2nd Annual Pumpkin Carving Party

Well last night was our 2nd Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest. We had the Honorable Jerry Schroeder as our judge. BooBah made an appearance in his Halloween costume.



Everyone huddled around the table and started carving. For some reason, the new table cloth kept slipping. I'm going to have to do something about that.

Here are the ladies carving their pumpkins!

Zach, Justin, and Jon

Ally, me, and Kate

Pumpkins!

I wish I had a better picture of Chris'. He did an amazing job. He actually used two pumpkins and this one has hands coming out that are throwing the horns.

All in all, it was another success. Libby and Jon's pumpkins won although I failed on getting prizes. That is the problem with trying to pack a million things into one month. Although I did try a new beer called Sun King Cream Ale. It was very good, but I went straight back to my vodka!

New Recipe!

I have been keeping an eye on my list of 101 things and trying to see what else I can cram into October and check off my list. Smart? No. But I like it when things are crazy. Then at least I have an excuse as to why I'm not getting everything done. Last night, I tried a new, very simple recipe. Tomato Basil sandwiches. Yum! All you do is take a tomato, cut it in half. Then put some chopped garlic, salt and pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Then cook the tomato for an hour at 350. Take your favorite bread (the recipe actually called for a baguette, but we used ciabatta bread) and slice it. Put a couple leaves of basil, the tomato and sliced mozzarella. You're done! Enjoy your somewhat healthy sandwich. Here's the picture!


And here's a picture of Hank staring at me while I eat my sandwich. I don't know where he learned to beg.

Skins/Bears game

Wow! What a fun weekend! About 6 months ago, Heather told me that she, Stacy, and Kristen would be driving through Indy to go to the Skins/Bears game in Chicago. I checked the Colts schedule and we were on a bye. So I invited myself along.

Everyone drove up on Friday to Indy where we went to dinner at the Claddaugh. If you haven't been, I strongly recommend it and get the Monte Cristo. It's delish! Then we went back to my house for drinks and to catch a couple hours of sleep. We got up early Saturday morning and headed Chi-town. It was a nice drive. I'm sure we annoyed the hell out of anyone that is friends with all four of us on Facebook. I believe we were updating about every 30 seconds.

We got to Chicago around noon and headed straight to Niketown. The girls like to go there to stock up on Bears gear. I found a Blackhawks snow hat for Chris. :-) Here are the girls comparing their hands to Michael Jordan.




After that, we headed to Gino's East to try our first authentic Chicago style pizza. It was very good, but I'm sorry Chicago, you don't hold a light to my NY style pizza. And it takes too long to cook!

Next up was a stop at the hotel to get checked in and get our tickets for the game on Sunday. Here was the view from the girls' suite. If you look closely, just to the left of the tall buildings, is Soldier Field. :-)

Saturday night, we headed to Wrigleyville to meet up with people's various friends and/or family members at this bar called Trader Todd's. Which of course, we call Trader Joes about a million times. It was a very fun bar. Not too packed, but had enough people to make it fun. Heather tried to convince me that Reggie Bush was at the bar, but when I saw him, I told him that he was too short and his bling bling wasn't big enough. Whoops! Oh and the bouncer thought I was hot. Made me feel good, but not a chance, my friend!

For being as drunk as we were, we got home pretty early. We only made one more stop after Wrigleyville at the bar across from the hotel called Kitty O'Sheas. I think Stacy just wanted to see if she was still kicked out of that place permanently. I don't want to know.

Sunday morning, we were all up at 7:30am ready to go downstairs and grab some breakfast. We did that, came upstairs, showered, and started drinking by 9am. Good decisions made by good people. We got a nice buzz going on and headed out for the game.

Here's the view from our seats! They were pretty good even though I hate sitting in the endzone. They were in the second row and we had some awesome bears fans behind us with the cutest little boy.

Here are the actually fans of the two teams there.

