Happy Halloween! Blow off work today!

Waste your time with some Halloween Printables

It was a pumpkin cake....

That's what I made for bridge. It was moist and delicious. I'll post the recipe on the recipe blog. I made cream cheese frosting for this particular cake but I'll post the brown sugar frosting the recipe came with.

OK...this is what's going on this week...I'm posting this to remind myself as much as I'm informing you...tomorrow, trick or treating, wed...spelling bee warm up, thurs spelling bee.

Well yesterday I made the much-lauded vanilla loaf. I attempted to take a shortcut and only use 7 eggs so I wouldn't have to go to the store--the result was slightly dry. EXCELLENT flavor, but a tad dry. the syrup helped. They are easy (but expensive) to make. Try it when you have $20 bucks to spend!

Halloween Link o' the day

New York's Village Halloween Parade

Tesco condemned for selling pole dancing toy | the Daily Mail

even i'm grossed out by thisTesco condemned for selling pole dancing toy | the Daily Mail

Sunday Halloween Link

'http://www.ezone.com/games/halloween' target='_blank'>Free Ezone.com Game: Halloween

Ilink o' the day

Game

Halloween - on Ezone.com Free Online Flash, Download and Shockwave Games!

Halloween - on Ezone.com Free Online Flash, Download and Shockwave Games!

Halloween link o' the day

Halloween - on Ezone.com Free Online Flash, Download and Shockwave Games!

Halloween link o' the day

Halloween - on Ezone.com Free Online Flash, Download and Shockwave Games!

Halloween fun for the whole family

Halloween - on Ezone.com Free Online Flash, Download and Shockwave Games!

Finally--a cool word to describe my fat ass!

Urban Dictionary: pa dunk-a-dunk

Finally--a cool word to describe my fat ass!

Urban Dictionary: pa dunk-a-dunk

Your Halloween Link for Today

Carve your pumpkin online - virtual Jack-o-Lantern from Theoworlds.com !

Tell eBay To Stop Selling Slaughtered Bats! Petition

Tell eBay To Stop Selling Slaughtered Bats! Petition

Kmart Haunted House

Kmart Haunted House

OUR BOY WILL LOVE THIS

Duran Duran guitarist leaves band - Yahoo! News

Duran Duran guitarist leaves band - Yahoo! News

Radar Online: Handbags of Horror

Radar Online: Handbags of Horror

Halloween Hangman

Halloween Hangman

Happy Birthday LTL! Hope you have a fabulous one!

I STILL KNOW IT JENN!!!

Happy BDay LTL!!!

Damn Football

If I would have played the office pool last week, i would have won $190.

I STILL KNOW IT JENN!!!

belive me...know one realizes it more than JK, me and my checkbook!

So last night I had to go to the grocery store and pick up a few things, and got browsing around, and ended up getting home a little late. Well, when I got home my smoke detector in my bedroom was chirping. UGH!!! Well, we don't really have "night" maintenance people, and I didn't really consider it an "emergency"...but it was in my bedroom, man! It needed a replacement battery, but I am too short to reach the alarm on my ceiling.


I had to sleep on the futon in the living room with my bedroom door closed. That damned thing is STILL chirping.

Happy birthday to me from JK. Isn't it lovely? 

Our piano, a 60 year old Kimball baby grand, needs tuning but we love it. 

NFL pickem update

Congrats to Jen and A-LO!

Weekly tally
Jen-9
A-Lo-9
Leigh-8
JK-6
RK-5

Overall Total
Jen 38
Leigh 36
JK 35
ALO 32
RK 32

OMG I have to kick it next week!

I CALL BULLSHIT

I called you on your birthday...and sang the song...even though I forgot most of the words. Well maybe it was the day after, but I know I tried!

Well they aren't really "questions" they are "if your life had a soundtrack, what songs would play at specific points..."

I put the "points" in white with the corresponding song underneath.

Gee, internet games shouldn't be this difficult.

John Madden had nothing on me this week.

NFL Week 7 update

Well Jen, you've done it. You're officially in the lead with 8 correct picks yesterday, bringing your grand total to 38. Amy, you got 8 right too but your total is only 31. Hopefully Dallas will win tonight to bring me up a notch. Leigh picked 7 yesterday. JK and I only got 5!!! UGH!

I STILL KNOW IT JENN!!!

