Trying to Stay Warm

According to the weather man, there is lots more cold to come. Brrr.

I went to the grocery store the other day, which I hate. A few old ladies tried to push me around, but I wasn't having any of it. One of them even bumped my cart into an apple display and knocked some apples down! Geesh. Anyway, I realized that it was very old lady of me to carry these reusable bags from Target Optical, Triscuit, and the St. Lukes Surgery Center. They were probably threatened that I was acting 67.

All of that to say, I purchased all of the ingredients to make Pioneer Woman's tomato soup and some grilled cheese. Now, I don't really like tomato soup or grilled cheese, but something got me to thinking it sounded good. Well, it wasn't really very good. I didn't really follow the recipe perfectly...surprised? I didn't have enough heavy cream, so I just added some extra butter. Well, that didn't do much--the soup tasted 100% like sherry and 0% like tomatoes. The next day when I heated some more up, I added some milk and that helped quite a lot. Next year during my craving for tomato soup and grilled cheese, someone should remind me of this and tell me just to buy Campbell's. 

Gloating in Gifts

This highlights most of what I got for Christmas. There were other odds and ends, but I think I covered most of them.

I caved and bought a drill & drill bits using some of the money I received. I haven't used it yet, but Pacino knocked down another shelf, so I have to drill new holes for that. Maybe I should just MOVE it so he can't climb up it anymore...

Giant spoon & fork I'd been wanting...

A card catalog--a lovely unexpected gift, as it wasn't on my list. Surprises are fun.

A bottle of Roscato wine--one of my favorites!

A keyboard--I'm on page 168 of the beginner book I used in like 6th grade.

A purse I bought using a gift card from my Granny & Gramps.

Some new owls for my collection.

A new shelf to keep me more organized. Clearly I'm not finished yet. 

An ampersand symbol to hang above my desk. Clearly I haven't put ANY thought as to what's going in it.

And an owl necklace. 

I'm sure there are things I missed....including an awesome owl travel mug from my Secret Santa, and some other things from people at work. I am a lucky lady to have been given all this stuff!

It's Broken....

In the past couple months I've changed a car tire, switched out my shower head, and helped a friend who couldn't get her smoke detector down.

And now, add to that list fixing a garbage disposal.

Partly because I wanted to save money, but mostly because is love bragging about doing things myself and being smart, I decided the internet could tell me what to do. The disposal would turn on, but the blades wouldn't turn. Water was making it down just fine, thankfully. 

First, the internet said to stick my hand down there, so I put on my dish gloves, unplugged the disposal, and set at it. I shined my flashlight down there and couldn't see much. I tried moving the blades, but they wouldn't budge.

Step two, trip the breaker. Easy enough, but no results. 

Step three, Drano for disposals. An hour later, nothing.

I was just about to give up and call someone and pay him all my money ((remember the air conditioner)) when I watched a YouTube video of this old dude explaining about how to fix it. He mentioned an allen wrench, which I just so happen to have ((thank you little pink toolbox)) and that I could use it to manually unjam the blades from underneath. Hmm. MUCH easier than sticking my hand down the nasty thing.

I always knew about the red reset button, but never knew about that hole in the middle. 

A few turns with this and bam! A working garbage disposal for $4...the cost of the unnecessary Drano. Thank you old dude who posts videos to YouTube. Also, I should mention that his video had been watched almost 500,000 times. No joke. 

So, naturally I sit down to blog about it, and....

Computer is DEAD. The tech people at work say it can be revived, but I'm leery. So, if my blog posts look funnier than normal, that's because I'm writing on my iPad which isn't as great for such things. 

Gingers!

I hadn't made gingerbread men cookies for several years, so I decided that now was the time. Thanks to this ancient KitchenAid mixer, they were super simple. And delicious.

I was actually surprised at how good they were...and I think the rest of my family was surprised too. I decorated them with the help of my 2 year old cousin Cati, and my cousin Bailey did one too. Cati was in charge of the red hots and sprinkles and she loved it!

This is farmer ginger with his hat and overalls for Gramps.

Lots of red hots going on here!

Cyclone ginger.

I tried to make a ginger with glasses, but the frosting was coming out too fast.

The final platter.

Fun Times & Cat Trouble

Had a fun appetizer night at Mulligan's with Miller last Wednesday.

This band was playing Christmas carols outside of Kohl's today. Was fun to hear!

Went out driving to look at Christmas lights tonight while drinking hot chocolate and listening to a Christmas Pandora channel.

This is a current source of stress in my house. He won't stop climbing up there! I'm afraid that he's either going to get hurt, or tear the shelves off the wall. Ugh. I've pulled him down 7 times in the last 15 minutes. 

I just finished re-reading The Wizard of Oz. It was a book that I loved as a kid. It is much different than I remember, though I still enjoyed it. The movie just happens to be on tonight, so that's what I'm up to. That, and dragging the cat down.

Dinner Drama

My afternoon started out like this. Pretty awesome. 

We were celebrating the end of our Lego League season with ice cream and Lego sorting. After searching for 30 minutes for Ben's glasses, I finally went home to make a casserole that I've been craving for days.

Then, this happened. I realized that I forgot my can opener at school because we were using it for a skit that we did at Lego competition this weekend. I had already mixed up everything I needed for my casserole. I just needed to add the green beans and a can of mushroom soup. I remembered that last week, I had read an online article about opening cans without a can opener (also, because of research for our Lego project). So, I went about doing that.

Took awhile, but I managed to work it out and was feeling proud of myself. Then, I reached into the pantry for the soup, only to find.....no soup. It was at school with the can opener. 

So, after all that drama, I had to go to the store, where I purchased a can of soup and another can of green beans. Notice the pull tabs on these cans.

Long Week!

Well, I realize I haven't posted since December 8th. It was a super long week at work--I worked 83 hours between last Monday and yesterday. Needless to say, I didn't have much time to write a post, but I do have some fun pictures to share!

Pacino and I had similar moments early this week. He snipped a wire from my radio in the bathroom. I snipped a wire on our robot. We are two peas in a pod.

I'm not quite sure how these ended up in my cart at Target, but they did.

I'm not sure how this got purchased either, but again, it did. 

We had a nice little snow day, which allowed me to accomplish almost all of my Christmas shopping. Miller and I had to keep up with our snow day tradition of eating Orange Leaf. Wouldn't want to pass up that opportunity!

A big group of us went out to watch the Iowa/Iowa State men's basketball game. Luckily, the Cyclones pulled out the victory which left Dixie & I very happy. The rest of our friends, not so much.

I was at school for just over 13 hours on Friday. I only spent 90 minutes in my room. The rest were spent in Mr. Wickett's room with the robot fields.