Last night Don & Jeremy had a production meeting in Glendale. They have been collaborating with friends from Gadzook Films on various short film projects to keep active and further hone their flim making skills. So after a quick and refreshing Salmon dinner, they were off to their meeting and Katy and I got to spend the whole evening together. We had a nice time chatting over a glass of wine while I finished up the dishes and then mingled on over to the living room to relax.
As we were deep in conversation, I looked over and noticed that Cordy was playing with and trying to eat something small on the rug. Oh, great, she's gone after a bug again. I ordered her to stop and she backed away from the now mangled bug and left it alone. So the conversation went on until about 15 or 20 minutes later when we noticed Cordy standing in the middle of the room shaking with her tail between her legs, eyes glazed over, and not looking well at all. Hmmm, that's not normal. So I called to her and she didn't respond. Not normal either. I asked her if she wanted to go outside. No response. Not normal again. I asked her if she was hungry and pulled out the treat bag. No response. DEFINITELY not normal!
Now Cordy has a sensitive stomach to begin with, but concerned that she may have just tried to eat some kind of poisonous bug, we determined that this situation warranted a trip to the animal hospital. Just great. First we find out we owe $5600 on our taxes. Then today my car starts making noises so am going to have to fork over some dough for car repairs. Now an emergency animal vet bill on top of it. I don't know about you, but I've never gotten out of one of those ER pet visits for less than $700.
So, we pick up the little girl's trembling body and head out to the car with poor Seumas beside himself that we are leaving him behind all by his lonesome. Cordy is in Katy's lap on the passenger seat, tail still between her legs and head burried. There we are, driving along Ventura Blvd and headed to Studio City when, I kid you not, *buuuurrrrrrpppp*. Cordy lets out the raunchiest, stinkiest, and most audible burp I've ever heard come from a four legged animal. Did I mention raunchy? It stunk to high heaven!
A few minutes later, she sits up a little and starts taking an interest in the traffic, lights and pedestrians on the busy streets of the boulevard. That's a good sign. So we get to the animal hospital, starting to feel a little better that maybe she isn't on her deathbed. We park and get out of the car, and immediately, she perks right up, head high and tail wagging and is sniffing around really excited and ready to go for a night stroll and explore these unfamiliar surroundings. Really good sign!
So instead of taking her into the hospital we walked right past it and went a couple of blocks up and down the Boulevard where she seem to be enjoying herself just fine and no signs of discomfort. That's right, the girl had gas, and it almost cost me hundreds of dollars. I tried to tell her that this is what happens when you eat poop, but I don't think it got through.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Choco-job
My husband is interviewing with a chocolate company tomorrow. How cool is that? If he accepts the position, guess what everyone is getting for Christmas...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Dog Day Afternoon
California is a beautiful place to be in March. Warm but not too hot. Well, maybe a little too hot. Did it really get up into the eighties this weekend? Don and I laid out for a bit in the backyard with the dogs, but I quickly got too warm and went in the house.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
The Lingerie Olympian
I found this fun Quiz through a fellow bloggers' website I was introduced to by a friend called Eve's Apples Lingerie Blog. The quiz measures your lingerie personality type and they got me dead on with the Lingerie Olympian:"The Olympian is always on the go and doesn’t have time for frilly designs or needless lingerie - she wants something that looks good, practical, and that can work indoors or out on a run. She loves simplicity, with styles that flatter the body she’s been working so hard for."
Saturday, March 21, 2009
New Blog
I started a new blog called LA Cheapskate and am hoping the whole world will sign in and "follow me" so that I can feel more popular.
http://lacheapskate.blogspot.com/
http://lacheapskate.blogspot.com/
Credit Crisis
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
The best educational video I have seen in a long time. This is so good I stole it from Katy. It walks you through the steps with excellent visual aids that really boils down how the credit crisis came to be. Take ten minutes. It's worth it!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Accidental Fung Shui
Let me tell you how much I love my husband. He said something to me today that every wife longs to hear. As Sunday afternoon rolled around and I posed the question, what would you like to do with the remaining hours of our weekend? He actually came back with, "I think I'd like to continue with the cleaning." Yep, ladies. Sorry to say but the ring on his finger proves this one is taken and he is all mine! We'd already had a fairly productive weekend. Went hiking with friends, got in a good Saturday afternoon nap, did some grocery shopping, meal planning, laundry and light chores. As I headed out for my second walk with the dogs of the weekend, I even hinted lightly (in other words spelled out to him in plain English) how happy it would make me if he vacuumed the living room while I was gone which he obliged as well. So when he mentioned that he wanted to spend the rest of our Sunday afternoon cleaning the house it wasn't the first thing on my mind but I was quick to get behind him on the effort. He even went so far as to say that he would like to make an effort to be more organized and proactive about chores such as making sure we put our dirty clothes in the hamper and finding a place to put our shoes when we take them off. Actually it's nice, the cleaning part I love of course, but in general, since being laid off, you know we go through stages. And Don seems to be moving into productive stage. He's starting to have ideas brewing, creative juices flowing, and their finally starting to give birth to execution. It's exciting to be around.
So one of the major things on our to do list for creating a more clean and organized home life, was to get the office in shape. It continues to be our "dump" room. There is too much clutter in there to begin with and whenever we don't have a place for something we just throw it into the pile. We really need to go through everything in there, organize the space, store, shred, and donate items, and consolidate the necessities to eliminate the clutter. Recently I blogged about our trip to Matt and Camille's new place and how much we loved their office. We loved the fact that they had included a couch in their office. It gave it so much more of a comfortable, soft, relaxing, livable space, rather than a sterile cold cluttered office environment. Don and I have been thinking about that ever since and decided to jump on Craigslist this afternoon to see what we could find. We liked the idea of getting a sleeper sofa like Matt and Camille so that we would not only be able to relax on the couch in the office and watch Hulu on the Mac but we could also use it as a place for guests to sleep when we have family and friends in town. It was our lucky day as a nice couple had a listing just one block down from where we live now. We headed over and picked it up right away. Perfect! It was in good shape, clean, sturdy, just what the doctor ordered. We payed the bargain used price of $125, loaded it up in the truck, and headed the quarter mile trek back to our place.
