Great and Horrible Weekend (all in one)

This weekend was good and bad all at once.  Sunday was GREAT!  I got to meet Rich's parents and Sister and Brother-in-law for lunch.  Rich has the BEST family!  We all met up at the Macaroni Grill in North Olmsted:

It was so much fun!  Rich's whole family is so funny and outgoing.  I laughed so hard and so much that my face was hurting from smiling so much!  Not only were they funny and welcoming, but Mr.and Mrs. Cehelnik actually paid for everyone's meal!  Right?!  How thoughtful was that?  I took a couple of cute pictures for the blog, but lost them (explained later in the blog).

Monday was a down day.  I just relaxed and tried to work thru the caffeine headaches.  Oh, I decided to stop drinking caffeine.  It was making me moody and I didn't feel great, so I stopped cold turkey on friday.  Monday was for sure the worst day.  I made some comfort food (spaghetti and meatsauce) and just vegged out on the couch.

Tuesday was officially the worst day of the week.  I had hired someone to do my taxes because last year:
1.  I moved to a new state
2.  I bought a condo
3.  I bought a car
4.  I got money as part of a class action lawsuit
5.  I got a new job

Anyway, I gave them all of my paperwork a couple of weeks ago, and they called me into their office yesterday to sign forms.  I signed everything and found out that I owe the government money...Like, a lot of money (or to me it seems like a lot).

So I was kinda sad faced about that and then around 5pm I realized my phone wasn't working.  It had been fine all day, but around 5 or 6 nothing.  I tried hitting the power button.  Nothing.  I tried taking the battery out and putting it  back in...still nothing.  Since it was still early, I jumped in my car and drove a couple of miles to the sprint store.  They tried putting a new battery in the phone, still no good.  Finally they decided the phone was fubar and just gave me a new phone.

There wasn't much I lost, except for the pictures from the Macaroni Grill (they were so cute!!)  Sigh.  Welp, I'm working on re-customizing my phone back to what I had before.  Sadness.

Next weekend is going to be busy.  I've got girls breakfast with my friends Leeann and Amber and then dinner with Mitch, Dom, KW and Rich at the mongolian BBQ!  So excited!!

Cooking Nightmares

This weekend was kind of a bust.  Sunday, Beth had to bail on me (no cute kid pics for the blog and even worse, no hang out time with Beth!!)  Monday I picked up some over time at work.  As I was leaving (around 10:30 at night), the elevator opened and this:

Creepy vacuum just hanging out by itself in the elevator.  Then I get to the garage and the elevator door opens again and BAM:

Second creepy vacuum hanging out right outside of the elevator.  If this had been a horror movie, it would have been the beginning of the end.  Thank goodness his this is real life.

Tuesday as my cooking day, and what a nightmare!  Monday night, when I got home around 11/11:30 I took a 7 lb chicken out of my freezer and into the fridge to thaw.  Tuesday I got up and the chicken was still mighty frozen.  I put it in a cold water bath to help unfreeze it:

I replaced the water every half hour for 2 hours.  The outside seemed thawed enough, but the inside and the giblets inside were completely frozen.  Since I was going to put it in the crockpot, I needed to get it going if I wanted it cooked before midnight!

I called dad (the fixer of all problems) and he said to run some hot water in the area where the giblets are:

Skip forward 20 minutes of hot water and digging with a fork (which gave it's life for a good cause):

I finally got the giblets out.  The grosses thing was that the giblets came out in bits and pieces.  The chicken neck was in with the giblets and came out one vertebrae at a time (EWWWWWW!!!!)

Anyway, I finally got it de-gibleted and seasoned and in the crock pot

Next was cupcakes with Brown Sugar frosting.  The brown sugar frosting did NOT turn out.  I mean, it was edible, but it was more of a glaze.

So I took my cupcakes

and dipped them in the glaze:

and they turned out like this:

and this:

Turns out it was a better caramel than icing:

Sigh...Nothing turned out great today!!  Oh well.  Can't win them all!

Now onto the topic of much small talk, the weather.  So crazy.  Monday night it was in the 50's!  Tuesday it cooled down but it looked like this outside:

And then wednesday I woke up and looked outside and THIS:

Hahaha.  Classic Cleveland. Next weekened should be awesome!  I'm finally meeting Rich's Mom and Dad!

Plays and New Pals

Friday I came home from work to find a package in the mail from Clarion, the college I will be attending in Fall 2013.  Here's what was inside:

HA!  So funny!  They're really nice metal sunglasses that say Clarion on the side (you can kind of see it in this picture):

Sunday I dragged a very amiable Rich to go see a play with me in downtown Cleveland   We drove all the way there and were parking before I realized I had left the tickets at home!  I FREAKED out and started turning the car around to go get the tickets.  Thank goodness Rich is so levelheaded.  He said that we could probably get a copy of the tickets at the box office, which is exactly what we did.  PHEW!

After getting the tickets we had 1/2 an hour before they would seat us, so we walked around downtown.  One of the buildings had water cascading off of it (even though it hadn't rained in days).  I took a picture because it looked pretty cool:

We got back to the 14th Street theater and took a pic while we waited to be seated:

Isn't Rich so cute when he's serious?!!!  They seated us at table PP.  HAHAHA.  So many jokes were made...yup, we were at the PP table!

I thought the play was ok.  Rich really enjoyed it...I think?  He's such an all around optimistic person it's hard to tell sometimes lol.  

Monday I got to meet Rich's sister Samantha and brother-in-law Bryan.  They are 2 of my new favorite people!  Have you ever laughed so much your face hurts?  That happened!  It was 2 + hours of laughing, good food and even better people!  We met up at the Hooley House just off of 480:

Rich and I got there early.  We are both very punctual (if not early) people.