Jen, I didn't see any questions with that music thing.

OK, I'll try to post, though I can't remember what I was going to post yesterday when I tried but couldn't. Please remind me to get back to Dan Bartlett when I'm done.

My birthday in review:

Presents: Clock (thanks JK, I love it); Subscription to Gastronomica (thanks 'rents, I love that too)

Activities:
Got up, had coffee, banked the 'rents house, everyone wished me happy b day, moved washer and dryer, came home, cleaned house, made spaghetti and meatballs and bread, watched the Pat's, visited with Snoop, had dinner with the 'rents and Snoop, bday cake (yum, thanks Mom), took Ralph some leftovers, had a Smirnoff ice with him, came home, watched the tube and went to bed. I know it doesn't seem very exciting but I had a good birthday.

Thanks to all of you who sent along best wishes. No one called me with the song though, I guess that's what I get for not singing to anyone this year. I'll try to post photos of the clock and piano at some point today.


Now....regarding Dan Bartlett, White House Communications Director

I've decided to delete the post, since I may be going to the white house someday and I wouldn't want to jeopardize that. So I will compliment Mr. Bartlett instead of criticizing his use of the English language. What nice hair he has.

Pre-Fabulous

Personally, I'm not really one for packaged cakes like Hostess, etc. However, I do on occasion enjoy a Funny Bone.

Do you know I can't buy Funny Bones anywhere here?

Happy Birthday Rachael!

I still don't know what I'm going to get you--I"m debating between 3 or 4 things..maybe I'll let you choose. Or not.

Today? I got nuthin. I cleaned and grocery shopped yesterday, so I think today will be Starbucks and reading...oh and I have to take out the recycling..that's my big chore.

Tonight I made dinner for Mila--seared scallops with hazelnut brown butter sauce (everyday food), and sauteed brocoli with garlic. It came out better than I expected...my scallops were not rubbery at ALL.

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool ... (not much chance of that with my music collection)



Opening Credits

No Pun Intended—The Hives

Waking Up

Every Little Thing She Does is Magic—The Police

First Day at School

White Lines—Duran Duran

Falling in Love

Take it Or Leave it—The Strokes

Fight Song

Dead End Job—The Police

Breaking Up

The Frog Prince—Keane

Prom

Hands Open—Snow Patrol

Life is Good

Up the Devil’s Pay—Old 97’s

Mental Breakdown

The Fallen—Franz Ferdinand

Driving

Greek Song—Rufus Wainwright

Flashback

The Bird that You Can’t See—Apples in Stereo

Getting Back Together

Sunrise—Duran Duran

Wedding

The Denial Twist—The White Stripes

Paying the Dues

Is It Any Wonder—Keane

The Night Before the War

Intermission—Panic! At the Disco

Final Battle

Drive By—Duran Duran

Moment of Triumph

This One’s For You—Barry Manilow

Death Scene

Hotel Expressionism—The Streets

Funeral Song

Evil Angel—Rufus Wainwright

End Credits

My Name Is Jonas--Weezer

In Other News....

Edith is still alive, so there is that.

I suppose I should add a point of reference: I pay about $20 bucks for a haircut and maybe $35 on a mani and pedi.

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TOO MUCH $ WHEN....

I live in the fastest growing county in the country. The town I live in is affectionately called Cashburn.

The people here have too much money. How do I know? Well, a friend pointed out today that there are indeed 5 Starbucks in this town. While enjoying a Pum Spi La today, I passed "Eclips Kids"....a spa for the tween set. Here's a sample:

Shampoo and style, toddlers: $20
11-14 $35

Hair removal: Eyebrow Arching: $15
Lip waxing $10

Bun: $20
Updo (14 and older) $65
french braid $15

Foil Highlighting $105

Chocolate Pedicure $25

Makeup Application lessons $35

I feel sick

Boring. Today my day has consisted of 2 hours of work when I actually had to think, getting a slice of pizza at Costco for lunch, and watching Todd's flight get delayed over and over and over....see, I get to leave work to take him to the airport, and because my boss is too nice, I don't have to come back....

pick em trivia

We ALL picked the following
San Diego
Philly
NE
Jacksonville
Jets
denver
and Indy

SO the big games to watch are Pitt and "Hotlanta" (as Jen puts it) and Oakland, AZ (as if anyone cares about
that game; Miami GB and, Seahawks v vikings.