Did I say perfect? More like too good to be true. Of course we had taken measurements of the office space to make sure the couch would fit in the office. But we hadn't measured the door frames. The doors in our hallway leading to the office, not to mention the tiny hallway itself, are (to borrow a phrase from my sister) something like straight out of the pages of Alice and Wonderland. Too dang small. No manner of tilting, angling, pushing, or prodding would make the couch fit through the hall into the office. It was mathematically impossible. Darn! So we just dropped some cash on a new couch, which would have been perfect for the setup we were trying to create, but no possible way to get it into the office. Our gears started turning, maybe our friends would want to trade our new larger couch for one of their smaller ones? We called Matt and Camille and made a proposal to them for a trade which they were willing to consider but like they mentioned, their couch had been a gift from family and was all torn up by the cats anyway, so initial thoughts were that it might not really be the best idea. So we pretty much gave up on that and decided to put the couch back up on Craigslist ourselves and hopefully we could at least make our money back. So we made some dinner and went about our evening. Nathan and Paige came over and we played a little game of Vegas Showdown which I won but man was it a close game. We all ended within two points of each other.
After the game, we were sitting around conversing, and about to call it an evening when we got back on the subject of the couch again. It occurred to me, that we do have a large enough living room to accommodate two couches. What if we were to move the chairs into the office and bring the new couch into the living room? It's not exactly how we had pictured it but it just might work. Don mentioned he would miss his recliner, but we would be watching more TV on the computer in the office now than we would in the living room anyway so he might actually prefer it in there. You know this just might work! So we finagled Nathan into helping us bring in the sofa and rearrange the furniture and actually ended up with a really nice living arrangement that actually accommodates more seating now for entertaining and accomplishes what we wanted in the office. There is still a lot of the "cleaning" part now to be done in the office, but now that we have a vision for how things are going to end up it's kind of exciting! I snapped a few photos but I think I'll wait until we have completed the whole project so that you can see the end result all clean and sparkly.
By the way, now that we have more overnight accommodations, anyone want to come for a visit?!
So one of the major things on our to do list for creating a more clean and organized home life, was to get the office in shape. It continues to be our "dump" room. There is too much clutter in there to begin with and whenever we don't have a place for something we just throw it into the pile. We really need to go through everything in there, organize the space, store, shred, and donate items, and consolidate the necessities to eliminate the clutter. Recently I blogged about our trip to Matt and Camille's new place and how much we loved their office. We loved the fact that they had included a couch in their office. It gave it so much more of a comfortable, soft, relaxing, livable space, rather than a sterile cold cluttered office environment. Don and I have been thinking about that ever since and decided to jump on Craigslist this afternoon to see what we could find. We liked the idea of getting a sleeper sofa like Matt and Camille so that we would not only be able to relax on the couch in the office and watch Hulu on the Mac but we could also use it as a place for guests to sleep when we have family and friends in town. It was our lucky day as a nice couple had a listing just one block down from where we live now. We headed over and picked it up right away. Perfect! It was in good shape, clean, sturdy, just what the doctor ordered. We payed the bargain used price of $125, loaded it up in the truck, and headed the quarter mile trek back to our place.
Did I say perfect? More like too good to be true. Of course we had taken measurements of the office space to make sure the couch would fit in the office. But we hadn't measured the door frames. The doors in our hallway leading to the office, not to mention the tiny hallway itself, are (to borrow a phrase from my sister) something like straight out of the pages of Alice and Wonderland. Too dang small. No manner of tilting, angling, pushing, or prodding would make the couch fit through the hall into the office. It was mathematically impossible. Darn! So we just dropped some cash on a new couch, which would have been perfect for the setup we were trying to create, but no possible way to get it into the office. Our gears started turning, maybe our friends would want to trade our new larger couch for one of their smaller ones? We called Matt and Camille and made a proposal to them for a trade which they were willing to consider but like they mentioned, their couch had been a gift from family and was all torn up by the cats anyway, so initial thoughts were that it might not really be the best idea. So we pretty much gave up on that and decided to put the couch back up on Craigslist ourselves and hopefully we could at least make our money back. So we made some dinner and went about our evening. Nathan and Paige came over and we played a little game of Vegas Showdown which I won but man was it a close game. We all ended within two points of each other.
After the game, we were sitting around conversing, and about to call it an evening when we got back on the subject of the couch again. It occurred to me, that we do have a large enough living room to accommodate two couches. What if we were to move the chairs into the office and bring the new couch into the living room? It's not exactly how we had pictured it but it just might work. Don mentioned he would miss his recliner, but we would be watching more TV on the computer in the office now than we would in the living room anyway so he might actually prefer it in there. You know this just might work! So we finagled Nathan into helping us bring in the sofa and rearrange the furniture and actually ended up with a really nice living arrangement that actually accommodates more seating now for entertaining and accomplishes what we wanted in the office. There is still a lot of the "cleaning" part now to be done in the office, but now that we have a vision for how things are going to end up it's kind of exciting! I snapped a few photos but I think I'll wait until we have completed the whole project so that you can see the end result all clean and sparkly.
By the way, now that we have more overnight accommodations, anyone want to come for a visit?!
Sunday, March 01, 2009
The Beautiful, Wonderful, So Good, Very Happy Day
Yesterday was just a good day. After a couple of not so good days this week, my awesome friend Camille was the first to jump on the cheer-a-friend-up wagon and offered her fabulous company with the potential for lots of fun distracting activities. Exactly what I needed and can't think of a better person to do it with.
