Saturday, July 26, 2008

Georgia here we come!

All of our bags are packed and we're just about ready to go. Julie and Davie are at the airport and will be arriving in Chattanooga at around 3:45 EST. We won't be arriving until tomorrow some time and will be staying in a hotel on the way down. We originally wanted to leave last night (Friday) but we thought that it would be to hectic with me getting off work and then having to drive 8 hours. It worked out well because I was able to come home and make about a thousand plus Emmy treats to share with her cousins and grandma doggy, Georgia, and then finish packing and doing chores that I don't want to do when we come back. Emmy is all bathed and her crate, bed, and frisbee are ready to go. I think that she'll have fun with Georgia. I just hope that she is a good girl because Georgia is pretty old.

This is a milestone in my life for two reasons: 1. I'm meeting Ed's extended family for more than the three minutes I talked to them at Julie's wedding 2. I've never been on such a long car ride.

As we embark on this great event in my life, I've prepared (in English major fashion) plenty of entertainment for the ride down. I put Ender's Game, Speaker of the Dead, and Xenocide by Orson Scott Card, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Yes, these are all audio books. I tried to download books from the Troy Library's website because I was totally stoked that you can check out audio books out online, but it was extremely complicated and not user/Allison friendly. So after about an hour of trying to be perfectly legal and patient, I gave up and downloaded it on my favorite bit torrent.

Hasta La Vista! We're off on our next great adventure!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Rachael Ray's noodle bowl

This noodle bowl recipe was sooooooooooo good! It was also very easy. On 30 Minute Meals she said that if you can't find seafood stock that you can use a whole bottle of clam juice. This is what I had to do. Man, this was yummy. Yummo! Since I don't like scallions I left out the garnish. It was so good I can't get over it. Just the scent of the broth reminded me of Chinese restaurants and home. You can use dried Shiitake mushrooms, but I used fresh because I didn't have any. Remember, never eat Shiitakes raw because they are poisonous in their raw state...or that's what I've heard.

If you are like my friend Melanie and don't like seafood, the shrimp and seafood stock can be replaced by chicken. I bet you could even use beef if you wanted. I highly suggest this meal. It's so good.


Emmy's IQ toy

I pasted 3 videos into one so it might be choppy.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Move over McDonald's



I made these for breakfast today. They're pretty much like Egg McMuffins from McDonald's, but way healthier and better tasting. I am a big fan of runny sunny side up eggs and these were delicious.

Allison's Egg sandwiches

Ingredients
2 eggs
2 English muffins
2 slices of deli ham
2 slices American cheese
Ketchup to dress

Directions
Heat a frying pan on medium heat. Spray on cooking oil so that the eggs don't stick. Crack eggs directly into pan. You can precrack them into a bowl if you're worried about shells falling in. Cover pan so that the thicker parts of the egg cook. This also reduces burning the bottom of your eggs because it keeps the heat in, cooking the top of the egg and allowing you to have a fairly low heat. Once eggs are firm enough to be moved, shift them in the pan and add your ham. Meanwhile, split your English muffins and toast them. Place American cheese on one half of your muffin. Add your ham to your sandwich. You don't need to cook the ham, but it tastes better when you heat it. Once eggs are cooked to your favored consistency, place on top of ham. Add ketchup as desired.


This last week eggs were on sale so I stocked up. The English muffins, which I'm usually to frugal to buy, were buy 1 get 2 free. How awesome is that? I had to get them. That sale is what spurred my McDonald's knock off. The ham was also on sale for $3.99 a pound. I had a little leftover from my lunches and knew that it would be good in my sandwiches.

I got ham and cheese this week because Ed and I made sandwiches like that in Seville, Spain when we were there. To save money we would go to local markets and buy things that we recognized. Ham, cheese, and bread were among the short list of things. I guess I was feeling nostalgic last week because I was craving those meager sandwiches that we assembled on the beds of our hostel. To spruce up my sandwiches I got some cute little French rolls and lettuce. They looked like mini sub sandwiches. The kids were looking longingly at my lunch and I had to tell them to back off. I did share my Wheat Thins with them though. Most snubbed them because they said that they were to healthy. Anyways, so I had my cute little subs, salad, and Wheat Thins all week for lunch. It was very good and made me feel healthy since I don't put any sauces on my sandwich and was using Lite ranch dressing.

Pig Out here we come!

