a meaty sunday

Ok, I screwed up. I took pictures yesterday and copied them onto the computer at home last night, but forgot to save them to my laptop. So I have no pictures of our adventure yesterday for this post. And we won't be home for a few days to get them. You'll just have to come back and look at them in a few days.

Anyway, we did have quite the little adventure yesterday. Alfred found a ranch about 45 minutes from us that raises and sells grass fed beef, so we went there yesterday afternoon to check it out and give them a deposit check. The people we met that showed us around, Tammy and Jeff, were seriously the nicest people I have ever met in my life. They showed us all the sheep, even let Alfred feed them (he almost got knocked over, it was really funny), showed us 2 of their big bulls, and then showed us the rest of the herd of cattle. It was really good to see the farm and see Tammy interact with the animals, you could tell that she really cares for them and that they're in good health. She's also the one that slaughters them, so she'll be killing a ewe for us in a week or two!

They also took us to their house, which is right down the road from the ranch, because they had been telling us about the pork kielbasa they made and offered to give us some. We ended up going home with two packages of kielbasa, some ribs, ground venison, a bucket of crabs, and some other cut of pork that I can't remember. Just because they had so much and wanted to share it. Talk about southern hospitality! Combine that with the steak we got from the owner of the ranch to try out the meat before we place our order, and we are probably set for a month! They were telling us about a hog hunt they went on recently - Tammy stabbed a 250 lb hog in the heart to kill it! That's freaking hard core! We ended up spending about 2 hours with them, they were just so friendly. The coolest thing they showed us, which I unfortunately didn't get a picture of, was an alligator head in their freezer. Apparently the gator had gone after Jeff's son, so he killed it (he's a game warden, ha) and kept the head. The gator was 10'2" long! That is huge!! The head took up the whole damn shelf, they're going to stuff it and give it to the son.

Saturday was good too: I went to a used bookstore near Billy's house, spent an hour and 40 minutes and $15 and bought a few books, then we went out to dinner with Ilya and Mercedes after Alfred got back. And no, he did not shoot any hogs.

ok, this is a bit much

I stayed at this huge house all by myself last night. It was a little scary, just because it's so big, and especially because Alfred found out yesterday that the alarm goes off sometimes when it's windy because one of the doors rattles. I could just imagine it going off in the middle of the night and scaring the shit out of me. But just now was even weirder. I'm in the kitchen when I hear this beeping and a mechanical voice. I jump up, thinking it's the doorbell, but no one's there. Then I think a door has been opened or something and someone's breaking in. But there's an alarm panel right there, and it's still activated and not showing anything. So I disarm it, just in case. Then as I'm walking back to the kitchen I see a little post office truck. As I get back to the kitchen the doorbell rings, I go get a package from the guy, he leaves. Then I hear the beep and mechanical voice again, but this time I can make out "driveway." We knew they had a motion sensor at the gate across the driveway, so apparently it's activated now and literally speaks to you to tell you when someone has entered or exited your driveway! How freaking crazy is that?? Ok, and just for you people (Alfred and Katie) who demand pictures, here's what the bed looked like this morning when I got up:

I built myself a nice, cozy little nest!

busy day, sorry, etc

I was busy all morning and have been in a meeting all afternoon. It was really exciting. Oh, and the cheesecake yesterday was really good. It didn't look all that impressive when it was cut though, so no picture. I think if I make it again I'll use more raspberries.

Some of you know Alfred's friend from Cornell, Clare. Some of you may also have known that she was pregnant. Well, Alfred got an email from her this afternoon - she had a baby girl last month! I hope Clare doesn't mind me sharing these pictures, this baby is just too darn cute. (Clare, if you ever read this and want me to take these down, just let me know). The baby's name is Ella.


She was only 5 pounds 11 ounces, what a little peanut! At least the gift we bought for her will fit for awhile. Now I can finally mail it out - I've had it since the beginning of May and have been waiting to hear that she had arrived.
What a cutie.