So Camille headed over Sunday morning and we decided to start the day with a walk to Starbucks with the dogs. It was so nice to be out and about just the two of us. I think with everything going on, I've definitely been honing in on more of my introverted side lately. We do so many activities in big groups with guys and girls that it was a rare treat to have Camille all to myself. Camille is always fun but she's really special and really shines in quiet conversation. She's such a good friend, a good listener, full of wisdom of the heart and a comforting presence. While we certainly have our own lives and things that make us different, I do feel like our paths connect in a lot of ways too so it's nice to talk to somebody who understands what you are going through and can identify with your feelings. Camille is just what the doctor ordered!
Anyway, back to our walk, it turned out to be a gorgeous day! So gorgeous in fact, that by the time we neared Bucks, we were too hot and thirsty to even think about drinking coffee so we headed across the street to Ralph's for some bottled water instead. We had a nice little break in the shade with the dogs where Cordy scored with a random french fry on the ground before I could stop her, and both dogs sniffed the same rock and cigarette butt about a hundred times expecting it to turn into food scraps. After we had quenched our thirst, we headed back to the house where the dogs passed out into happy panting zombie wieners and Camille and I quickly refreshed and changed for the second event of the day -- a trip to the Mall!
No girls' day would be complete without a little bit of shopping, and though we are on a tight budget right now, I still had a Macy's gift card from Christmas burning a whole in my pocket. So we went right to the heart of retail therapy and shopped for shoes. Now Camille is a master at finding sales and she headed straight to the clearance rack. After digging through insanity for twenty minutes, she managed to find an adorable pair of red leather ballet style flats with cute little bow accessories. But the most amazing part is that they had originally been priced at $200, marked down to $100, 40% off of that at $60 and then she had a $40 gift card so ended up getting a $200 pair of shoes for $20! 90% off, not bad at all!
I parroused the sale racks too but didn't find anything that spoke to me. Besides I was on a mission for a specific wardrobe item - work shoes. My criteria - basic pump, 2 inch heal or less, doesn't slip off the heal when you are wearing nylons, and some level of comfort. So after searching the store, I narrowed my selection down to three options. 1. A basic black pointy toe pump, nothing two exciting but versatile and comfortable. 2. An adorable black peek toe pump with patterned detail by the toe. The cutest and sexiest of the three but unfortunately could not be worn with nylons. 3. A super fun and classy metallicky shiny pump, with black heal from Calvin Klein. Well, it was an interesting moment, being surrounded by three pairs of cute shoes all which would have added an interesting and unique function to my wardrobe. I told Camille that I missed being made of money because before I would have just bought all three pairs right then and be done with shoe shopping for a year or two. But here I was having to choose and would I make the right choice? After careful thought and consideration, I was forced to eliminate my favorite pair, the patterned peak toe, since they didn't fit the purpose they were supposed to serve. In the end I chose the metallic Calvin Kleins. The black pumps just weren't exciting enough and it's hard to describe the color of my CK's but their kind of a silvery taupe that changes colors depending on what you wear so I can wear them with just about anything. If I wear them with black they pop a silver reflection, but if I wear them with brown they sheen kind of a copper gold. Total purchase rang in at just about $97.50 leaving me $2.50 to spare on my gift card. I have to say I feel rather successful and proud of my purchase. I definitely think I made the right decision and will get the most use and enjoyment out of my new shoes.
We dined in style at the food court. I had my favorite Crepe from Crepe Express - The Bon Appetite. It has shredded chicken, potatoes, mushrooms, swish cheese, and the best part, this amazing dijon creme sauce with some greens on the side. Yummmmmm. Camille snagged herself an amazing plate of fresh soft tacos from La Salsa. After we had finished our shopping then we headed back to our first attempted destination, from the safety and airconditioning of our car - Starbucks. Camille treated us to a couple of iced lattes with her gift card (apologizing to me in advance for subjecting me to Camille on Caffiene). It was the perfect culmination of our girls' outing.
But the day was not yet finished. When we got back to my house Camille checked in with Matt who had the car and learned that he had just spent an hour sitting in traffic. So we determined that since she needed a ride anyway, this would be the perfect opportunity to see their brand new appartment. All I can say is cute! They have a sweet old style kitchen with antique oven. Fun open floor plan betwen the dining room and kitchen and closets and storage I could only wish for. Their home office is just starting to come together and I'm so jealous! They have found a place for their nice plush sleeper sofa in the office which just looks so inviting and relaxing and now I wish more than anything that we could fit a sofa in our office! I can only imagine the quiet creativity that could take place there, spending hours reading books, sipping coffee, snipping recipes out of magazines. I'm totally digging the space! But the best part of their new place isn't even the appartment, it's the neighborhood itself. As much as we love our friends, and we love the dearly, we used to dread going to visit because they lived in a huge multi story multi unit complex with no parking in a neighborhood that never felt very safe. Now they are in an adorable quiet residential neighborhood in a small complex with 6 or 7 units and tons of street parking. It's so peaceful and relaxing!
When we got there after we had taken the tour, Camille and I decided to go explore a bit of the neighborhood while Matt and Don played some video games. So we went for a short drive and checked out the local library, a park and some historic sites, and tons and tons of huge expensive million dollar homes up in the hills. It's such a neat area to explore. We decided I would just have to bring the dogs over sometime so we can walk the neighborhood together. After our drive we went back and touched base with our friends Ben and Corrie who are in town for a seminar. They were going to head over and meat us for dinner so we decided to pop in the pilot episode of Big Love which they had just received on Netflix to kill some time. We didn't make it the whole way through episode before our friends arrived but enough to get me hooked already. You can bet we'll be queueing that series up here shortly!
