Breaking up with Burgers Breaking up with Burgers Breaking up with Burgers Breaking up with Burgers

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Monday, September 26, 2011

Monday morning...

Survival kit.

Hello, lover.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Wherein I go all doom and gloom on your asses...(UPDATE)

I've known that I needed to post a new blog soon, but haven't really had the energy to do it. What I want to blog about is just not pretty or fun, and who wants to waste time writing about things that aren't pretty or fun? More than that, who wants to read about things that aren't pretty or fun?

So here it is.

I am in a dark place right now. I'm having a hard time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as anything other than an oncoming train. I just haven't had the energy to put any of that elloquently, so when The BFF asked me in an email about what was getting me down and if there was anything she could do to help, this was my reply, and it's now my un-pretty, un-fun, dark places post.

"You can’t do anything. Life is just going through a super sucky period right now, and it sucks. It’s my job, his (lack of a) job, his mom, his mom keeping Bubbers at her house, his mom not coming to our house to help out, us spending too much time at their house, it’s The Hubs and I not having any time or ability to ‘reconnect’, it’s my mom being sick, it’s my dad being sick, it’s my sister being a derelict, it’s my nieces being who knows where, it’s me worrying about Bubbers, it’s me travelling too much, it’s me wanting out of our apartment, it’s me wanting to stay home with Bubbers, it’s me wanting The Hubs to try harder, it’s me worrying about our 3rd anniversary coming up and knowing that there are a million things on my mind rather than thinking about celebrating it, it’s me wishing he were more romantic, more able to show sympathy, a harder worker, smarter, more determined. It’s me feeling absolutely horrible for wishing he were all those things and not focusing on the good things that he is/does. It’s me wishing I had more time to devote to helping you with your wedding and wishing that we didn’t live so far apart, it’s me worrying that your wedding won’t be everything you hoped for but not knowing how to make it so. It’s me wishing certain people would jump off a cliff sometimes, and then feeling horrible about that.

It’s just everything right now. And it’s all bundled up into a nice big fat boulder sitting on my chest with a pretty red bow and a tag saying “To: Anna, Love: The Universe”. And I can’t make it go away."

Sometimes life isn't pretty. This is one of those times.  I'm breathing, and that's all I can really promise you right now, but I know that The Eternal Optimist is still in there somewhere, buried under all the rubble, and that someday she'll find her way out and into the light. And when that happens, I know it won't be the oncoming train.

*UPDATE*

You know, it's funny how much better I feel after just throwing up all of that horribleness into the vastness of the interwebs and into the arms of the loveliest blog readers a girl could ask for. This is what I assume praying feels like to believers - to just give everything up to God. Thank you all for your kind responses and love. You are my light.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Ugh

Judge for yourself, but I say this woman is awesome.

American Apparel's Creative Director, Iris Alonzo is quoted as saying: "If every brand that tried to do this was met with such negative press, we may have to wait another decade for the mainstream to embrace something so simple."

How dare American Apparel use this as a means to justify discrimination.
 
I'm disgusted.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Just another typical work email conversation...

Today, the lovely MFN (My Friend Natalie for those of you not in the know) sent me an email, and if you can ignore our complete overuse of the term "LOL", I think it proves a pretty good point as to why we're friends.

MFN: Umm I just read a yahoo article on feminine products – have you heard of vajazzling!? And hair dye for the nether regions!?

Me: LOL, yeah, it’s all a bit strange to me. I’ll just let mine be what it wants to be and if it leaves me alone, I’ll leave it alone. LOL

MFN: LOL. I’m slightly tempted to get the hair dye as Christmas gifts for my girlfriends – it’s just so ridiculous I think it would be hysterical to see everyone’s reaction. “This is…what!?” Just be prepared.

Me: Lol, you’ve ruined it for yourself. Now I’ll totally be EXPECTING vajayjay dye, so I’ll be all, “oh, yeah, that.”

Sunday, September 11, 2011

How I honored 9/11

I'm sitting at the Dayton airport waiting for the first of my two flights to get me to Dallas. I'm having a hard time travelling today - not because I'm afraid something will happen, but because it's hard enough to give up control and fly on an airplane on a normal day. And today, my brain is overwhelmed with thoughts and images of what happened on four planes ten years ago. As much as I want to escape from remembering what happened, I can't.

