  Watching movies is cheap and I have a huge pile of books next to my bed to read so that's free.  So far I have read three and a half books and watched six movies. So I'm off to a good start. :) I also set a cooking/baking goal for myself, but you'll have to wait 'til tomorrow's blog (or whenever I next remember to write) to find out about that one.

VA Wrap Up

I don't have a ton more to say about the VA trip.  We went to the fireworks in Cape Charles, VA on the 4th, spent a few hours in VA Beach the next day, and during the last full day in VA, we checked out Cape Charles and I also went to the beach (no splinters!) one last time.  So here's a brief list of a few memorable moments from the last half of the trip:

-Birthday dinner to celebrate Grammy's 80th birthday
-Playing Scrabble with my cousins and grandmother (lots of laughs!)
-My cousins trying to make up new words so they could get more points in Scrabble
-Peace and quiet on the beach
-Tons of mini crabs on the beach (just once, but it was quite a sight to see)
-The ginormous flounder sandwich at Stingrays Restaurant
-Watching the guys drive here, there, and everywhere to get Yuenglung (sp?) beer
-Lots of time to read
-Power outage
-The alarm system (you had to be there, but she--it had a female voice, was quite funny by the end of the trip)
-Koozies! 
-Beautiful sunsets
-Cribbage (and rummy)
-Trying to be British
-Silly beach ball games with the kids
-Vanilla milkshakes

A $2000 Storage Unit and An $11 Necklace

Day 4 in VA, the whole crew except for Grammy went to Chincoteague Island.  It was a cute place.  We went for a walk, saw a lighthouse, played minigolf (in 100 degree weather, b/c I'm smart like that), shopped, saw ponies, etc.  My 11-year-old cousin rode out with my fiance (at the risk of sounding like an idiot, did I spell fiane correctly, I know it's supposed to have that little accent mark above the e that I can't seem to do, but is it 1 e or 2 e's?) and me.  They both like that show, I believe it's called, Storage Wars.  Every time went by a storage place, my cousin suggested that my fiance should go get $2000 (not sure how he came up with this amount) and they should go buy a storage unit and try to be on Storage Wars.  Then he said he should get $4000 instead. I tried to point out to my cousin that my fiance didn't have an extra $2000-$4000 lying around and that we should be saving $ for our wedding.  He just didn't get why I would rather spend $ on a wedding than on a storage unit lol.  Later in the week, I went downtown with my uncle, my fiance, and two of my cousins.  My six-year-old cousin asked me if I had $11.  I told him I wasn't sure and asked why.  He said he wanted to buy a necklace.  I said, "Oh, am I buying it for you?  Is that why you need to know about the $11? " His clever response, "No,  you can just give me $11 and I can buy it."   Needless to say, we had a few laughs that week.

The Ocean, Hamburgers, and Cars

If you know me well, you're probably thinking, okay all the three things listed in the title, I know Cat likes one of them, but what's the deal with the burgers and cars? 
My first full day in VA Mike and, I visited our friend Matt and his girlfiend.  We spent a few hours at the beach and then went out to dinner.  At dinner, I tried funnel cake fries (first time ever having any form of funnel cake) and it was quite good especially with strawberry sauce.  Vacation tends to be one of the few spots where I try new foods.  In Belize a few years ago, I tried a new food every day (perhaps that can be a future blog when I'm having blogger's block--the equivalent of writer's block, but involving the blog).  A few other random things of note from that day:  strawberry lemonade (the kind you have to be 21 to drink) is surprisingly good and a nice summer treat.  Avocado is good on a sandwich.  VA ocean water is much warmer than the ocean around here.  It's quite odd really to step into the ocean and not be cold.  Four pound hamburgers exist.  I would never eat one, but at this restaurant we went to, if you were brave enough to try and more importantly successful enough to actually eat a four pound burger and chili cheese fries you got your picture and name posted, a gift card, and I forget what else.  Matt actually contemplated doing this, but passed.  Finally, what is the deal with boys and cars?  I just don't get it, probably in the same way they don't get girls and shoes or girls and purses, but all the car talk that boys did on Sunday, I just didn't get it.  I mean I guess I'll agree that it is cool that you can just tell your car to call someone and it does, but the whole big tires, lower or don't lower your car, put stripes on your car or not, extra speakers or not, etc, etc, I just don't get it.  As long as my car gets me safely from point A to point B, I'm happy.  Of couse, had I not had so many car problems in life, maybe I'd be interested in making my car cool, but in the mean time I'll stick with shoes and purses.  :) 