Anyway, on to something more mundane: our weekend. Well, my weekend. Alfred's going hunting with a friend of his that he used to work with (he's gonna try to git him a hog!), so I'm all by my lonesome until tomorrow evening. Which was fine with me, until Alfred got a call from the guy we've house sat for with the big house (Billy). Guess who's out of town for the next week and a half and needs someone to stay at their house? So my nice day alone will now be spent at a strange house. That kind of sucks. Then we have to leave super early Sunday to be back home to meet the satellite guy who's scheduled to come between 8 and 12. Blah blah, bitch, moan. It won't be so bad. I can sleep in and lounge around and go to the mall. And get something to eat that Alfred doesn't like. See, it'll be great.

(mis)adventures in cheesecake making

First off, we didn't get home from work last night until 8:45. And then I had to make a cheesecake for Ellery's birthday today. Oh mylanta, as the kids used to say. So Alfred went upstairs to exercise and I got working. I was on the phone with my mom for a few minutes, then she said she'd let me go so I didn't make a mistake with the recipe. (Actually, Mom, I did forget to put sugar in the crust, which I was making while talking to you. But then I just barely had enough sugar for the filling, so if I had put some in the crust I would have been a little short for the filling. So it was ok in the long run.) I got it all made and in the pan, then went to get the foil out of the cupboard (to wrap around the pan to bake it in a water bath, of course) and:


I knocked 2 of the baking dishes that were stacked next to the foil onto the floor, and one of them smashed. And I mean smashed! That shit was everywhere! If you click on the picture you can see it, there were pieces on top of and under the green pan, in between other pans still in the cupboard, I even stepped on one in front of the fridge, which is like 5 feet away. And it only fell like 18 inches! I had to get the vacuum out because there were so many tiny pieces that the broom was missing. It sucks cause I really liked that dish, it had a rubber top and was just really nice. To make myself feel better, I poured the little bit of graham cracker crumbs I had left into the little bit of cheesecake filling that was left in the bowl and ate it. It was yummy. And in the end, this gorgeous creature resulted:


Look how nice and level the top is! The water bath worked its magic, baby. And you can see some of the raspberries that are at the bottom of the cheesecake. Then I worked some magic of my own this morning, and we have this:


Who says I can't decorate cakes? Well, I say that, but I can make a cheesecake look nice! I'll have to take a picture tonight when it's cut, I bet it will look cool with the raspberries at the bottom.

stepping it up

My job search, that is. 2 of the guys who worked with us are leaving after next week. One of them is the son of Max's business partner, so it's not like Alfred and I are special because we're related. It's just getting to the point where they can't afford things. Today I actually volunteered to take a pay cut to help out a bit. In other words, I really feel the need to find a new job.

It's a wee bit stressful. Most jobs I find posted I'm either a) not qualified for because the industry is so specific, or b) wildly overqualified for. Plus, so many of the jobs that are in the area I'd like to be in and actually went to school for (preschool or other early education) pay really, really shitty. They're all in the $8-$10/hour range. I'm sorry, I can't do that. It's too bad they don't tell you in college that you shouldn't pick your major based on what interests you, but in what is most marketable in the future. Katie, you should switch to business or something.

I've applied to several positions I've found on craig's list, career builder, and on specific company websites, but haven't heard back from anyone yet. I also need to set up a school district interview since I missed the recruitment fair, and mail out stuff to some principals to try to get their attention. What a pain in the ass. On the upside, at least now I don't feel quite so guilty having nothing to do, since I'm not getting paid anymore!

happy birthday Mike and Ellery!

