I said before that today I hate everything*

I feel very irritable today. 

I think it has something to do with the terrible dreams I was having all night last night.  I kept waking up every 40 minutes from these seriously weird/awful dreams.  I had spiders and ticks streaming out of my mouth in one of them!!!!  Even now, I am so skeeved out thinking about it. 

I went to Dunkin Donuts for an iced coffee this morning (I really needed the caffeine this morning) and the guy in front of me had multiple stink bugs crawling on the back of his jacket.  I seriously thought it was another dream and I'm still not sure if it's worse that it wasn't. 

I also have a big red zit on my chin.  It hurts.  And it's the annoying kind you can't pop, it's just very red and painful and I would like it to go away now.  Please?

I brought the jumbalaya to work today, and there is about 4 more bites left.  I am giving up.  It goes in the trash tonight.  If only it was that easy to throw out the smell.  :-)

I need to run, and I'm just so irritable I don't want to (even though I know it will make me feel better). 

In fact I'm so irritable just writing this is making me more irritable.  Rar.

*The Suicide Machines

If I believe that everything is fine, just fine...*

I made the jumbalaya for dinner for LL and KC on Saturday evening.  My apartment/room/whatever STILL smells like it.  I would really like for the smell to go away now.  I also made a lot of it (two more people were originally supposed to come, but didn't, so I had way more food than necessary).  I would also like it to be gone now.

My plan is to bring it to work and feed it to my co-workers (they have already agreed to this plan).  So hopefully, there will be no more jumbalaya after tomorrow.  Yay!

 

*Tegan and Sara

And each day we try, the best we can to recover, all the feelings that we left below*

The elevator in the hotel has a mirrored ceiling.  This has never been an issue before today.

I was taking Oscar out to go for his evening walk, and I was carrying him rather than letting him walk.  We get on the elevator and apparently this elevated view put Oscar close enough to see his reflection in the mirror.  

He attacked his reflection.  He literally tried to lunge out of my arms while snarling and barking at his reflection.

He is so dumb. 

*Travis 

At worst I feel bad for a while, but then I just smile, I go ahead and smile*

I am so tired.  I need another day in my weekend to recover from the rest of the weekend.  

Friday, I drove down to Delaware to visit J and Baby V and go to a yarn store to find yarn for Baby V's costume.  I won't tell you what she's going to be, but this green blob I knitted is going to hopefully get turned into a big part of it (after some finishing work is done by J).  

Any guesses what she's going to be?  

If this doesn't work I can try a different pattern and should still have enough time to finish it.  :-)  I can't wait to see the cuteness she will be.  

Saturday night, LL and KC came to visit and we went to Pennhurst Asylum.  I love being scared and I had very high hopes for the  event.  And, I had good time, but it could have been SO MUCH BETTER.  The groups they had walking through were too big, and we were at the back of the group, so we were always walking into the room right after the people jumped out.  So, we were like, oh yeah, that WOULD have been scary...if we were there.   And they didn't do enough bait and scare.  In fact they only did it once.  One guy distracted the girl and another one snuck up and scared the crap out of her.

There was one point in the tunnels underneath that made me freak out.  LL and I were walking ahead of KC and it was dark and there were flickering lights and I was so busy looking ahead, that when someone grabbed my back, I thought it was KC.  So I look back and it was NOT KC.  In fact I had a scary face in my face.  That made me jump.

So, all in all, it was entertaining (and interesting to see the asylum), but not as scary as it could have been. However, oddly enough as we were leaving, there were people at the entrance complaining to the management about how scary/offensive it was.

Seriously?

Then, Sunday, my mom and dad came up for breakfast and we found a lovely diner about 10 minutes from the hotel.  Their food was really good and they were CRAZY quick.

Now I just need to figure out how to get my parents to come out here for breakfast more often :-)

After they left, I came back and did some laundry and straightened up a bit.  Then I went for a 3 mile run (Ugh, the "driveway" into the hotel kills me at the end of every run.  Stupid hill!) and came back home to watch some football and knit (quite the incongruous pairing no?).

Unfortunately, the Giants game was so boring (seriously, how many penalties can you get?) and they weren't showing anything else that early.  I'm currently watching the Eagles game, but the sound on my TV on this channel is driving me insane and I'm not sure how much longer it will be on.