We're going to go downtown today to the Pig Out which is a NY state BBQ competition. Today is the street fair tasting, but tomorrow is the big competition. I'm excited for all of the pulled pork and brisket. Hopefully I see people I recognize from all of the the barbecue challenges I watch on Foodnetwork. I also think that it'll be nice going with Edward since we never really go anywhere alone anymore. Unfortunately, they don't allow dogs so Emmy will have to stay home by herself.

Here is a little video of her chewing on her weekly marrow bone. It keeps her teeth clean and her breath smelling neutral. After this mess, I had to wash the duvet cover, but it was worth it. She is just too cute.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Writing every morning

I've heard that many great writers wake up and read for half an hour and then write whatever they are thinking even if it has nothing to do with their manuscripts. One of the girls in my program advised all of the people who are doing their advance project and thesis should not procrastinate. Since I get home and pretty much fall asleep when I try to read, I can't focus on all of my reading/napping and no writing. At this rate I don't know if I can finish the reading, but I do need to get started on my writing. I finally got myself to read my old manuscript, which was painful, so I think I'm ready to start over. Whew. It's a little scary and slightly frustrating since I already had so much. But I am older and wiser so I think that I can pull it off...I better be able to. Now that I have the first try at the story out of my head, I think I can start something else. Although I'm going to maintain the same persona's of my characters, the story itself is taking a whole different direction. So I'm going to start writing little clips of my story in the mornings before work. The time that I'm designating for blogging is now going to my project. I don't know if I'll publish it on the blog, but we'll see how it goes.

Not as perky

This morning I'm not nearly as perky as I was yesterday morning. I probably should ride my bike, but I really don't want to . My friend who is in charge of the other summer camp was like "I'm disappointed that you only rode it one day!" I was like "I rode it here on days when I had to do the planning. So that's five times!" He also made fun of me because I couldn't remember what a Jamaican beef patty was called and called it a Jamaican hot pocket. He got a good laugh out of that. This is the guy I was supposed to be the assistant before they moved me to 21st Century.

Since my boss has been MIA for about three weeks to my chagrin, the exec has been so much nicer to me. I think she finally realized that I was doing all the work for the Youth and Teen center. My boss came back yesterday and my number 2 said that he thought that she felt out of the loop. I was like "Good! She better!" She's been gone for three weeks for heaven's sake. She had the gall to say to me yesterday that I don't smile anymore. I was thinking, no I smile, just not around you! She's the cause of a lot of people's problems at the Y, me included. I think that I'm going to start complaining soon since the exec is being so much nicer. I doubt that I will be at the Y very much longer (cross your fingers) so that I can go work at that awesome book store. I just need to email the owner and ask her when the best time to apply is since I still plan to take off to come home in December. I'm not sure if she is tolerant of extended periods of vacation. I know that she works with students quite a bit, but I think most of them are from around here. I'll have to just ask her.

Anyways, as I said in my last tiny post, my posts will be going unedited for the next few weeks. I found that yesterday even though it was pretty easy, I was exhausted. Plus after I talked to my mom for about 2.5 hours I just didn't really want to go back to edit or walk around taking pictures of all of my purchases. I'm just lucky that I'm getting back into blogging. I'm afraid falling off the blogging wagon again.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Editing

Well, I'm very tired so I don't want to go around the house and take pictures or edit my last post. So, for a while you'll have to overlook bad morning grammar and spelling mistakes until the end of the summer.

Good Morning Baltimore!

Every weekday morning I've been walking up at 7am to drink my coffee before getting to work at 8am. Since I'm way too tired to blog at night, I thought that I could try to blog in the morning like I used to when I was able to watch It's Me or the Dog.

Anyway, as I said before, we've been crock potting our meals. Well, this week I'm trying to actually cook. Last week I found that if I took even the shortest of naps I wouldn't be able to sleep in the evening. When I tried to stay awake it was very difficult. So this week, while I wait for Ed to come home from work, I'm going to move around the kitchen. Hopefully that way I can stay awake after I get home. Although I get home at around 3 45pm, I'm hoping I don't fall asleep before dinner time.