A Splinter and Some Chicken Parm

The third day in VA (or the second full day) started off well enough.  I did plenty of relaxing, reading, hanging out, played some Cribbage and Scrabble (I think I played those days anyway, they are starting to run together now) and made a trip to the grocery store.  It was my turn to cook dinner that night so I was in search of stuff for dinner, but I confess I also splurged and bought a 4th of July cookie cake.  SO GOOD!  It didn't last long (no, I did NOT eat all of it, I shared with everyone).  I think that is my new favorite dessert.  Anyway, after some shopping and some lunch, it was off to the beach, down those lovely 72 steep stairs.  The beach was fun, but the fun was slightly overshadowed by splinters, yes, splinters.  Let's just say the railing on the way to the beach "needs work" as both my cousin and I got splinters on it that day (my other cousin and my grandmother were "treated" to splinters from that same railing that week too).  He only got one, I managed to get four.  Mind you I have no tolerance for pain and I'm not a fan of needles so this splinter removal, though not as painful as I'd imagined was no piece of (cookie) cake.  So low and behold, I get back to the house and go see my uncle who is currently trying to assist my cousin in splinter in removal and tell him I need help.  I won't bore you to death, but let's just say it took nearly an hour, a lot of forced patience, a safety pin, some tweezers, and a bit of nausea before we got the splinters out.  And the next day I found I hadn't gotten them all.  Grr  Thank goodness my aunt brought her first aid kid because mine did not have tweezers.  Since I did not have gloves (because who wears gloves to the beach in JULY), I literally wore plastic bags on my hand the next time I went down those stairs to the beach because I could not deal with splinter removal again.  Yep, I'm a freak.  But as one of my dear friends reminded me the other night, at least it wasn't a fish hook.  On to other notes, dinner was good that night if I may say so myself.  I made chicken parm and served it with salad, pasta, and garlic bread.  For dessert I made chocolate chip peanut butter pie.  I have made this pie a couple of times before and it is good, but this time was unique because the beach house had NO measuring cups or measuring spoons so I had to estimate.  I was a bit nervous, but everything seemed to come out tasty even if the measurements weren't exact. My mother felt the need to take a picture of me cooking so it's included here.   

The Ride To and From VA

I recently spent a week in Virginia at a beach house with my fiance, my parents, my aunt, her bf, my uncle, his gf, my three cousins, and my grandmother (in other words most of my extended family aside from my brother).  We were there for vacation and to celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday. I won't bore you with the play by play of every day, but here are a few thoughts from the first day and last day, which mainly involved sitting in a car for 10+ hours...
-If you are the navigator, you should really pay attention to the GPS
-Is there always traffic in New Jersey or is it just the times I go through it?
-If you want to test your patience (or someone else's) spend 10+ hours with them in a car.
-For a small state, Deleware takes a long time to get through (traffic!). 
-There are a lot of corn fields on the way to Virginia. 
-Auntie Anne's pretzels are an amazing treat when you've been in a car for HOURS.

