Pre-Thanksgiving Photo Tour

Before I post about Thanksgiving, I've finally got some pictures of stuff since Halloween. So here is a picture tour of my past month.

Our house all Halloween-ified.
Playing safely with sticks on the swings at Jayme and Charles'.
Baby bellies at about 15 weeks.

Playing with Maria and her dog Hendrix at Hunter Park.
Most of Thanksgiving dinner before we cooked it.

My blister about 1 stage before I accidentally popped it. It was even bigger than this when that happened.
But then while washing dishes, I shook my arm and the blister popped. Now it looks more like this. (for some reason it keeps rotating the picture, but you still get the idea, much better.)

Brr!!

It is really cold at work. I'm sitting here with my little fingers freezing and my toe-zies like ice cubes. But I don't want to cover my burn now, so I can't just put on another sweater (yes another, I am already wearing one).

Turn up the heat!!

Weekend Adventures

*I had this posted last week, but with fooding with family, I decided to take it down until afterwards. Now that that is done, here is the post! again*


I enjoy having fun-filled weekends. Since the work week is always the same thing, day after day, it's nice to spice things up over the weekend.

After spending time at Riverdance and dealing with our car last weekend (by the way Jenette, Chris, Newgen, and Andrea, I belive we were in the wrong seats b/c someone else was in ours), this weekend we stayed home and spend time with Maria.

This was the third time she's been to our place. She helped us move in, and spent the night when we went to New Jersey last November for Teresa's wedding. So it has been a little over a year.

She came in Friday and we showed her around work. Then we used her Durango to pick up our tv stand. We brought it back and set up our new tv on the new stand!! It's wonderful! The tv is nice and now the cable works* and our room is so useful! The couch is marvelous the tv is great. It's nice!

We watched movies, hung out with Hendrix, played games, went to the park, ate out, cooked at home, and just kinda chilled. She left Monday morning because she had work. No fun.

Well, even more no fun. I was making Shannon and I some Maple Malt-o-Meal for breakfast after she left. It had been cooking in the microwave for 3ish minutes. I went to take out to stir, and spilt it. All over my left wrist. It. Hurt. A. Lot.


I cried (and I don't cry often over pain). It sucked. I soaked it cool water for a good while. Shannon went to the store to buy me some gel to put on it. When he came back, I put it on and put some lose gauze over it. Then I layed down on our new couch with Shannon and watched some tv. Trying not to think about the burning pain on my wrist.

Eventually the pain stopped and we made some gingerbread for houses on Friday. Then we make a huge list for Thanksgiving and went shopping. We got almost everything we need, it ws 300$. :) That was a lot. But really, Figure it'll be around 375$ with everything (turkey and bread and all) for about 3 meals worth of food. We got stuff for lunch on Thursday and for Thanksgiving dinner, and for dessert, and for breakfast on Friday and for making gingerbread. (6$ in molasses!).

I am SO looking forward to seeing family and eating food and having off of work and making gingerbread houses! I love the holidays!

*The cable would have worked when we first tried on Friday evening if the cable guy who came out when we moved in turned on ALL the cable and not just one of out connectors... Oh, Oklahoma.

Today I went to the doctor for my burn. He gave me some ointment to put on it. I'll go back in 1 week to make sure it's all good.

Okay, the picture below is kinda gross. So if you don't want to see my ugly blister (that is now HUGE) don't scroll down. If you want to be grossed out, then go ahead. It's quite huge. (like 1" by 1.75"...







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really, you don't have to look.














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but if you want to.....












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here it is!!

Excitement!

We get our new tv tomorrow! (a 54" plasma, perfect for Turkey Day Football)

Maria and Hendrix are coming to visit tomorrow! (she's only been to our place 2 times)

Julia and Pickle are gonna have a baby girl any day now! (I can't believe it!!)

We are gonna have a big family Thanksgiving at our place! (We haven't combined mine and Shannon's family for a holiday in about 5 years, and may not again for a really really long time)

Jenette is showing! (check out her pic)

Jayme is pregnant with her second child! (and this time with a guy who cares)

Life is pretty good.

And this is funny...

Riverdance and Timing Belts Part 2

Back to the car. (That is Shannon and the car with the hood up.)

So, after enjoying the second half of Riverdance (which we greatly did), we headed down south to deal with our car.

Our plan is this. Jump-start our car and then go, no more stopping. If we get on the highway, we wouldn't need to stop until we got to Manhattan, which is a better place to leave the car to get fixed than Topeka. Jenette and Chris pulled their car up, we attached the cables, let her go and.. nothing.

