Cleaning the tub

Last weekend I started a cleaning experiment. I have been looking for a way to clean our bathtub floor, which is made out of fiberglass, ever since we moved into our town home. I have cleaned it before, but it never got really clean. I wanted it to be white. I asked around and got a variety of suggestions on what to use to clean it.

In the end I went for a combination of methods. I first poured powdered comet on the bathroom floor. I wanted to use a brush to really put some elbow grease on it, but I couldn't find a brush anywhere. I need to pick one up. So instead of using a brush I used Mr. Clean magic erasers as my brush. They worked pretty well. However, I think I went through five of them. A friend of mine said that they now make super duty magic erasers with scrubbers on the bottom. They sound cool and I look forward to picking some up. Anyways, I used the erasers as a brush, and then after each use I rinsed the eraser under water, squeezed it to get the water out, and then dipped it in a little white vinegar to clean it a little more.

In the end our bathroom floor did finally look white. I was very happy. It took about an hour just working on the floor alone. The only problem is since I used a combination of methods, I'm not sure which one was the material that made the most significant difference. I'm thinking it was the magic erasers, but I guess I will have to try using them first the next time. I was so proud of our clean bathroom floor that I kept going in the bathroom to look at it and didn't really want to get it dirty again. Oh well. At least I know what to do now to get it clean again.

Happy Spring

Happy 2nd day of spring. I can't wait for the warm weather. I love being able to wear short sleeves and shorts and to have the windows open in the house. Today to celebrate spring Jeff and I went over to Rita's and had a some water ice. Mine was mango flavored. Rita's is great because it's a dessert I can eat. Yes, it's very high in sugar, but there is no dairy and no chocolate. I will have to go back and try some more of their flavors. They also supposedly have sugar free flavors, but they didn't have any tonight when I went.

Hello Kitty 3-D Cookie Cutter

Sanrio has come up with so many interesting gadgets. I found this post which advertises that jbox.com is selling a Hello Kitty 3D cookie cutter that can be also used with toast! Cute. I wonder if I would be able to assemble the cookie or if it would fall apart.

Stuffed Shells

I found jumbo pasta shells at our local farmers market this past weekend. They sparked all sorts of cooking ideas in my head. I had already been thinking about making some sort of pasta stuffed with meat dish so I picked them up.

When I got home I googled stuffed shells recipes until I found a good one on cooks.com. The recipe calls for ground beef, but I substituted it with turkey. I got rid of the onions and substituted egg beaters for a real egg. I also realized while making it I didn't have any nutmeg so I used seasoning salt and italian seasoning. I bet nutmeg would have given it a good taste, I'm sad I didn't have any. The meat mixture was basically a mix you would use to make meatballs.

I made two pans full of the shells. For Jeff, I covered the bottom with tomato sauce, put the stuffed shells in, and then covered it again with tomato sauce and Parmesan chesee. For me, I put a little bit of water in the bottom of the pan and put little bits of butter through out it. Then I cooked them for about 30 minutes and served. Very yummy.

The next time I try this I will cook them in the oven for maybe ten minutes less. The pasta was a little crunchy on the edges, but otherwise fine. Jeff also enjoyed making his own stuffing with my leftover shells. He put tomato sauce and shredded cheese in them. I may also try to make a lasagna with similar ingredients. Oh the possibilities ;)

Burger Grease Art

I avoid all foods that are greasy because they bother my stomach. After watching this video I am now even more glad that I avoid greasy food. Ew. Even though this is sort of an ad for Arby's new sandwiches this guy is very creative and I give him kudos. I love the cute dog cameo in the middle as well eating the hamburger bits.

Bloggers like me

I love food blogs. I have a huge list of foodie type blogs that I read on all sorts of topics. However, many of the yummy things I read about I can't actually eat, because of the various things that bug my stomach. Recently when reading one of my favorite sites I found a post about Sloane Miller and her site. On her site she is known as Allergic Girl. Her postings are all about eating out and enjoying eating out even when she is allergic to a lot of different foods. This really resonated with me. I enjoy food, but have been eating out a lot less and avoiding a lot of different foods when I started having stomach issues about a year ago. Now that I know the cause - ibs and gerd - and what I can and can't eat, I have started eating out a bit more again.

It's just nice to find others out there who are in the same boat even though we may be allergic or bothered by different foods. I'm happy to find her. I also found the Food Allergy Queen through Allergic Girl's blog list. I can't wait to read more of their posts and find others out there who are going through similar things. Yea for the internet :)

Happy Birthday Milo

Today is Milo's fourth birthday! Happy Birthday to our cute furry kitty. We got him when he was about two and a half. I can't believe we have spent almost two years with him already. I think we will have to do something special for him. Jeff thinks we should give him some tuna juice while I'm thinking of buying him a small toy. Either way I'm sure he will have a great birthday taking naps in his sun beam and chasing his toys around the house.

The Hamentashen House

Tis the season of Purim. To celebrate I ordered some hamentashen from a local temple. I ordered a box of cherry and apricot and a half a box of apple. They are very yummy. Then a friend of ours who is a trained maker of yummy dessert things made us some home made chocolate chip hamentashen.

Now my parents are down for a visit. They brought hamentashen with them as well. They brought some from their temple as well as some from Whole Foods. So we have hamentashen of all different kinds from four different sources. Yummy. We are going to freeze most of them so that we can pull them out at different times of the year and enjoy them. Freezing is also good so that we don't eat them all at once :) It's just need to see so many different kinds of hamentashen in one spot.

Snackage

While wandering the snack isle at the grocery store I found a new snack food that is pretty yummy - Quaker rice cakes. They are great for a snack because they are healthy, yet also get rid of my carb cravings. They come in all different sizes and flavors. So far I have tried miniature peanut butter, sour cream and onion quakes and kettle corn quakes. So far I think my favorite was the sour cream and onion quakes. I think the next ones I try will be apple cinnamon. My goal is to try all of the different flavors except for the cheese ones of course.

Alphabet Survey

Here is a fun survey I found on the internet.

A
- Age: 29, 30 in May (eeks!)
- Annoyance: Mean people
- Animal: My kitty Milo

B
- Beer: I don't drink
- Birthday: May 5
- Best Friends: Jeff
- Best feeling in the world: Being happy and contented
- Blind or Deaf: Deaf
- Best weather: Spring, probably around 70-80
- Been in Love: Yes
- Been on stage?: Yes. I have been in band and chorus all through school. That counts right?
- Believe in Santa: I'm Jewish.

C
- Candy: I love snickers, m&m's, caramel squares,cadburry creme eggs, and the rolos I had at work the other day were really good
- Color: Purple, green, cranberry
- Chocolate/Vanilla: Chocolate
- Chinese/Mexican Food: Chinese! I have it every saturday
- Cake or pie: CAKE!
- Continent to visit: I would love to go visit Asia. I want to go to Japan.
- Cheese: I love cheese, but it doesn't love me. When I do eat it I like american and cheddar

D
- Day or Night: I'm not sure. I like being up in the morning to get lots of stuff done, but I love sleeping in. Probably day. When I work I can't stay up very late at all.
- Dancing in the rain: I'm a horrible dancer

E
- Eyes: Greenish I think they are hazel
- Everyone's got: Their own opinion
- Ever failed a class?: No, but I did get a D in Math in high school on an interim report

F
- First thoughts waking up: What time is it?
- Food: I love to learn about/cook different kinds of food. I'm a bit of a wannabe foodie

G
- Greatest Fear(s): certain types of doctors, pain
- Goals: To have kids in the near future, to find my calling in life, to enjoy my free time more
- Gum: I don't really chew much gum, but when I do I like juicy fruit and the sugarless ones. There used to be a good kind that was rectangular shaped with one flavor on the outside and one on the inside, I can't remember the name though.
- Get along with your parents?: For the most part yes :)

H
- Hair Color: Golden brown
- Height: 5'2"
- Holiday: Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Cinco de Mayo (my birthday :))
- How do you want to die: Peacefully when I'm old