We finished the evening with a walk to Zankou Chicken for dinner which is kind of a high quality Armenian Fast Food joint but it's also combined at this location with a coffee shop and has a really nice and comfortable layout. So we had a fun cheap meal, catching up with friends. It ended up being a pretty long day for Don who is still getting over the plague so we headed home pretty quickly after dinner and went straight to bed and caught up on a couple of episodes of Battlestar and Dollhouse. Still not sure what to make of the new show Dollhouse, but we'll keep watching and see how it goes.
A good day.
So Camille headed over Sunday morning and we decided to start the day with a walk to Starbucks with the dogs. It was so nice to be out and about just the two of us. I think with everything going on, I've definitely been honing in on more of my introverted side lately. We do so many activities in big groups with guys and girls that it was a rare treat to have Camille all to myself. Camille is always fun but she's really special and really shines in quiet conversation. She's such a good friend, a good listener, full of wisdom of the heart and a comforting presence. While we certainly have our own lives and things that make us different, I do feel like our paths connect in a lot of ways too so it's nice to talk to somebody who understands what you are going through and can identify with your feelings. Camille is just what the doctor ordered!
Anyway, back to our walk, it turned out to be a gorgeous day! So gorgeous in fact, that by the time we neared Bucks, we were too hot and thirsty to even think about drinking coffee so we headed across the street to Ralph's for some bottled water instead. We had a nice little break in the shade with the dogs where Cordy scored with a random french fry on the ground before I could stop her, and both dogs sniffed the same rock and cigarette butt about a hundred times expecting it to turn into food scraps. After we had quenched our thirst, we headed back to the house where the dogs passed out into happy panting zombie wieners and Camille and I quickly refreshed and changed for the second event of the day -- a trip to the Mall!
No girls' day would be complete without a little bit of shopping, and though we are on a tight budget right now, I still had a Macy's gift card from Christmas burning a whole in my pocket. So we went right to the heart of retail therapy and shopped for shoes. Now Camille is a master at finding sales and she headed straight to the clearance rack. After digging through insanity for twenty minutes, she managed to find an adorable pair of red leather ballet style flats with cute little bow accessories. But the most amazing part is that they had originally been priced at $200, marked down to $100, 40% off of that at $60 and then she had a $40 gift card so ended up getting a $200 pair of shoes for $20! 90% off, not bad at all!
I parroused the sale racks too but didn't find anything that spoke to me. Besides I was on a mission for a specific wardrobe item - work shoes. My criteria - basic pump, 2 inch heal or less, doesn't slip off the heal when you are wearing nylons, and some level of comfort. So after searching the store, I narrowed my selection down to three options. 1. A basic black pointy toe pump, nothing two exciting but versatile and comfortable. 2. An adorable black peek toe pump with patterned detail by the toe. The cutest and sexiest of the three but unfortunately could not be worn with nylons. 3. A super fun and classy metallicky shiny pump, with black heal from Calvin Klein. Well, it was an interesting moment, being surrounded by three pairs of cute shoes all which would have added an interesting and unique function to my wardrobe. I told Camille that I missed being made of money because before I would have just bought all three pairs right then and be done with shoe shopping for a year or two. But here I was having to choose and would I make the right choice? After careful thought and consideration, I was forced to eliminate my favorite pair, the patterned peak toe, since they didn't fit the purpose they were supposed to serve. In the end I chose the metallic Calvin Kleins. The black pumps just weren't exciting enough and it's hard to describe the color of my CK's but their kind of a silvery taupe that changes colors depending on what you wear so I can wear them with just about anything. If I wear them with black they pop a silver reflection, but if I wear them with brown they sheen kind of a copper gold. Total purchase rang in at just about $97.50 leaving me $2.50 to spare on my gift card. I have to say I feel rather successful and proud of my purchase. I definitely think I made the right decision and will get the most use and enjoyment out of my new shoes.
We dined in style at the food court. I had my favorite Crepe from Crepe Express - The Bon Appetite. It has shredded chicken, potatoes, mushrooms, swish cheese, and the best part, this amazing dijon creme sauce with some greens on the side. Yummmmmm. Camille snagged herself an amazing plate of fresh soft tacos from La Salsa. After we had finished our shopping then we headed back to our first attempted destination, from the safety and airconditioning of our car - Starbucks. Camille treated us to a couple of iced lattes with her gift card (apologizing to me in advance for subjecting me to Camille on Caffiene). It was the perfect culmination of our girls' outing.
But the day was not yet finished. When we got back to my house Camille checked in with Matt who had the car and learned that he had just spent an hour sitting in traffic. So we determined that since she needed a ride anyway, this would be the perfect opportunity to see their brand new appartment. All I can say is cute! They have a sweet old style kitchen with antique oven. Fun open floor plan betwen the dining room and kitchen and closets and storage I could only wish for. Their home office is just starting to come together and I'm so jealous! They have found a place for their nice plush sleeper sofa in the office which just looks so inviting and relaxing and now I wish more than anything that we could fit a sofa in our office! I can only imagine the quiet creativity that could take place there, spending hours reading books, sipping coffee, snipping recipes out of magazines. I'm totally digging the space! But the best part of their new place isn't even the appartment, it's the neighborhood itself. As much as we love our friends, and we love the dearly, we used to dread going to visit because they lived in a huge multi story multi unit complex with no parking in a neighborhood that never felt very safe. Now they are in an adorable quiet residential neighborhood in a small complex with 6 or 7 units and tons of street parking. It's so peaceful and relaxing!
When we got there after we had taken the tour, Camille and I decided to go explore a bit of the neighborhood while Matt and Don played some video games. So we went for a short drive and checked out the local library, a park and some historic sites, and tons and tons of huge expensive million dollar homes up in the hills. It's such a neat area to explore. We decided I would just have to bring the dogs over sometime so we can walk the neighborhood together. After our drive we went back and touched base with our friends Ben and Corrie who are in town for a seminar. They were going to head over and meat us for dinner so we decided to pop in the pilot episode of Big Love which they had just received on Netflix to kill some time. We didn't make it the whole way through episode before our friends arrived but enough to get me hooked already. You can bet we'll be queueing that series up here shortly!