That's right, same birthday, a year apart. Both of Alfred's siblings have nice easy birthdays for me to remember, Emily's is on Christmas. Mike is 25 today and Ellery is 24. I was going to call Mike at 6 when I woke up, because it would have been midnight there, but I decided not to be a dick in case his phone was on and I woke him up. He has to wake up early these days. And I'm a nice person. Of course, Alfred pointed out that he's called me in the middle of the night before, but I always have the volume on my phone turned off so it's ok. I learned that lesson in college. The first week of classes my senior year I got a call from a drunk Mike at like 3am, waking me up and pissing me off. But when I woke up for class at 7 or whatever time it was, I called him and woke him up in return. Good times.

Ellery's going out tonight, so we're not celebrating his birthday with him until Thursday. He has requested a raspberry chocolate cheesecake for his birthday dessert. I am happy to oblige. I can only assume it will be delicious. How can that combination of ingredients not be?

In other news, 2 of the girls in my book club have had babies in the past week. A girl and a boy. This brings us up to 7 total for this year, with another 3 due between now and October. It's like there's something in the water. Maybe when we move up here...

so, how was your weekend?

My weekend was just stellar, thank you for asking. I could have done so, so much around the house, but I didn't. I didn't even need to clean because we've barely been home to mess the place up since I cleaned last. I was saying to Alfred yesterday how I wanted the kitchen floor washed, the windows cleaned, the back yard cleaned up and weeded... but I didn't want to do a damn thing. That's not to say I didn't do anything. Here's my weekend in a handy bulleted list.

• Saturday I headed to the farmers market and picked up some delicious, healthy, cheap produce. All of this came to $10. I feel like that's a good price, but I can't really be sure because I've never bothered doing a comparison at the grocery store.

• I got hit on by one of the vendors at the farmers market. He was wearing a shirt that said "Let's flip a coin. Heads, I get tail. Tails, I get head." I was wearing my glasses and hadn't showered yet. He suggested we go to a strip club that afternoon (because he had to give me a bunch of singles as change.) Yeah, it was pretty awesome.
  
• Speaking of my glasses, I didn't put my contacts in once this weekend. My eyeballs thanked me.
  
• We had a delicious pizza Saturday for dinner. Toppings: pears, pecans, and gorgonzola cheese. I was inspired after buying the pears that morning.
• I beat levels 4 and 5 on the second quest of the Legend of Zelda. I'm a nerd, by the way.
  
• We worked on a new set of house plans. Alfred had gotten a whole bunch of books out of the library to look at for ideas and found a really good plan in one of them, so he drew it out and made some modifications to make it fit what we wanted/needed. It looks really good. The next step is to get it drawn up professionally so it can go to an engineer and get approved to build. Then we'll be ready to go once we get all of our permits.
• I caught up on all of the episodes of "so you think you can dance" that were on the dvr. The show where the top 20 all performed didn't record for some reason, so I missed that, but it's ok. I'll live.
  
• Our dvr decided to start to break. I think that's why my show didn't tape (see previous bullet point). It worked a few times this weekend, but not much. Someone's coming out to fix it next Sunday. Luckily we don't have much taping this week, so if it doesn't work, we won't miss much. But I think I'm going to ask Ellery to tape so you think you can dance for me though, just in case. Can't be too careful.

Non stop excitement, I tell you what!

embarassing picture day

In honor of the joy that is Friday, I decided to put up some pictures. They're not all that embarrassing, really, except that I look kind of goofy in a few of them. But what else is new.

First up: me and Mercedes at the M&M store in Orlando (it was delicious):


Next: me, Katherine, and Rosemary at Universal. I like how Katherine and I are kind of hunched over, like we're trying to fit into the picture. As if we might be too tall to fit in the frame.


Next, we have me, Katie, and Mike visiting the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine a few years ago. I think it was Mike's idea to make it look like we were scared, and then he just sat there and smiled. What a dope.


This is an old favorite: me, Katie, and Tony enjoying some family bonding time one Christmas. There are lots and lots of pictures of people smoking the hookah and cigars that night. And drinking. What a good influence we are for Katie. I think she was 17 in this picture.


