Friday 5: Sh*t from My iPhone

Bought my animal a pricey ass new bed, since she about outgrew her old one.
She could give a rat's ass really enjoys watching it from afar.
Xmas stripes + plaid are way more in anyway, chevron was so Pinterest 2013

Enjoying a little Rum Chatta nightcap.
(my box of wine doesn't fit in our wine rack... shame)

As opposed to the repeat customers...
I pulled over to snap this, in the snow, and also to clean my windshield with a snowball.
Because that's how you roll in the Midwest.

A little "awwww" to warm your day: finally got to meet my faux-niece Emmeline after a great visit with her parents!

Met up with friends for dinner in Atlanta when I flew in on business.
They were superrr happy to see me.

Friendsgiving and the Deviled Egg Fart Bomb

A few years ago friends of ours invited a crew over for a pot luck Thanksgiving at their house.  It keeps growing every year, by faces and waistbands, and this year was no different.  Last year the party moved to the couple's neighborhood clubhouse to fit the growing crew, and it is the perfect venue.  They do a great job decorating and everyone signs up for a different dish.  You know the drill.

This year was all about redemption for me.  

Last year I had the bright idea to try my hand at deviled eggs.  I remember not even knowing how to hard boil an egg, which is ironic because my brother and I used to fight over who got to bring the hard boiled egg slicer with them in their lunchbox.  We also used to fight for the title of biggest asshole in the cafeteria, one would assume.  

Wtf were you doing giving us a hard boiled egg slicer, Mom?  

Ensuring our lifelong virginity, that's what.

I digress.

For this little foray 2 years ago I made some perfectly fantastic little buggers, popped em on my cute little party platter all wrapped up in holiday saran wrap for the win.  I'm guessing we had had a rough night the night before because that is the only sane explanation for what happens next.  We took my car instead of Patrick's.  My car is a 2 seater, with a little faux back seat which fits approximately 1 bottle of wine and 1 purse.  I know, because those are usually my only companions.  We got into said mini mobile knowing we were picking up a 6'3" dude on the way to the party.  Our friend can barely fit into the passenger seat, much less this mini jump seat in the back, so I crawl in the back and he wedges (wedgesss) himself into the passenger seat, with my party platter at his feet.  

The view from my back seat.  My feet are in the other seat.

Here's where things get ugly.

It took about 10 minutes before P took the first hard turn and disaster struck.  In the form of a loose egg.  Some adventurous morsel of perfection escaped from the pack, snuck out under the saran and SLAP.  Into the side of the footwell.  Usually this wouldn't be a big deal, except said friend is so wedged in there he can barely reach his own feet.  By the time we realized what was going on another few little dudes followed their friend to freedom and were sliding around and spreading their eggy goodness all over my floorboard.  

And by eggy goodness, I mean serious fart attack smell.

Nostril napalm.

If Humpty Dumpty had a baby, and that baby had a butt bomb, 

my car now resembled the inside of his diaper.  

We were laughing and gagging so hard at this point that the only reasonable thing to do was to get the eggs far, far away from us and the vehicle as quickly as possible.  Down went the windows and out went the eggs.  Not all at once mind you because P is still driving down the interstate and Colin is trying to dig around for slippery Humpty dumps.  So, one at a time, foul little messy bombs of Paula Deen love go flying out of my car.  One can only hope the people behind us were as highly entertained as us as they dodged the airborne attack of messy egg missiles.  Can you imagine driving down the highway, minding your own business, picking your nose, sexting away and whack!  Egg to the face.  An anonymous Sunday egging on the highway.  SMH.

P's grandmother is a highly put together little old Southern lady and was so horrified at this story that she actually went to Tupperware and bought me my very own deviled egg travel carrier.  Because having an egg slicer wasn't ridiculous enough, I now can carry my eggs with me wherever I go, free from shame and eau de fart.  

Paula Deen's Traditional Southern Deviled Eggs

7 large eggs, hard boiled and peeled

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 1/2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish

1 teaspoon prepared mustard

Salt and pepper, for taste

Paprika, for garnishing (smoked paprika adds an extra touch of yum)

Sweet gherkin pickles sliced, for garnishing

Pimentos, for garnishing

Halve 7 eggs lengthwise. Remove yolks and place in a small bowl.