A little over an hour ago, I was sitting in the Max & Erma's after going through security. I sat down and ate breakfast, and as I did, the TV, trained on CNN went through the list of names of each person who was killed. Talk about loosing your appetite. At any rate, I remembered hearing something about 9/11 being considered a National Day of Service, and a thought popped into my head.

There were four other tables of people eating breakfast around me, two tables with older couples, a table with a family of four, and another table with an older couple who were OBVIOUSLY well-to-do. I decided that I would help spread love today and pay for one of the tables' breakfasts. I sat there for about 5 minutes, trying to figure out which table I would pay for. (That was the hardest part of the whole occasion - I wanted to pay for everybody!)

In the end, I decided to pay for the breakfast of the older well-to-do couple, rationalizing that they were probably the best able to pay it forward to someone else.

The waitress came over with my check, and I told her I wanted their check as well. When she came back with it, she asked me if I knew them. I said "No, but today is a day to spread love", and she said "Yes, every day is."

So I paid for our breakfasts, and on the receipt I left on the table, I wrote:

"Today, and every day, spread love. :)"

Friday, September 9, 2011

BYOC

Since Draz said exactly what I wanted to say, I'll just go ahead and let her say it:

It’s FRIDAY – thank the ever-loving heavens above. I mean why is it that short weeks (after a holiday) end up being thee longest weeks on Earth? Oy.

Let’s do BYOC – Bring Your Own Crazy. We answer 5 questions in an effort to get to know each other better and to give our blog brains a break. Copy to your own blog and ENJOY!

1. Do you drink coffee? Decaf or regular? Cold or hot? If not – what’s your go-to morning drink?

No. I love the way coffee smells, but hate the way it tastes. My go-to caffeine fix is either Diet Coke or Mountain Dew, depending on whether the restaurant I drive-thru that morning is a Coke or Pepsi restaurant.

2. What are your top six characteristics in a partner if you could hand pick them. And just for kicks – if you’re in a relationship – after you make the list of six – does the person you are with possess all five?

Honesty
Integrity
Sense of humor
Adventurous spirit
Musicality
Chub n' scruff

The Hubs is all of the above, except, he can't sing or dance, or play an instrument. And I should add that "chub n' scruff" is the physical appearance of men that I am attracted to. A little overweight with some sort of facial hair. I'm forcing The Hubs to keep a beard for me since he's currently out of work and doesn't have to impress anybody. I luuuuuuuuuuurve it. He hates it. But still, he humors me. :)

3. I’m going to pick a person – not knowing if this person even exists in your life – and you try to describe this person in 5 short words or sentences:

Paternal grandfather

  • Lloyd
  • Kind of mean
  • Glasses
  • Lived in VERY rural Tennessee
  • I vividly remember him in his casket at his funeral

4. What’s your signature item? Color? Piece of clothing or jewelry? Accessory? You know – that one thing people know you will ALWAYS have on?

Sunglasses on the top of my head. Even when it's raining. Several years ago, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on a pair of Prada sunglasses, and since I spent so much, I wouldn't go anywhere without them. Now, I've traded them in for a $16 pair of Tarjay sunglasses, but haven't shaken the habit. They are ALWAYS there. Business meeting? Funeral? Shopping? Snowstorm? Yep, they're holding my hair back.

5. Repeat question: Summarize your week in real life and in blog life.

Longest short week EVER. I haven't slept well all week and work has been nutso. I'm leaving on Sunday to go to Dallas (via Chicago) until I return on Wednesday night. Yep, I'm getting on two airplanes on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I'm not really concerned about safety, but more about obscenely long waits and security feeling up my hooha for explosives.

Blogland has been kinda slow, except for the fact that I'm Donna Reed, bitch! So, not too much to report there.

Love, my lovelies!

Thursday, September 8, 2011

It's too bad...

...the Donna Reed show theme song didn't have lyrics. They would have made a great title for this blog post.