Sadly, the Pretty Pink Princesses seem to be under the misconception that we are in a fantasy golf league.  They are seriously aiming to have the lowest score each week.  We are so terrible.  And there's really no free agents to pick up to make it any better.  I've decided to switch my mindset and just pretend we're playing golf.  At least it keeps me in a better state of mind  :-)

*Lily Allen

So make sure you're thinking it through, you've let me down again*

There is a group of guys that were staying at the hotel last week and went home for the weekend but apparently came back again this week. The one guy in the group is weird (he’s cute…but really weird). He constantly stares at me. Doesn’t smile or say hi or anything to acknowledge that he’s staring AT me, but he definitely is. And it’s been quite awkward. I feel embarrassed to even look in his general direction anymore. Like maybe I have spinach stuck in my teeth, or my hair is sticking straight up, or I have a booger hanging out my nose and it’s like a train wreck and he just can’t look away.

Examples:

• He stared at me for the entire length of dinner last Wednesday night.
• He stared at me while I was downstairs Thursday night grabbing my food to bring it back to my room.
• He stared at me for his entire checkout process last Friday morning while I was sitting in the lobby waiting for my ride to come downstairs. (Keep in mind he had to blatantly turn his back to the guy checking him out of his room in order to do this so he wasn’t even subtle about it).
• He stared at me for the entire length of dinner last night.
• He stared at me every time I had to walk through the lobby to get my laundry done last night.

FINALLY, he SPOKE to me last night.

I was carrying my laundry back to my room and I ran into him and his other guys (I assume co-workers?) at the elevator. He jokingly asked me if I lived there.

The look on his face when I said, “yes”, was priceless.

Then he got quiet and stared at me some more while his other guys kept talking to me. The elevator reached his floor, and he was the last one off, and kind of looked over his shoulder at me until the door closed.

I’m telling you. I only find the weird ones. 

*The Ting Tings

But the lines are getting blurred, my conscience won't be heard*

I had to take a personality test the other day at work in preparation for a Leadership conference I have to attend in a few weeks. The first time I took it, I got a horrible response!

Your pattern of responses does not appear to match any of the commonly occurring profiles. Because of this, we are unable to provide a personalized report. We find that this situation occurs less than 1% of the time, and is unlikely to reoccur when you respond to the 28 sets of words or phrases again.

Seriously? I am so weird I can’t be categorized???

So, they made me take it again offering me slightly different choices. This time, I managed to get labeled as a counselor type.

I can’t really go into a lot of detail about it, but basically, these things always make me feel terrible about myself and my future as a leader/manager/whatever. They tend to focus on why your personality type could be bad, which bothers me. Actually, funny enough, one of the traits is that I take criticism as a personal affront (ha! See…it IS me!).

This thing had me nailed pretty much exactly. It was crazy.

I love that one of the traits is that I assume others can find the good in people just like I do. And I try to treat all those around me equally. It also explains why I get so passionate/upset about things I feel are unfair to a group of people or person. (Like my last post).

It was an interesting assessment and gave me an idea of how people probably view me. And it gave me tips on how to change that. 

But, I pretty much like who I am, and I'm not sure I want to work on some of the things they suggested because it makes me feel like I would lose part of who I am (obviously some of the things are good ideas, just not all of them were).  I don't need to be a manager.  I'm content living with mediocrity. 

*Sarah McLachlan

Isn't this the best part of breakin' up, Finding someone else you can't get enough of*

A dangerous part of living in a hotel is the fresh cookies available at the front desk at all times of the day.  I no longer walk through the lobby in an effort to avoid temptation.  It's sad.  (But holy crap those cookies are AMAZING!).

Even more dangerous has been the lack of exercise since I left Richmond.  

The week before I left Richmond, I only ran 2-3 times and spent the rest of the time working and packing.  Then, the week I spent at mom and dad's I only ran 3 times, and nothing more than 2.5 miles.  My first week in the hotel, I only ran twice.  The first was a 4 mile run and the second was only a 2 mile run.  That has been the grand total of exercise in 3 weeks.  

Add some cookies to my daily diet, and yeah, my pants are probably going to start getting tight soon.  So, I'm going to pretend like I'm A the new trainer (who I no longer have as a trainer!) and make up a new spreadsheet that has all my workouts I need to do for the week.  Maybe that will motivate me a little.