Mash yolks with a fork and stir in mayonnaise, pickle relish, and mustard. Add salt and pepper, to taste.

Fill egg whites evenly with yolk mixture (I used a little dessert spoon).  Garnish with paprika, pickles and pimentos. Store covered in refrigerator.

Adding vinegar helps the whites pull away from the shell for an easier peel.

After boiling, pop em in an ice bath if you have to peel soon.  Can't peel a warm egg!

Palm crushing brute strength.
I creepily love the way it feels when you first get the shell to crumble a bit and then roll it around.

Casualty!

Totallyyyyy redeemed myself!

Magic carrier.

Monday Link Up!

Botanical Garden Holiday Lights

'Tis the season for all things jolly and delicious.  And cold.  So much cold.  Makes my lady balls shrivel up just thinking about the impending cold of Cincinnati.  I'm finally starting to embrace snuggly clothing, mostly thanks to my new fleece-lined tights.  Hubs: "I see these are an acceptable form of pants to you now."  In past years I would just wear my usual short sleeve stuff and then throw on a bigger jacket.  So much easier than having to worry about layering or comfort.  Not to mention the PITAness of dressing and undressing, or, God forbid, an emergency pee stop.  You know the kind, where you're twitching and hopping trying to get your button undone, but you have to go so bad that your pants are on extra tight and you seriously consider just peeing straight through?  These are the fears I have around cold weather clothing.

And sweaters never stay their shape.  What is that.  How can a t-shirt last for 20 years and they can't figure out how to mold my llama fur back into arm holes after it accidentally takes a whirl in the washer?  I googled a badly-fitting sweater gif, since gifs appear to be my latest attempt at acting well under my actual age.  I got a link to these guys' 3-D printed sweater on kickstarter instead.  This 3-D printing phenomenon is pretty cool so I investigated.  First comment: "Um. That's not 3D printing. It's called "knitting" and it's been around for quite a while."  Hahahaha.

Wow.  How did we get here...

Bestie-best scored tickets to see the Botanical Garden Holiday Lights before they were open to the public.  They had s'mores and hot toddies for sustenance as you wandered through the gorgeously lit up garden and admired all the dead-for-winter plants.  Then we hit up Ormsby's for some tipsy Jenga action.  Because that's what we do.

Linkuperoo!

Role Reversal: Hubs Has Left the Building

My current job requires that I travel 4 days a week, every week, to broad and exciting places like Birmingham, AL for a client.  But also NYC.  (I've only been doing it for a year and a half... hypothetically there will be more snazzy stops.)

At first, being on the road was a difficult idea to grasp.  Hubs was not a hubs yet, we were busy putting in offers on houses while I was interviewing for the job and he was busy trying to come up with a "rest of our lives together" speech.  So there was a lot going on and bouncing out of the house for a week at a time was just kind of an "add it to the list" item of things I had to learn to adjust to.  The real adjustment was likely what was going on at home though.

When I did eventually land the job and start my Monday treks to the land of Birm and Ham, Patrick was left with a brand new house and a needy puppy who was used to lunch time walks and someone at home at 5:30pm.  We were used to living in separate apartments and all of a sudden had a huge responsibility of cleaning, yard work, and making a brand new house a home.  New houses don't come with TP roll holders, or towel rods, or blinds... there was a lot to do and I only had weekends to help out.  So P had to learn to become Mr. Mom.  Getting off work earlier than he would have liked to attend to our puppy, the Monster.  Trash on Tuesdays.  Mail every day, not once a month.  There were quite a few blow outs where I would return from AL late on Thurs night and walk in to find straight chaos of a bachelor pad going on with mail scattered all over and dishes coming out of the sink.  It took a lot of convincing that when I got home for my 3 precious days, I didn't want to spend them cleaning up after the manimals when I already had baseboards to wash and bedrooms to paint, not to mention my DVR'd Revenge to catch up on and boxes of wine to consume.  