I STILL KNOW IT JENN!!!

http://www.site-max.com/how_to_get_around_the_auto_attendant.shtml

I don't know if it works but if it does it's worth it!

That Fiestaware piece is quite beautiful.

Burlington Bridge Report

This is the only report you'll get this week. It won't be featured in the Lincoln News because I didn't take notes, so it's only partially factual. I went to bridg, intending on winning "High" because I haven't played in a few weeks. All the regular people were there. Aunt Lora was the Hostess and she made a DELICIOUS chocolate cake. I'm going to have to get the recipe for that one. My cards were GREAT. I had 3 hands with over 22 points. Still, Helen beat me. She got around 3600 and I got around 3000, you can't complain on a score like that, even if you do come in second. Even the low score was high (around 1400). Nonie won that and Gram won goose. Next week bridge is at Helen's.

My first piece of vintage fiesta!!!!! 

Isn't this the most beautiful tree? I think it's the European Beech, but please correct me if I'm wrong, it's in front of Louis Kahn's library at Philip's Exeter in Exeter NH. It's difficult to imagine the scale in this phot though, the trunk of that tree is about 6' in diameter. 

I Almost Forgot....

We found the best fast lunch at WDW in Epcot in " The Land" building. Mila founda seared tuna salad and I had beet and goat cheese salad with walnuts. GREAT!

MP tells me that Obama is going to be on Oprah tomorrow, for those of you who have the crush on him that I do (yes, I will even suspend my NO TIVO-ING OPRAH rule for the Barak)!

Monday Blog

Monday we decided that it was Epcot day. We managed to get up early enough to get to France for breakfast. I had chocolate croissant. M had elephant ear. Both were buttery goodness. We walked around the world and went back to the science-y part of epcot. We went on the MOST AMAZING ride. You MUST do it when you go to WDW. MUST. Even if the line is 3 hours long. YOU MUST. It's called Soarin'.....it's a simulated handglide ride over California. You fly over mountains, water, orange groves, and of course, Disneyland. It is a wild ride....you hang suspended over the screen, feel the wind in your face, crazy stuff. DO IT. We had to leave Epcot because we had a VERY important reservation--Victoria & Albert's.

Back to the GF we went. The woman who sat us resembled Cloris Leechman. Her job was to sit people and occasionally walk around the room to make sure ladies weren't cold. If they were, she brought them shawls.

V&A has a prix fixe menu--you pay one price for the whole, set menu. 7 courses. Each course (except the amuse bouche) had 2 choices (or a choice that cost more...an "extra experience"). We decided to go all out and have the wine pairings with each course (thanks M!) Our menus were personalized with our names on them (and a custom menu for M that had no red meat). This was my treat to M for getting her thesis done. I will list the whole menu with a * next to what I had:

Amuse Bouche:
crepe w/salmon, other stuff (it's not listed on the menu)
wine: Heidsieck Monopole "Blue Top" Brut Champagne

2nd
Ohio Tomatoes and Costa Rican Hearts of Palm with Ahi Tuna

*Muscovy Duck with Tuscan Melon, Grains of Paradise and Minus Eight Vinegar
*wine: King Estate Pino Gris, Oregon 2005

Iranian Osetra CAviar with Traditional Garnish ($115.00/.5 oz)

3rd
Quail with Black Mission Fig Jam and Turnip Kraut

*Colorado Lamb with Wild Mushroom Ragout and South AfricanPorcini Mushroom Sauce
*wine: La Baronne Rouge "Montagne d'Alaric, Corbieres 2002 (OMG was this good)

Pan Roasted Foie Gras and Fuji Apple Tart with Mostarda di Cremona

4th
*Tempura Crab Stuffed Squash Blossom with Violette Moustarde
*wine: Chateu Sancerre, Loire, 2004

John Dory "Amandine" with Green and White Asparagus, Beurre Noisette

Seared Wild Turbot with Toasted Capers and Meyer Lemon

5th
*Kurobuta Pork Tenderloin and Belly with Florida Corn and Cipollini Onions
*wine: Perez Cruz Reserva Carmenere, Maipo Valley 2002

Minnesota Elk with Potato Gnocchi and Veal Sweetbreads

Duet of Prime Angus Beef and Short Ribs with Natural Jus

Seared Asutrailian "Kobe" Beef Tenderloin with Florida Shrimp and Artichoke Risotto ($25.00)

6th
Comte Saint Antoine, Fourme D'Ambert and Robiola Bosina (cheese course)
*Rum Raisin Gelato with Micro Garden Mint
*wine: Fairview La Beryl Blanc, South Africa 2004.