In other news, my fantasy team sucked the big one (way to bench the best players!).  However, the Eagles won (it was an UGLY win...but it was a win none the less).  So that's a plus.

I haven't really done much lately.  I'm still trying to find my way around up here and figuring out what I want to do.  (I still want to buy a bike and take swimming lessons and start doing triathalons).

I went home on Sunday and spent the day with my family which is lovely.

Other than that, I'm pretty boring.

*Liz Phair

Now Valhalla calls to me*

I probably shouldn't show this, seeing how it's a semi-Christmas gift.

However, I can guarantee  it will never actually be worn (other than for photo-ops), so I will be getting something else to go with the it.  Therefore, it's not REALLY a gift, so I can totally show it.  

OK, seriously.  Is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen?  

It's a BABY VIKING HAT!!!  WITH BRAIDS!!!!

I originally was making it for Baby V because I wanted it to be V the Viking, however, apparently I suck at checking gauge (I swear I checked it, the pattern just lied!) and this thing is huge for a baby hat (not big enough for me or anything, just too big for V).  So, since I was going to make one for Baby T as well, I've decided this one will probably be for her.  

SO SO SO SO CUTE!

*Tub Ring

I'll steal your honey like I stole your bike*

I've been busy doing nothing all week.  

I'm still at the hotel, as is everyone else I work with (ok, not really EVERYONE, but our company has a LARGE number of people staying here at any given time.  I honestly think it would be more cost-effective for us to just buy the hotel outright...but whatever).  So, dinners turn into work meetings, which suck.  So I tend to grab my food and bring it back to my room (hi, I'm the anti-social one).  

And, my car has been in the shop...pretty much all freaking week. I am NOT a fan of this Hyundai dealer.  In fact, it's pretty much terrible.  I do not think I will be going back again after they finish fixing it this time.  Argh.  They have basically had my car since Monday evening and I won't get it back until late tomorrow afternoon. 

So...I'm basically trapped here at all times. 

But...I did get out once this week to go to Target and Petco.  I got a great deal at Petco.  Oscar really needed a new harness, and they had some awesome Eagles harnesses.  These things are originally $24 (which is RIDICULOUS for a small dog harness), but I got it for $6.  Sweet!

He's just so handsome.  

*LFO

Your memory's bound me like a chain, I wish it would break*

I'm not sure if anyone is interested, but I thought I'd post some pictures of my new place so you can see what living in a hotel looks like (um, anyone who has ever been to a hotel probably knows, but whatever, it's my blog and I'll post what I want to post dammit!)

If you walk in the front door and look straight ahead, you see my "living room" (technically you see a table about a foot in front of you which seems to be where I collect my purse and work incidentals), but move about a foot past that.

The living room has two coffee tables that are put together to make one big table.  They kind of irritate me.  I am trying to figure out where I can put them.  I feel that they make the area look too small.

Then, if you are still at the front door and look directly to your left, you see a counter with two chairs which acts like a combination dining room table and kitchen island/bar thing.  Then there is my little tiny kitchen.

The lighting makes it difficult to take pictures.  I apologize.  But that's a blurry rendition of my fridge and dishwasher.  I have a small stove top, but no oven.  This makes me sad.  Especially because I just read the most amazing sounding recipe today and I would love to make it, but it requires an oven.  I guess it's better for me that I don't have one.  Just imagine the calories in those things!

Then, if you walk about 15 feet into the room, you see a set of doors (they are to the right of the picture frame shown in the picture of the kitchen...not actually shown, but you get an idea of how far), these lead to my bedroom.

It's a very typical hotel bedroom.  Not particularly large or exciting.  Has a bed and a dresser with a TV on it (not shown) and two night tables.  Pretty standard fare.  Then, if you look to the left of this view of the bed, you see the bathroom.

It is a very boring bathroom.  The sink and mirror are outside the actual bathroom across from my closet.  The toilet and tub are both in a small, plain, quite boring room.  However, the shower is quite nice.  Excellent water pressure (strong enough to clean, but not so strong it hurts), pretty roomy, and has little shelves for my soaps.