And one of me and Tim, the poor guy who came on our girls trip. I think he will be spending a lot of time alone after a weekend with us!

I didn't really know who to cheer for since I don't care for either team. So I cheered for every interception (a lot), taught the Redskin fans that their punters nickname is Hunter the Punter, and I showed the Bears fans that real football fans stand up when their defense is on the field and its third down. We also threw several dance parties in our section, drank a ton of beer, made friends with everyone, and even kept a friendship going despite someone's team losing. Check out the last pic. :-) Friends forever! And I get to check another item off my list of 101 things.

FML

These are the types of conversations that I have on a daily basis:

Dana: i know. random.org is random
me: wow

Thanks Dana for the stimulating conversation!

SHOUT OUT!

5K!

One of the items on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days was to run a 5K. Kristen Dadi and Amanda Carter had really inspired me to do this. So back in July, I picked the Community Health Network 5K. As it turned out, Amanda was going to be in Chicago for business until the Friday before the race. So I suggested that she take the Megabus down to Indy and then just fly home from there. I really didn't want to run this alone and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to do something together.

So we got up bright and early on Saturday morning (after the neighbors very graciously made us a pasta dinner the night before) and headed to Fort Harrison. It was FREEZING! We were so cold, but we sucked it up and headed in.


I really love when people make a big deal of hanging or displaying the American Flag. I thought this was pretty neat.

Here is us before the race. Some people were keeping warm and then shedding clothes right before each race started. Not me. I was too much of a whimp. I said, I'm running with this fleece on.

During the race, we ran most of it. We had some intervals with walking. It was a really pretty course through a neighborhood and then through the park. I felt pretty good the whole time. Don't get me wrong. If Amanda hadn't been there, I definitely would have walked the majority of the time. But we crossed the finish line running and high fiving each other. I did feel a little silly b/c as we were approaching the finish line, I couldn't help but smile. I'm not a runner AT ALL. Never have been, but it felt really good accomplishing a goal. And the neighbors said I looked super skinny after the race. :-)

Big thanks and shout out to Amanda for coming out to Indy and doing this with me. I really appreciated it and couldn't have done it without you!

Happy 4 Year Anniversary!

I know that Chris and I had our first date somewhere around the 15th of October. But I always forget what the real date is. So last night, we were sitting outside and I said hey, is our anniversary on the 14th or the 15th? And Chris says, oh its on the 14th. So we keep on going in our conversation now that I'm satisfied that our anniversary is on the 14th. Eventually, we end up on our neighbors porch hanging out with them. Probably about an hour into this, I realize that TODAY is the 14th! I'm like oh! Today is our anniversary! Chris is like, um yeah, duh! Hahaha. Whoops! So happy anniversary, Chris! I love you!

Potato Soup

I was going through my 101 things list to cross off things. Its been a while since I've updated! As I'm going down the list, I find "Make soup from scratch." I actually did this last week! I forgot I even put it on my list. I just felt like trying to make some potato soup! Score! So I actually did take pictures along the way in case I felt like blogging which at first I didn't. But after discovering it was on my list, I have decided to blog.

It was a baked potato soup. So it called for four potatoes to be baked. I did six because our potatoes were looking a little small. Here they are all baked in their glory. I had to cut them open and scoop out the potato and put it aside.


Then I melted some butter and added flour and six cups of milk. Here's where I went wrong. All day, I talked about this soup. Everyone had ideas about potato soup. What no one told me is, if you are cooking with milk, you should use whole milk. I used skim which is pretty much water. So I was supposed to thicken this but...

I added my mashed potatoes into the "thickened" soup.

And then I added cheese, bacon, sour cream, and green onions. I know they had measurements on the recipe, but honestly people, can you ever have too much of any of the above ingredients? The answer is no.

Then I let this cook for 10 minutes to "thicken some more."

