Headin' Back Home

Shew! We are out of NYC and in Ohio now - so we have made some pretty decent time today to get back home. It started sleeting this morning in NYC, and the weather forecasted it to do that and more the rest of the day. So we decided going home wouldnt be a bad idea - we get to pick up our dogs, sleep in our own bed and I have us scheduled for massages on Saturday afternoon - which we are both already looking forward to!

Its amazing how many things happen to me on vacation that normally do not happen to other people, tho. OK.....its not JUST on vacation, its pretty much an everyday occurence for me, but....

For instance, we go to a deli place called "Maxie's" in NYC the night we got there. We eventually get menus and I start studying it to figger out what might be good - altho we had pretty much decided on trying their really huge reuben sandwhich and splitting it. We agree on that and I hand him my menu........well, I TRY to hand him my menu! The pages are bound with a spiral plastic binding and I manage to catch the end of the spiral around my ring. So I get frustrated and end up having my husband untangle it from my ring. 'Cuz, umm......I guess that sorta thing is beyond me lol

On the way to NYC, we stop to get gas and I get excited because I thought I had just saw a blue bird, almost like a toucan sam kinda bird. I think this is unusual and tell my husband about it, so when we drive back by the same place after getting gas in the truck - I show him where it was at. Turns out the bird was a blue Wal-Mart bag that had found its way into the tree and stuck there! And here I thought my eyes were seeing alot better since my lasik a week ago! lol Of course my husband has to point at every sign, bag, etc etc after that - saying hey! there is a bird! Uh, nope! Guess it was a bag......Guess it was just the stop sign.....*uggh*

Well, anyway! I better quit telling ya'all about how goofy I can be! I probably need to get to bed anyway and rest my eyes, so I quit seeing things that arent there lol

Never Stop in New Jersey

We just got done eating at a place called the 'Muddy River' something or the other in Portsmouth, NH and we feel terribly ill after splitting what they called the 'Squealer'. I think they are trying to insinuate that whomever can eat the whole plate is somewhat of a pig lol The plate was covered with ribs, beans, pulled pork and a half of a chicken - all smoked, BBQd, etc. Maybe we coulda made more of a dent in it if we hadn't had an appetizer called 'Fowl balls' too. And just to clarify what the appetizer was, it was round pieces of chicken wrapped in bacon - and they were surprisingly good =)

So here I lay, typing away atcha all! I did not make matters any better by eating 3 choco chip cookies the hotel offered in their hotel lobby either =/ But hey! Its our vacation, I guess I am allowed to do so - right?

I hated our stop in New Jersey - sorry to any New Jersians sp? who might possibly be reading my blog =) But if you were a Kansan who ended up eating at an Applebees, only to have to be rushed to a bathroom in a matter of 5 minutes after leaving the restaurant, you might feel the same way. Thats all ya say? Heck NO!! My husband drove around and found a Dunkin Donuts and then 5 minutes later a CVS Pharmacy, cuz yes.......one trip to the facilities was not enuf for me. Both places had REEEEAAALLY disgusting bathrooms, an if I had not been in a situation where I urgently needed one, I would have refused to use them. CVS Pharmacy even outdid Dunkin Donuts with overflowing trashcans, mildew on sinks, toilet paper on the floor, and.,.....well, I will stop there cuz I don't wanna be that descriptive now with the way my stomach is flip flopping already from eating too much. CVS Pharmacy was kind enuf to provide a homeless oriental dude outside of their building, who was rapping up quite a song. Despite their ability to provide farwell music for us, I was not impressed. There is a reason I have not heard many oriental rappers on the radio.

After that, we head to a gas station so we can fill up the truck and get the heck out of NJ. My husband just got in the truck and was about to take off when an employee who works there knocked on his window. He rolls the window down to have the guy ask him if he hunts.

"No, " my husband replies and then laughs and asks, "Why? Cuz of the Montana license plate on the truck"? (we are driving his company truck)

'No," the guy replies back with a grossed out look on his face' " I think I just found a deer leg in the trash can and it looks like it has been skinned and such."

AND to which my husband says, 'Nope, not ours! Sorry dude!" He then rolls up his window and takes off.

OK. Lets all take a minute to think on this situation. EVEN if he thought we hunted, which if he took one look at me, how would he ever think I could be with someone who killed Bambi's Mom and left her leg in a gas station's trash can, I dunno.......BUT seriously!! What kind of question is that to be asked? Even if it was ours, do you think we would say, "hey, yeahhh......sorry dude, that deer leg was ours, thanks for asking, we didnt mean to throw it away!"

Needless to say, I do not like NJ and it will probably take alot of convincing to make me think otherwise now lol

Somewhere Between a Cry and a Laugh

I am not sure my title will have anything to do with my blog post today, but after texting my friend L about a Sarah Buxton song, my husband and I decided to tune in to her CD on our drive to NYC =) And there was that line in one of her songs that I thought was somewhat profound - so I figgered that should be my title for the day!