But we eventually figured out a routine and that was fantastic.

This latest client has been different in that I've been able to work from Atlanta for the past few weeks.  No hotels.  Still the late nights, but with my own bed afterwards.  I get to cook.  I get to clean throughout the week instead of in a burst of cuss words and frustration on a hungover Sunday morning.  There are groceries in the fridge and now it's me that has to eat the leftovers.  This, too, was a weird thing to get used to.  I have a strict hotel-life-routine where my travel kit has all my essentials and I have my set things I do before bed and my workouts in the morning.  Being at home meant bedtimes were erratic, I'd forget to wash my face, I could putter around in the morning playing with the Monster or doing laundry.  It's taken a month for me to get back into a "normal" non-travel routine.  Which is now also fantastic.

This week, though, Hubs has stolen my routine.  

He left this early morning for the airport to go to OH through Thursday.  I coached him on hotel points, gave him packing tips and sent him on his merry way with a solid "get the eff out now or airport security will be your final resting place."  I have no idea what to do with myself this week.  I think I've been in this house for max one night by myself.  The Monster and I have the world at our fingertips.  I have a moderately fresh box of wine, and a silly-full DVR.  I've pitched a slumber party idea chock full of holiday dramas like Love Actually and Elf.  I should be packing and cleaning the house.  I should be writing thank yous and addressing Xmas cards.  

BUT.  

I'm thinking it's finally my turn to be a house bum for the week.  

PJs, Uggs, dirty dishes and unhealthy dinners, here I come.

Maybe even a bath!  I even have a bubble bath playlist, which has never been used for it's intended purpose!  Sike.  Too cold for bath time.  The impending frigidity that means removing oneself from the bath is not worth the effort it takes to get in in the first place.  Kind of like eating asparagus.  The risk is not worth the reward.

Insert clever gif images.

How do people find those?  Is there a gif catalog out there that pairs a fantastically clever, widely known 3 second bit of knee-slapping hilarity for every thought, or are the people posting those the same ones who know all those awesome movie one-liners that seamlessly fit into conversation and make the crowd go wild.  I have neither of these skills.  Here is an ecard instead.

Update: I just did recon.  No gif catalog discovered, but I did land a sweet Revenge clip. 

A whole new world of possibilities has shown itself to me.  Prepare yourselves.

Cooking Class: Tuscany Style

Patrick's parents gave us a class at the local Cook's Warehouse for Christmas last year and in between my traveling, life and the pursuit of happiness, we had totally forgotten to take advantage of the fun idea!

So last week we finally signed up and got to attend a really great class called "Fall into Tuscany."  Our chef-teacher was fantastic and has spent half of each of the last bunches of years in Tuscany, taking tours of people through the countryside learning about the cuisine and culture.  I die.  I will scrub potatoes whine about it for years if it means I could live that kind of lifestyle.

The class itself was kind of fun, kind of juvenile.  I think everyone out there can follow a recipe that involves zesting a lemon and reducing wine and mushrooms, so it was pretty basic, but we still had a good time, and a great meal.  

We made a four course meal consisting of some goat cheese & walnut bruschetta, four mushroom linguini, salad bisteca and ricotta pie.  It was definitely a different kind of date and pretty fantastic for a week day meal!

Goat cheese + cream cheese, with chives and walnuts and lemon zest.  Yum!

Ricotta pie.  Definitely had some consistency issues with this bad boy.

Hubs is a master mixer!

Mom in Town!

My madre popped by for a visit this weekend on her way back from SC and handed off some goodies and things for us to store for a bit.  She lives all the way on the other side of the country, in Vegas, so this was definitely a treat!

It was really great to see her, obviously, but the best was going through boxes of pictures and things she brought for us to store.

Favorite shoes!

Mom made us lots of cute little outfits, including this cowboy set!
Lots of matchy-matchy going on between Ben and I.  Pretty precious.
Goes without saying that those seamstress skills skipped a generation...

