Hello!

Well, I've been thoroughly ignoring this tiny corner of the internet... my family's 30th birthday post was so amazing that I wanted to keep it up as long as possible! I was so surprised! My husband was able to guess my password, and I kept asking him if he did it and he kept denying it. Finally I got him to fess up, which is cool. I don't care if he has my password, at least for the blog!

Here's a bit of what we've been up to:

• New recipe November is still going on. Last week on Friday, we had pork chops with garlic and herbs with sweet potato fries (one of my standbys) and roasted asparagus. The week before we had parmesan-encrusted pork chops with hot crash potatoes and green beans. Monday Mike was still here because of Michigan state holiday, so I made an adapted version of this chicken parmesan recipe (didn't bread the chicken) and served it over spaghetti squash instead of noodles. I thought it was super yummy - I think the boy got a bit freaked out by the squash. Oh well, can't win them all! Oh, and for my bday celebrations we made gluten-free pumpkin cupcakes and car bomb cupcakes. No reason for the gluten-free other than I got a good recommendation on the recipe. Hoo boy were they both good! We've been making so much food that this Friday I think I'm going to take a little respite and just make tacos! Need a break from dirtying my kitchen.
  
• We went to the Black and White Ball for the Boys and Girls Club of Chicago a couple weeks ago, and had a big group of about 20 people. It was SUCH a great time! And we bid on and won a silent auction item - for someone from our group to sing on stage with the band. Of course we made Jay do it, and he did a spectacular job! Here is a link to the video, it's awesome: Jay's Singalong
• On the day of the actual birthday Mike and I went to Flemings. Surf and Turf for me, giant steak for Mike. And he insisted upon us both ordering our own chocolate lava cakes. Totally didn't make a dent in mine, but oh well.
  
• This weekend we celebrated my birthday with dinner at Tango Sur and then hit up Hye bar with some friends. Again, another great time! I love seeing my friends and was so glad that they could make it out.
• My birthday present came last week! I've been saving for months for a new Nikon camera (the D300S), and I finally pulled the trigger with the influx of birthday funds. Even not knowing how to use it, it takes MUCH better pictures than my old DSLR. I am officially in love.
  
• With the birthday and the hunting holiday, I've had a lot of Mike time lately. More Mike time next week, which I'm very excited about. It all makes me realize how much I miss the big lug!
• This week I am super busy, with taking pictures of a friend's baby for Christmas cards, prayer meeting with the same friend, Top Chef night with Beth tonight (hopefully I'll get in a workout too!) and tomorrow I'm hitting a new grilled-cheese restaurant with my friend Amy. Woo! After all this I am totally staying home on Friday and cleaning our wreck-of-a-condo and snuggling with that dog!
  

Back home again....

So I'm back! I'm dragging a WHOLE lot and have my sister's wedding on Saturday, so things are going to be a bit quiet around here. Check out what I'll be up to:

• Working out every day and eating lean protein and veg (I am fat, and not with PH-AT).
• Haircut and color tonight (stay blonde or go brown?! the question of the century)
• Milly gets a shot tomorrow. So sad. Hopefully they use a kitten needle so she doesn't fuhreak out
• Wednesday need to pack!
• Finish table tents (I'm doing the calligraphy on them) for the wedding
• Make a mix for the dance portion of the wedding evening
• Head off to Evansville on Thursday for wedding festivities

And a funny story: My mom called me and left a voicemail yesterday saying that Gracie was toddling around their house yesterday, pointed the couch that was Milly's favorite place to sit when we were there last, and said "ARF! ARF!" So cute! It's funny that she remembers Milly :)

Gah.

I mean, seriously? Could this guy be any more of a jerkwad??

All this guy's bellyaching about what a shrew his soon-to-be-ex-wife is annoys me. I mean, yeah, she is controlling and sometimes shrill, but A) You kind of have to be a dictator with 8 young kids if anything is going to get done and B) YOU MARRIED IT! You knew she was that way when you got married. You get what you pay for, blah blah blah.

Ahem. OK, I feel much better. But I would still want to give him a good kick in the shins if I saw him on the street. What a weirdo.