Samantha and Bryan arrived not long after.

It was the best "meeting the family" experience so far.  Samantha was so nice and funny and quick to laugh.  Bryan wasn't as talkative, but when he did say something it was beyond funny or poignant!  Samantha regaled us with with story of her less than perfect Vegas wedding (almost 10 years ago!  Right?  Neither Samantha or Bryan look old enough to have been married 10 years!  Maybe 3 or 4, but 10?!)

Hopefully I'll meet Rich's mom and dad in 2 weeks.  If they are half as wonderful as their kids, we'll get along GREAT!

Tuesday was my lazy day/cooking.  I didn't feel like cooking anything special, so I made sugar cookies (Click Here for recipe) .  They weren't overly sweet, but still pretty good considering how easy they were to make!  Here's the before they were put in the oven:

And the after:

So yummy!  I would recommend if you want something sweet, but not overly so, and cheap and easy to make (maybe 30 minutes from start to eat).

YAY for a busy weekend!!  Next weekend I'm going to visit the Woods clan to see how big the babies have gotten, and then will be working OT on monday (presidents day) to get some sweet time and a half!

From Birthdays to Babies

This weekend was CRAZY busy!  I took off on Saturday to help Rich celebrate his 33rd birthday!  It was officially the WORST weather I've seen in a while.  We started off the day going to First Watch for brunch.  I was so happy to see Rich, and so hungry I forgot to take pictures, so, here's a stock photo!

I had a fun evening planned at Dave and Busters, but since it was 20-30 miles away and we were in the middle of a blizzard we ended up going to Applebees instead:

Rich had left over Oreo cake that his family had bought on friday for his birthday, so we stuck a candle in it and sang happy birthday to Rich!!

The drive home from Rich's was terrifying.  I went 30mph the whole way home.  I-271 was the worst.  When I got to I-480 the roads weren't as bad, but everyone was still going really slow.  I made it home without incident, and short of the roads being horrible, it was a GREAT day full of laughter and happiness!

The next day, Sunday, I got up early and went over to Mitch and Dom's.  Since we hadn't hung out in a bit we decided to have a drinking day.  Because everyone but me had work the next day (and no one wants to go to work hungover) we decided to drink in the morning and spend the afternoon sobering up.  Honestly, Mitch and I were the only ones to drink. We each had 2 drinks and then gave up:

How cute is Mitch by the way?!

Mitch and I got hungry after a bit so she made turkey sausage for us!  The boys had eaten earlier so they didn't get any!

It was super bowl sunday, so we parted around 4pm so KW could go watch the game (the only football fan of the group).  I did some grocery shopping then went home and watched movies and relaxed.

Monday was another busy day.  I drove an hour over to see Manders and her baby Gabby on the east side. Gabby had just gotten back from getting shots so she was sound asleep:

Eventually she woke up and I got a cute picture with Mommy and baby.  I can't believe how cute Amanda looks after just having a baby a couple of months ago!!

I got to hold Gabby for a minute, but she's going thru a phase where she only really lets manders hold her, so after a minute she realized I wasn't mom, and started sobbing.  I handed her back to manders, who calmed her down and put little gabby in a swing.  It was all I could do not to take 100 pictures of Gabby, she is SO CUTE!!!

Since Manders lives only about 30 minutes from where Rich lives I dropped by his house after he got done work.  I made us omelets for dinner.  While they were pretty delicious tasting, they did not turn out good.  I "forgot" to take pictures of the monstrosity that I called an omelet.  While I don't have a picture, it looked similar to this:

As I was leaving, Rich asked why I was wearing crocs in the middle of winter (these guys from the october blog:)

I shyly mentioned that winter boots have not been on the top of my budget priorities at the moment.  He promptly gave me $20, which I tried to refuse (he's had girls use him just for his money before, and I don't want to be that girl!), but ended up taking.  I got the fanciest boots at Target for just under 20 dollars!!  RICH IS THE BEST <3

Before I went to bed I put a roast in the crockpot, so I woke up Tuesday to a delicious smelling house and roast for breakfast!  YUM!

While Tuesday is usually my stay at home and do nothing day, I ventured out to go see the movie warm bodies.  As I was leaving a guy just outside of my complex said:

Him:  "You need gas?"
Me:  "? What?"
Him:  "If you need gas it's gone up to $3.70, but if you get to speedway just down the road they're selling it for $3.32"
Me:  "OH MY GOSH THANK YOU!!!:

I hurried over to speedway, knowing it would make me late for the movie, but not wanting to pay an extra 40 cents per gallon of gas.  I was SO proud I got it for 3.32 I promptly called dad to brag about it!

I made it to the movie just as the previews started.  While the concept (zombie love!) was great, there were no surprises or excitement.  You can pretty much see the whole movie by just watching the previews.  Maybe it's my fault for going in with such high expectations, but it was a bit of a let down.

When I got home I decided to make Yellow Squash Fries (click here for the recipe).  First I cut up the yellow squash into long thin strips and dipped them in egg:

I then rolled them in some parm cheese and paprika (the recipe requires crushed pork rinds, but I was feeling lazy):

Then off to the aluminum foiled pan, then into the oven for about 20 minutes (flipped after 15 minutes):

This is what they looked like fresh out of the oven:

I tossed some garlic salt on them and then threw them on a plate to cool.  While they look super funky, I can attest to their deliciousness!!

I has some hot, and some cold and they are yum either way!  I would totally make them more often if they weren't so labor intensive!  Maybe next time I'll make a double batch so I'll have left overs for a week or 2 (instead of a day or 2).

Next week Rich and I are going on a double date with his sister and brother-in-law!  I'm SO excited!  I've been corresponding with his sister and she seems like a really fun person!