Tried it again... and nothing. No luck. So I called State Farm's 24 hour number. I waited on hold for about 15 minutes for a person. Then finally got someone, told her of our situation, and she started to look for a tow truck. I waited on hold another 15 minutes while she called about 8 places and then finally got one to answer! Shawnee Auto Towing.

They wouldn't be able to get there for another 1.5 hours (which means at about 1:00 am) AND we'd need to pay cash since it's after hours. Jeepers. The six of us didn't have the necessary cash. Luckily there was a Wal-mart about 1 minute aways. So we drove there to get the cash. While walking it, Shawneed Auto Towing called and said they had a call cancel and they could come get us in about 15-20 minutes! Sweet. So we got cash, went back to the car anda bout 5 minutes later, the truck was there.

We watched him put the bed down, then he got in the car, tried to start it and said "Timing belt." He didn't even think, he just said it. That is actually good news for us. This summer we were told it would need to be fixed, but we haven't been able to bring our only car in to the shop. So, hoped the tow guy was right.

Okay, car on truck. Truck to Ford dealer's service shop. Paid for tow. Said bye to Newgen. Went to Steak and Shake. mmm...


The service shop wasn't open Sunday, so we drove Jenette and Chris' second car back to Tulsa on Sunday. Then Monday, the service shop called and said it was indeed the timing belt and it would be 600.27$ (parts, labor, and tax) to repair it. We said "do it." Then they called around 4:00pm said it was done, and now our car is all better. Granted it's in Kansas and we are in Oklahoma, but Jenette and Chris are gonna bring it down for Thanksgiving and we'll trade cars back.

So, we are going to get a new car. We don't want to have to keep dealing with these issues. This is the third time this year we've had a problem with our car. It's only 10 years old, but I think she's about done. We'll keep it for a second car, but we will likely be buying a larger more reliable mobile in the nearish future. Sounds expensive...

But for an ironic twist... Jenette and Chris were going to pick up our car in Topeka after work Monday and then bring their new car to a different shop because parts they needed to get fixed were in. Well, their car died! So since we had their second car and they hadn't got ours yet, they had no car! I feel SO bad! Luckily, Shannon said they dealer gave them a car to use. I think he also said they are gonna get a different new car because that Kia they just got has had a great deal of problems since they got it. That sucks.

Riverdance and Timing Belts Part 1

Saturday, after class, Shannon and I packed up the car and drove up to Topeka. We had tickets to go watch Riverdance (like the actual Riverdance!!) with Jenette and Chris and Newgen and Andrea. The plan was to meet at Red Lobster for a nice dinner, then head over to the show.

Well, Shannon and I payed the 8.10$ toll (jeepers) at the south end of Topeka, and then we tried to leave. But no, our car just died on us, at the toll booth. It just wouldn't start. So, Shannon pushed the car to the toll booth parking lot while the attendant stopped traffic. Then we called Jenette and Chris, they were about 8 minutes away. They came and picked us up and we headed to Red Lobster.

After finally finding a parking spot, we actually got seated pretty quick. But, still we've just taken over 15 minutes away from an already pretty tight schedule. Shortly, Newgen and Andrea arrived and we had the fastest trip to Red Lobster ever, about 45 minutes total.

Now, off to Riverdance! We got there about 8 minutes before the show started and walked very briskly into the center. Jenette and I peed, and then the six of us when up to our seats in the balcony. We got there, sat down and were immediately disappointed.

I mean immediately!

You could only see like 30% of the stage! No lie! There was this giant wall for the level below us overing more than half the stage! So, the 6 of us tried to move down and ovet to get a better view. Which helped a little, now we could see about 50% of the stage, still absolutely ridiculous! After the show started, but during one act, Chris when to to tell them how lousy it was and get our seats fixed. They said they couldn't

Then a little later, during the show, Jenette (I should add, the entire reason for this trip is because it's a Christmas present for Jenette from Chris) went to tell them about it, and it may have been the tears and runny make-up, but she recieved a different outcome. They told her that they couldn't reseat us during the show. But we could move seats now and then come down during intermission and they would try to move us to a better location. So, we all squished down and over some more. Jenette, Chris, and I got seats to see about 75% of the stage. Newgen and Andrea sat in the aisle to see more of it. It was crummy, and for 50$ a ticket it was just wrong.

The dancing was great. It's really impressive what they can do with their feet. But there was one act where all we could see was the projector and hear some music. Then a violin player appeared. Apparently he'd been playing the entire time, we just couldn't see him! Geez.

Then intermission came. The six of us wandered down to find the woman Jenette was told to meet. She was polite and worked with some other workers and they found us new seats! For the second half of the show, Shannon, Newgen, Andrea, and I sat in the second row right in front on the floor! Jenette and Chris were about 2 rows behind us. WOW! What a difference!