We finished the evening with a walk to Zankou Chicken for dinner which is kind of a high quality Armenian Fast Food joint but it's also combined at this location with a coffee shop and has a really nice and comfortable layout. So we had a fun cheap meal, catching up with friends. It ended up being a pretty long day for Don who is still getting over the plague so we headed home pretty quickly after dinner and went straight to bed and caught up on a couple of episodes of Battlestar and Dollhouse. Still not sure what to make of the new show Dollhouse, but we'll keep watching and see how it goes.
A good day.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Feeling a little blue today. I think it's a combination of lack of sleep (Don has a cold and was coughing all night), a slow build up of low grade stress, and a big pile of work to get through. I don't think I'm getting adequate enough nutrition either and I'm worried about catching Don's cold. Our health insurance goes away in two days which is another big stresser. I know I don't have much room to complain, there are bigger things to worry about. Unemployment is hard on spouses too. Even though we are taken care of, I've never liked being in the position of being the main breadwinner. So much responsibility. I don't feel like being responsible today.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Dogs
Cordy and the coveted Ball. Possession is 9/10 of the law.
Provocative Cordy
Are you gonna throw that? Are you? Are you?!
The camera adds 10 pouds. No, really...
Little Bunny Fu Fu
A wiener burrito on a cold February day.
Don't forget to wash behind the ear.I think Cordy has snuck in some acting lessons since we moved to LA. Here she is working the camera in a desperate attempt to get some food. She's our little starving actress.
Potatoes of Evil
Don found these in our cupboard. It wasn't until he fondly nicknamed them "Potatoes of Evil" that I grabbed the camera and determined that these were going up on my blog.
Grandma and Grandpa
I finally updloaded the camera pics so here's a sampling of some of our recent pictureworthy events.
Lots of people asked how our visit was when Don's grandparents came down a couple of weekends ago. It was wonderful and a nice dosage of some much needed family time. So how did we spend our time? Drinking beer, eating pizza, and playing poker of course. Yep, Don's grandparents still got it! Grandma cleaned us out, Twice!
What a better way to follow up a night of poker playing than with a fresh batch of abelskivers. Grandma and Grandpa had never had them before so was fun to introduce them to a new treat. Unfortunately the camera ran out of battery before I could capture the finished product, but here Don is whipping up the batter.
Lots of people asked how our visit was when Don's grandparents came down a couple of weekends ago. It was wonderful and a nice dosage of some much needed family time. So how did we spend our time? Drinking beer, eating pizza, and playing poker of course. Yep, Don's grandparents still got it! Grandma cleaned us out, Twice!
What a better way to follow up a night of poker playing than with a fresh batch of abelskivers. Grandma and Grandpa had never had them before so was fun to introduce them to a new treat. Unfortunately the camera ran out of battery before I could capture the finished product, but here Don is whipping up the batter.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Costco and Cooking
I've had some fun with the cooking blog this week. Looking for ways to stretch the budget and still get some healthy cooking in. Lunches are a bit easier now that Don's not on the road every day, but also means we need to stock the fridge a little better. I compiled some recipe groupings of items that we can prep ahead of time and freeze in individual lunch servings.
It took me three attempts but I finally successfully made my weekly trip to Costco. Tried to go on Saturday afternoon (Valentines Day) but it was so crazy I couldn't even find a parking spot and gave up. Then I went again this morning directly after church only to discover that I had left my Costco Card and Debit Card in my sweatshirt pocket that I was wearing yesterday. Good thing we don't live to far away, so back I went home to get the cards. At least I was able to gas up on my first trip out there.
Anyway, I picked up some chicken thighs and flank steak. I also bought a giant bag of chocolate chips. Figured lit would be good to have cookie ingredients on hand to keep us from splurging on desserts and other snacks. They also make a tasty but economical contribution to the potluck style dinners we're always having among friends. Also stocked up on coffee filters so we are good on those for the next year. But the real treat of the day was the splurge on the 12 pack of Costco chocolate muffins I picked up. I thought about getting the variety pack with the poppy seed and blueberry ones also, but why bother when all you really want is the chocolate. Don was so excited when I got home that he immediately went to work individually saran wrapping and repackaging each of them to preserve maximum freshness. We put the majority in the freezer. I'm thinking they'll make for a nice breakfast option or late night snack. I guess it's the little pleasures in life that keep us going. :)
So I've been busy all day doing kitchen prep work for the week. I started with a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. There was just enough dough to for two full cookie sheets with a tiny sample left over to toss in the freezer for an emergency craving. I also did all the prep work for Meal Plan #1 recently published on the Cooking Kama Sutras Blog. I prepared the Brunswick Stew and Braised Chicken Thighs according to the recipes and then boxed them up and stuck in the freezer for lunches. After the ones we ate for dinner tonight, we got 9 additional servings out of them. I also made two batches of the Asian Barbecue Chicken Marinade and tossed in the freezer to pull out when needed. I even had one small packet of chicken thighs left which I froze separately for a yet to be determined future use. Tomorrow I will tackle the flank steak according to Meal Plan #3. And then we will have a very pleasantly stocked freezer and easy week ahead of us.
So there's definitely more work and prep involved but I kind of enjoy the process. I'm looking forward to assembling some more meal plans so keep an eye out on the cooking blog.