I
- Ice Cream: Rocky Road. Though there are some good soy ice creams out there. I like the toffuti's mint chocolate chip
- Instrument: Clarinet. I've played the b flat, contra alto, and bass

J
- Jewelry: I only wear a little. I wear my wedding and engagement ring on my left hand, my "I am my beloved and my beloved is mine" ring in hebrew on my right hand, hamsa bracelet on my left, watch on my right, and a necklace. However, I am starting to get into cheap cute chunky jewelry
- Job: Intern who works in research/statistics

K
- Kids: None at the moment, but I would like two
- Kickboxing or karate: I've wanted to try kickboxing, but I hear it's not good to try if you are totally out of shape.
- Keep a journal?: Yes

L
- Love: Jeff
- Letter: J
- Laughed so hard you cried: I did at work on thursday

M
- Milk flavor: I don't drink milk, never really did even when I could. But I love chocolate so I will say chocolate
- Movies: My favorites are Contact, Moulin Rouge, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original)
- McD’s or BK: McD's

N
- Number: 5

O
- One wish: I'd like to enjoy myself in whatever I'm doing and not worrying about other people or being bored

P
- Pepsi/Coke: Diet Coke. However, if I have to drink pepsi I like real pepsi. Diet pepsi tastes weird
- Perfect Pizza: I used to say pepperoni pizza with bacon and onions. Now I make a soy cheese pizza on bobboli with grilled chicken.
- Piercings: 1 in each ear

Q
- Quail: I think I've eaten it once.

R
- Reason to cry: ASPCA commercials w/ Sarah McLachlan, when anyone gets married or gives birth on tv (lol, yes I'm a sap)
- Reality T.V.: I will watch certain shows, but some of it is too over the top for me.
- Radiostation: WMMR, 106.5, WJFK
- Roll your tongue in a circle: I can't :(
- Ring size: 5

S
- Song: I have a lot of favorite musicians, but I can never remember the names of their songs.
- Shoe size: Depending on the shoe and the socks I'm wearing anywhere between 7-8
- Salad Dressing: Ranch on the side
- Skinny dipped?: Yup
- In the shower?: What is this question asking? Aren't you always naked in the shower?
- Strawberries/Blueberries: Strawberries
- State: VA, DE

T
- Tattoos?: None, I have such a low tolerance of pain
- Time for bed: Usually about 10-10:30pm on week days and 11ish on weekends
- Thunderstorms: Very cool

U
- Unpredictable: Usually not. I like to plan things in advance :)

V
- Vacation spot(s): Outer Banks, Florida

W
- Weakness: Lack of confidence, anxiety, caring what other people think, shyness
- Worst feeling: Getting into a big fight, being in work I hate
- Wanted to be a model: Nope, could never make it as a model
-Worst Weather?: I hate it when it's really hot and when it's really cold. Though I do like snow

X
- X-Ray: I haven't had one in a really long time.

Y
-Year it is now: '09
-Yellow: I wore a yellow v-neck fleece to work yesterday because it made me feel springy

Z
-Zoo animal?: When I was a kid I wrote a story about wanting to be a hyiena because they laugh all the time.

Dairy Free Icing

Today there was a lot of food around at work. There were two birthday celebrations that I know of plus some other types of food from a meeting that occurred. In one of the birthday celebrations there was a large cake. I love cake, but was trying to talk myself out of having a piece because it's unhealthy and because the icing would probably upset my stomach. However, I heard someone say that the icing was dairy free. I was like woah, how cool! I had never thought to look for or ask about such a thing. When I heard that, I of course had to have a small piece, and it was good. I hear that there are two grocery stores in the area that sell dairy free icing so I will definitely have to check them out. So yea for being able to eat a little more cake ;)

Peeps

The Washington Post is having it's annual Peeps Diorama Contest. All you have to do is come up with a theme, buy some peeps, set them up according to your theme, and take a picture. They also have pictures of last years winners posted. Some people are so creative. My favorites are the Simpsons and the Batman and Robin peeps.

Twitter

Twitter is gaining in popularity these days. I hear about people twittering everywhere. I even heard our local news anchor talking about how he twitters and asked Sam Champion from Good Morning America to be his friend on facebook and asking if he twittered. That made me laugh.

I don't have a real cell phone that I use. I have a pre-paid phone. I basically pay $100 a year for service and use it when I'm not at home or for emergencies. However, twittering is making me want to get a real phone where I could join in. I doubt that I would ever buy a phone just to twitter, and I don't have enough people I actually talk to, but it would be fun to join in. Though I'm not sure if anyone would even care what I had to say.

Recently, I have found myself reading twittering from authors of my favorite websites and even from celebrities. I have found that Matthew McConaughey twitters as does Soleil Moon Frye. It's just fun to read. I guess that goes along with my hobby of keeping up with celebrity gossip.

Comcast Commercial

Comcast Cable has a new series of commercials out. I saw one for the first time just last week, but I'm not sure if I like them. They are animated and have this weird song that the people sing. The song sounds very monotone like the people aren't singing but mumbling. It's odd. However, every time I hear the commercial I stop what I am doing and listen to the song. I guess that means the commercial is doing it's job. From listening to the commercial a few times I find that the longer version of the commercial is better than the shortened version, and the version that they play on the radio sounds better. Still oddly weird yet catchy. If you haven't heard the song I'm talking about go here and click anywhere to see the different versions of the commercial.

*EDIT*

Here is the commercial from YouTube

HTML

Last night I spent some time online looking for a craft to get into. I have been looking for something crafty to try, but I haven't had that much luck. I have tried knitting, crocheting, latch hooking, needle work, and even making flannel blankets. I never was very good and I didn't continue to do them.

Last night I started looking at beading crafts since three of my relatives are getting into making bracelets and necklaces with beading. I may try it, but I am not sure yet. In the end, I ended up fiddling with the html on my test blog. I am pretty good at basic html, but I am no where near an expert. I can usually make it do what I want when I have a guide or something to start with. I just keep tweaking it until it works out. Html is crafty sorta in a weird way :)

I finally figured out with some help how to change the layout of blogger with their new widgets. I now have my test layout in three columns instead of being stuck with the layouts that blogger lets you choose from. I am going to play with it a bit more to perfect it on my test blog, but I may change it to my layout over here as well.

*UPDATE*

So I decided to try the new layout over here. The layout was made by Amanda at Blogger Buster. I'm still getting used to it and trying to decide if I like it better than the two column layout. We will see. I may also continue to tweak it some.

The cadbury creme egg cake experiment

While reading through one of my food blogs I found a post talking about how they have cadbury creme egg McFlurries in England. I wonder if it will catch on and come to the U.S. I would love to taste one, but I bet they would be way too sugary. While reading the comments I found another link that lead me to the cadbury creme egg cake experiment on Jay Barnes' blog. In his experiment he attempted to bake a cake with cadbury creme eggs instead of regular eggs to see what happened. It was an amusing read even though he does cuss a bit. I couldn't believe he threw out the cadbury egg "shells" after he got the yolks out though. I would have eaten them, yum.

Recipes floating in my head

A lot of the time I will get an idea for a recipe by watching a commercial on tv, reading something on the internet, or by a meal in a restaurant. Lately, I have a few recipe ideas floating in my head that I have been meaning to try. A lot of them have been in my head for a while. I thought if I put them down in writing that maybe I would actually make them.

One recipe that I would like to try is home made chicken noodle soup with home made stock. I found a great recipe on Macheesmo's site. I visit his site regularly. His recipe uses a whole chicken and looks great. Can't wait to try it. I also recently found some great Asian noodles that are sorta ramen like that I mixed with shrimp and a little soy sauce. I would love to find an Asian broth and make my own pho bowl.