I'm Donna Reed, bitch!
First, I perfect meaty balls o' goodness, and now I make homemade chicken and dumplings?! Watch out now! Next thing you know, I'll be wearing pearls and high heels and bringing The Hubs his pipe while he reads the newspaper. (Sidenote: the mental image I just had of the confused look on The Hubs' face that says "What the hell am I supposed to do with that?!" just made me giggle out loud at McDonalds. Oopsie.)

At any rate, I did, indeed, make homemade chicken and dumplings. And it was, indeed, the bomb dot com.

Here is the recipe, and the changes I made (or will be making next time) in red. As far as "healthy" goes, I'm sure it's not the best thing out there, but I'd bet my pearls it's healthier than frozen pizza and mozzarella cheese sticks.

Easy Chicken and Dumplings

2 Tbsp. olive oil
12 oz. pkg. frozen mixed veggies (I'll probably double this next time)
12 oz. pkg. frozen peas (I'll omit this next time - TOO MANY PEAS!)
32 oz. chicken broth
1 can (10.5 oz) cream of chicken soup (condensed)
2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast cubed in bite-sized pieces (uncooked)
2 C Bisquick
2/3 C milk
salt & pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add vegetables and saute until tender. (About 3 minutes). Add chicken broth, salt & pepper, cream of chicken soup, and chicken. Allow the mixture to come to a boil. (The original recipe called for cooked chicken, but I added my cubes in raw and made sure they were fully cooked at the end. I think it would have overcooked the chicken if they were added in already cooked, but you do what you want. I won't tell.)

Combine Bisquick and milk in medium bowl. Drop by spoonfulls into boiling mixture. Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally, breaking up dumplings into bite sized pieces if needed. Cover with lid and simmer an additional 10 minutes.

Et voila, you can be Donna Reed too!

Food photographer, I am not.
I served this with mashed potatoes (But don't tell Donna that they were the Bob Evans microwaveable kind). I don't know why the original recipe calls for mixed veggies AND a bag of peas - it was way to pea-y. So next time, I'll omit the bag of peas and either double the mixed veggies or just do one bag of mixed veggies.

It was super good even if it was all pea-ed out. Try it!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Victory tastes delicious!

I'm not Suzie Homemaker by any means. Just ask my husband. He'll tell you how he does the majority of the 'cooking' in our house, and that most of the time we cook things that are pre-packaged and microwaveable or frozen and heated up in the oven. There aren't many "made from scratch" dishes in our repetoire.

Well, yesterday, we took Bubber Man to his 8 month check-up. (He's healthy by the way, 29.5 inches tall and 20 pounds 6 ounces, finally double his birth weight.) At any rate, the doctor told us that she wants him to be on nothing but table foods and formula by his 10 month visit. And by "table foods", I'm pretty sure she doesn't mean frozen pizza and mozzarella cheese sticks.

She was rattling off a list of all the things we could "easily" cook that he could eat - lentil soup, hummus, anything with beans, indian food, sweet potatoes, etc. Somewhere in the middle of her list of things that The Hubs and I don't even eat, she mentioned homemade meatballs. At the mention of meat, both The Hubs' and my ears perked up.

There's only one problem - I don't cook. For one, I give up easily at the mention of anything that requires chopping, sauteing(sp?), or lots of herbs. For two, our kitchen is a postage stamp. It's what we call a "One Butt Kitchen", so anything you try to cook makes a complete disaster of the two square feet of counter space we have. It has to really be worth the effort if I have to cook AND clean up the mess!

But, knowing that Bubs needs to start eating something more substantive than pureed and liquified fruits and veggies, I got home and started looking for recipes. I came upon this recipe surprisingly quickly. A recipe with four normal ingredients and three steps?! Even I can do that!

After reading the reviews, I ended up adding in some salt, pepper and grated parmesan, and they turned out A-MAZING!!!

Meaty balls o' goodness.

We had my homemade meatballs with spaghetti, garlic bread, and the world's best sauce.

I am so impressed with myself! (She said ever so humbly...) Next time, I think I'll add some Italian seasoning because they turned out a tiny bit bland, but over all, I kicked turkey meatballs ass!

We're getting ready to let Logan try some, and hopefully he'll be a fan too. If not, The Hubs and I will have to eat them all, which is just such a shame. :)

Be proud of me, Bloglandians! I made meaty balls from scratch!