7th
Pyramid of TAnzanian Chocolate Mousse (M's choice)
Poached Pear with Cassis Mousse and SPiced Cake
*Hawaiian Kona Chocolate Souffle (with decaf)...so good but I couldn't finish it.
Caramelized Banana Gateau
Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee
Grand Marnier Souffle

Everything was fabulous and the service was really worth the money. At the end of the night they brought M a little cake (orange date nut...it was her celebration dinner), and gave us each a long-stemmed rose.

We both drank a LOT of wine. Too much. Some of us handled it better than others. We took the monorail back to the MK to get our bus to the hotel. Some of us sat on a park bench yelling obsenities about the president as children walked by. I KNOW the children didn't hear anything though. They were all sleepwalking by that time of night. We did manage to make it home, but what a fabulous night.

And to add, I did look pretty cute--black cocktail dress, mickey clips in my hair, smokey eyes, purple shawl (thanks M!)....our V&A experience was definitely the most memorable part of the vacation. SOOOOOO amazingly good and fun.

I would do it again.

Friday Blog (out of order, deal with it)

Friday I woke up pretty early, 7ish or so. S made a gorgeous frittata for breakfast. It had cheese and last night's grilled veggies, and it was just LOVELY.

Before they took us to WDW, M wanted to take them to lunch in Orlando for their anniversary. I chose this cute little place in downtown Orlando, Hue. I had lobster bisque (OMG YUM) and a turkey croissant (ok). M had corn chowder (YUM) and a salad. Lemon gellato for dessert, that all 4 of us shared (eh). It really was a GREAT restaurant...much better than I expected it to be, and downtown Orlando is actually a very cute little city. We would have liked to explore, but we were anxious to get to DW and B and S were anxious to get the hell out of Orlando. I think B has a bit of city driving anxiety....you know, typical of the retired (sorry, Gram, it's true).

We got to our resort--omg how wacky. We stayed at the Pop Century resort...and it has separate hotels for all decades 50s-90s. We stayed in the 50s that had a bowling pin shaped pool and a HUGE jukebox in front of the entrance. I cannot explain this place. The colors were WILD and it had HUGE signs of each decade...Like a 4 story tall cell phone for the 90s, a 4 story yo-yo for the 60s. It was very fun and there were TONS of kids (the big families obviously stay in the cheap places). It had a pool-side bar at the 60s (and no matter how hard I tried, we could not coordinate getting there when it was open and we weren't exhausted).

So we got to the room. SURPRISE!!! from M. Once every week in October, the Magic Kingdom stays open until midnight and throws a not-so-scary Halloween party. I did not order us the separate tickets for that event, as I felt like I had made enough extravagant reservations for one vacation. However, dear M, knowing that it's my favorite candy holiday, got us tickets as a surprise! So, off we went to the Magic Kingdom for our partay. We got these little trick-or-treat bags and could go on these little paths to collect candy from people who were wearing all different costumes. The Halloween parade was cute, the fireworks were GREAT, and M even got me a GIGANTIC purple balloon that had a ghost on it. It stayed inflated the ENTIRE time and I ended up giving it to a guy who had a kid on our way out of the resort on Tuesday. The party was a LOT of fun. It was so cute to see all the little princesses running around--be advised, through our trip, EVERY little girl was dressed as a princess. All mothers of little girls, be prepared to drop 30 bucks for one of those dresses. The cutest thing was to see the parents who dressed up for their kids. I actually saw an Incredibles family--the dad was actually wearing the leotard! Weird, maybe, but a very good dad in my opinion.

Before all these festivities, we did manage to get in some rides--pirates (featuring 3 or 4 different Jack Sparrow scenes), haunted mansion, peter pan, snow white, space mountain (M's first roller coaster--she laughed all the way through it), and I think that's it.

Somehow we managed to get in 5 or 6 hours at the Magic Kingdom, even though we didn't get to the hotel until almost 4. Look at us go.

I LOVE that idea. All of us love us some books.

It's that time of year again folks....

I recommend "Book Xmas" that would work for kiddo's as well.......