It took me three attempts but I finally successfully made my weekly trip to Costco. Tried to go on Saturday afternoon (Valentines Day) but it was so crazy I couldn't even find a parking spot and gave up. Then I went again this morning directly after church only to discover that I had left my Costco Card and Debit Card in my sweatshirt pocket that I was wearing yesterday. Good thing we don't live to far away, so back I went home to get the cards. At least I was able to gas up on my first trip out there.
Anyway, I picked up some chicken thighs and flank steak. I also bought a giant bag of chocolate chips. Figured lit would be good to have cookie ingredients on hand to keep us from splurging on desserts and other snacks. They also make a tasty but economical contribution to the potluck style dinners we're always having among friends. Also stocked up on coffee filters so we are good on those for the next year. But the real treat of the day was the splurge on the 12 pack of Costco chocolate muffins I picked up. I thought about getting the variety pack with the poppy seed and blueberry ones also, but why bother when all you really want is the chocolate. Don was so excited when I got home that he immediately went to work individually saran wrapping and repackaging each of them to preserve maximum freshness. We put the majority in the freezer. I'm thinking they'll make for a nice breakfast option or late night snack. I guess it's the little pleasures in life that keep us going. :)
So I've been busy all day doing kitchen prep work for the week. I started with a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. There was just enough dough to for two full cookie sheets with a tiny sample left over to toss in the freezer for an emergency craving. I also did all the prep work for Meal Plan #1 recently published on the Cooking Kama Sutras Blog. I prepared the Brunswick Stew and Braised Chicken Thighs according to the recipes and then boxed them up and stuck in the freezer for lunches. After the ones we ate for dinner tonight, we got 9 additional servings out of them. I also made two batches of the Asian Barbecue Chicken Marinade and tossed in the freezer to pull out when needed. I even had one small packet of chicken thighs left which I froze separately for a yet to be determined future use. Tomorrow I will tackle the flank steak according to Meal Plan #3. And then we will have a very pleasantly stocked freezer and easy week ahead of us.
So there's definitely more work and prep involved but I kind of enjoy the process. I'm looking forward to assembling some more meal plans so keep an eye out on the cooking blog.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Regrouping
Well, you could say we hit a small bump in our journey toward home ownership yesterday. Don became a statistic of the economy yesterday and was laid off along with 20% of his fellow Revchem employees. It was a bit of a blow although we were not completely blindsided. We knew it was a possibility and we planned for it. We've been through this before and are in a really good place to handle it. Overall, I feel pretty positive about it and am inclined to think that when things like this happen, a better opportunity usually comes along. We will be OK financially. Looking over our budget, I think we can get by without having to dip into our savings and may even be able to save a little more if we're really disciplined. I'm even thinking it might be nice for him to have a little "time off" to decompress and I have some pleasant fantasies about what it might be like to have a "house husband" for a while (Breakfast in bed anyone? :) The only real downers are putting off our home purchase for another year or two and Don having to walk away from a company that he committed four years of his life to and a clientele that he was proud to service. Oh yeah, and we won't have health insurance anymore, I guess that's a big one. So we will be eating health conscientiously, flossing our teeth every night, and driving extra cautiously for a while. But the truth is, and we may have to keep reminding ourselves of this, the future is wide open. All of our "needs" are covered and now Don just needs some time to figure out what his "wants" are.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Rain
The floodgates have opened. We are experiencing a massive downpour - four days of torrential rains. The kicker too is that Don's poor grandparents picked these four days out of the entire year to visit us from Idaho. Too bad for them, but as they said, they didn't come to see California, they came to see us. Regardless, we're happy they're here and enjoying our time. The rain though is awesome. It's so refreshing and cleansing. And every drop feels like such a precious commodity in a land where water is scarce. I hope it fills our reservoirs, washes away our smog, and brings us all back into respectful communion with mother nature. Bring on the showers.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Productivity
Finally, a productive weekend! It's Sunday night and the house is nice and clean. Dishes done and put away. All of the rooms are picked up and Don even tackled and conquored the laundry. Laundry baskets are empty and the clothes actually got put away too! I started the weekend off by getting all the grocery shopping done Saturday morning and then I even cooked a couple of big meals to package up for the week ready to eat (Tacos and Chili, Yummmmmmm). This morning I decided to go in to work and catch up on some much needed maintenance stuff - all the side tasks that I never have time to get to during the week. I try my best to avoid going in on the weekends which allows me to enjoy the luxury of uninterrupted time on the few occasions that I do. I spent about 4.5 hours and accomplished about 80% of what I wanted to. But I think the remaining 20% I can squeeze in during my work week. Then I came home and tackled my home office. I had a mound of papers piled up which I spent a good couple hours going through sorting into garbage, recycling, shred, filing, and things to do. I even organized my things to do into an "immediately before you go to bed pile," an "as soon as you can get to it pile," and a "when you have time pile." I accomplished everything in the first pile so those little tasks that have been eating at me for weeks like updating my address with the DMV, sending in Don's vehicle renewel check, and completing the registration for jury duty (yes, I got summoned) are no longer weighing me down. Man that feels good. And to top it off, I even did a little bit of minor rearranging and pulled my treadmill into my bedroom for easier access and less interruptions to prevent me from working out. Can this week get any better?
Oh, and in a follow up to my last email, I even went through my old files and discovered that the parking ticket reporting on my credit report was indeed paid and I have proof. So I will be getting that taken care of as well. That's why you keep records!
Oh, and in a follow up to my last email, I even went through my old files and discovered that the parking ticket reporting on my credit report was indeed paid and I have proof. So I will be getting that taken care of as well. That's why you keep records!
Credit Surprises
Moving forward with our goal of buying our first house, one of the preparatory things Don and I decided to do this weekend was order a free copy of our personal credit reports to make sure everything is in order for when we start applying for mortgages. We did discover a couple of things.
First, we have excellent credit. All of our accounts are in good standing with perfect payment history. Yes! Too bad the free report doesn't also give you a score but I'm quite sure we are in the 700s.