The other two recipes I would like to try are on an Italian theme. I would first like to try to make low acid tomato sauce. Tomatoes are acidy and bother my stomach, but yet I've been craving some baked ziti recently. I hear that you can add baking soda to tomato sauce to make it less acidy so I would like to try it. The other Italian thing on my mind is ravioli. Most ravioli you can get has cheese in it. Again I can't eat regular cheese, but I bet I could make ravioli from scratch and it would be even yummier. I'm sure the filling won't be too hard. I just have to figure out the dough. I'm not sure if I can buy ready made dough somewhere or if I have to make it from scratch which I could probably figure out how to do. I may need to buy a rolling pin first though lol.

Hello Kitty Hell

I found a great new Hello Kitty site called Hello Kitty Hell. This blog is maintained by a man whose wife is in love with Hello Kitty. More so than I am I have to point out. Her husband does not like Hello Kitty at all and shows his distaste in his blog posts. He also posts about all of the wacky items that have been found with Hello Kitty on it. Some examples are a whole hospital where actual children are born in with a Hello Kitty theme, a Hello Kitty patch for someone in the military, and Hello Kitty wedding dresses. Great read, but some posts are nsfw.

Domokitty

What do you get when you put Hello Kitty and Domokun together? Domokitty! Only one was made by David Faller and it was sold to charity. Very cute!

Colorful Turkey Hamburger Rice

I tried a new recipe I found online for dinner tonight. I was excited to try it because it sounded yummy. I found the recipe at Heather Van Vourous's site on the recipe board posted by Missy.

It started off a little rough because I didn't read the directions carefully. I put the uncooked turkey in the pan when it should have been cooked first. That was easily fixed though and all went fine. I excluded a few ingredients though. I didn't add onion and celery because they bug me and I didn't include green beans and peas because Jeff doesn't like them. That would have been a full pan if I had added all of those things. My pan was stuffed as it was. I also substituted couscous for rice because we didn't have any real rice around.

In the end, it came out pretty well. It was all mixed together in the pan and looked kind of like a stuffing. Jeff did not like how it looked and that it was all mixed together. He tried it and said it tasted fine but didn't like how it looked. I didn't mind it and actually really enjoyed it. I'm going to bring the leftovers for lunches this week. Should be yummy and filling, which is just what I need in the middle of a work day.

Private Practice

I just got done watching the last episode of the three episode arch where Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice crossover. I have watched Grey's Anatomy from the beginning. I watched it before it was popular. I was hooked from the very first episode. So when Private Practice spun off of it I gave it a chance. However, I didn't like it and stopped watching it. Recently, I have watched Private Practice for the last three weeks because of the cross over event and it has reminded me why I don't like this show. It is too over the top. Grey's Anatomy I know is dramatic and everyone is sleeping with each other and it's not anything like real life. I know this. However, it seems like in Private Practice they try to go beyond that. Each episode is like an after school special that is on steroids. From having to decide to surgically make a baby male or female to violence in high schools to parents leaving their children to making a dying teen pregnant so that she can have her wish of being a mom come true before she dies. It's crazy. I am glad this arch is over so I can go back to not watching Private Practice anymore.

Animal Crossing City Folk

For Christmas I received Animal Crossing City Folk for the wii. I had been playing Animal Crossing Wild World on the Nintendo DS and enjoyed the game. The main premise is to decorate your house with different themes of furniture, and to collect/sell/fill the museum with fish, sea shells, fossils, bugs, and paintings. I was excited to try it out on the wii. After playing the game for a few months I feel like I am able to write a review on the wii version.

In the Nintendo DS version you are able to have a house with five rooms. One main room, one back room, two on the left and right, and one on the second floor. In the wii version you only get three rooms. There are too many furniture options to only have three rooms. In the DS version it is easy to get rare fruit when in the wii version if you don't visit a different player's towns it's really hard to get them. I still haven't found a piece of rare fruit. In the DS version after being friendly with a character they will give you their picture which gives you extra points on your house score. I don't think this feature is available in the wii version which sucks. Another annoying thing is the letter writing. It is horrible to have to write letters to the players with the wii mote. We invested in a usb keyboard, which makes letter writing much more bearable.

What are the good things about the wii version? It is easier to get money in the game for one. That is a good thing. I also like being able to see all of the furniture options on the big screen. In addition, the wii version has some new special holidays that are fun to take part in. The wii version also lets each character have their own house, which is good if you have more than one person playing the same game. In the DS version Jeff would have had to share my house with me and we would have to split up the rooms. In the wii version he can decorate his own house however he wants.

Overall, I like the Nintendo DS version better.

Beef Domokun

I have a soft spot for Domokun. I think he's cute. I have started a growing collection of Domokun dolls and memorabilia. This is why I got excited when I found this link. Jessamyn found the beef and added a creative touch. It's a Domokun made out of a beef tendon. Awesome job, but a little gross!

Falafels

I made falafels for dinner tonight. I had wanted to make them for a while, but hadn't because the directions always say to fry them. I am avoiding all fried foods since it isn't healthy and my tummy couldn't handle it. Today while wandering the grocery store isles I realized I could pan fry them. This was an exciting prospect. I found a packaged mix where the instructions only called for water to be added and bought two so we would have leftovers through out the week. I could of just made them from scratch instead of buying a mix, but it's easier and quicker to just buy the mix.

When I got home I started making them. All you have to do is pour the dry mix in a bowl and then add one cup of water. Then stir the mix and water together and then let it sit for 7-8 minutes. After it sits, spray the pan with pam, shape them into balls, and then brown them. They turned out to be falafel pancakes, but still good. We had them with pita and ranch dressing. Well Jeff did since I can't do dairy. They are very filling and healthy. I can't wait to use them for snacks while at work.

Hello Kitty Watch

I have loved Hello Kitty ever since I was a child. My mother used to buy me Hello Kitty merchandise when I was young. I still love Hello Kitty stuff and get excited when I see stuff with her face on it in stores. And yes, I know that Hello Kitty stuff is everywhere and that there is no way I could collect it all. That doesn't stop me from searching for Hello Kitty on whatever I may be looking to buy at the moment.

I am in the market for a new watch. I like my current watch, but I am looking for something a little different and something that matches more things as my current watch is a light purple. I was randoming around amazon.com and found this watch. Wow. It is so pretty. It's silver so it would match anything, it looks professional (not too childish) and it has Hello Kitty on it!! I think it's a little expensive for my tastes, but I'm tempted. I'm not sure if someone would take me seriously if I went to a job interview with that watch on though. Doesn't stop me from drooling though.

Tagalongs

Today I bought a box of girl scout cookies. I had wanted to buy a box, but I actually hadn't seen any girl scouts around. I bought my favorite kind of girl scout cookie - tagalongs. They are so good. They are the ones that are part cookie part peanut butter and then dipped in chocolate. Yummy. The only problem is that they are 9 grams of fat for two cookies. With my annoying stomach issues I have to eat very low fat or my stomach protests. So I will be rationing them out. If you divide 9 by two you get 4.5 grams of fat. That isn't bad. So if I eat one cookie per day or every couple of days my stomach should be fine. I hope so anyways. So that is what I'm going to do. It's hard to stop at just one, but I will do it. I have put them in the freezer because they are yummier that way and because they are out of sight so I won't be tempted.

Starbucks Oatmeal

A couple of co-workers today decided to go on a Starbucks run in the middle of the day. I overheard their plans and went online to the Starbucks website to see if I wanted anything since I don't drink coffee and I knew they would ask if I wanted anything. I came across their new "Perfect Oatmeal". I had read on one of my many food blogs that their oatmeal was ok so I decided to try some. I got their brown sugar oatmeal.

The oatmeal itself was ok. They don't make it from scratch. I hear they make it out of packets like many do at home and then heat it up. It was kinda bland and needed more flavor. It was also a little watery, yet still kinda thick. I liked the thickness, but it didn't impress me that much. I can make oatmeal at home that doesn't cost anything and I can put whatever I want in it.