There are some drawbacks to living in a hotel for a year:

• It’s not home. No matter what I do, it’s not my furniture, it’s not my decorations, it’s just not me.  The rooms are very impersonal and nondescript.  And I like color when I decorate.  Lots and lots of color. All this brown is kind of depressing.  
• I find it hard to sleep in hotels. No matter how nice or fancy they are, they’re still a hotel and it takes a while to get accustomed.
• I don’t have anywhere to put things. And I have no true storage areas. I have one closet in the entire place…and it’s in use storing my clothing. I need another closet. However, I have a million little tables in the place. I could do with fewer of those. (As a random side note, everyone should notice how clean I managed to make things.  Considering how little space I have, I feel that I did a good job finding a home for everything)
• The internet and TV kind of suck. The TV is direct TV, but it already went out once (in the middle of watching the game!), and the internet is super slow. Even the TV is slow to get started and change channels.

However, there are some definite perks:

• It’s free to me. I don’t have to pay for rent for a year.
• I have a king size bed. I’m pretty sure I could sleep 6 people without a problem on this thing (assuming they don’t move around a lot).  I'm not sure how I will be able to go back to sleeping on my full size bed after having this thing for a year!
• I have two TVs in a relatively small area. I can keep one on in the living room and one in the bedroom and never miss more than a second of the show I’m watching (I don’t usually do this…but I did it while unpacking and watching football, and never missed a play!).
• I get free breakfast every day and free dinner 3 nights a week (tonight consisted of a salad and clam chowder.  Sweet).  
• It’s free. Did I mention this?
• I get maid service. This includes making my bed, emptying the trash and cleaning my bathroom every day and once a week I get a heavy duty cleaning in the room (you don't really think my bed would look all lovely and made on my own did you?)

So, I figure the perks outweigh the drawbacks, but it’s still been a weird adjustment.

*Dierks Bentley

Vial of hope and a vial of pain. In the light they both look the same*

I had a lovely weekend. 

On Friday, I went out in Princeton with JH and Mike (who isn't really named Mike...) for dinner and drinks.  I haven't seen Mike in 7 years, so it was awesome to see him again.  And like all cool friends, we picked right up like we had just seen each other the day before.

Saturday was spent at little J's birthday party in North Jersey with the family.  Sadly, I have no fun pictures of the party, but here is one my sister L took.

Little J is just too cute.

Then, to show how cool Mike is, he spent his weekend helping me move.  He drove all the way from North Jersey to my parents house in South Jersey, loaded up his car, and then followed me to my hotel outside KOP.  And then did most of the work unloading our cars and bringing the stuff into my new rooms.  He is a great moving buddy! 

We went and saw Machete at the most ridiculously ghetto movie theatre ever.  And the movie was so ridiculously terrible that I loved it.  (Seriously.  Terrible.  So go see it!)

I bailed on my 5k I was supposed to run with J on Sunday morning, and Mike and I spent the day watching football.  And honestly, you can't have a better weekend than that.

Today, I brought Oscar back to the hotel, and he's slowly adjusting.  I think he's confused why we're here and he keeps trying to hide under the furniture.  But, it's nice to have him back with me.  I always miss the little booger when he's not around.

I hope everyone else had as lovely a weekend as I did.

Now I just need to make sure Mike and I do a better job of seeing each other and not go another 7 years before seeing each other again.

And my quick football analysis for anyone interested:

Eagles...ugh.  I'm still not sold on Kolb, however, I was really impressed with how much Vick improved from last season to this one.  I always forget how fast he is.  However, over all...not that impressed with their team.  And that makes me sad. 

Redskins...sort of ugh...but sort of YAY at the same time.  Their offense looked terrible, but their defense looked awesome.  And seriously.  Any game where Dallas wins a game...and then has it taken away for their stupidity is FANTASTIC. 

Pretty Pink Princesses...pretty much ugh.  I'm ahead by 5 points, but I don't think I will win. We each have a player from KC playing, and I think his will probably score more.  And in grand PPP tradition, My bench players were much better than my actual playing players.  Sigh. So.  Blah. 

*Arcade Fire

Remember how to put back the light in my eyes*

I have not had the time this year to do my fantasy football research.  In fact, I didn't even know when I was going to get a chance to rank my players, let alone who I should rank.  The night before my fantasy draft, I had a horrible dream that I didn't rank my players correctly and I got T.O. as my first pick.  I woke up all upset and worried and decided I needed to do something about this.

I ranked my players and got myself ready for the draft.  Unfortunately, I was working late that evening and was not going to get to actually draft my team, I was depending on the auto-draft feature. 

At 8:11 I get a text from my sister asking me for my password because the auto-draft messed up. 