Hopefully today goes a bit better then yesterday, as we weren't off to a good start for our anniversary trip. Considering our anniversary is today, I am hoping this day in particular goes well lol Altho, I did spend at least 10 minutes digging thru 2 bags trying to find my perfume. I almost said the heck with it, I shall stink today! But I really didnt want to start out our anniversary day that way lol Have you ever noticed that when you are trying to find the one thing in your bag you just saw, you can't? Granted, I had lasik done the other day, but I could still see - and even if I couldnt see, I could still feel around in the bag. Aimlessly wandering your hand around your bag trying to find something really peeves me off! *uggh*

We took Karma, my oldest dog, back in to the vet the other day and she may have pituitary Cushings disease =/ I hope not! The veterinarian we took her to was not the same as in years past, as she took a different position now and no longer practices. This veterinarian gave us more info then the last, but was a lot more 'clinical'. He mentioned there is a place in Europe they can cure the disease for 14,000 - to which my husband said he would spend that money. And to which the veterinarian looked at him like he was crazy for trying to cure a 15 year old dog. But I don't think he understands that Karma is more then just a dog to both of us - and any extra time we have with her - well, not to quote a mastercard commercial, but its 'priceless'.

We will probably need the mastercard to pay for the surgery lol

My Eyesight, Some Artwork and a Goofy Dog

OK, I figgered since I still have some energy in me and I can finally see, I oughta add a new post on my blog =)

Ya know, your eyesight is something I think most people take for granted anymore. Well, at least I did until I had to go without my contacts for a week so that our optometrist can accurately test my eyes today. And of course, the glasses I had were realllllly, realllly old. They were better then nothing - but they gave me more headaches then going without. Soo....needless to say, I spent a week pretty much blind =/ Which was really crappy when we hung out with my friend, A, and her husband this last Saturday. We headed to the Plaza to see the John Lennon art exhibit and I was really bummed to not really see any of it. The ones I did see I was standing so close to that I am sure I probably peeved off the other people there to gawk. On the bright side of things, it was harder to see the price tags on the painting/pics lol

It is really funky to have your eyes dilated by the way. I felt like only my eyes were on speed or sumpin'. My pupils were friggin HUGE!!! Ironically, I was tired - but if ya took a look at me, it looked like I was ready to tackle anything. I shoulda took a pic of my pupils for ya'all to really appreciate what I am talking about =)

But anyway! I have been sitting in a chair in front of the TV for, well......for, like.....umm......for like pretty much since I got home lol I did get up a couple of times for leftovers from Turkey day, but otherwise my butt has went pretty darn numb from the inactivity. So I have sat here, laptop on, err.....lap....and watching our youngest dog bein' the goof she seems to thrive on being. I did tune in to the Nature channel where they were showing lion cubs playing for a bit. That was quite fascinating for our young dog - she stops with ball in mouth on the couch and stares at the TV at the lion cubs. She does this for about 5 minutes while my husband and I are almost crying - we are laughing so hard lol Maybe thats the problem with our youngest dog, she watches too much TV and thinks certain behavior is ok and gets freaked out by other things she sees. She IS a bit paranoid and scares easily - she is just a big baby wanting to be loved and reassured all of the time. Not to say I can't understand that, but....

I live in the real world where I know that won't happen *sniffle*

Just goofin! =)

To ask or Not to ask?

This day has went quick - despite all the hiccups along the way =) Our day started out at the optometrists - as I had an eye appt. 'Lil ole moi is going to get lasik pretty darn soon, so had to go thru a round of tests to get ready for that day. I don't think my eyes appreciated it, as I had the most horrid headache for the rest of the day, but.....

We headed back home, as we had a 'stager' coming to our house to say what should be moved, what else should be done, etc etc to sell our house. My husband decides that he will see how observant the gal is and sets 2 magazines on our brassiere table in our living room. These are not any ordinary magazines - one is titled 'Prison Life', and the other is 'Modern Drunkard'. Please do not ask where, why, how he got these mags in the first place lol All I can say is that he does not have an alcohol problem and he has never been in prison. I personally think he just got them to save for days like today, but....

So the gal arrives, she looks our house over, suggests some things and mentions others. But she does not say a single word about the magazines. We know she had to have seen them - as she looked directly at them several times. The last time was when she suggested moving the brassiere table, bent down to start pulling it, looked in the middle of the table at the mags and promptly let go and declared it could wait. She then went to get her purse to get ready to go, mentioned a few other things and departed. Needless to say, I had a REALLY hard time not just bustin' out laughing - especially with my husband looking at me when she laid her eyes on the mags.