GOD I hate that movie.

I STILL KNOW IT JENN!!!

Oh yeah, I stayed up WAYYYYY too late last night watching, you guessed it....The Big Liebowski. I love that movie.

NFL week 6 update

Weekly tally:
Snoop:9
RK:9
Jen:8
JK:7
A-Lo: 6

Total
Jen: 29
JK: 29
Snoop:28
RK:27
A-Lo: 23

You better super concentrate this week A-Lo! I think I'm jumping on that Bears Bandwagon right about now!

Not much happened yesterday at ALL. I did 4 loads of laundry and vacuumed. I also did dishes and took care of crap. I didn't cook anything that took more effort than coffee. My only visitor was Suzanne and she didn't even stay for coffee!!!

JK and Jelly went to Portland and played guitars. JK bought a new Larrivee http://www.larrivee.com/. It's pretty and I think he got a good guitar for the money. Today there isn't much going on either. Madeline wants to go to the championship soccer game, so I hope we can work that out for her.

I think tomorrow we're getting our piano. That's it for now.

SUNDAY BLOG

I slept VERY late after our night of Puck and puppetry. The next morning we decided to hit MGM studios...which was GREAT when we first got there--we had the place to ourselves practically. However, after we got out of the Muppet 4D adventure (our only reason for hitting MGM anyway), it was PACKED. I mean, there were MOBS of people. We worked our way to the other side of the park for lunch.

You know those giant turkey legs? I have always wanted one. Don't ask me why. Big food is amusing in a way. Well, consider that desire quenched. We had big turkey legs for lunch, and it was SO greasy that it made me sick. I could only eat about half of it, then I could feel my stomach churning. No Tower of Terror for me...no way. I felt hot, queasy, dizzy...why did I want to eat a giant turkey leg anyway? A regular turkey leg is big enough for one person, why did I feel the need to conquer the giant one? The flavor was good until about 1/4 of the way through, then all I could taste was grease. UGH. I felt horrible. We didn't stay at MGM much longer anyway because we had to get ready for tea.

We had 5pm reservations for tea at the Grand Floridian resort. Coming from Pop Century, it was truly an experience in how the "other half" lives. First we bussed to the MK. From there we took a nice little boat ride to the GF. It is beautiful over there....very fakey fakey, which the Victorians would have loved, so in that way it is VERY authentic. It has very nice grounds, unlike most of the budget resorts at DW. We went to our little garden-side cafe off the main building's lobby and had tea. The usual fare: cucumber sandwiches, scones (that tasted like dad's biscuts; I asked for extra clotted cream), little pastries. DO NOT drink WDW water. I know, they charge 2 bucks a bottle for Dasani, but trust me, it's worth it. WDW water tastes like sewer, I swear. So I stuck to my tea...green jade, or something like that. It was lovely. After tea we walked around the main building, the beach, and decided to hop the monorail for a tour of the park. We ended up going around the monorail twice, getting off at the transportation center, and taking the BIG boat back to Magic Kingdom. Why? I don't really remember. But the ride to MK was really pretty with the castle all lit up.

Once we got there, we decided to go in and catch a few things we had missed before. We saw this Disney 3-D movie (I can NEVER remember the name), that was a little TOO 3-D for me. I even yelled "Oh, Jesus!" at one point...And i KNEW there were kids, I just couldn't help myself! Then we went on the teacups and managed to catch yet more fireworks and yet another parade.

Were we done for the day? Hell, no! We had spent all this cash on Pleasure Island tickets so we decided to make the most of them...back to PI via Sarasota Springs resort (timeshares; quite chi chi). Back to the Adventuer's Club (Kungaloosh!). We stayed 90 minutes or so, got tired, and went to 8-trax. I was beat, the crowd was old, it was nearly empty, I declared it a night. We went to bed.

SATURDAY BLOG

As you can imagine, neither m or i are very early risers on vacation. We woke up Saturday and decided to go to Animal Kingdom. Our rating? Don't waste your time. Though the bird walks are interesting, the safari ride is ridiculous and all the "villages" in Africa and Asia are set up to look like complete dumps. We did see a golden partridge...that was beautiful.