After a very difficult week (I don't want to talk about it), I felt that I deserved a shopping day. I went out to TJ Maxx and spent quite a bit of money, but got a lot for it. I got new pillows since ours were so flat that I would end up sleeping directly on the bed and not even realize that I wasn't on my pillow. I also got us some really nice paisley sheets. I really like the mature look of Garnet Hill linens, but they are way to expensive for me. So for $40 I bought a nice set of blue and green sheets. I also found a brown paisley duvet that was only $13! I had to get it as a winter duvet. Even though the white one that we have right now brightens the room when there are 10 inches of snow outside, I'd like to have a little change once in a while. I put the new sheets on and we were quite thrown off when we got in. They felt slippery and kind of like silk even though they are cotton. When I was telling a friend about them he asked what the thread count was. I was like, I don't know...I just liked the pattern. Well, it turns out that they are 310 thread count, which is probably why we felt like we were in a hotel and not our bed.

Moving on. I also got a really cute black waitress style dress, jeans that actually fit my expanding body, and vans slip ons that I've been wanting for ages. The dress was red tagged at $16 when the rest were $20 because there was a little something on it. I took a wet paper towel and it came right off. The jeans were $20 for American Eagle brand and the shoes were $17 when they are usually $40. I feel like I made out pretty well. I was very excited. I know I told Melanie that I could wait 6 months before buying another pair of shoes, but I had to get these. They have stars on them and I've been wanting them for months! It was fate. They weren't the color that I wanted, but I'll live with it. They were more than half off! Anyways, it's 7 48 and I have to be at work at 8. I have to go. I'll have to come back and edit this post for mistakes and add pictures and links for you all. Bye!

Friday, July 11, 2008

I don't feel like blogging

Today was the first day of the week that I didn't want to drown myself in the pool, but I still don't feel like blogging. All I have to say is that today was a pretty good day and that I have nothing to complain about. The last four days has been nonstop complaining for me. Whew! I'm so glad week one is over.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

2 days down, 23 to go...

Thankfully I'm not doing the last week of camp because I'm going home for Melanie's baby shower. It's been a rough two days, though I suspect that it has a lot to do with having to wake up at 7am (like an adult). For the first day of camp everything went pretty well. Although I had forgotten to send out a notice to the parents about swim testing, it wasn't a bad day at all. I kind of felt like everything was very disorganized even after spending more than 60 hours preparing for it (no thanks to my chatty boss for distracting me), but my staff seemed to think that everything ran smoothly. It was extremely hot and I rode my bike, but I felt pretty good about the day as a whole. Note: My boss decided to go on a 3 week vacation when we needed her the most. She won't be back until July 14.

When I got home I ate some pasta and stretched out on the sofa. Before I knew it, I was waking up to the end of 30 Minute Meals. I slept for almost 2 hours, which made it so that I couldn't sleep. I'm trying to not sleep today until it's bedtime so that I don't have the same problem. Needless to say, I feel like I'll be eternally tired. So my blog posts will probably be fewer (and shorter) as will the nice looking meal pictures. We've started using our crock pot again and though they are very tasty meals, they aren't very pretty.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Work Smwork

Well, tomorrow my real summer begins. I'll be up at 7am to get to get to work at 8am. I have my bike all ready to go and plan to get my lunch and backpack all ready before I go to bed. Just like going to school! On the upside, we had an awesome 4th of July party. It was actually a party! Meaning people got drunk and didn't leave at 10pm. It could have helped that one of my friend from work came and she's a hoot, but I also think since we bbqed real food (not burgers or hot dogs). Anyways, I had a blast.

Today we saw Wall-E and went out to dinner with some of the CS people. I'm going to do my nails and soak in tv while I still have energy. It's back to crock pot days for us tomorrow. My Sunday prep is all complete and now all we have to do is dump it in. Yay!

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

TLC

I'm now obsessed with TLC shows! As if I don't already watch more than my fair share of tv with Foodnetwork, this channel is chalk full of reality tv...and I love reality tv. Right now I'm watching the show What Not to Wear. The hosts are so mean to the people, but they really do seem to help them with their fashion sense. Some of these people are really bad. I have also found that I really like Jon and Kate Plus 8. The kids are so cute! I tell Edward that when we have little Hapa kids, they'll look like theirs. It makes me a little excited about having kids. It's a good thing that multiples don't run in our family. I can't imagine having that many kids. It's just fun to watch how they manage them all.

Anyways, I haven't been up to much lately but sleeping. As soon as I start reading Heart of Darkness my eyes begin to droop. It's awful. I took two naps in a day because I tried to read it twice. I have about 40 pages (of the 80) left and don't know if I can finish it. I've even read the cliff notes to help spike my interest. It hasn't really helped. I don't know why people insist that this novella is such a classic. I'm not seeing it at all.