Ok, this one's not embarrassing at all, but I like it. It's been waiting for me in Photoshop so I did a little editing. Kinda nice, I think.


That's it for this installment. Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, come back and see us sometime!

I'm kind of cranky

I've been in kind of a grouchy mood all day. These are the days that Alfred will not miss if/when I get a new job. He said he read an article that said working out too much can make you angry. Maybe that's it, ha! I did talk to Lindsay a little while ago, so that cheered me up a bit. I need some more friends around here.

Anyway. We went home last night. Good thing, because my plant was almost dead.


So I gave it some water, and by this morning it looked much happier.

Good thing it's so resilient. It would have died like 38 times by now if it was more delicate. My azaleas were fine too, because it finally actually rained. Now we're only under a medium fire risk (which is good, it's been extremely high or something like that for weeks). I also got to catch up on some tv. Good thing it's summer, we only have a couple shows to keep up with.

Super exciting post today, huh. That's what happens when I'm cranky, I have nothing to talk about. Well, nothing other than "I want to go home and go to sleep" or "I want some chocolate." So here's a funny billboard that's up right now for the zoo.

It says "Everyone's favorite summer treat" and there's a picture of an ice cream cone, another ice cream cone, and a bald eagle. It just cracks me up. I prefer my frozen bald eagle treat in a dish, actually. Seriously, is this what they were really going for?

1930's marital test

Ok, this is really funny. You should really go here and take this test, if only to see how funny the different items are. It's pretty quick. It rates what kind of husband or wife you are, and apparently is from the 1930's. I took it and got:

39 As a 1930s wife, I am Poor Take the test!

Poor Alfred, he has a terrible wife. That's what he gets for marrying a woman who doesn't darn socks. Then I wanted to see what the husband questions were, so I took it for Alfred. He did great!

79 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

In other news, we're going home tonight! Woo hoo!

blueberries!

It's blueberry picking season! So, like the good little hippies we're becoming, we woke up early on Saturday morning and went out to pick some blueberries.

We got to the first place at 7:30am. That's right, we were awake early enough to be somewhere at 7:30. On a Saturday. The parking lot was actually packed. And, believe it or not, they were out of blueberries. By 7:30! Apparently there are lots of other hippies out there, too. But, as you may have guessed by the pictures (aren't they cool? I love the last one), we did not give up that easily. The owner told us about another farm about a 10 minute drive away, so we headed over there.

By the time we arrived at the second farm, the parking area was about 2/3 full (I use the term parking lot loosely, it was really just someone's front yard.) She was also out of buckets to use to pick, all before her normal opening time of 8am. Luckily though, these bushes were nice and full of berries. And man, were they delicious. We picked about 3 1/2 pounds worth (and ate quite a few along the way, just to make sure they weren't poisonous or anything.)

So, it was fun. And they are delicious. And we were done and back at Ilya and Mercedes' house by maybe 10:30. Plus, then I got to bake my blueberry pie! We want to go again though, because we've eaten most of them already, and because we want to try making blueberry jam. And maybe some muffins, or a cobbler. And I want to make another pie. I just love making pies. I just love baking in general, would you have ever guessed that? I should really get back to work on that at-home bakery thing...

happy (belated) birthday Robyn!

Yesterday was Robyn's birthday. (I have no picture of her to post, since I don't go home anymore. And she hates being in pictures, so even if I had thought of it yesterday I probably wouldn't have had much luck taking one of her then. My b.) Because of her birthday and father's day, we spent the whole day at their house. Alfred got suckered into helping plant (all Robyn wanted for her birthday was plants, so she got a bunch of them) while I was lucky enough to get to hang out inside and cook. Check out this spread!