That night we had reservations at Wolfgang Puck's. Just FYI, Puck has 3 restaurants at Downtown Disney: 2 little "express" places, and a "dining room." Andy, fyi, they are NOT near each other. When we actually found the Dining Room, we had a GREAT dinner. I had fillet mignon with roasted squash and these fried onion thingys; mila had this incredible lobster salad and....her entree was....oh. Duck. Slightly dissapointing duck. It was supposed to be braised I think but ended up being stewed. I had 3-tiered chocolate mousse for dessert and Mila had...I don't remember, something chocolate I'd imagine. The sommalier picked out wines for us. Superb!

After dinner we went to Pleasure Island, since we were right there. I think we got ripped off when buying tickets, but what can you do? I took Mila for her first experience to the Adventurer's Club (Kungaloosh!) and at first she was very concerned about my sense of humor (I think) but as the night went on she got into it. One of the characters picked on her during one of the little presentations, and that was cute. Activity there wound down around 12:30 am so we decided to go to the comedy club. HUGE, HUGE mistake. They were doing "improv." NOT FUNNY!!! I mean, literally. They made up this love song? I dunno. It wasn't intended to be funny, and it wasn't. We left after 10 minutes. My bed was calling me.

My first poker tournament

Well, we finally did it. A-LO and myself went to Seabrook for a hold em tournament. Our goal was to improve ourselves, not necessarily to win, (although we dreamed of it). My personal goal was to make it to the first break and have a few chips left. The first hour was very boring. I must say though, that's how you want it. It gives you a chance to check out the place, learn the rules and etiquette and get comfortable. The people playing the tournament were very nice and helpful. I only played three hands. I was in the big blind with A, 6 and the flop was 6,4,4 I bet the pot and everyone folded to me. The next one I played I called the minimum with A,J, but the flop completely missed me and i folded. The last hand of the hour that I played I was dealt AA and although pocket Ace's had lost 5 times in a row on my table I played them and won a small pot.

After the break I had about $3000 in chips and had KQ in the small blind. I was only up agains the Big blind, so I raised the minimum. She went all in. Based on what I had left and the pot size I called. It was the right call, she had 10,8 clubs. Of course she caught a flush and I was out. Ah well, I was mad for a minute, no one likes a bad beat, but I got over it and really enjoyed my time. Amy was out a few hands later. AVGTWHBA. Cant wait to play again! Thanks A-LO.

Thursday blog

Ok, my long-awaited vacation blog. We got up at dawn's crack on Thursday to get to the airport (thanks Todd). The first Southwest flight from Dulles to Tampa--ever. Amazingly, neither of us really slept too much on the plane. We got to Tampa at 9:30 am, so we had all day to spend with Mila's mom and Bob....at the airport, I had my first (and only) pumpkin spice latte of vacation--thanks M. Mmmmmm....the bagel? not so much. So we got in the car and headed to Mila's mom's place...somewhere just outside of Sarasota. We actually stopped in Sarasota so I could see some ocean, stick my feet in, etc. That was VERY nice because I can't remember the last time I saw ocean. After that we were off to S and B's.

I love their house. They have all this 50s style furniture..all weird curves and modern and wood. Loved it. Loved it all. And they had the a/c cranking (just for my benefit, I think). They are on the South Beach diet so I think that was probably the most healthy 24 hours of our whole trip. S made us a lovely shrimp salad for lunch...it was much anticipated (I even ate the capers without cringing!) and delicious. For dinner we had GREAT grilled chicken (how does B make breasts on the grill that are actually JUICY??) and grilled veggies. Of course there was other miscellaneous eating throughout the day, including Godiva (thanks B!). We got to see all of B's little seedlings (his 'babies') and all the work they've done since they moved in. In the evening, us girls went for a 'short' walk.....I made a terrible choice in footwear and ended up with wounds, blisters, etc. I thought sandles would be appropriate for a 'short' walk....I forgot who I was walking with. It was nice though....a nice, cool, sorta misty Florida night. After a COLD shower, I hopped into my bed and fell asleep instantly.

Last night I had a dream that we were taken over by Russia and all put in concentration camps.

Have a great morning!

You know me, I love soda, and I will try any soda once. SO let me save YOU the trouble of tasting "Tab Energy" THE most disgusting drink on the planet. It tastes like chocolate over pumpkin plants, carbonated and coated with karo syrup.