When it didn't thicken, I remembered someone telling me that if you can't get something to thicken, just add flour. So I added flour and added flour and added flour. Well, by the time it was done, it looked like potato soup, but tasted like flour. Haha. I've gotten a few tips since then such as use cornstarch instead of flour or add cheese or sour cream to get rid of the flour taste.

Anyway, the soup wasn't bad, but it was great. I want to try it again only with whole milk. But so far Chris hasn't dove into try it, but probably due to my description of it. Haha!

Chiefs/Colts game

Yesterday, Chris and I went to the Chiefs/Colts game. We found out very late on Saturday night that our normal tailgate had fallen apart for the next morning. No worries, I had invited a co-worker and his group to come hang out with us. Plus Chris had some friends coming as well. We were a random group of people who didn't know each other at all, but became fast friends through the game of rodeo balls. PJ, don't even bother asking.

So the day was looking good. I was in a good mood, had a nice buzz going on, and looking forward to seeing my boys crush the Chiefs. This all changed about 5 minutes into the game. I think I've spoken about the seats in front of us. Its always different people and usually fans from the opposing team. Well, there were four people all wearing plain clothes. No jerseys, nothing football related, nothing even professional sports related. The minute our defense got on the field and the fans starts cheering, this is what happened:



Can you see it? Can you see the son and the father with their ears plugged? This happened the entire game. It was too loud for them. I'm pretty sure they were Colts fans. What then got to me even more was the fact that during a defense play, the guy in front of the son stood up to cheer and the son complained! What do you care? You are obviously not a football fan! You didn't come to the game to listen to the sounds so why bothering watching? Go home and watch it on TV.

I think I have also mentioned before that the people behind us are kind of obnoxious as well. Well, we figured out yesterday that its not the whole group. It's two of them. That only come to games every once in awhile. They basically sat there the entire game talking about how terrible the Colts were, Peyton sucks, they should bring James back, the Edge would have gotten at least 4 more yards on that play, etc. Oh and don't worry, they didn't forget to add in the comment several times that went "Well, when you know football like we do..." Chris confirmed with me that I wasn't just being a psychotic overprotective Colts fan. They really were not making any sense at all and being very obnoxious. We even had other fans around us complaining. I was pretty miserable.

Then I got an idea. I told the obnoxious guys about the people in front of us. Immediately, their attention was diverted. They spent fourth quarter screaming as loud as they could and making fun of the four people in front of me. It was great! I thoroughly enjoyed the 4th quarter especially b/c we won!! Does this make me a bad person?

Good bye everyone

Well, apparently I'm going to die. Last weekend, I needed to wear jeans to a function. Unfortunately, we don't have a washer/dryer yet so I just went out and bought a new pair. I wore them for the event and that was that. Well, I wore them again today b/c its blue jeans friday. We get to wear jeans to work for the cost of $2 which goes to charity. I noticed at lunch with my department that my hands were turning blue. So I said something. So we were looking at them and I said, well maybe its from my jeans. They are a really dark blue.

They both gasped and said oh my god, you know you can die from the ink seeping into your skin?!?!?! I looked at them with the most ridiculous face. They are always listening to these news specials about how some person died under very unusual circumstances and now we need to be careful.

Blah blah blah. This is how I feel. When its my time to go, its my time to go. I'm going to live my life the way I want and eat and drink what I want. I guaruntee I get sick less often than them b/c I'm spraying anti bacterial shit all over me and my desk. I have an immune system.

Anyway, Dana (shout out!!) and I were discussing this and she told me to google it. So I did. It took me until the third page to find an article about it and it was on Snopes.com. Basically, there was an episode of House where two guys died randomly. The only common factor was that they both bought jeans from the same guy. And apparently the jeans had been soaked in pesticide. Are you kidding me? So if I never blog again, you will know that it is the pants that sealed my fate based on the theory of a television show.

BFFs!!