That's a chocolate birthday cake, a blueberry father's day pie, chicken salad, mashed sweet potatoes, popovers, cole slaw (which I loved, but no one else did), and ribs. I made it all, except the ribs, that's Alfred's domain. Well, and he helped me with stuff once he came back in. But I made most of it! :) The chicken salad and cole slaw even contain homemade mayonnaise. I also made some blueberry cornbread for breakfast, but didn't get a picture of it. It was really yummy though. It worked out well for me: I got to have my fun making things, and not have to be outside working in the heat and humidity!

A close up of the cake, since it's kind of hard to see in the other picture:


As you can see, my decoration skills leave much to be desired. The top came out ok, but the sides, not so much. I was trying to kind of drip it down the side, but gravity wasn't really cooperating. It still tasted really good.

Ok, a close up of the pie, too. I think I actually liked this better than the cake! Shocking, I know. I had a lot of trouble with the crust, but it came out ok. Not great, but ok. But the filling was so damn good it didn't matter.


Come to Florida, I'll bake for you.

Coming up tomorrow: the origin of all the blueberries!

nomads

I don't remember if I ever posted this picture. It's from one of our early morning walks on the beach. Pretty, huh?


I've taken a shower in 3 different houses since yesterday morning, and slept in a 4th. We're having our mail held for the next week because we won't be home for the next week. Meanwhile, we're collecting mail for 2 other houses. Yup, double booked for house sitting again. Ilya and Mercedes are at least really far away - the other couple is only going to be an hour away for a family event. They're even bringing a bunch of family to see the house Saturday morning. It seems completely ridiculous to me, but hey, what do I know. Then Sunday we'd be up here anyway for father's day and for Robyn's birthday, and then of course work, so we're just staying. Cheap gas week, at least! And I get to make a cake, so that's good. And we're going out to dinner tonight. Hell, who needs to go home?

We had been planning to go to Hawaii to visit Mike this summer. The plan had been for this week, because he had some time off. The fair I did not go to yesterday was one (but not the only) reason we decided to wait. That makes it suck even more.

I suck

Yup. I am.

I didn't get to attend the recruitment fair today after all. I had received an email about a week and a half after I registered saying I was cleared to attend. I submitted my online application, sent in my transcript, and got myself sort of prepared. Yesterday I was looking through the website to make sure I had all the info I needed for the fair and came across a list of eligible registrants. My name was not there. So I called. Turns out there's another person with my last name who also registered, they mistakenly sent me his email when he was cleared to attend. It also turns out that there was a deadline to turn in my transcript and application, and I missed it. Now, in my defense, this deadline was not mentioned in the confirmation email I got after I registered, or anywhere on the website. Apparently it was on the registration form. Which is no longer available online, since registration closed over a month ago. Which means I didn't read it, or pay enough attention to it. So, I suck. And, the day I received the email saying I was cleared to attend was the deadline to submit my other stuff. So even if I had figured out the problem that day, I still wouldn't have been able to get it in on time, since I wouldn't have had my transcript with me.

There was also the slight matter of my transcript being filed under my maiden name and not credited to me at all. Seems they didn't pay any attention to the paper I put in there explaining that this was under my maiden name and giving my current name. But that's straightened out now, at least.

I even went there this morning, hoping someone stupid would be there and would just let me in. No luck.

I'm really, really angry at myself for screwing this up.

in 24 hours it'll all be over

Thank you for all the opinions yesterday, even though I only got 3 votes on my poll and 1 was from me. (I did get comments and emails though, so thank you for those as well.) I'm not sure which one I'm going with yet, but I'll let you know. I'm sure that's exciting for everyone! As for the shoes, unfortunately I don't own any closed-toe heels. It wouldn't matter if I did, cause we're not going home tonight anyway. I feel like the shoes I wore to Ro's wedding would look ok, but I wouldn't be able to walk after wearing them for 7 hours. So I might have to hit up a shoe store/Target after work. We'll see how Alfred feels about that. :)

The reason we're not going home is that we've taken up residence at Ilya and Mercedes' house. They're in Spain for a couple of weeks, so we're making sure their animals and plants survive, and saving some gas in the process. We spent the night last night and will be there until Friday morning. I jogged around their neighborhood this morning. It was bloody hot, and it was only 8:30.