For the record I am making sundried tomato cream sauce and POSSIBLY a mushroom ragout too
for dessert we're having toasted poundcake with marscarpone, sliced almonds and berries

do you think they have white truffles at Steaks and Stuff? if not I can probably get them at the Lincoln Hannaford.

mushroom ragout with white truffle sauce, which i enjoyed over pasta on monday night. more later.

In defense of Jen

As nfl pick minder, I do feel obligated to defend Jen on this one, she does, indeed, do her own picks and she made quite an effort to do so this week.

I was impressed that she even had opinions on a couple of the games which prooves she is becoming a football fan! I believe her comments were "Parcell's sucks!" and "the Redskins will never win two weeks in a row". So she IS paying slight attention.

Blog Poll: I'm hosting Pasta night on friday. Please suggest a sauce.

GMTA

Hey Maddy--My bedroom is pink, brown, and white too! With a splash of green.

A_lo, you offend me. RK will vouch for the fact that I do indeed pick my own picks. And I actually pick, too, I don't just randomly say a team. I'm offended.

Well, I don't know what I did this weekend but it flew by. Saturday Gram, Maddy and I spent the day in Bangor taking care of our lists. I LOVE doing that with GG. We get SO much accomplished. Maddy got a comforter and curtain. So, her bedroom is pink, brown and white for future reference. She really seems to love it.

Sunday JK went and got M's bed, so all that remains is a bit of trim and her room will be mostly complete. I don't know what I'm going to do next. I was going to deal with the dining room but that seems to get more complicated every day, so maybe it will be the boy's room (he wants it blue).

Yesterday JK and Todd went for a long canoe, I cleaned house, then Dylan and Dawn visited. We had dinner together too.

That's it in a nutshell....

What did you do?

NFL Week 5

Congrats to JK for winning week 5!!!

Here are the results
This week:
JK: 13 correct
Jen: 12
Rachael: 11
Amy: 10
Leigh: 10

Overall results

JK: 22
Jen: 21
Leigh: 19
RK: 18
A-L0 17

Look for week six email sometime today or tomorrow

The Cat Came Back

....the very next WEEK.

Yes, Taily has returned. It was pretty exciting for her, she's basking in the glory of being home, soaking up all the attention. Winker, is, however, completly pissed! She's SO mad she's not the Queen of the house anymore. She pouted all night last night.

I'm going to Disneyworld!

I'll be back 10/10!

Apparently we had an earthquake! It's hard to tell that kind of thing when you have a boy that loves to jump.

I'm forlorn. I think that's the right word. I hate it when people leave. So, the Bush's are gone. We had a WONDERFUL visit and I got two marriage proposals. The stuffed foccacia and Aunt Dena's Molasses Marble cake cinched it. You single people should take note of that.

Anyway, today I'm paining Maddy's room. What are you doing?

THANK YOU!

A gigantic Thank you to the Bush's for the Hokie Pilsners (did you know a Pilsner is a GREAT wine glass) and to the Thurlow's for the first piece in my fiestaware collection! I LOVE the bowl!!! I used it TWICE yesterday.

My visitor's visit.

JK and I have friend's here from VA. We've had SO much fun with them, I will now tell you about their visit.

Saturday morning my family all helped get the house straightened out. The visitor's arrived at 12:15 on Saturday. We had coffee and talked and the afternoon turned into evening. We had a humungous meal, and, though it will sound VERY strange, somehow it all worked really well. This was the menu

Baked beans (thanks to WW for the WONDERFUL recipe, everyone LOVED them and I will never bake beans with pork again (unless I'm making them with Orlie)
Clams steamed in beer
crab rolls
Whole wheat bread, (martha's recipe)
salad
molasses cookies and whoopie pies for dessert

(The theme is maine food, obviously)

So Sunday we got up and lazed around. We had "Special Blueberry Muffins" and fruit for breakfast. We lazed around for the afternoon and some of them went for a paddle.

For dinner we had clam chowdah, french bread (I caught a good catch on that one) salad, and leftover beans.

Monday morning we had omelettes, salmon with cream cheese and tomato, shroom, pesto, toast, and coffee

Yesterday we drove around a bit and last night we had roast chicken with the fixins and crabcakes.

Tonight we're having the famous stuffed foccacia and pumpkin pie (maybe molasses cake too). Don't you wish you were here?

I STILL KNOW IT JENN!!!

Congrats to Leigh, Jen and JK for picking 9 winning games in week 4!!!!!

(Amy and I are tied for last at 7 each)