My husband said we actually did not do as bad as he thought, we wouldnt have to correct or change too much - which is good. But I have to wonder if she was too scared to mention that much stuff to us after seeing those mags lol Honestly, how could you NOT say something? Is that the kind of thing that is better not to ask? I can understand being polite and all, but I would have to remark on the mags myself if they were in someone elses house I would think.

But I guess if I would quit drinking so much and not be so understanding of the prison time my husband has done, maybe I would know better not to ask lol

An Empty Tank of Gas

Not a good Saturday for me so far =/ I wake up at 6 AM to get to work by 7 A (yeah, was working on a friggin Saturday *mwaa*) and about 3/4 of the way there, I run out of gas. Granted, this was my fault entirely, but I was hoping that maybe, just maybe......I would have enuf gasoline to get to work at least and worry about filling up the tank after I put in my 4 hours. I was already running 'late', and did not want to have to stop and deal with it. If I had been rational at all last night, I would have filled up the tank then, but..... needless to say, I found out that when my jeep runs out of gas, it is totally, beyond a shadow of a doubt, OUT OF GAS. I desperately tried several times to start my jeep, and it died instantly.

So anyway! I was right past a major intersection and had managed to pull off onto the 'merge' lane - but still was in the line of traffic so to speak. I gave my husband a call and he was on his way with a can of gasoline. As I was sitting there, it occured to me that no one was stopping, no one was slowing down, and that no one seemed to care that I was stranded on the side of the road. The more I sat there, the more it started to disgust me that no one cared enuf to see if I needed help. There were numerous things that *should* have made them stop:

1. I had my hazzard lights flashing, so it was obvious something was wrong. Just being in the line of traffic, at a dead stop, should have given people a clue. They had no idea it was that I had run out of gas, my jeep could have died for entirely different reasons. I think the considerate thing to do would have been to stop and ask at least.

2. It was 7 A on a Saturday - surely not everyone had somewhere to be, surely not everyone had work to go to. Did everyone have something more important to do then to be considerate enuf to see if someone else needed help? Does it have to be a car accident before someone will actually stop or slow down?

3. Granted, everyone nowadays pretty much has a cell phone, so it is easier now for people to call someone to come and help them out. But how did they know for sure that I did have one? Some people don't........and sometimes, people even manage to forget their cell phone at home. I was not ignoring the people that passed by. In fact, I am sure IF anyone managed to take time out of their busy morning, they would have noticed a pretty forlorn, sad gal sitting in her green jeep. I was not scowling at everyone, altho I certainly felt like it after sitting there 15 minutes with NO ONE stopping to see if I needed help.

I just don't understand what happened to the days that people did stop and see if someone needed help. I can remember several times when I was younger and my parents' cars got stranded on the side of the road, that people stopped and asked - and helped if needed. Several people in fact......even if there was already someone there helping us.

I mean, really......WHAT HAPPENED?

*sigh*

Step One: The Making of Caramel

I can now make caramel - woot, woot! lol However, the making of caramel did not help me finish my cooking project the other night like I had hoped. Despite having horrid results the previous night with the making of caramel, and having my husband tell me I can NOT make anymore - EVER- I decided to give it a try again =)

I had found a recipe for caramel/chocolate pecan spiders to make for Halloween and decided it was now time to branch out from my typical choco chunk cookies and occasional brownies to something a little more complex. Needless to say, the first pot of 'caramel' looked and smelled awful. But.......thinking I was being too critical of my cooking, I had my husband come and look at it. He looks at it, looks at me and I ask him 'So, does this look ok?'

It was met with an immediate 'NO' - so the pot got put in the sink with some water to deal with in the morning. The morning comes and I am running late for work and my husband decides to clean dishes. AND he decides to text me that I was not allowed to make caramel anymore lol It was pretty darn awful tho - it was basically a hard black rock of burnt smelly stuff =/

But anywhooo......tried again yesterday and was elated when the caramel actually started to look like caramel. Step One was now completed and I can move on and complete these edible spiders that I refuse to let get the best of me. However, the black licorice for the legs was not the 'string' kind and my husband ended up sitting at the table cutting pieces of black licorice into numerous skinny pieces to appease his adoring wife =)

I managed to get the pecans coated with caramel, the legs stuck on and the chocolate drizzled over the all of that without too much fuss. They sat for a bit and I decided to try one of them. I pick the first one up from the wax paper and set it on a plate and proceeded to pick up the others. However, the rest friggin STUCK to the wax paper *uggh* So there was a thin layer of wax paper on the bottoms of the spiders.

*SIGH*

So, yet again, the spiders proved to be difficult for me to acheive. I figger I will give it one more chance eventually (after my husband forgets what a pain in the butt hardened caramel is to clean out of a pot lol), and if that turns out bad - no more spiders for me thank ya very much!!

I have to say, some recipes are sure misleading - they act like creating a spider out of food is the most simple act ever. I would like to see whomever made the recipe make them - as they must have a secret I dunno of!!