Friday, September 2, 2011

BYOC

It's Friday! I guess you know what that means...

BYOC – Bring Your Own Crazy….5 little questions we ask to get to know each other better and to give our blogging brains a break. Copy and paste to your own blog and enjoy!

1. If you have a camera and have the time – take the contents of your purse out – and take a picture of said contents and explain them. If you don’t have time or a camera – please describe the contents of your purse.


I usually keep my purse pretty empty, much to the delight of my MIL. There's little in life that she likes more than to feed her superiority complex when I don't have something completely random in my purse that no normal person could ever foresee needing, and yet, somehow, we need. What ever it is, she's got it. It's like Mary Freakin' Poppins in there. Need a coat rack? I'm pretty sure she'd have it in her purse just incase you need it and her daughter-in-law didn't come prepared for just such an occasion. 

But I digress. 

In my purse currently, there is:
  • a pink wallet (with a debit card sticking out)
  • my phone (had I not used it to take the picture)
  • loose change
  • 8 used fake fingernails (don't ask)
  • my keys
  • a leopard print pair of tweezers in a plastic tube
  • 4 hair ties
  • 3 earrings (one and a half sets, lol)
  • a bobby pin
  • a tiny plastic baby from a Mardi Gras King Cake 3 years ago (which I put in my purse when I left my old job and have forgotten to take out)  
  • two pens
  • miscellaneous receipts
  • a bottle of this
  • business cards
  • a container of Sensa
  • a notepad that I got from St. Jude Children's Research Center
Random. And note the complete lack of essentials like tissues, medicines, bandaids, Tide to Go, etc. that my MIL likes to remind me I don't have. What can I say, lady? I like to live on the edge. Neener neener with my tongue stuck out.

2. Repeat question: I’m going to pick a person not knowing if you have a relationship with this person or if the person even exists and you try to describe the person in 5 words or short sentences. Your kindergarten teacher.

Seriously, how do you remember that person?! I have no recolection of kindergarden, except for making way too many art projects out of uncooked macaroni (some of which still get hung on my mama's Christmas tree, thankyouverymuch).

I'm sure my kindergarden teacher was a very nice person.

3. What’s your favorite guilty pleasure / trashy TV show you like to watch?

Much to my chagrin, I do not have cable. However, I do enjoy trashy reality shows. I loved "Love In The Wild", and still love The Amazing Race, even though I wouldn't really consider it trashy. I heart pretty much any reality show you'd find on TLC, plus any of the documentaries on addicts, prisoners, and serial killers.

What does that say about me? Eeek.

4. A lot of you told me about your first day of school experiences when I posted about how my 5 year old going to kindergarten wasn’t causing me too much heartache. So now I’m officially asking – tell me about one of your first day of school experiences that sticks out in your mind the most. Who put you on the bus? Did you ride the bus? Did your parents take pics? Did they walk you into school? Drive you there? Cook you breakfast?

I can't remember any of my personal first days of school and I haven't had the pleasure(?) of sending Bubbers off yet. I'm sure it will be filled with pictures and tears.

5. Repeat question: Summarize your week in real life and in blog land.

In real life, I made the decision to get banded, which I posted in blog life here. I'm also going through a work/life/husband crisis where I just can't be happy with anything in any situation. (It's a fun time over here in BatShitCrazyLand, won't you join me? My husband sure would appreciate it.) I'm looking forward to the 3 day weekend, and to starting it a little early - I'm leaving work at 12:30 to go pick up Bubbers and take him to his 8 month check-up. Yay!

In blog life, we finished the remodel! Yay! Thanks, Tricia! For some reason, the post fonts aren't working on IE9, but I think she's working on that. I've been catching up on banded bloggers' stories, usually starting from the beginning of their blogs or band journeys. It takes a lot of time, but the information is incredibly helpful. I hope that my blog will be a source of information for possible bandsters one day, too. And also, in Blogland, I'm growing insanely jealous of those BOOBs who are going to Chicago. Hopefully I'll be an attendee in 2012, ladies, so save some fun for me!

Guess that's it, lovelies. Have a wonderful 3 day weekend if you get one!