My brother and my super cool Nike kicks

  

Ok.... I tried to upload this 7 times, including flipping it upside down on my computer... won't go right side.
This is my fav, so we'll just pretend these pics are us doing headstands.
That's my mom on the right in a little dance recital number, which she saved - and that's me on the right rockin' it 30 years later to some Michael Jackson (complete w/ black shoes and socks).

Me and the Moms!

The "Lifestyle": Are You In It?

I read an article was watching Kathy Lee & Hoda and they were discussing the many ways to indicate to your neighbors/ creepers/ public audience that you are, in fact, of "the lifestyle" variety.  You may be wondering what "the lifestyle" entails.

Swinging, my friends.  And not the playground kind.  

Apparently having a lifestyle, or living any kind of life that may incorporate the word style afterwards opens you up to plethora exciting opportunities - all of which include more than one other person in the bedroom.  Some of the things they were saying made total sense, like having white rocks around your mailbox.  Others I just shook my head at, like an ankle bracelet.  Unless you are Lindsay Lohan (is that still a relevant reference?  I'm so old.) or escaping from someplace, lifestyle bandwagon or not, that ain't a good idea kiddies.

Which brings me to my point.  Apparently that article late-morning-weekday-PJ-fest so ingrained this idea in my head that I found myself snickering at these poor saps in my neighborhood who likely just wanted to celebrate UGA with a silly couple of plastic flamingos.  Suckerssss that is totally one of the signs!  

But maybe they knew that... maybe they are living it up in a freedom kinda lifestyle!  

Maybe they're gypsies too!  Like The Riches!

I'm the only one I know who watched half this season...  I thought it was good!

Oh the crazy things I thought about after that on my little dog walk.  I mean, who really knows their neighbors??  What if I'm the only bland, blase, lifestyle-less person on my block?  Here I am, minding my own business with my fancy terrier and there is a whole street of crazy happening all around me!  

Regardless, take a look at these and then check out your ankle and your mailbox - apparently the next time the UPS man rings your bell he may be ... so many package jokes that I can't bring myself to write.  Sorry Grandma.

Today Show Segment

1.  Put a pineapple upside down in your shopping cart

2.  Wear an anklet on your right ankle, or a thumb ring or a toe ring

3.  Switch your wedding ring to the right hand

4.  Put white stones in your landscaping in your front lawn

5.  Get a yin-yang tattoo

Turns out I may have made up the flamingo sign.  Either that or I've been paying way too much attention to my neighbors lawns, hoping for a swinger I can judge.

I found this gem while hunting down the "lifestyle signs"

Tymber... please enlighten us regarding your swinging friends!  

And please tell me rasta-unicorn hairstyles are one of them.

Volunteer Reading to Kiddies

I volunteered on Friday morning at a local elementary school in Atlanta for their WAR program - "We All Read" which combats illiteracy by providing kids with books and volunteers to read a few chapters.  My company provided each kid with a goodie bag with 5 of the top rated kids books in America, including:

I walked into the library to meet my colleagues and one of their wives (who helped coordinate the whole thing) accosted me immediately and tried to convince me to put on a velcro Cat in the Hat suit and entertain the kids.  I do not entertain on command.  What I do is get sweaty and red faced and back away.  Luckily, I was saved by another coworker who I heard did an awesome job and was even answering kids questions in rhymes?  What?  Rhyming velcro cat > sweaty crying cat...  Especially on Fridays.

I got way into reading to my 3rd graders and read the first three chapters of Charlotte's Web, with attempted voices, obviously.  The kids were so cute and seemed to really get into the book, especially chapter 3, when Wilbur tries to make an escape!  I probably scarred some of them away from reading forever but hopefully convinced a few to go home and keep reading Charlotte's Web, or pick up one of the others. 

It was really fun and got me wondering where else I could get involved.  I haven't done any real volunteering since high school, when I used to help host little science classes for elementary school kids to learn to make Gak (remember Gak?!) and baking soda volcanoes.  

Could be a fun way to meet people and get involved in our new community in Cinci!

So bummed I didn't get a picture of this, so instead I'm stealing some from the local media at v103.  Just pretend that's me.  I was also wearing a Cat in the Hat hat, and I have brown hair too.