Second, apparently I have a parking ticket from Tacoma, outstanding since 2006. Oops, didn't even know about that one. So I'll have to make a couple of calls to get that one straightened out.
Third, while we were excited to be able to report to our potential mortgage lenders that we are 100% credit card debt free, we realized that our credit report doesn't exactly reflect this. Although we have paid off all our personal credit cards, turns out that since Don is an authorized signer on the DG credit cards, all of their credit card debt shows up on Don's personal credit report. Ouch! Don't know how I missed that one given that I'm a Credit Analyst for a living but for some reason never put it together. Well that's some new increased motivation to get those paid off even faster.
Finally, I was a little bit startled when I printed out my report and discovered the first two items on there were large credit cards that I didn't recognize. A little bit of investigating and I promptly figured out that these accounts belonged to my parents for which I was an authorized signer on their account. So I got to call my parents and ask them to take me off of their credit cards. I bet that was a fun call for them. It only took 31 years but I've finally achieved financial independence from my parents. I'm a big girl now!
First, we have excellent credit. All of our accounts are in good standing with perfect payment history. Yes! Too bad the free report doesn't also give you a score but I'm quite sure we are in the 700s.
Second, apparently I have a parking ticket from Tacoma, outstanding since 2006. Oops, didn't even know about that one. So I'll have to make a couple of calls to get that one straightened out.
Third, while we were excited to be able to report to our potential mortgage lenders that we are 100% credit card debt free, we realized that our credit report doesn't exactly reflect this. Although we have paid off all our personal credit cards, turns out that since Don is an authorized signer on the DG credit cards, all of their credit card debt shows up on Don's personal credit report. Ouch! Don't know how I missed that one given that I'm a Credit Analyst for a living but for some reason never put it together. Well that's some new increased motivation to get those paid off even faster.
Finally, I was a little bit startled when I printed out my report and discovered the first two items on there were large credit cards that I didn't recognize. A little bit of investigating and I promptly figured out that these accounts belonged to my parents for which I was an authorized signer on their account. So I got to call my parents and ask them to take me off of their credit cards. I bet that was a fun call for them. It only took 31 years but I've finally achieved financial independence from my parents. I'm a big girl now!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Privacy
When Don and I switched over from Time Warner to AT&T service a few weeks ago, we ended up getting a new phone number. As soon as we got our new phone number, the solicitors were on us like flies to honey. It takes thirty days to process your information on the National Do Not Call Registry (which we promptly registered for) and in the mean time we were getting as many as 20 solicitations a day.
That was bad enough. Then yesterday, some girl started calling the house repeatedly asking for a guy named David, convinced that she spoke to him on our line a week ago and has been trying to reach him ever since. Although we explained to her that this is a new number and that we are the only ones that live here and that we have no idea who this person is, she has yet to get it through her thick skull. She continues to call back from a blocked phone number more than a dozen times by now hoping that David will answer the phone and immediately hangs up now when we answer it. The only thing I can think of is that she is a mentally deranged lunatic and this David guy her ex-boyfriend who we of course are hiding from her. What?!
So I called AT&T to find out what we can do about this and they came to the rescue with our new Privacy Manager phone service. Privacy Manager does not let unidentified callers through yoru line. Period. If someone calls from a blocked or unlisted phone number, our privacy manager picks up and explains to them that we do not accept unidentified calls. The caller either has to press a number to display their phone number or record a message saying who they are. Only then does our phone ring and it's not the caller directly, but the privacy manager who plays the message for us and asks us whether we would like to accept the call, reject the call, send them straight to voicemail, or option #4 (my favorite) if it is a solicitor we can play for them a prerecorded legal rejection notice instructing them to block our number from their registry or face a lawsuit! The service should be in effect by the end of the day. And although it normally costs a monthly fee of about $6.00 which I would have gladly paid, it turns out it's free with our phone package!
By the way, I'm also told that it directs out of area calls (which I'm hoping includes 800 numbers) through the privacy manager so if you are calling us from out of town, I apologize for the extra steps but please record a brief greeting and we look forward to accepting your call promptly! I'm sooooooooo excited to have control over our phone in our own house again. Is nice!
That was bad enough. Then yesterday, some girl started calling the house repeatedly asking for a guy named David, convinced that she spoke to him on our line a week ago and has been trying to reach him ever since. Although we explained to her that this is a new number and that we are the only ones that live here and that we have no idea who this person is, she has yet to get it through her thick skull. She continues to call back from a blocked phone number more than a dozen times by now hoping that David will answer the phone and immediately hangs up now when we answer it. The only thing I can think of is that she is a mentally deranged lunatic and this David guy her ex-boyfriend who we of course are hiding from her. What?!
So I called AT&T to find out what we can do about this and they came to the rescue with our new Privacy Manager phone service. Privacy Manager does not let unidentified callers through yoru line. Period. If someone calls from a blocked or unlisted phone number, our privacy manager picks up and explains to them that we do not accept unidentified calls. The caller either has to press a number to display their phone number or record a message saying who they are. Only then does our phone ring and it's not the caller directly, but the privacy manager who plays the message for us and asks us whether we would like to accept the call, reject the call, send them straight to voicemail, or option #4 (my favorite) if it is a solicitor we can play for them a prerecorded legal rejection notice instructing them to block our number from their registry or face a lawsuit! The service should be in effect by the end of the day. And although it normally costs a monthly fee of about $6.00 which I would have gladly paid, it turns out it's free with our phone package!