The thing that really bugged me though was their website. I was trying to look at the ingredients in the oatmeal and trying to find out if they make it with milk. To actually look at the nutrition information for the foods on the menu you have to put in your zip code which I think is dumb. Then the site decided not to work and kept giving me errors. After playing with it a while I finally got it to work and tried a few Starbucks in Delaware. All the sites said no nutrition information available. So I tried in different states to see if only Delaware sites didn't have information. Nope. Every Starbucks site that I tried had no nutritional information listed. On their site they do say you can substitute soy milk for regular in their coffees, but they didn't specify what they normally make their oatmeal with. Very annoying. So instead I googled Starbucks and oatmeal and nutrition information. I found the amount of calories, but I couldn't tell if it had milk in it. I did find some other blogs talking about it, but nothing concrete.

*UPDATE*
My stomach did fine with the oatmeal so I'm thinking that they use water in their oatmeal instead of milk. I also googled it again with different terms and found two different articles mentioning that they use hot water in their oatmeal. I'm glad to hear that even though their oatmeal wasn't the best. If I'm in a pinch I would definitely try it again.

Fortune

I had my chinese food for dinner as mentioned in the entry below this. However, I saved my fortune cookie for a snack during break from class. When I opened my fortune I got a chuckle. My fortune said: "You have the ability to analyze and solve any problem." Very fitting to open in the middle of statistics class isn't it? I think I'm going to tape it to the front of my statistics notebook.

Class

I have class tonight. I'm actually excited about it. Yes, I'm a nerd. I'm taking a certificate program on statistics. Hopefully in the end it will help me find an awesome job. Tonight I think we are just going to go over basic statistics like summary statistics. Hopefully all will go well.

Since I won't be going home for dinner I picked up some chinese from the place near work for dinner. It's sitting in the fridge at work and is making me hungry. I feel like it's calling out to me lol. I think I need to pack more interesting lunches that satisfy me more.

Pandora

I recently discovered and have been playing with Pandora. Very cool site. When you first come to the site it asks you to enter one musician or song you like into the engine. That will create a music "station". After that Pandora will play songs that are similar to the song you entered. You can add in a variety of artists to one channel like I have the Classical music mix channel for when I work. On it I have Josh Grobin, Yanni, Apocolyptica, Enya and more. It's a great way to hear new artists I've never heard of before.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day! Jeff and I aren't doing anything real exciting today. Just enjoying each other. I did get beautiful roses though. Thank you! We thought about going out to eat tonight, but all restaurants will be overpriced and crowded tonight. I rather cook in. We thought about making sushi tonight, but I'm not 100% sure what we will be making tonight. Here is an idea for a cool project if you find yourself with too many candy hearts.

It's supposed to snow tonight and I don't want it too. It's been warmer recently and I love it. What I am able to experience that is. Whenever it's been warm I'm usually stuck in work and miss it all. Oh well.

A bit more snow

So we did get a bit more snow yesterday. As it got dark it was flurrying outside, but nothing major. However, when I got up in the morning we had a dusting that covered the ground and our cars. I think we got an inch and a half total. Not much of anything. It was a pain cleaning off my car though, all the snow kept blowing back at me.

Today is a slow day. Nothing that exciting going on. I'm looking forward to this weekend. We don't have any big plans but that's ok. It will be warm and nice and relaxing, just the way I like it.

Must see tv tonight? American Idol is on, which is good. I'm sad that they cut out most of the parts with the bad singers. That was my favorite part. Bones used to be on Wednesdays but it moved to Thursdays. There isn't that much on anymore on Wednesdays.

Snow

It's snowing out. Well it has been since this morning. I woke up to the top of my car covered in a light dusting of snow. It doesn't seem to be accumulating much on the roads or the cars at this point. The weather channel says we are supposed to get anywhere from 2-4 inches with a crazy evening commute, but at this point I'm not sure. We would have to get a lot of snow in the next couple of hours to reach that.

Right now I'm bored. I've exhausted my list of url's I normally visit. I think I'm going to challenge myself to write at least one entry in here a day. Lets see if I can keep up with that.

Cooking

Recently, I have had a lot of stomach issues. Well not recently, this past year. Anyways, because of the many things I have had to cut out of my diet I have started to cook a lot more from scratch. This way I can cook what I want and not include all the things that bother me. I have always enjoyed cooking, but I feel like I'm starting to get more into it recently. I cooked a whole chicken (six lbs) for the first time the other week and it turned out great. I was very excited. I have made chicken tenders, flounder, and all sorts of things. Making things from scratch is also helpful when I crave a particular food, but can't eat it for one reason or another. I have gotten good at substituting ingredients for safe ingredients which lets me make a healthier version of the food. This way I can satisfy my craving. So yea for cooking. I think I will be posting some of my recipes to keep a record of all the great ones that I turn out.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a great day and eats lots of yummy candy. My costume for today consists of cat ears. I was going to wear some fairy wings, but I decided against it. Went for low key. We will see what my other co-workers are dressed up like. My senior manager is dressed up as Count Dracula. LOL one of my co-workers just said that we are dressed like researchers. Too true.

Combining

So I should update this blog eh? Jeff says that I have way too many blogs that no one reads about random topics. I had a cooking blog for a while, a blog about domokun, and a blog for Milo our cat. So I figure I should try to combine them all into one and see if I can get some readers. Hopefully posting will become less sporadic :D

Domo

27 dresses

I love a good chic flick. I love romantic movies and all the mush. This is why Jeff and I netflixed 27 dresses. I had wanted to see it for a while. The commercials made the movie look good. However, I think that this is the first chic flick in a really long time that I did not like.

The movie was basically about this girl (Kathrine Heigl) who couldn't say no. She was always taking care of other people hence being a bridesmaid in so many weddings. I know the point of the movie was to talk about how she couldn't say no and show her growth, but the fact that she couldn't say no annoyed me. If she could have said something at the beginning of the movie there would be no rest of the movie. Kathrine Heigl spent the whole movie being used and having to go through all this crap because of mean people just because she wouldn't stand up for herself.

In addition, there were many aspects of this movie that I have seen in other movies. It made it very predictable. For example a guy writing an article about a girl and then guy falls in love with girl and wishes he wasn't stuck writing about (Never Been Kissed) or girl pining after this one guy the whole movie, but when they finally get a chance to be together she doesn't want him anymore. I'm sure there are many movies out there that use that formula.

So in the end. I liked the mushy parts, but overall the movie irked me.

Cow Appreciation Day

Do you like to eat at Chick-fil-A? Do you want a free combo meal? Then tomorrow dress up from head to toe as a cow for Cow Appreciation Day. I think it may cost more to rent a cow suit than it would actually cost to buy the combo meal. Still would be entertaining nonetheless.

Amazing jumping cat

Milo loves to chase his toy mice around and will get some good air if you throw it right. However, the cat in this video beats Milo in the height department. I think the cat is a wild breed which may explain how high the cat can jump. Amazing.

Cardboard cat playhouses

I love finding new cat toys, but this one looks a little goofy. These are cardboard cat playhouses shaped as tanks, airplanes, and fire trucks. They don't look like they give a cat much room to play in. Interesting, but doesn't seem very practical.

Happy belated birthday bread

Yesterday sliced bread celebreated it's 80th birthday. Wow, I had no idea that it was that old. I did celebrate yesterday by eating a turkey sandwich for lunch.

Salmon burgers

I tried a new recipe last night for dinner that was healthy and really yummy. I made salmon burgers from scratch. Well the salmon was from the can :)

All you need is two cans of salmon, 1/4 cup of oat bran (I used oatmeal), 2 scallions, one egg, and 3 tablespoons of butter.

Drain the two cans of salmon and place them in a mixing bowl. Mash the salmon and add the oat bran, scallions, and egg. Mix. Then in a frying pan melt the butter and form the burgers. Cook the burgers about seven minutes a side, turning carefully.

They come out tasting yummy and buttery. We ate them with rolls, but you could be even healthier and put it on top of lettuce.