So who are these animals we're taking care of, you ask? Well, here they are! This is Becca (on the left) and Brielle (on the right). I wanted to take a picture of them cause they were sitting next to each other looking out the window, but as soon as they heard me they turned around. They are Siamese, if you please. (I'll have that song stuck in my head the rest of the day.)


This morning I was petting Becca and she was purring like crazy, so I assumed she loved me. When I stopped, she went and started rubbing herself on the walls and cabinets, still purring. So she loves me like she loves the wall. Nice. Oh, and we can't forget Oscar III.


Last night I had my book club, which was fun. There were 4 babies there, plus one due to be born in 6 days. There was a 10 month old girl there who I hadn't met before, she had almost no hair, 4 little teeth, and the biggest, cutest grin! The moms were all nice, too. Of course, we didn't talk about the book. I even bought it (used) this month and read it in 2 days. You'd think I'd learn my lesson, if we do talk about the book it's only for like 5 minutes. This month's book was "The Pact" by Jodi Picoult. I've read a couple of her books before, but I can't quite decide if I like her or not. They're always good stories and hard to put down, but when I finish them I'm not sure if I actually enjoyed it, if that makes sense. Last month's book was "Saving Fish from Drowning" by Amy Tan, which I liked. It wasn't her typical Chinese mother/daughter book. There's your culture for the day. You're welcome!

I'm really, really nervous about tomorrow. I'll be there from 7:30 until at least 2, so no post till later in the afternoon.

help a sister out

We've broken 1000 page views! I'm so popular.

Ok, so I need some help. (What a surprise, I know.) I've narrowed it down to 2 tops to wear with my suit on Thursday. Can you all please give me your input? Please ignore the fact that I look like a giant goon in these pictures. Do you prefer:

Option A: collared shirt, untucked (I usually wear this shirt untucked, just for reference)


Option B: collared shirt, tucked in


Option C: sleeveless (it's kind of a silky sleeveless top)

Also, looking at these pictures I really don't like these shoes with it. Thoughts?

Please vote, or leave a comment, or both, whatever floats your boat. I just need some more opinions to help me decide. Thank you!!

Opinion Polls & Market Research

I miss my weekend

First of all, check out our dinner from last night:


Pizza with roasted red peppers, sauteed onions, and feta cheese on a honey wheat crust. Darn tasty. I love being able to pull a meal out of our asses when we haven't been shopping in weeks.

We had kind of a weird weekend. We were house sitting until Sunday morning, so we didn't even get home until about noon on Sunday. I kind of miss my house. It is nice not having to spend my whole salary on gas, though. Last week we probably only spent half.

Friday night we went out to eat with a couple of friends of ours, Lucy and Phil. We had pizza and beer, which of course led to a power (almost) hour (we did about 15 minutes, then took a break for another 15 minutes, then did another 30-45 minutes or so. Honestly, I lost track). That's like Alfred's favorite game these days. Afterwards we went back to the house we were sitting and sat outside and enjoyed the view. It was nice, I could get used to the whole hanging-out-with-friends-cause-we-don't-live-so-damn-far-away thing. Oh, and the picture is from when we went to Disney with them last year. Yes, they wore the ears the entire day. And I was pretty hung over. The car ride sucked.

Now the really exciting news: I bought a suit. Yup, I'm a real live grown up. Hopefully they're so dazzled by my professional appearance at the fair I'm going to on Thursday that they'll give me a job on the spot.

I almost forgot

I meant to post this yesterday.

We had dinner with Alfred's parents on Thursday night. When we were driving from their house to our temporary housing at 10pm, we started noticing that there was an awful lot of traffic for that late on a Thursday, and we were really starting to slow down. A minute later we were at a crawl. As we went around a curve we saw some flashing lights, and what looked like a plane. We were all, what the hell? So Alfred pulls into a parking lot, speeds up to the flashing lights, and it IS a freaking plane!