Bullety Friday

• Thank the gods above for the filter between my brain and mouth. Or perhaps my brain and facebook. I always want to put these snarky status comments and then realize I am friends with my whole family, some coworkers, and family friends that would almost certainly take offense. On the downside, no one ever gets to see my brilliant one-liners.
• On that same tack, I was talking to Michelle at BlogHer and told her that it's hard to tell if I'm a nice person or not b.c I know what goes on in my head and that if I said half of it, people wouldn't think I was that nice of a person. She said she thought I was nice, so I must be doing a decent filtering job :)
• I'm planning my sister's shower next weekend. There is kind of a lot of stuff, yo! Favors, gift, and games down. Now I just need to get to work making cupcakes, broccoli slaw, and picking up stuff for mimosa. How many mimosa should I budget per person? I'm thinking 5-10 right? hahaha... hopefully it's more like 2.
• I keep worrying I'll forget to have my bridesmaid dress altered for the wedding. I need to just chill out and realize I am on top of it and won't forget.
• Tonight we're heading to Flemings with my brother and his girlfriend, Kim. Should be a good time. I am uber-stoked. If you live in Chicago and haven't tried Flemings, I would highly recommend. Love the Flemings potatoes.
• Tomorrow it's off to the Cubs game. Hopefully this weather keeps up.
• Dog has been kind of spirited this week. Yesterday she was trying to get at my retainer on the bathroom vanity (note to dog, you are NOT tall enough. FREAKING GIVE IT UP ALREADY) and put dirty puppy pawprints all over my white bathroom cabinet. Gah. On the upside, now the cabinet is Very Clean.
• On Monday I drove to work, and accidentally forgot and got on the train to go home. I heard the train doors ding to close, and realized in that moment my car was downtown. I freaking sprinted out those doors so fast, I'm sure everyone was like, "What the hell was that?" Thank goodness I remembered before the doors closed, that would have sucked to get to where I usually park the car and be like... "Oh yeah."
• Love hearing the planes whoosh overhead for the Chicago Air and Water show! Fun!

Whew!

We had a BUSY weekend. Check out all we did:

• Thursday we headed to Friar Tuck's for the annual actuary night. It was so fun, and we got to hear lots of people rock out to karoke. Jay sang "Don't you want me" and Smiller sang some Michael Jackson and they both went for broke on them - just belting out the tunes. It was great, although I cannot leave out that I am WAY disappointed that CFunk has retired "Kung Fu Fighting" from his karoke repertoire. So disappointing. The best story of the night was that when standing waiting in the bathroom, the girl behind me in line asked a couple other girls if we were there for a party. The other girls replied "Yeah, it's actuaries, you know, they do math." First Girl goes "Meth? That is REALLY GROSS." Other girls replied "NO, MATH. Like, Mathematics!"... if possible the first girl looked even more disgusted knowing that they did MATH and not METH. I just burst out laughing.
  
• On Friday we headed to Steve Miller Band at Ravinia. It was tons of fun even if we got there 2 hours prior and couldn't find anywhere to sit other than behind some tents in the back of the park. I guess the gates open at 4 and you kind of have to be there then? What? Strange... but yet it was a good time. Everyone brought a sandwich and then a side. I brought Dixon Family Taco Dip (thanks for the recipe, Dort!) and it was gooooood. I'm still working on eating it. And the sandwiches I brought Mike and I were goat cheese, olive oil, proscuitto, salami, and fresh basil on a whole wheat baguette. I was going for the gold on that one or something!
• Saturday AM we got up and hit the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was cool to see all the movie props, but as my friend Amy said, it was a bit disappointing to see Hermione's pinkish-purple dress from HP4 and realize I wouldn't even be able to fit a thigh in it. Holy cow, that chick is small.
• On the way home from the Museum, Mike and I stopped in at Chili's to get carryout. Then we got stuck in some major traffic on the way home as the red line of the El had some trash fire in the tunnel. There were cops and fire trucks blocking off the whole red line route, and black smoke billowing from the air ducts along the way. Crazy!
• After a long nap at home, we decided to get going and take Milly to the Sheffield Garden Walk. We got down there and started to go in - then realized that the sign in front said "Please no pets." BOO. Not beagle-friendly! So we turned around and went home, stopping at the "Wiggly Field" dog park on Sheffield on the way home. I was pretty disappointed b.c I was looking forward to seeing my girls at the street festival. And then at the dog park Milly was a total shy-guy, running to hide behind us when any of the other dogs wanted to play. She was being so weird!
• For dinner we hit up Cafe Babareeba with my brother Jay and his girlfriend Kim, and some other friends Kelsey and Rachel. It was Rachel's bday and her fam is friends with ours from Evansville, so it was definitely good to see her. And I have to say the seared scallops were excellent as always! I love that restaurant.
• Sunday we headed to Kenosha to see Mike's dad, his stepmom, his two sisters, and nephew. It was a good time, walking around the Kenosha art fair and shooting the breeze with the fam. His Dad grilled up a massive feast and we all ate until we could hardly move anymore. I hadn't had french onion dip in a long time and it was sooooo yummy. Plus I finally found someone who could properly burn a hot dog for me (I don't think Mike was taking me seriously when I say I like them charred.... they always come back only slightly burnt!)
  