Crafty

This past weekend I decided to be crafty. I saw this cool craft in a catalog I wanted to try. It was a kit to make a fleece blanket. Basically it was fleece strips or squares (I'm not sure which) that you tied knots on the edges to keep it together instead of having to sew, which I'm not good at. I was like, "Hey, this is a craft that I could do and not mess up too badly."

I decided to stop in at Jo Ann's Fabric's to see if I could find it instead of having to pay shipping and handling with the catalog. I found they had a bunch of kits to make fleece blankets with a lot of cute patterns. I ended up with one with monkeys on it which matches my monkey pjs quite nicely :) Anyways, I brought it home and soon found that it was a lot more work than I was expecting.

First, instead of squares of fleece or strips it was two large pieces of fleece. I had to do all the cutting. I had to cut a 7inch square out of each corner and then cut 7inch strips 1 inch a part all the way around the fleece. Then I had to knot each strip from one piece of fleece to the other. It took me three hours. Not what I was expecting.

The whole time Milo was sitting on top of it. The second I spread it out he was laying down in the middle of it. While I worked he stretched out and attacked my strips. I yelled at him a few times, but while I worked he was never far away from my blanket.

In the end it came out cute. I like it and it is really warm. I probably won't do anything like that again for a long time. However, when I use it Milo always comes to sit on it. He also loves taking naps on it. Jeff calls it Milo's blanket, but I won't let him have it. I worked too hard on it to give it to him.

American Foods

This link lists the top ten foods that only Americans could have invented. I'm not sure of all of them like chinese food (although I know our version of chinese food is more american). Mmm smores, chinese food, and corn dogs are making me hungry. I am ashamed to say I have never had a real philly cheese steak and live pretty close to philly. However, now days, I don't think my stomach could take it.

Nintendo DS teaching English

There is a school in Japan that is using the Nintendo DS to help teach the students English. I think this is a very cool idea. It's a way to teach children instead of just reading out of a book without any real world applications. I still like Animal Crossing the best, but I would definitely try this game out.

Combos

While I love to snack on cheddar cheese cracker combos, these new bacon, egg, and cheese flavored combos sound a little weird. I would definitely try them and see if they taste like the yummy breakfast combination, but I'm not sure if they would be great or gross.

Lars and the Real Girl

Jeff and I received this movie off of our netflix list. Leading up to watching this movie Jeff did not want to watch it. I have heard that it was a good movie, so I wanted to try it. This movie is weird. We kept looking at each other during the movie saying no way. However, if you can get past the weirdness it is sort of a good movie. It has a good message. It's about this one guy who is having some issues in life and starts retreating from society. He ends up buying a real girl doll (a life sized doll) that he introduces people to as his girlfriend. He takes her everywhere and has conversations with her. Most of the movie is about what society thinks and how they get over their judgments and support him.

Bit of a foodie

I like to eat. I like to try new foods and different things. However, I haven't been able to do as much of that as I would like the past year. I have had stomach issues that may be caused by gerd and by a gallstone. Because of these two things, I have mainly stuck to blander foods and not been very adventurous.

I have found that when I'm bored at work I tend to end up on food type blogs. It's amazing how many are out there. I found a foodie blog roll today that looked cool. My blog isn't 80% food though so I couldn't join. I can still read. It's cool reading everyone's blog with pictures for each step, but that is way too much work.

I enjoy cooking, however, I haven't been doing much lately because of work. I'm tired when I get home and don't want to make anything big. However, reading all of these food related blogs does make me feel like I want to cook more again. Maybe one new recipe a week would be a good start.

Last night I did try a new recipe. I made eggplant moussaka. It was sort of like an eggplant lasagna. I started by browning eggplant slices and then put the slices at the bottom of a casserole dish. On top I poured a mixture of browned ground beef, onions, and garlic that was seasoned with cinnamon and oregano. I sprinkled some parmesan cheese on top and then put some more eggplant slices and then more meat. I cooked it in the oven for about 45 minutes. It came out pretty yummy and we got more vegetables in our diet.

Geeky wear?

I came across a link to Rhombuswear which bills itself to be clothing for the slightly geeky. Interesting concept, but I'm not sure if I know a lot of people who would wear all of their stuff. Maybe I should get some geekier friends.

Turkey Taco Salad

Yum Sugar posted a recipe for Turkey Taco Salad. They advertise it to people as an innovative fast and easy dinner. I am way ahead of the times. I have been making a version of this recipe for a while now. I enjoy thinking of yummy meals that are very fattening and thinking of ways to reduce the calories, fat, and carbohydrates. I buy lean ground turkey, brown it, and then mix a small container of mild salsa in it. Then put the turkey on top of the lettuce with whatever you want and viola. Jeff and I also use this recipe to make actual tacos with soft taco tortillas. Yum. What I like about it is you can change the ingredients to whatever suits you. I use soy cheese on our tacos most of the time because it's lighter on my stomach. Jeff uses sour cream. It's up to everyone's individual tastes.

More car issues

As I blogged on Friday, I took Charlie, my Honda civic, to NTB to get his brakes worked on and his axle fixed. All was well at the end of the day on Friday. I turned in my rental car and Charlie was fine. I drove to and from work on Monday and everything was fine. Tuesday, as I was driving into my office complex I drove over a small stoned in part of the road. As I drove over I heard this weird noise, which scared me. I was right at my work so I just parked.

When I got into my work, I started getting nervous and wondering if something was wrong. I decided to go outside and drive it around the parking lot to see if anything was really wrong or if the noise had gone away. I drove around and it was fine when I was going straight, but when I hit the breaks I heard the noise. It was like a scraping noise, like something was going to fall off. I know nothing about cars so I got my office mate to take a ride around the parking lot with me to see if she heard the noise, which she did.

After that I decided to drive back down to NTB to have them figure out what was wrong. I was like I was just there on Friday and now something isn't right. I was annoyed that I had to take time out of my day to go back down there. They said they would look at it and call me at work to tell me what was wrong and what they were going to do. I said ok and then walked across to rent another rental car from Enterprise. I was annoyed I had to do this because that is another $50 I had to spend. In the end I found out that my backing or breaking plate (I'm not even sure which) had dislodged. They fixed it for no price.

On my lunch break I drove back down and picked up my car again. I tried to see if they would pay my rental car fee since it was their fault that I had to drop my car off again. I was kinda doubtful they would, but I wanted to try. I ended up talking to the manager who ended up a bit huffy. He was like we fixed it on Friday and now it's Tuesday, you didn't alert us to having any trouble right away. He also said that I didn't even ask to be driven to work. He said if I had asked someone one would have. They don't advertise that. I am not even sure they really do that. An how would I have gotten back to NTB to pick up my car? I could of gotten a ride from my office mate, but what if I couldn't have? He probably only wanted to get out of having to pay for my rental car. Either way, we both left kind of annoyed, and I will never be going back to NTB ever again. Good riddance. They were never that helpful/friendly in the first place.

Movies Netflixed

Jeff and I received two Netflix movies that we watched this weekend: Juno and National Treasure 2. Below is what I thought about them.

Juno
We have wanted to see Juno ever since it was in the theaters. However, we tend to catch movies on Netflix. I thought the movie was cute and had some characters that were likable. However, I don't think it lived up to all the hype people were attributing to it.

Also, I'm not sure about the message. No, she didn't try to get pregnant on purpose and I'm glad that her parents were supportive of helping her through it and making the right decisions. However, the movie didn't really show the parents getting furious at Juno for getting pregnant. My parents would have freaked out. They seemed to be a little shocked, but dealt with things calmly. Her boyfriend's mother didn't like her through out the whole movie, but did not seem to have any comment about her pregnancy. They mentioned briefly that her classmates were making fun of her, but barely showed what it would really be like. In the end it was good that the baby was adopted (although that story line was a little messed up too)but, they didn't show any repercussions from her going through labor and giving up her child.

Over, all a good movie, but some aspects are lacking.

National Treasure 2
I like these kinds of movies. I liked the first one - however, I can't remember much of it. I tend to forget what happened between the first and second movies. Anyways, I thought overall the movie was good. I liked the story. However, some parts were pretty unbelievable. I found myself saying, "Yea right, that wouldn't happen."