Now, if I was one of my brothers, I could identify this plane for you, and tell you what it does and all sorts of interesting shit. But, I'm not. So I can't. I can guess that it's a navy plane, since we were right by the navy base. But that's it. It's still cool though!

Like Alfred said last night, we need to come up with a joke that has the punchline: "because the jet made a left turn on red!" Any ideas?

roaches and teaching and house sitting, oh my!

First off, I would like to thank Katie for her oh so traumatic contribution to roach stories (she left a comment after my last post, if you're interested.) I didn't say that was my worst roach story, he was just a rather scholarly roach. If you want to hear a bad roach story... a couple of years ago I was getting ready for work one morning and went to put my boot on. A roach came running out of my boot and skittered across my arm. That's right, it ran on me. Out of my shoe. Which was in my closet. ONTO ME. I was afraid to put on shoes for weeks. Beat that. :)

I just got back from lunch, I met a girl from my book club. (I posted this picture because a) certain people get upset if there's no picture in a post, and b) I passed the restaurant this picture was taken at on my way to lunch. Well, and c) it's funny.) She's a teacher and has worked in a couple of counties around here, so she gave me a bunch of advice about interviewing and what key words to say, and some tips about job searching. It was very helpful to hear from someone who knows what she's talking about and has so much experience. She had emailed a principal who was hiring a kindergarten teacher about me, but unfortunately she already filled the position with another teacher at the school. But, she did say that some other positions would probably open up in 1st and 2nd grade, so that could be good. I'm really kind of starting to freak out about finding a job. There are budget cuts this year, so a lot of districts are increasing class sizes and not hiring as many teachers. Plus, I have no real classroom experience, and only have a temporary teaching certificate. I'm really hoping I get something at the recruitment fair I'm going to next week, but honestly, I'm not feeling too hopeful.

If teaching doesn't work out though, maybe I can start a house sitting service. We're double booked this weekend, with Ilya and Mercedes' house and the big house we were at last weekend. So we're sleeping at one house and going to check on the cats at the other. The only bad thing is we can't go home until Sunday. When will I bake??

Alfred to the rescue

We had an invader in the house this morning. I got up at 6, went into the bathroom, and there's a giant freaking COCKROACH on the back of the toilet! That woke me up pretty damn quick, let me tell you. Now, I don't want to overstate this or anything, but I hate roaches with a passion like the fiery pits of hell. They just freak me out, they're so hard to kill and are so damn fast and dirty. I hate going anywhere near them. I even hate killing them because I have to go close to them, and half the time when you go to kill them they run like hell and you miss and then you have to jump around and shriek like a little girl because it moved. I hate roaches almost as much as I hated the centipedes I used to have to kill in the basement of my parents' house. Ugh. Those little fuckers are just nasty, nothing should have that many legs. They'd just be chillin' on the wall when I walked by, then try to bolt before I smeared them across the wall with a shoe. Then I'd have to leave the smear there, cause the wall was too hard to clean because of the texture. But I digress.

So I go into the bathroom and the roach is on the back of the toilet. I go grab a flip flop and get ready for action, but the little bastard is too smart. There's a library book on the back of the toilet, and of course he crawls up on top of that so I can't kill him. He just strolls back and forth, checking everything out, crawls down the side of the book, investigates the binding. Usually roaches are either standing still or running like mad, but not him. Just walking around, taking his time, as casual as can be. Meanwhile I'm standing there in my pjs with a flip flop raised for attack, waiting for him to get off the damn book so I can smash him, and giving a running commentary for Alfred, who's in bed trying to go back to sleep. Nope, no sleep when there's evil afoot. He tells me to ignore it and just use the bathroom and he'll kill it when he gets up. Clearly, there's no way on God's green earth I'm using a toilet with a roach on it. So finally I give up and go downstairs. Five minutes later, after dismantling half the toilet in his quest, Alfred and the Toilet Paper of Death have splattered the roach across the bathroom. He then threw it in the toilet and peed on it. My hero. (You're supposed to flush them because if it's a female and has eggs, they can still hatch after she's dead. Freaking disgusting creatures.) It smelled like dead roach for awhile afterwards, but it's better than a live roach lurking in our house.