All I could think was, "please don't be T.O."  I gave her my password and asked if it was T.O. .  Her response to me...it's worse.

Braylon Edwards.

SERIOUSLY? WTF. 

Can I just have TO instead? 

However, I'm just trying to get excited about the start of the football season, so in honor of the opening game, I made Jumbalaya, and I decided to share the super easy recipe because it tastes ridiculously yummy and it's ridiculously easy to make.  Which makes it one of my favorite recipes!

It uses a crockpot!  My favorite kind of cooking!

So without further ado...easy jumbalaya:

Ingredients:
2 bell peppers (I use 1 red and 1 yellow but you can use whatever you prefer)
2 cloves of garlic (I really like garlic and usually use 3-4 but most people prefer 2)
1 onion (red or yellow whichever you prefer)
Cooked Sausage (I usually use a smoked sausage, but any kind of cooked sausage works.  When I made it last night I used leftover Italian sausages from dinner the night before)
Cooked Shrimp
Rice (you can use whatever you like.  I used the Zataran's jumbalya mix or the dirty rice mix, but plain rice is fine as well)
Cajun spice mix (sold in stores, or you can just spice to taste with whatever you want).

Directions:
Pour the dry rice in the bottom of the crock pot
Dice up the onions, peppers, and garlic.  Toss them in the crockpot
Add the meat and shrimp. 
Add 2-3 cups of water (Don't cover all the ingredients with water.  Only need enough water to cover about 1/3 of the way up...so amount depends on the size of the crockpot).
Use a spoon and stir it all up.
Add as much or as little spice as you need.  I like it spicy so I add a lot of spice (the spice tends to cook off, so I overspice the food figuring it won't be that spicy at the end).
Stir one more time
Put on the lid and cook on low for 6-8 hours or medium for 3-4 hours. 

Enjoy!

Note:  If you want a spicier jumbalaya, I recommend mixing everything together the night before and putting the ingredients in a zip lock bag.  Add lots of spice and shake it up and leave to sit over night.  But it's not necessary. 

*Christina Perri

You can have whatever you like*

Today is Little J's FIFTH birthday!

I can't believe this little buddy is in kindergarten already! 

He's getting so old so quickly. 

At least his adorable smile and his goofy personality haven't changed.  

Happy Birthday Little J!  Hope you had a wonderful one! 

*T.I.

As soon as you're born you start dying, So you might as well have a good time*

Five years ago I bought some cheap luggage at Target.  I was traveling for business and needed something other than a blue Adidas bag. 

For $50 I got a 5 piece luggage set.  These things lasted forever considering how cheap they were.

However, they were super ugly and in the last year the two larger pieces were beginning to break.  The handle on the small one no longer extended so I couldn't roll the suitcase anywhere, and the zipper on the large one completely snapped off so it was difficult to open/close.

Today, I went shopping and upgraded.

Old Nastiness:

New Hotness:

I do believe I am in love...

*Cake

I'll be the greatest one you've ever had*

It's finally here! 

*Eminem

She really gets me high (bam-a-lam) you know that's no lie (bam-a-lam)*

In college I used to go to this little hole in the wall bar that I loved.  My friend was a bartender there and he was the real reason I loved the bar. 

A- he was so adorably cute and I had the BIGGEST CRUSH on him EVER.  It was so big, if he ever moved back to the USA and needed a wife THIS INSTANT and had nobody else and he asked me...I'd be like can we get married now?  Even though I haven't seen him in about 5 years. 

B- I don't think I ever paid for a drink when I went to the bar.  Even on the times we had a huge number of people and ran up a couple hundred dollars tab.  The tab always was mysteriously already "paid for" when we went to close it.  Or it was "missing".  Seriously.  BEST. BAR/BARTENDER. EVER.

Anyways, at the end of the night, the bar always played "black betty" and all the girls would get up and dance on the bar (I only did it once and have no recollection of that night, so I still deny it ever happened).  It was a real classy place.  I haven't heard that song since my last time at the bar. 

Until about a month ago when I started hearing it EVERYWHERE.  The maintenance techs play it in the shop all the time.  I hear it on the radio.  I hear it in freaking restaurants.  I can't escape the song.  I even heard it first thing this morning walking into work.

But everytime I hear it, I think of the buda bar and it makes me smile :-)

*Ram Jam