The pace also seemed to be a little off. The whole movie was basically oh my gosh how do we get through this obstacle, ok we got through it, wait a couple of minutes, and then oh look another obstacle, solve it, wait a few more minutes, and then another obstacle. I think there should have been a bit more down time between each thing they had to conquer. That's just me though. I suppose that's what this genre of movie is about.

Over all, if you can suspend disbelief it's a pretty good movie.

Firefox

Oh Firefox how I <3 thee. Ever since I started my new job (about a month ago) I have been using Internet Explorer version 6.0 - not the one with the tabs. By the end of the day I have a million little windows open at the bottom of my screen, which I'm sure slows my computer way down. It's also a pain to find stuff. Today I downloaded Firefox. It is great. I have my tabs at the top of the screen back and spell checker. Yea for Firefox ;)

Nerdy, but cool

This is a blog all about the statstical program SPSS. It has a forum and tips on how to do things. Very neat resource. I'm sure I'll come to use this site a lot.

The rabbit

I had to bring Charlie (my honda civic) to NTB on friday for new brakes and to get some part of his axle fixed. While he was being fixed I walked over to Enterprise and rented a VW Rabbit for the day. The rabbit is a cute car and just my size (I hate huge cars). I had no trouble driving it around and all was good.

However, I did have some issues when I got ready to turn it in at the end of the day. First of all, the gas tank is on the wrong side. I had the worst time trying to get the gas thingy on the right side to get gas. I had to turn around at least three times. Cars with gas tanks on the left side make things so much easier. I have now decided that it's a requirement in the next car I buy. Secondly, turning it on after I got gas was weird as well. I am pretty sure I turned it off correctly. However, when I got ready to leave the gas station it wouldn't go forward and I started going backward. Uh, what? It took me like five minutes of making sure it was in park and fiddling with the key to get it to go. By that time I was ready to get rid of it.

So in the end cute car, but I'm glad to have my Charlie back.

Give me bacon

For those who love meat and especially bacon this flavored dental floss is for you. I think it sounds totally disgusting, but to each their own.

William Shatner's My Little Pony

The cast of Boston Legal will be designing their own My Little Ponies to help a children's charity. I used to love my little ponies. I can only wonder what design he will put on his ponies butt.

Yummy sign

To celebrate their fresh salads McDonalds has created a sign that is made out of real lettuce. They even went as far as to make sure birds couldn't perch on it and eat the sign.

Cat furniture

I think cat furniture is great although a bit expensive. Milo loves his. However, this cat tree is a little ridiculous. I would be afraid that Milo would fall or get into many things he shouldn't.

PC

The guy who plays PC on the PC and Mac commercials you see on tv all the time is a mac user. Boo on him.

Wedding nerdity

While I suppose this wedding theme is a cute idea, it is very nerdy.

The new Hello Kitty?

I hear that Sanrio is coming out with two new characters called Cherinacherine. They are cute, but I don't know if I like them as much as Hello Kitty. We shall see.

USB fun

While some usb tools like a domo jump drive or a cute flower that is a fan are neat this usb greenhouse is weird.

6/6 Cool things on the web

These large sized lego blocks are so cool. You can make your own coffee table or whatever else you can imagine. Too bad they cost so much.

This laptop sleeve is totally adorable. I would think about it if I actually carried my laptop anywhere. So cute!

Happy National Doughnut Day

Today is National Doughnut Day! Go out to your local Krispy Kreme and get a free doughnut. Mmm chocolate glazed donuts with sprinkles.

The fun and dangers of a lunch break

I haven't had a lunch break in the longest time. For the last two years I worked at a company that didn't give me a lunch break. However, I didn't work enough hours to really really need one. Anyways. Today for my lunch break I went over to dsw (so close) and looked for new black sandals since my old ones are dying. I went to payless earlier in the week (also very close) and didn't find anything. However, today I did find some shoes and they are cute. They are black naturalizer slip on sandals. I will have to see if I can find a picture online. Yea for having enough time to buy shoes on a lunch break :)

Interesting things from the web

Today while web surfing I found some interesting things..

This wii remote is yummy and fun.

This might be a fun tool to get when we finally buy a grill. Though I'm not going to wear the mask.

I don't want to eat real haggis and I don't want to eat this either.

These cat scratchers are so cute looking. This one is my favorite.

This is a cool foodie site that I may end up following and reading. This couple makes many great recipies and takes pictures of each step.

This lamp is cute and a little scary.

Morning Star Farms

I have been trying to eat healthier these days. I've been trying to eat less fried greasy things and lower my risk for heart disease and diabetes. One brand I have found through trying to eat healthy is Morning Star Farms. Morning Star Farms makes veggie products like veggie burgers, "chicken" patties and other varieties. I never thought I would enjoy anything veggie like that, but they are actually really good. I enjoy the breakfast sausage, the ranch "chicken" patties and the corn dogs. All very good. Jeff will even eat them. They taste like the real thing and they have very low levels of fat and usually no cholesterol. So yea for that. Definitely go out and try some Morning Star Farms products if you are trying to eat healthy.

Shopping damage

Jeff and I went to Otakon this past weekend. It was my first convention ever and pretty fun. My two favorite parts of the convention were looking at all the cosplayers and their costumes and the shopping :D I ended up buying a fleece hat with cat ears from Genki Hats. I can't wait till it gets cooler so I can wear it. If I got another one I would probably buy the one with bunny ears. They are too cute. I wonder if I could make them myself. I am sure I could, but I'm not the best with sewing or measurements.

I have my eye on another website with cute things as well. I have wanted something sushi related to wear for a while. Today I found out that David and Goliath has a variety of sushi gear. I'm very tempted. I think the "wassap B" shirt is pretty funny.

Testing one, two three...

Yes, I'm still alive. *brushes the dust bunnies off my blog* I figured I would give this blog another shot.

What have I been up too? Well I finally indulged and bought myself an XM Radio. I bought the Samsung Helix which is a portable xm player that comes with a docking unit. I also ended up buying the head phones that make the signal stronger. They help a lot when I am not hooked up to the docking unit. I was going to get a Sirius radio, but XM's radio's just seemed to be built better and were much cheaper. So far I am enjoying being a satellite radio subscriber. I tend to listen to only a few channels, but I enjoy flipping through all of the other channels.

What else.. Jeff and I are in the process of buying a home. We close on friday which is pretty exciting. I am looking forward to having the extra space and to be able to attempt to put my own personal touches on it, or least learn how too :)

Part of me quiz

The Part of You That No One Sees

You are balanced, peaceful, and sincere. You're the type of person who goes along to get along. And you're definitely afraid of rocking the boat. Underneath it all, you fear your world falling apart. You'll put up with a situation that you don't like in fear of changing it. Disruptive and forceful people intimidate you - and sometimes exploit you.

What's the Part of You That No One Sees?

The best major

You scored as Philosophy. You should be a Philosophy major! Like the Philosopher, you are contemplative and you enjoy thinking about the purpose for humanity's existence. Philosophy 67% Anthropology 67% Psychology 58% Art 50% Sociology 42% Chemistry 33% Journalism 33% Engineering 33% English 25% Theater 25% Mathematics 25% Linguistics 25% Biology 25% Dance 17% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

How do you know when your cat wants you off the computer?

Automatic feeders

Jeff and I have thought about buying an automatic cat feeder for Milo for a while now. At first we wanted to buy one because he loves to wake us up around 4-5:30am to ask for his breakfast. We thought it might save us some sleep and many of the reviews say that it will. Recently, I have wanted to buy one because we will need to go out of town for a weekend and I'm sure there will be many more weekends like that in the future. I want to make sure he is fed and taken care of and it's not always easy to find someone who can come over and watch him for a while. So I thought this would be a good solution.