our creative meal

Have you ever heard of "chicken and waffles?" I mean obviously you've heard of those individual components, but as a meal? Apparently it's a thing. It's also fun to say. I don't know if it's a southern thing or what, but I've seen it on the food network and I think Alfred has heard of it in real life. Well one night a few months ago while making dinner we decided to make our own unique meat-and-breakfast-food combination. Alfred says that Snoop Dogg's reality show was the inspiration. And no, we were not sober.

It all started because we had bought a giant package of apples from costco and needed a way to use them up. So I decided to cook them. I thought it would be good to eat with some pancakes. Pancakes and warm apples for dinner, pretty normal, right? I think Alfred brought up chicken and waffles, and then got some leftover pulled pork out of the fridge. Yeah, that sounds good, I'll blame him. So we constructed our towers of weird deliciousness: a pancake, topped with apples, topped with pork, topped with some BBQ sauce. I think I added another pancake to my stack and ate it like a sandwich. It was really, really good. We've had it twice since then, including last night, when this photo was taken. Amazingly, it's still good sober. Last night we used the applesauce we made a few weeks ago. Deee-licious.

cool house pictures

(Ok, it took me like 10 minutes to make this slideshow, 5 minutes to
write the post, and like 20 to fix the text so it didn't run off the side of
the page and disappear. Stupid slideshow. Ah well, on with the
program!)

Well, our first house sitting gig of the week is over. But, as promised, I
did take a bunch of pictures last night. I had to edit myself a bit,
because apparently photo bucket will only let you put 30 pictures in a
slideshow, but that's ok.

So there's a main part of the house and an addition they built on,
which is a garage and a guest suite. It's nice. I actually really love the
layout of the main part of the house, I wouldn't even need the
addition. But what do I know. It's on the river, too. We counted 6
bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 4 living room/sitting room areas, 6
fireplaces, 2 staircases, 1 elevator, 9 security cameras outside (I think),
and 0 tvs. Oh, and slavery themed furniture/decorations in
2 rooms. Enjoy! (If you want to pause the slideshow, put the mouse
over it and a little stop button will appear. I think I need to find a
new slideshow program to use. This one kind of annoys me.)

Lindsay's birthday, and our date

First of all, happy (belated) birthday to Lindsay! Her birthday was actually Saturday, but I got the dates mixed up and then didn't post yesterday. (I tried posting a picture, but blogger won't let me. Come back later.) She's taking her vacation the next couple of weeks, so hopefully we'll be able to hang out sometime. We used to work together, I miss seeing her every day! EDIT: We have pictures! The first one is us with Lindsay and Jeff at our work picnic last year. I do believe it's the only picture I have of Lindsay and I together. Then I had to add the one of them with Xyla cause she's just so damn cute!

So we had some plans that fell through last night, which left us all gussied up with nowhere to go, so Alfred and I went on a date! We went to see Baby Mama (which was good, definitely some funny parts but I thought the ending was a little... weird) and then out to dinner at Outback. (That's the only big chain restaurant where we live, so we got a few gift cards for there for Christmas. We finally got to use a couple!) We were out late too, didn't get back to the house we're sitting at until maybe 10:30 or so. Party animals.

I'm going to take some pictures of this house tonight, probably post some tomorrow. This house is kind of crazy. It's really big, and on the river, and decorated with lots of antiques. Very impressive, and nice to look at, but not very cozy. I do love the layout of the main part of the house, though. We're going to try to get some inspiration for our own house from them.