Would you like to hear how these two became best friends? Well, these are my two two hole punches called Bob and Joe. Bob used to sit on my desk all lonely even though I used him quite a bit. One day, I came to work and Bob was gone!! I asked everyone. No one had seen where my trust hole puncher had gone. Who takes a two hole punch? Seriously? We only use them for our contract files. I don't know any one else who uses these types of filing folders.

Alas I thought Bob was gone forever. I borrowed Mandy's two hole punch for about a month before Mandy got us each two new ones. Hers purple and my green (they were out of blue.) So I got Joe maybe last week? I've just been getting used to using him. Although he is pretty than Bob, he's not as sturdy and can only handle so many pieces of paper at one time.

Today, I was showing my pretty Joe to Justin, my cubemate. It came up again about never having found Bob. Kim from accounting happened to be at Justin's desk. She seemed like the perfectly logical one to blame for Bob's disappearance. Kim looks at me crazy and says what are you talking about? So I tell her the story. She walks over to her desk and says, you mean this one? And holds up Bob. I'm not even joking, the entire floor stood up to look at her b/c EVERYONE knew that Bob was missing. Apparently, Bob appeared on her desk this past Monday. She didn't know where or why. She just kind of left it there.

So now Joe and Bob have each other and I will use them according to the size of the project. I'm happy to share my love with both of them. However, we are still trying to figure out, who takes a two hole punch for a month and then returns it to the wrong desk? We may never know...

Fievel Jr

So I know I haven't posted up much about the house. It's a little frustrating. When we looked at the place, all the utilities had been shut off. So I think we missed quite a few things. The first thing we found out was there is no A/C. It was a miserable first week there, but fortunately, it's fall and so the temperatures have quickly dropped making the house actually quite pleasant.

Once we got the power on, we noticed that our lovely landlord did not have the place cleaned before we moved in. We spent hours on the kitchen which looked like no one had cleaned it in years. (Apparently, there were drug addicts in there before us so this doesn't surprise me. ) Tons of cobwebs, trash left from the previous tenant. The backyard hadn't been tended to in years either. Chris and I have made some vast improvements to this house already.

But there were other things, missing light bulbs, multiple door knobs on doors, backwards faucets, etc. My biggest problem is that we have a mouse. Dana has named him Fievel Jr after her friend, Fievel who lives in her office at work. I guess Chris spotted him first and decided not to tell me. He mentioned it to the neighbors. The neighbors gave us some traps to use which was my first clue there was a mouse. The second clue was the two loafs of bread that he got to before we got smart and started storing the bread in the microwave.

Since then, he has gotten into everything. My cousin Jo and I found him in a box in the bathroom. We tried to trap him and carry him outside, but he jumped out and scared the crap out of both of us. Chris and I bought two cantelopes b/c they were buy one get one free. We left one of them on the counter. Yeah I found it on Monday with holes in it from Fievel Jr. Chris had also put a bunch of full boxes in the laundry room. I didn't know what was in these boxes.

Yesterday I decided to be motivated and start unpacking more of the kitchen. I finished lining the shelves with shelf liner and was comfortable putting stuff away. I got through one box and moved on to the next. When I opened this box, i saw something move. I slammed the box shut and thought, well it didn't look a mouse. I kicked the box and definitely heard the feet scrambling around. That was the end of my unpacking. I went and watched a movie.

A couple hours later, I got brave and decided to attempt unpacking again. I kicked the box and didn't hear anything. I picked it up and still didn't hear anything. So I carried it in the kitchen. I opened up the box. Disaster. The mouse had chewed up two things of ramen noodles, all my spice packets that I've gotten from craft shows or traveling. He ate the side of the my bread crumbs can. I basically pulled out the expensive stuff that was in bottles or cans and threw everything else out. As I was doing this, I saw Fievel Jr jump out of another box in the laundry room. Once again, out for the count. I went upstairs at 8pm and went to bed.

So either the neighbors need to catch Fievel Jr or Chris does. I'm done. This also pretty much sealed my fate of sitting on the front porch drinking tonight b/c I do not want to be in that house.