After all that, we were pretty beat when we got home on Sunday. We have so many fun weekends coming up, but I'm starting to really need some downtime! I guess that'll come when it's cold out, eh?

As a random aside, is anyone watching this MTV show "16 and Pregnant"? I am finding it massively addicting and it's far better put-together than a show I would expect to be airing on MTV!

Can I have a full-body transplant?

So I never did mention the ONLY bad part about Italy. On our only full day in Capri, I woke up covered in hives. It was crazy, and totally odd. And itchy. I had to walk into a pharmacy and point to the hives covering my arm to get something to put on them. And even with the cream the crazy Italian pharmacist gave me (which could have totally been for athlete's foot, for all I know... the box was in Italian!) they were super itchy.

The same thing happened when I got back from Australia. I don't think I have any food allergies, I just think my body may be going on full-on revolt when faced with such a major time change and change of routine.

Oh and you know what the doctor says when you go for hives (this after the Australian trip)... "Yup, that's hives. No way to know exactly what caused them. But you can put some Benadryl cream on them and they should go away in a few days." Uh, thanks, modern medicine? And for this I had a copay of $35, not to mention my insurance probably paid like $200.

Is it even possible that they were caused by the time change? I don't know. But coming from the only person over 4 to have croup, like, EVER, maybe. Who knows, right?

Video for your Wednesday!

I have no idea why this made me laugh so hard.

Random query...

So my mom and I had an interesting conversation the other day, and I've been thinking about it ever since. I had always assumed that if someone said something when they were mad or drunk they obviously really meant it in real life. Of course, because that is mostly what happens with me. Two glasses of wine, you'll have about as much honestly as you can handle - every thought that is in my brain comes sliding on out.

But she observed that there are people in this world who say things when they're mad and drunk that they do not mean at all, not even in the slightest. That hadn't ever occured to me before, but I'm thinking it's definitely an option.

What do you think? Which side of the railroad tracks do you fall on?

Being a grownup sucks

Yesterday I was driving to Trader Joe's (as an aside, Trader Joe's is AWESOME. Why don't I go there every weekend? It's got all kinds of cool yummy foods like Whole Foods but for like a fourth of the price!), and heard a commercial on the radio for the St Patrick's Day Raffle. For the first time in my life, I thought "I should buy a lottery ticket." I was in traffic and my mind drifted off to what I would buy with a cool million.

You know you are lame when the first thing you think about winning a million dollars is that it would kill your effective tax rate.

Winning a million dollars would leave you 600K after tax, assuming an effective 40% tax rate. Here's how I would spend my million:

• Pay off the condo
• Pay off the RAV4
• Buy a Prius
• Do all the home improvements we want to do: New carpet, kitchen, bathrooms, painting, new appliances, etc.
• Put the rest in the bank

Just call me a CPA but this list is hella lame. What would you do with a million dollars? And please let is be a less lame list than mine is!!

Another riveting conversation with my otolarynologist

Doc: So, are you feeling better?
Me: Um, I didn't feel the acid reflux to begin with.
Doc: But do you notice any difference?
Me: A little, I guess. I mean, I can tell when I forget to take it and I eat something bad.
Doc: Something bad?
Me: Yeah, mostly alchohol and pizza.
Doc: Didn't I give you the instruction sheet? You're not supposed to have alchohol, pizza, chocolate.... (he keeps blathering on this long list of things I love)
Me: Silent. Wondering if life is really worth living without pizza or chocolate.
Doc: So I'll have to give you that instruction sheet (as an aside, he forgot to give it to me AGAIN)
Me: OK
Doc: And maybe I'll switch your medication, too. So for this new medication, you have to take it approximately 30-60 minutes before a big meal.
Me: How big is "big"? I am trying not to eat big meals.
Doc: Well that's not healthy. You HAVE to eat big meals.
Me: Are you kidding? Everything I read says it is better to eat alot of smaller meals throughout the day.
Doc: Like what?
Me: I don't know, SELFL magazine, Women's Health, the Internets.
Doc: Oh, see, that's where you are going wrong.
Me: What?
Doc: You need to eat more than a CRACKER for a meal though.
Me: Seriously, I eat WAY more than a cracker (runs him through the meals..)
Doc: OK, well that is totally fine. You could have some salad and some fish.
Me: thinking that a salad and fish is not a "big" meal but whatever