The problem is picking one out of the many cat feeders out there. There are many different kinds. There are the kinds that look like this that look like normal free falling bowls, but also include a timer. The other kind of automatic feeders out there are the ones that look like this which are basically just circles with divided compartments for meals with a rotating top that exposes one meal at a time. I have decided that I do not want to get one of the circle variety because I have read many reviews about cats being able to get underneath the top and get the food out of it.

I have narrowed it down between two cat feeders, both of the free falling variety. My two choices are this one or this one. The only main differences are the price, you can detach the bowl for cleaning on the more expensive one, and I believe the programming function is a little better on the more expensive one. However, in both feeders smart cats can stick their paws up into it some how and dislodge a few pieces of food. I'm not too worried though. In many reviews they mention that although they may be able to get a little more food, it's not much.

The snow is coming

The weather forecasters are saying that we will get somewhere between one and three inches of snow tomorrow. Everyone wear your pajamas backwards to bed! I would love a snow day, but I doubt I will get one. My work is only closed when there is a state of emergency. However, if enough kids call out that might work too. Come on snow ;D

My Intelligence Style

Your Dominant Intelligence is Intrapersonal Intelligence

Reflective and thoughtful, you enjoy spending time alone. You are good at analyzing yourself - and knowing your true feelings. Totally self aware, you are in tune with your dreams and desires. A spiritual and philopsophical person, your inner calmness inspires and helps others. You would make a great philosopher, researcher, or theorist.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

March

Happy first day of march! Yea spring is coming ;) While listening to the news this morning I heard that it is National Umbrella Month. I went online to find a link about it and found another interesting link. This link seems to be from a spanish site. It lists every thing that is celebrated in the month of March. Did you know that March is also National Frozen foods month? Or that the week of March 4-10 is Professional Pet Sitters Week? Pretty fun read.

Nora, the piano playing cat

I saw this on the News tonight. It is a clip of Nora the cat playing the piano. Her owner is a piano teacher and Nora was once a stray. I wonder what hidden talents Milo has.

47!

I never thought I would say this but, yea for 47 degree weather ;D I am ready for the ice to melt away and for the warmer weather to come. Go away coldness, ice, and slippery driving. Warm weather makes me happy :D Only about a month or so more until spring :D

Merger

I knew it would happen some day. I just read on DCRTV that XM and Sirus are merging. Yea! I didn't read much of the mumbo jumbo, but it looks like it will be done by the end of this year. What is really cool is that people won't have to choose between the programing on XM and Sirius radio. You can have Howard Stern and Ron and Fez. Maybe this will push down the prices of their radios and make it more likely that I will buy one :)

Satellite Radio

I have been a fan of listening to the radio ever since I was a child. I've always been a little weird in that I prefer listening to talk radio rather than music. Though I do enjoy some music stations. I have been listening to one talk show, The Don and Mike Show since I was in junior high.

In the past couple of years I have thought about buying satellite radio. I have followed all of the general news and kept up with the prices. Every now and then I will really look into things and think about buying one. The price always gets me though. I have narrowed down what I would buy. I have decided that if I ever do buy satellite radio I will subscribe to Sirius. I am not totally sure which receiver. It annoys me that XM's receivers cost a lot less. For a while I was thinking I would just get the cheapest receiver. I have heard that the cheapest ones aren't very good and that with most of them you should just spend the extra money to get the next one up. Many people also end up buying the FM adapter that gets rid of the static. Most of the Sirius radio's you can buy come with a car kit. I don't spend huge amounts of time in the car. I would most likely buy a portable receiver that has a home/car kit that is compatible, which of course would cost me another $50 each.

The one I was looking at recently was the S 50 which they seem to be phasing out. I like that it's a portable radio, but it's main fault is that you can't listen to live music on the go. You have to save the programs you want to listen to onto the radio while it is docked and then you can listen to that saved content while your on the go. Their newest portable, the SL10 costs over $100 more which I am not even considering. The real kicker of the whole thing is the subscription. Yes, I could just buy one of their expensive radios and be done with it. However, then you have to pay their monthly service charge. I just can't see myself paying that when there are other important things we are saving for, namely a house. So thats where I am. I will keep listening to the news reports and I'm sure I'll have more periods where I seriously consider buying one. But for now I'm going to wait. Maybe one day they will merge and you will be able to get XM and Sirius in one. I wish I knew someone who had one so I could play with it.

Ice day

Well we definitely had some interesting weather yesterday into this morning. We got about an inch or two of snow and then about an inch of ice on top of that. I hate ice. I'm always afraid I'll fall or get in an accident. Because of this I decided to call out from work today. I wasn't just being wimpy though. All the schools were closed, there was a sheet of ice on my car and we actually lost power for a couple hours in the morning. That was not fun. It took an hour of chipping away at the ice to finally get my car free. I'm really glad I got that done today so when I do go to work tomorrow I won't have to deal with all of that plus whatever refreezes tonight. I wonder if things will be closed again tomorrow. I also wonder how many kids showed up last night and tonight. I hope my drive in tomorrow is not icy.

My ice day was a pretty lazy day besides the hour I took to dig my car out. I was very proud of myself that I cleared it off all on my own. Besides my car I played a lot of my online game, watched dumb stuff on tv, and snuggled with Milo a lot. Only two more nights and Jeff is back :D

It's snowing

It's snowing right now. As of now the weather people are forecasting somewhere between one and four inches of snow with some freezing rain in there somewhere. It seems like most of the really bad weather will happen late tonight into tomorrow. So I probably will go to work today even though I work in the afternoon/evening. I bet a lot of kids will call out though :)

Day one is gone and my car is still there :) I'm happy about this.

Jeff and I watched the Grammy's the other night. It was a pretty good show. I really really don't like the Dixie Chicks though. I turned the channel when they were singing. They are so in your face and rude. Jeff and I mostly looked at what everyone was wearing. My favorite was Imogen Heap.

Anna Nicole Simth Gone

I just read that Anna Nicole Smith died. That is really sad. I had been following her a little through the Entertainment News with her whole paternity suit. I hope that they are able to figure out who the real father is and then everyone will be able to get some peace.

Grey's

Woo hoo, tonight Grey's Anatomy is on. I <3 that show. I have watched it since the very first episode came on. I remember watching it on my couch in my apartment in North Carolina. It looks like it's going to be a good episode tonight ;D

The cutest kitty

Anonymous Opinion directed me to a contest the Delaware News Journal is putting on. They are starting a Cutest Cat Contest. I could not resist entering Milo into the contest. The only problem is that I have a million pictures of Milo. Jeff and I are having a hard time narrowing it down to the one we want to submit. So we figured that we would let you guys pick the picture we will submit to the contest. These are the pictures we are thinking about. Which picture do you like the best?

Picture #1 Picture #2 Picture #3 Picture #4 or Picture #5.

The Super Bowl

The Super Bowl came and went so quickly. I was rooting for the Bears :( Oh well. Jeff and I had a quiet night eating junk food. Just what the night should be like. My favorite part of the game was the pre-game show. I really liked the two marching bands dressed up as the two teams. Yes, I'm a big band geek. The whole Cirque du Soleil part was neat too. Overall, I was disappointed in the commercials. There were some that were funny, but not amazing. I would have to say that my favorite one was the Budweiser ad with the crabs. That was pretty cute. The lions one with the doritos wasn't bad either. The one ad with the robot who put screws in cars and then lost his job made me really sad. That wasn't a funny commercial, but it was a good one. In the end I fell asleep before the game was over. Busy weekend mixed with a boring Super Bowl. I hope next years is more exciting. Or at least has the Redskins in it :D

New Manga

Today Jeff and I went to a bookstore that sells manga/sci-fi type stuff. It's a really neat book store with all kinds of stuff. While I was there I started looking at the new girly manga that had just come in. I used to read His and Her Circumstances but I got bored with the story line. I have bounced around a little bit since then trying to find a new manga to read. Today I picked up Red String. So far it seems really good. I already read through the first book. What is also cool about the Red String is that the author has a website where she updates the Red String comic three days a week. So I can continue to read the story line and not to have to shell out $10 for each book. That is very cool. Though, if it is really good I may buy them anyways.