By the way, I'm also told that it directs out of area calls (which I'm hoping includes 800 numbers) through the privacy manager so if you are calling us from out of town, I apologize for the extra steps but please record a brief greeting and we look forward to accepting your call promptly! I'm sooooooooo excited to have control over our phone in our own house again. Is nice!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Detox Day
I need a detox day. I haven't been eating all that great lately but I think the biggest thing is my total lack of hydration. I've hardly been drinking any water, but, rather, in it's place, soda, beer, wine and coffee. One cannot live on these things and as I cannot seem to moderate myself, I think I'll have to nix them all for an extended time. Well, all of them except coffee which I will allow myself once a day. My new best friends are going to be milk, water, and iced tea, which should get my body well on track to feeling better.
When it comes to diet, I've certainly been snacking more than I need to, but I'm also trying to find the best way to eat healthy while also saving money. Don and I have cut our food budget way down while we are working on our house savings. We're trying different things like eating discounted frozen foods a few times a week to cut costs and we even bought lunch boxes and started packing our lunches every day. Some things have worked and some haven't. The frozen dinners are certainly a luxury when it comes to the convenience of cooking and cleaning which also helps a lot with curbing our impulse to eat out on nights that we don't feel like cooking, but I definitely don't feel like I'm getting the same nutritional value as when we were cooking with fresh foods every night. So this week I think I'll try cooking a couple of big bulk meals that aren't too expensive like Sausage Spinach Soup and Tacos and that way we'll have leftovers to carry us through most of the weak. Also packing lunches has worked really well for me considering that I have access to a full kitchen at work so can easily bring leftovers and convenience foods to reheat, but it has been a little bit of a struggle to get up early enough in the morning to make ready to eat foods that Don can take with him in the car. So we've figured out the balance. I will try to take my lunch most days, and we will pack him some snacks, sides and drinks so that all he has to do is pick up a sandwich or burger every day which should keep us pretty close to our $25 week lunch budget. I think for us, the big thing we've discovered when budgeting is to set realistic goals. If something costs a little bit more, but we know we can stick to it, it ends up being cheaper for us in the long run because where we tend to waste the most money is when we aren't prepared or doing something impulsive.
And lastly, on the note of detoxation, I need a detox from television. I've definitely been getting sucked in to the black hole of the boob tube and I'm pretty darn sick of it. I'm really getting to the point where I wish we didn't have television anymore. It seems like more and more of our social gatherings are centered around the television instead of more interactive games and visiting. I waste a lot of time watching programing that I really wouldn't miss if we didn't have it and when it comes to television, Don and I have different tastes and different interests anyway so we end up spending more time apart than we normally would in different rooms of our own house which obviously leads to less husband and wife activities of every kind. I miss the days where all we had was Netflix and we would choose our shows and watch the seasons through from start to finish and it was an event to look forward to at the end of the day together. So blah for television. I think the only reason I'm not ready to push giving it up just yet is because it was such a major pain going through the process recently to get everything switched over from Time Warner to AT&T that it would feel like such a waste to discontinue now after all that effort. Additionally, the one and only show I do really care about right now is Battlestar Gallactica which is in the final season. I think I am willing to stick it out through the rest of the season, but as soon as it's over, I'm really hoping Don will be open to the idea of saying goodbye to cable hopefully for the last time, and welcome back our beloved Netflix lifestyle.
When it comes to diet, I've certainly been snacking more than I need to, but I'm also trying to find the best way to eat healthy while also saving money. Don and I have cut our food budget way down while we are working on our house savings. We're trying different things like eating discounted frozen foods a few times a week to cut costs and we even bought lunch boxes and started packing our lunches every day. Some things have worked and some haven't. The frozen dinners are certainly a luxury when it comes to the convenience of cooking and cleaning which also helps a lot with curbing our impulse to eat out on nights that we don't feel like cooking, but I definitely don't feel like I'm getting the same nutritional value as when we were cooking with fresh foods every night. So this week I think I'll try cooking a couple of big bulk meals that aren't too expensive like Sausage Spinach Soup and Tacos and that way we'll have leftovers to carry us through most of the weak. Also packing lunches has worked really well for me considering that I have access to a full kitchen at work so can easily bring leftovers and convenience foods to reheat, but it has been a little bit of a struggle to get up early enough in the morning to make ready to eat foods that Don can take with him in the car. So we've figured out the balance. I will try to take my lunch most days, and we will pack him some snacks, sides and drinks so that all he has to do is pick up a sandwich or burger every day which should keep us pretty close to our $25 week lunch budget. I think for us, the big thing we've discovered when budgeting is to set realistic goals. If something costs a little bit more, but we know we can stick to it, it ends up being cheaper for us in the long run because where we tend to waste the most money is when we aren't prepared or doing something impulsive.
And lastly, on the note of detoxation, I need a detox from television. I've definitely been getting sucked in to the black hole of the boob tube and I'm pretty darn sick of it. I'm really getting to the point where I wish we didn't have television anymore. It seems like more and more of our social gatherings are centered around the television instead of more interactive games and visiting. I waste a lot of time watching programing that I really wouldn't miss if we didn't have it and when it comes to television, Don and I have different tastes and different interests anyway so we end up spending more time apart than we normally would in different rooms of our own house which obviously leads to less husband and wife activities of every kind. I miss the days where all we had was Netflix and we would choose our shows and watch the seasons through from start to finish and it was an event to look forward to at the end of the day together. So blah for television. I think the only reason I'm not ready to push giving it up just yet is because it was such a major pain going through the process recently to get everything switched over from Time Warner to AT&T that it would feel like such a waste to discontinue now after all that effort. Additionally, the one and only show I do really care about right now is Battlestar Gallactica which is in the final season. I think I am willing to stick it out through the rest of the season, but as soon as it's over, I'm really hoping Don will be open to the idea of saying goodbye to cable hopefully for the last time, and welcome back our beloved Netflix lifestyle.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Chris Angel is a Douche Bag
Best Title of a Supernatural Episode ever. Don and I are just starting the program now. Don't even care if it turns out to be a good episode or not. We've already gotten plenty of amusement out of the title alone. Love this show!
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