My Four (or 5, 6, or 7) Moms

In case the title has you going, what the heck, let me set the record straight by saying technically I have one wonderful mother.  Sure we drive each other crazy at times, but she's a good mom and we're fairly close.  I could do without some of her letter-boxing and she could do without some of my complaning, but no one's perfect...Anyway, I just had to get that out there so you don't think the reason I have 4 or 5, 6, or 7 moms is because there's something wrong with my mom, there's not.  So anyway, biological wonderful mom is mom number one.  But I also have my work moms (or my former work moms since they had to go and retire on me).  For several years, I worked with two wonderful women who were old enough to be my mother.  In fact, one of them even graduated from high school with my father (small world!).  So I used to joke that they were my work moms and they joked that I was their work daughter.  I even went so far as getting a Mother's Day card for them once.  They constantly looked out for me, worried about me, listened to me talk about work problems, family problems, relationship problems, and house-hunting problems as well as shared my joy when I found a house, got engaged, and various other happy moments.  Since they've retired I don't see them as much as I used to, but we try to get together every few months to hang out and catch up.  And of course we e-mail.  Recently, I acquired a new mother.  Earlier in the week, I went out to breakfast and then shopping with some other former co-workers.  For several years the three of us worked together every July.  The program where we worked has since gone out of business due to lack of funds, but the three of us still get together and have a good time.  However, there is as bit of an age difference between us.  Since, I'm not sure they want their ages and names posted all over a blog, I'll just refer to them as S and K.  I am the youngest, K is 12 years older than me and S is 10 or 11 years older than K.  So yeah, kind of random to have such a big age difference between us and we're all certainly at different places re: life experiences, but we still have a good time.  Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, the three of us went out to breakfast and then decided at the last minute to go shopping.  While we were shopping, S was looking for shoes and the woman who helped her asked if she was shopping with her daughters.  Well, technically, I was young enough to be her daughter, but for K to be her daughther she'd have had to have her at age 11, just a "little" young to be having a child.  Anyway, since that day I've been jokingly referring to S as my mom whenever the opportunity presents itself--and by opportunity presenting itself I of course mean, I've sent her messages that I didn't need to referring to her as Mom.  :)  I'm a pain, what can I say.  Moms 5,6,  and 7 are a reference to my younger days when I'd be at certain friends houses frequently (and they'd be at my house too) so we joked that they were like second moms to me and in some instances my mom was like a second mother to them.  One of those moms used to baby-sit me regularly and through that I became good friends with some of her daughters.  So there ya' go, those are my 4 (or 5, 6, or 7) moms. 

You've Got Mail

I was sad to hear about the death or Nora Ephron.  I've enjoyed her movies (Sleepeless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, and You've Got Mail--more on that one in a minute).  I've also read two of her books and literally laughed out loud while reading parts of them.  After hearing about her passing, and seeing some clips of her and her movies on tv, I started thinking about, You've Got Mail.  Today if you asked me what my favorite movie is, I could honestly answer with "I don't know," because there are SO many movies that I like, but once upon a time it was "You've Got Mail."  I still like that movie, though it's been ages since I've seen it.  I can't pinpoint the exact reason.  I do like my chick flicks/romantic comedies/whatever you want to call them.  I also like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and the movie was funny so perhaps all those things combined to make it a favorite movie. So since I won't tell you a favorite movie, here are a few movies I've enjoyed that feature either Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks since I just mentioned them...
I.Q. (just a cute movie)
Forest Gump (such a good movie)
Philadelphia and Cast Away (wouldn't classify either as a favorite, but both were good movies)
When a Man Loves a Woman (tearjerker)
French Kiss (not a favorite, but cute nonetheless)
The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons (manily because I liked the books so I had to see the movies)
The Polar Express (enjoy watching this at Christmas time because I liked the book)
And gotta give a shout out to Toy Story
The Terminal (I remember that my friend had free passes to this movie and I didn't know a whole lot about it, but I went with her anyway and we got a kick out of it)
A League of Their Own (LOVED this movie when I was a kid, it was the first movie I saw more than once at the theater, the other two were Titanic and You've Got Mail).