You could see the entire stage, you could see the looks on the dancers faces, you could see all of the red dancer. And you know what, there was live music! In that corner that we couldn't see there were about 6 musicians playing wonderful music the entire time! It was even more amazing.

So, it ended okay, but is sucks that Jenette and Chris had to deal with that...

Well, now that the show is over, we still have the issue of our car. But this post is really long already, so I'll have to write it up later.

The Blind Doctor

Two things:

1 - I don't want the Blind Doctor to be working on me.
2 - It's just too easy to get a driver's license any more.

Staples v. Office Depot

Last night, on a quest for more Christmas card supplies, we went to Office Depot. It is right near to work, so we thought it would be an easy trip. While we did find nice paper for our letter and some really cheap magnetic white boards, that was about it. No cardstock in the colors we wanted and we had to settle for envelopes that are too big for our cards.

Then we tried to leave. But it was hard to turn left across traffic, so we went right, but then the intersection we went through didn't allow left turns, which we needed to make. So we had to just go straight and turn later.

But right before getting on the BA Expressway, we saw a Staples in an easy to get to location. So we went. Maybe they would have good cardstock. Well, they did, but it was expensive. So we didn't buy it. But we did look around and the rock compared to Office Depot! We were first impressed by their collection of OXO office supplies. Brillaint! OXO makes great kitchen gadgets, and now they have awesome office gadgets too! Like this sweet scissor that quickly switches to a box cutter. Brilliant!


Then we took a few more steps down the aisle and bam! More brilliant! It was a little dispenser type system. You purchased the size of container you wanted, there were three choices. Then you could fill it up with what you wanted for a set price! They had like 6 varieties of binder clips, 3 types of normal paper clips, paper clips shaped like cats, dogs, suns, guitars, treble clefs, and more, and other types of little office supplies. It was SO cool!

Then even continuing to walk around, they had not only fun stuff, but good prices and the store felt cleaner, too.

So, if you ever have a choice, go to Staples, they are the better of the two.

Saving some money... on accident

We make Christmas cards every year and enjoy doing it too. It's fun to think of what to do, then work with Shannon to carry it out. Now that we have a sweet house with a fire place, we listen to Christmas music by the fire, while drinking delicious Christmas tea and make our cards.

So, this year when we went to buy supplies, the gentleman at Hobby Lobby accidentally gave us a discount on our 40$ worth of supplies that we didn't actually get. Or at least we didn't see that they were on sale. Either way, we were chatting the whole time about things and never mentioned it. Eh, we shop there enough that it'll probably work itself out in the end.


Also, I am looking forward to the holidays! There is a good chance we will have many baby bumps around. And speaking of baby bumps, Julia and Mike are due in like a week! CRAZY! I'm so excited for them!

Company Potluck

We had our holiday potluck at work today. Shannon and I brought Creamed Onions with Sage and Autumn Cheesecake.

Shannon made the onions and sage. I think this dish would make a good green bean casserole. They always call for cream of something soup, but we don't cook with cans (generally). So, I think using this onion recipe would be a good substitute for the canned soup.

As for the cheesecake, I made it. We make it every holiday season for one reason or another. It's really good! I don't make any changes to the recipe either. It's a good amount of crust to cheesecake to apples. Some comments say to add more cheesecake filling, but I think that would be too much. We use Granny Smith apples and about 3 apples is 4 cups.

Now I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving at our place even more!

My Tummy is Grumbly

It just keeps grumbling. ALL the time. When I got to bed, all I can hear is *grumble-grumble*. Shannon said he doesn't notice, but man do I!


Then at work, it goes off some more. I swear, it's loud too! I eat a little and that helps. But it just goes. Eh, I guess it could be worse.

3 Wasps

It's been pretty warm this weekend and it's supposed to continue through early this week. Which is too bad. I am looking forward to it cooling down, mostly due to wasps.

Last year, we had almost one wasp a day in our living room. It sucked. This year it has been much better. Shannon has sprayed about 3 wasps nests over the year and the one by the chimney has helped the most, I think.

Up until yesterday, we only had about 4 all summer. Which is awesome. But yesterday there were 3!! Usually they are rather slow and half-dead. But one of yesterday's was flying around all buzzy and stuff. Brave Shannon smooshed them with his floppy shoes. All three of them, the buzzy one and all. Then unbrave me went around with the vacuum cleaner and as long of a hose as I could and sucked them up. That is scary too. You can feel them bounce through the tube. Iew.

So, I look forward to the cold, because then the wasps stop getting into my house. Grr. Little beasts.