Easter is coming

Easter is only two months away. How can I tell? I found many varieties of Cadbury Eggs at the grocery store. Yum! Before I met Jeff, this is how I celebrated Easter. Oddly enough, one of my Jewish friends introduced me to them.

Sleepy kitty

I added some cute pictures of Milo sleeping in a sunbeam and on my lap over on his blog.

Yea for the weekend

Woo hoo we made it to the weekend. I love not having to work for a day or two and being able to sleep in. This weekend will probably be busy though. We have a winter banquet to go to tonight. I think part of today will be spent getting "girlified" and ready. I hope we have a good time. Then tomorrow is the Super Bowl! I do like watching football, but I'm not a huge fan. I'm going to be rooting for the Bears just because you can say "Da Bears!" :D My favorite part of the superbowl is all the great commercials so I'm really looking forward to that.

In other exciting news I got accepted into my first blogroll the Blogging Chicks Blogroll. So yea for that.

TGIF and Happy Ground Hog's Day

Happy Ground Hog's Day and Happy Friday to everyone. Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow so spring is coming. Woo hoo, I don't like the freezing cold. We didn't get the huge snow/ice mess that the weather forecasters were predicting. We barely got a dusting. I guess thats good a thing for my drive into work. Looks like today is going to be a busy day.

TGIF

Sad day in gaming land

I have played an online massive multi-player game called Fairyland on and off since I was in graduate school. It is a really cute game and was actually the first online mmorpg I had ever played. I met a lot of cool people online. However, just this week they announced that the company that runs the game is shutting it down. I had quit playing a while ago so this isn't as huge of a thing to me as it is to others, but it's still sad. There is another version of the game running, but it is based in Europe. I had previously played the Malaysian version and then the U.S version which is now shutting down. I just recently started playing a new game called Trickster whenever I get a free moment to fill the void. One great thing about Trickster is it's free ;)

Peanut butter wars

It's amazing the things you learn about each other once you are married. I found out that Jeff prefers smooth peanut butter and hates chunky peanut butter. I prefer the chunky version. Why do I bother to mention any of this? I have been wanting a peanut butter and banana sandwich for the longest time. Another thing Jeff thinks is gross LOL. I finally went to the store and bought some peanut butter so I could make this wonderful delicious sandwich :D An what kind of peanut butter did I buy? Smooth just so Jeff could share in the fun. Aren't I a nice person? :D

I'm back

I decided to give my blogger another shot again. This way Jeff isn't the only one that can post about new Milo pictures ;)

We are currently under a "Winter Weather Advisory". According to The Weather Channel we could get anywhere from an inch to three inches with freezing rain mixed in tonight and through rush hour tomorrow. Great. While I love snow, I hate having to drive in it. Tomorrow I work the morning shift of course. I really hope it's not bad driving at all or it's so bad I don't have to drive. We will see. Maybe I should wear my pjs backwards or something.

Tired

Milo decided that midnight, 2am, 3am, 4am, and 5am were times that he wanted to play. Therefore Jeff and I didn't get much sleep last night. He would sit on my pillow and rub against my hand until I woke up, sit on Jeff's back, climb up on his night side table, and jump on and off our bed. I am not happy. We will be digging out our squirt guns and trying to tire him out before bed. We will also continue to move his litter box out of our room. It's almost to the door now. Thank goodness today is a day where I work the afternoon shift. Gah. I'm trying to be fair, I know he's a cat and playing in night is his nature, but bleh.

Ok I have to leave this entry on a good note. Today's PVP comic really fits with me.

Kitty time

Woo hoo. This morning I got through to the kitty lady who had left a message on our answering machine a few days ago. She said we were approved to get our kitty! She gave me some information on what food to give him and stuff to do at the vet. Then she said she would have to talk to the foster home he was living in to see when they could bring him to Petsmart. The lady at the foster home called while I was at work. Thankfully Jeff had the day off and was able to talk to her. We are going to bring home our kitty today!! Yea!! I'm excited. Jeff and I already feel more positive about bringing him home than we did with Meg. I think thats a good sign. We also finally came up with a name for him, Milo. Milo is Liv Tyler's son (we were watching a show on E! about daughers of rock stars) and an orange tabby in Milo and Otis the movie. I didn't know that he was an orange tabby in the movie. I guess it really fits him since he's an orange tabby as well ;)

Kitty names

As Jeff posted we are trying to think of a cute cat name for our new cat. I have been looking at names of cats that have been in movies and television in the past. Here are a few great links I have found of cats in the media.

Famous Cats

Wikipedia's list of fictional cats

Some other cat names I have been thinking of are Napoleon, Jack, Roary, and Eddie.

Possible kitty parents

Yes, as the title reads we may be kitty parents by next weekend. As I posted in my last entry, a cat would fit into our life style better than a dog at this moment. That doesn't mean we won't get a dog sometime later down the line.

We spent this weekend going to various places that have cats for adoption. Our first stop was a Petsmart near our place that was pretty disappointing. They had a small number of cats and most of them already had people who had put in paperwork to adopt them. There was only one left and on its tag it said the cat was shy and slow to warm up. This reminded us a lot of Meg and we decided against that cat.

Next we went to the SPCA. I really don't like this place. I mean I'm glad it's there to help cats and dogs, but it makes me really sad everytime I go in there. All of those animals in cages, some of them crying, wondering how much time they have left to be adopted. I really hated watching some people dropping their animals off at the pound. Made me wonder what had happened and why they couldn't keep them. Because we went on a saturday, a rainy saturday no less they were packed. So we had to wait a long time. We should have gotten there earlier, but oh well. So we had a lot of time to observe.

We did like one cat there that we wanted to learn more about, but it took forever to find anyone to help us. Thats another thing about the spca I don't like. They have so many animals that many of them, especially cats, just have a number and no little tag telling you about them. You have to ask someone who usually only knows limited information about them. We finally found someone to help us with about 20 minutes of visiting time left. She opened the cage for us and we got to hold the cat. It was a very sweet cat, purred when we pet him and such. She said he was a stray, didn't really know if it was a boy or a girl or how old he was. She said he had an upper respiratory infection and was on medication for two weeks. That made me nervous. She said that it was just something cats get easily and after he took all the medication he would be fine. Still I wasn't sure. I wanted to visit with him see how he acted, but they were so busy the lady only let us hold him for a minute and then asked if we wanted him or not. She didn't have time to let us visit and decide. We decided to wait. At least we got to donate the big dog carrier my parents have had forever. They gave it to us when we got Meg. Ever since then, it has been sitting in our living room. I'm glad we could give it to them and possibly help save an animals life.

After the SPCA we went to a Petco and they had a dissapointingly small amount of cats and no one was even there to help us. It just said if you are interested in one of the cats fax in your application. Bleh.

Sunday, after going to church with Jeff and Jon, we went to a PetSmart nearby. We have been to this one before when we were just looking and I remembered that it was bigger than the one nearer to us. We went in and they did have more cats. Yea and they had tags telling us about their personalities, even better. We first liked one from the Humane Society but there was no one there to help us. There was another group there who was showing cats to be adopted who had many people there. So we started looking at their cats. I held one, but it didn't seem to be that interested in being held. I then asked if they had any cats that were lap cats. She brought one out that was more of a lap cat, but not exactly what I was looking for. The last one cat she showd us we really liked. I held him and he sat in my lap and pushed his head against my arm so that I would pet him more and pay attention to him. We filled out the adoption application for him and gave it to the woman. She said that we should hear back by this weekend. When I know that we will get him I will write more about him. Hopefully we will. I think we will be good kitty parents, but I am a little nervous. I haven't had a cat in forever. I had one as a child, a pure white cat that was a little moody. I'm not surprised I'm nervous though, I'm always like this right before something new. Once I get into it I'll calm down and see that everything will be fine. I just hope he will fit into our family and we won't have to have another Meg experience.